Sicilian's Shock Proposal. Carol Marinelli

her to come to his mouth, but he was as impatient to be inside as Sophie was to be taken.

      Later, he told himself.

      There would be time for that later.

      Like a chip to his skull, somewhere he refuted that, because they ended today, this was it.

      Yet there, in that second, Luka knew he would take her again, that this was not the end.

      And, yes, he could feel her impatience. Her hips kept lifting, her mouth was more demanding and then there was almost anger as he removed his kiss.

      ‘Luka.’ She was breathless.

      ‘Now!’ Luka said, that one word taking such effort to deliver.

      ‘Yes, now,’ she said, but then she saw his slow, teasing smile.

      ‘I mean now is when you can get anything you want from a man.’ He was referring to her earlier innocent thinking. ‘Not after...’

      ‘I’ll remember that for the future.’

      She did not understand the flare of possession in his eyes as she spoke of others, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it for he took her then. Luka seared into her and swallowed her sob with his mouth.

      It hurt, far more than she had expected it to, far better than she had ever dared dream. He filled her and stretched her and, when she thought she knew what it was to be his lover, still further he went tearing at virgin flesh and then stilling as her body fought to acclimatise to him.

      She forgot how to breathe until he gathered her right into him and hooked his arm beneath the small of her back.

      ‘Luka...’ Sophie didn’t even know what she wanted or what it was she was trying to say, but as he started to move any pain was forgotten because with each thrust he made her more his. His mouth was by her ear now, and he spoke as he did in her dreams. ‘I won’t hurt you...’ he said, when she now knew that he would.

      The pain of being taken by him was receding. It was the pain of being left by him that was now starting to make itself known.

      She wished that her body didn’t love him so completely. She wished that he would take her deeper, harder, faster, rather than deliver, as he was now, the slow torture of his love, because that was exactly what this felt like.

      As her legs coiled around him, even as she urged him on, Sophie was frantically trying to hold back.

      How do I let you leave? she wanted to sob as her orgasm gathered.

      ‘Luka...’ She said it again as she started to come and the intensity scared her.

      ‘Let it happen...’ Luka said, and his rapid thrust gave her no choice but to do as his body commanded.

      Inwardly he beat her to match his rhythm but it wasn’t that that had her toppling over the edge, it was Luka, and the feel of his shoulders tense beneath her hands. It was the last look at the world without fully having the other, this strange brink they both found themselves on. Luka was in that beat before coming, past the point of no return when he felt her pulse to him and he just unleashed. Nothing could ever top this, he knew. Her intimate pulses beckoned and he gave in to the tight, soft warmth of her endless caress.