Page 206 of Modern Romance Collection May 2024 Books 1-4

Reaching out, she traced her hands over his chest, revelling in the smoothness of his skin, the unbelievable strength of his body. His was the first, and only, male body she had ever touched and tasted and explored, and although she had no comparison, she knew there could be none. Domenico had no equal, and definitely no superior. It was not a theory she’d been in any rush to test, but she knew without question that no one would be capable of making her feel all that he did. Lightning, after all, did not strike twice.

She kissed a pathway across his chest, her lips settling over his heart—the heart that had been twisted and torn by the cruel actions of others. He thought he’d never belonged, but he belonged with her. In that room, in that moment, there was nowhere else on earth he should be and Rae was determined to use all the power of her body to show him that.

Hands gliding downwards across the corded muscle of his stomach, she loosened the tie on the towel and let it fall away, a breath quivering from her mouth as his arousal jutted into the space between them. Her chest hitched, her mouth running dry as her blood ran even hotter. She’d forgotten what a magnificent sight he was and the jagged, restless feeling cut through her again, and she could almostfeelhow good it would be to have him inside her once more, filling her, completing her. Owning her.

Watching her breathless reaction, impatience fired in Domenico’s eyes and he reached for her clothes, sliding the blouse from her body, pulling the trousers down her legs and tossing them over his shoulder, and then he moved into the space between her thighs, running his sultry gaze down her body.

Lowering his head, he pressed a line of kisses down her throat and along the cup of the bra. Her reaction was instant, her flesh swelling against his mouth, her nipples tightening.

‘Rae...’ he groaned against her skin. ‘I want to run my mouth all over you, but I don’t think I can wait to be inside of you.’

‘So don’t wait,’ she urged, pressing herself into him, as desperate as he was to complete their joining.

With a single move, he positioned himself at her entrance and then, eyes locked with hers, he pressed powerfully into her, her body accepting every inch of the sweet penetration. He filled her completely and Rae gasped, not just with the joy of his possession but because of how different it felt. Rawer, deeper, more...justmore. Her breaths crashed from her mouth, the moment feeling too big, too powerful, too moving. But then all she could feel was the exquisite familiarity of Domenico stroking inside her, tenderly but firmly propelling her towards her orgasm with the powerful thrusts of his body.

She clung to him, tilting her mouth up to receive his kiss, and he obliged, touching his lips to her mouth, her earlobe, her jaw, her neck, his breath like fire. His hands clasped her butt, urgency in his fingertips and his rhythm changed, the drive of his body becoming more powerful and possessive, and he surged deeper inside her, deeper than ever before, pressing her back to accommodate that exploration. With every move of his body, he obliterated her defences, taking more of her for himself, and the connection was electrifying. The beginning and the end. Everything that Rae had ever needed and felt like she would ever need.

He held on to her tighter, hitching her leg higher up his waist, and that was when she started to feel it, the onset of that wild, unstoppable ecstasy spiralling up through her body, consuming all of her with flagrant ease, and Rae clung even more pleadingly to Domenico’s shoulders, her mouth biting into his skin.

His own release was beckoning. Rae could feel him resisting, wanting them to hit their explosion point together, and seconds later they did exactly that. She broke apart with a cry of unadulterated delight a moment before he gave his own shout of release and, although they had made love a thousand times, the eruption was like nothing Rae had ever felt before and for an infinitesimal, heart-shaking moment she pulsed with the sense that nothing would ever be the same again.

CHAPTER TEN

RAEWASHAVINGthe most exquisite dream.

Domenico’s skilful mouth was marauding across her neck, swiping and sucking and nibbling. Where his lips and tongue touched, her skin tingled and sparks of glittering, explosive pleasure ignited by the blissful contact streaked along her veins, arrowing to the very centre of her body, where the most intense feeling was building. She arched her neck, offering him even better access, and speared her fingers into the thickness of his hair, purring at the back of her throat as his teeth and tongue played on the same spot, making her nerve-endings shiver and dance.

