A Shadow of Guilt(44)

‘Gio?’

Gio moved his body so that he hovered over her now, pushing her legs apart with his hips. She could feel the heavy length of him brushing against her sex. He took himself in his hand and Valentina looked down to see that he’d sheathed himself with protection with no idea of when or where he’d had the wherewithal to do it.

He was running the thick head of his penis along where she felt drenched with desire. So much that it embarrassed her. With that realisation she turned her head to the side, suddenly overwhelmed.

She felt him still and a hand come to her chin, turning her back. His face was etched with desire but also something else that made her quiver: concern.

‘Valentina?’

She took refuge from the tender feeling his concern aroused by focusing on the needs of her physical body. ‘I want you …’

The concern faded from Gio’s face and a stark primality took over. She could feel him position himself, feel his fingers on himself and on her as he slowly fed himself into her, inch by thick inch. The initial sensation was overpowering. Valentina sucked in a breath at the intrusion. This was so much more devastating than his fingers. But even as she thought that, her body seemed to recognise something she didn’t, or trust something she didn’t, and she could feel her muscles opening, admitting entrance.

With a guttural groan Gio took his hand away and rested on both hands over her body. With a hoarse calling out of her name, he thrust deep and hard and sheathed himself in her completely.

Valentina’s eyes opened wide and her chest expanded with the breath she’d drawn in. Her hands were on his biceps where she could feel them quiver under her fingers. He was shaking, or she was shaking; she wasn’t sure which.

She felt impossibly full and impaled, invaded. Gio was looking down at her, that concern edging back. ‘OK?’

Valentina jerkily nodded her head. ‘Please … Gio …’

Slowly he started to move, out … and then back in. His movements within her were so exquisite, bordering between pain and pleasure, that Valentina could only breathe in short gasps, struggling to hang on to whatever control she still had. She felt as if she was in danger of exploding into a million fragments with each long slide of Gio’s body back into hers. And with each stroke, the pain faded to be replaced and eclipsed by pleasure.

Without even realising what she was doing, her feet were digging into the bed beside Gio’s hips; her own were moving restlessly. As if sensing her inner turmoil over all this newness, Gio bent and pressed a kiss to her mouth, tongue stroking along hers for a long moment, soothing but also inciting.

‘Wrap your legs around me,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘and I’ll help you to fly.’

She could feel him find her leg and lift it up over one hip and blindly she lifted her other leg, wrapping both legs around those lean hips, ankles crossed just above his buttocks. He sank even deeper within her and their moans mingled. Valentina could feel his chest hairs scrape her sensitised breasts, making her arch upwards, seeking that contact again.

Gio’s movements became more urgent. He was thrusting so hard and so deep now that Valentina saw stars. And then without any warning at all, her entire body clenched tight before exploding into a million pieces. Valentina gasped, head back, bucking uncontrollably against Gio as he pounded into her, his own release finally stilling that huge body just as he touched the very core of her.

In the aftermath Valentina’s brain couldn’t wrap itself around the magnitude of what had just happened. The pain mixed with a pleasure more intense than she’d ever experienced. She was vaguely aware of Gio pulling free of her body and disappearing for a moment before returning. She was vaguely aware of him lifting her body so that her head touched a pillow. He drew a thin cover over her body. When he tucked himself around her, she found that she was instinctively twining her legs around his, holding him to her tightly.

He lifted an arm and she felt his fingers smoothing damp strands of hair from her face. She opened sleepy eyes and caught a glimpse of a mark on the inside of his upper left arm. In the dim light she hadn’t noticed it before. Without thinking Valentina reached up to trace what looked like black marks etched into his skin. A tattoo of some sort. She frowned. ‘What’s this?’

Gio’s fingers in her hair stilled and she felt him tense. After a long moment he drew his arm back from her questing fingers and just said, ‘It’s nothing. rest now.’

He shifted his body so that Valentina was curled into his side, and with her cheek resting on his chest over where his heart beat steadily, she found herself slipping down into a dark dreamless place. She would think about those marks … later. She would think about it all.