The Revenge Collection 2018. Кейт Хьюит
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CHAPTER TWELVE
THE REST OF the evening passed in a happy daze. Elena had never expected to enjoy the party but she did. Meeting her Swedish family had been the pinnacle and when she and Gabriele left it was with promises to visit them very soon.
They took the short walk back to the apartment in silence, hands clasped, tension thick between them. Gabriele had long since removed his dinner jacket and bow tie, but the night air was so warm he slung it over his shoulder rather than put it back on. Or was it the heat swirling between them keeping him warm?
She had never felt such depth for someone, or such gratitude. Every time she remembered her brothers’ faces when he’d reprimanded them she wanted to laugh. Every time she thought of what he’d done in bringing her Swedish family there she wanted to cry. It had been the most thoughtful thing she could imagine and he’d done it without any selfish motive. He’d done it for her.
She could never explain how much it meant.
The only way she’d been able to think to show how much it meant was by giving him the one thing she’d been denying him. She’d kissed him.
And now she knew it hadn’t just been him she’d been denying by her refusal to kiss but herself too.
In the apartment they went straight to the bedroom, Gabriele throwing his dinner jacket onto a chair as they passed.
Elena closed the door behind them and leant against it, tugging at the ankle straps of her sandals and kicking them off, staring at him, the most beautiful man in the world.
And he stared right back, a fever in his eyes that filled every crevice.
She held out a hand. When he reached to take it, she took a step towards him and placed his palm on her chest, letting him feel the hammering of her heart. Her lonely heart that had somehow, without her knowing when or how, become whole.
His breathing was as heavy as her own, his eyes dark, molten.
Stepping even closer, she placed a kiss on his neck and inhaled his scent, then slowly moved her lips up, over his jawline, across his cheeks and then to his mouth.
She breathed him in as she kissed him and wound her arms around his neck, exploring him with her lips and her tongue, heat filling her trembling body.
He held her securely to him, letting her take the lead.
Dragging her fingers down his chest, she undid the buttons on his shirt, their kisses deepening.
One hand still splayed on the base of her back, he undid his trousers. Between them they removed his shirt and tugged his trousers and underwear down until he stood naked, his erection jutting against her belly.
She’d never known she could feel such need for someone. She’d never dreamt there would come a day when she would physically ache for a man and that her heart would race so hard it would feel bruised.
Now she broke the kiss and took a step back.
Gabriele thought he might be drowning.
He’d never known one kiss could make his entire body ignite with something more combustible than mere lust.
Whatever this was, he’d never felt it before. There was a voice in his head warning him of danger but he was helpless to obey it.
He didn’t want to obey it.
Right now, this moment, Elena kissing him as if she would consume him, every one of her looks spearing him...it would be easier to slice a limb off than walk away.
‘Get on the bed,’ she whispered, standing as still as a statue, only the rise and fall of her chest showing life...and those mesmeric eyes that bore into him.
On legs that felt strangely boneless, he did as she bid, not taking his eyes off her.
Only when he was leaning back against the headboard on the bed did she come back to life.
She took a deep, trembling breath then gathered her dress in her hands and pulled it up and over her head. The movement dislodged whatever had been holding her hair in place, white-blonde locks spilling over her shoulders.
All she had on now was a pair of lacy white panties.
She gazed at him, colour on her face, but made no attempt to cover herself as she usually did.
He swallowed the moisture in his mouth, gripping hold of the bed sheets lest he jumped out, threw her onto the bed and plunged inside her as the aching jut between his legs longed to do.
She walked to him, not taking her gaze from him, until she stood at the edge of the bed and slowly, torturously slowly, tugged her panties down.
Climbing onto the bed, she straddled him, then her hot, sweet mouth was back on his and she was kissing him as if she needed his breath for life.
And then that beautiful mouth was dragging down his throat, her tongue darting out, and she was kissing him everywhere, moving down his chest, his abdomen, her fingers exploring, so many sensations igniting that it was a struggle to breathe.
When she took him into her mouth his hands clenched into fists and he had to force air into his lungs.
He’d never experienced anything like it, such pure, deep desire. It burned him.
Groaning, he watched her head bob up and down, desperate to reach out and touch her but not wanting to do anything that might scare her or break her from the moment.
Just at the point when he felt he might burst, she trailed her tongue back up his chest, her breasts brushing against his skin, until she found his lips. At the same moment her tongue swept back into his mouth, she sank down on him, taking him inside her sweet tightness in one long movement.
He watched her eyes close and a look of bliss spread over her beautiful face.
Wrapping his arms around her, he held her tightly, fusing her to him as she began to move, little cries escaping from her mouth that soon turned into moans and then gasps.
For so many nights he’d dreamed of her submitting to the desire gluing them together and letting herself go.
He’d never imagined it would be like this or dreamt it would feel like this.
He didn’t want it to end.
When he felt his orgasm welling up inside him, he gritted his teeth to hold on, but the softness of her skin against him, the feel of being so perfectly fitted inside her, the friction of her movements, her breath and scent filling his senses...it was a battle he was about to lose.
And then she was crying out his name and sinking as hard onto him as she could, thickening around him, somehow pulling him even deeper into her.
He let go.
‘Elena, God, Elena,’ he breathed with the last of his air, white light flickering behind his eyes and pulsations ravaging him, taking him to a place he had never known existed.
His heart had never beaten so fast.
Much later, when lethargy had crept through his bones and sleep arrived to claim him, Elena entangled in his arms and breathing rhythmically, he opened his eyes for one last look at her and pressed the lightest of kisses to her forehead. Then he fell into the deepest, most content sleep of his life.
* * *
Gabriele gave his morning run a miss. Or, rather, his morning run gave him a miss. Today the sun had beaten him awake. And so had Elena.
He found her on the balcony, drinking coffee and gazing out at waking-up Florence.
Her face lit up with a smile to see him.
They’d shared a bed for almost three weeks yet this morning it felt as if he were handling the morning-after for the very first time.
He wanted to scoop her up and carry her back to bed.
Conversely,