Then he began to tease more of her body. His hand slid languidly up her ribcage and curled around her breast. His fingers were warm and tender and her senses stirred even quicker at the intimate contact, straining beneath the touch, seeking more of it. His fingers brushed across her nipple, the large pad of his thumb circling the ultra-sensitised and begging point before flicking across it once, twice...a torturous three times. Her body arched and a gasp of wanton pleasure escaped from her parted lips, every inch of her now feeling alight and alive.

Enraptured by the caresses, Rae desperately wanted more of them, more of that heady, obliterating feeling he conjured within her. But, feeling the tug of consciousness, she squeezed her eyelids tighter together, wanting to stay in the dream as long as possible, not wanting to wake yet again to a darkened room and a cold, lonely bed. But the golden light of day was already infiltrating her gaze and as the pleasure of Domenico’s touch built towards a crescendo her eyes flew open...and she realised it wasn’t a dream at all.

Domenico’s hands were skating across her body, his lips making her shiver as they trailed down her neck and towards her collarbone. Feeling was fizzing in every inch of her, her blood was humming and her body purring at his touch. Fragments of the previous night returned to her in bright flashes and Rae realised that it had happened. She hadn’t only imagined it.

‘Buongiorno bellissima,’Domenico murmured against her lips. They were the words he’d greeted her with every morning of their life together and Rae smiled, having never expected to hear them uttered again.

‘I thought I was dreaming,’ she whispered as he held her close. ‘And I didn’t want to wake up.’

He kissed her again, slow and long and deep, only pulling back to stare at her. ‘Did you spend many nights dreaming of me?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, tracing the sensual contours of his mouth with her finger.

During the day she’d never permitted him entry into her thoughts. During the dark secrecy of the night, however, when her consciousness had relaxed, she’d had no control over what—who—came into her thoughts. And Domenico always had. In the moment when it was said a person’s deepest desires were revealed, he had always been hers. Rae had reassured herself that those mental slips were acceptable, normal even, and that with time her subconscious would relinquish its yearning for him.

But here she was, months later, in bed with him, and the feelings were as strong and imposing as ever. The shift of his hair-roughened leg against hers stirred detonations of delicious tingly feeling along her skin. The bulk of his body, so close, made her want him pressed up even closer. It made her question if her feelings for him would ever fade, but that was a worry she had no desire to dwell on in that moment. Worrying could wait until later. Much later.

‘And what exactly was I doing in these dreams of yours?’ His smile grew wider and wicked as a blush burned in her cheeks. ‘Something like this, perhaps?’

Drawing her against him, Domenico buried his long fingers in the tumble of her hair and nuzzled his face in her neck and made her every wish come true as his naked body pressed up against hers. Rae moaned as his hard length moved against her, instantly suffusing her with the need to feel him inside her, filling her, claiming her. She pulled his head down, opening her mouth to his, excitement brewing within her as his tongue thrust between her lips in a dance that she knew only too well. A dance they had moved to several times during the night and, just like all those times before, the intimate slide of his body against hers transported her to heaven.

Later, she was resting, sated and sleepy, with her head on his chest and his fingers stroking up and down her back in a lazy rhythm when Domenico’s phone rang and he reached for it with his free hand. Rae already knew it would be Nico, Domenico’s assistant, with his morning round-up.

‘Morning, Nico,’ Domenico greeted him, and Rae smiled as she felt the rumble of his rich voice vibrate deep within his chest. She’d missed that burr of his voice, missed the early part of the morning resting in his arms. It was in those moments that she had always felt most content, when her heart had felt beautifully full and her worries about their marriage had been diminished by the warmth and closeness of Domenico’s presence.

However, her peacefulness was disturbed when Domenico vaulted into a sitting position, his body suddenly rigid.

Rae sat up too, clutching the sheet to her chest, concerned by the quick-fire chatter she could hear at the other end of the phone.

‘Did you...? No... No, it’s fine.’ Domenico dashed a hand through his too long hair, shoving it back off his forehead and, based on that agitated motion and the stiffening line of his spine, Rae guessed that whatever it was that was going on wasn’t fine at all, a theory confirmed by the heavy sigh he emitted upon disconnecting the call, followed by the torrent of blistering Italian.

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