years ago. He claimed they’d never loosened their hold over him.
Then he’d let her have him at her mercy as she fulfilled her fantasy of losing her mind all over him. Riding him to the most explosive release in her life was the last thing she remembered before waking up minutes ago.
There was a problem, though. She’d woken up so many times, too many, from abandoned nights to feel him wrapped around her like that. Then she’d opened her eyes and he’d dissolved into the emptiness of reality. She was afraid if she opened her eyes now, he might disappear again.
“Gloria mia?”
She’d heard him crooning her name in her waking dreams before. Logically speaking, everything that had culminated in their wedding night had to be some lovelorn hallucination….
Every nerve in her body fired in unison as the hand cupping her breast started caressing it to the fullness of need again.
Okay. None of her tormenting phantasms had felt that real. That good. That meant that even if it made no sense whatsoever, Vincenzo was really wrapped around her after a night of magic beyond her wildest fantasies.
Then his silk-covered leg drove between hers, pressing just where she needed. He must have sensed she was awake. Or her heart must have been shaking the whole bed.
No use pretending to be asleep now.
She opened her eyes. The best sight in existence filled her vision. Vincenzo. His every line thrown into relief by stark shadows and the illumination of the gibbous moon pouring from the open window. But it was his expression that had her on the verge of crushing herself against him and weeping.
She must be seeing what she longed to see. Or she was superimposing what she felt on him. He couldn’t be looking at her as if he couldn’t believe she was in his arms again. As if he was afraid to blink and miss one nuance of her, one second with her. As if he loved her. As if he’d always loved her.
As if responding to her need to escape the impossible yearnings, his expression shifted to another kind of passion as he weighed and kneaded her breast. “I think I will fulfill my fantasy, after all. I’ll keep you here as my pleasure slave.” She moaned, arched, pressed her breast harder into his big palm. Something elemental rumbled in his gut. “The way you respond to my every word and touch is pure magic. What you do to me by just existing is beyond even that.”
Her hips moved to yield to the erection that she was still stunned she could accommodate. Her moan grew louder as he expanded and hardened even more. “It’s only fair that I turn you inside out like you do me.”
Indulgence smoldered in his eyes. “So we’re even.”
“Not unless we play musical slaves.”
“After what you did to me last night, I might cheat and let you sit on the chair every time. I’ll let you sit anywhere you want, as many times and as long as you want.”
“Oh, I want. I want, Vincenzo.”
Unable to bear the emptiness inside her that only he could fill, she tried to drag him over and inside her. He resisted her, slid down her body, looking up as she twisted in his hold.
“I have a six-year hunger that I need to appease, gloriosa mia. Surrender to me, let me take my fill.”
And she collapsed, could do nothing but submit to his will and let him take everything he wanted, let him drive her to madness, over and over until he’d drained her dry of reason. Of worries. Of anything that wasn’t him.
*
When next she woke, it was night again, and she was alone.
Before dismay could register, the door creaked open and in Vincenzo walked with a huge, piled tray in his hands. In a molded gray shirt and pants, he looked like a god come down to earth to mess with mortals’ wills and jeopardize their souls.
His smile was indulgence itself as he put the tray aside to pull her up to a sitting position. The sheet fell off, exposing her breasts. As if he couldn’t help it, he bent and saluted each nipple with soft pulls, soothing the soreness she’d literally pummeled him to inflict on her.
He pulled back reluctantly. “No more temptation, princess.” He chuckled at her pout. “I’d do nothing but service and pleasure Your Royal Voluptuousness nonstop, but I have to refuel you so you can withstand the week ahead.”
She sighed her pleasure as she sifted