and aghast at the welling of emotion—she shouldn’t be feeling emotion right now!—she almost cried out with relief when Ciro took his hand away and replaced it with his body, settling between her legs as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if they’d done this dance a million times before.
His weight was heavy and she revelled in it, widening her legs so that he came into closer contact with the cradle of her femininity, where every nerve-ending was pulsating with need.
Ciro had to take a breath and resist the urge to drive deep into Lara’s willing body. He could feel the pulse of her desire against him, and the way she was opening like a flower under his body. He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman like this. Lovemaking for him had always held a certain amount of detachment. But here, right now, he was...consumed.
But then he’d always known instinctively that Lara had a different kind of hold over him. Something he hadn’t encountered before. Something that made him nervous. But right now nerves were gone.
Ciro reached for and found protection, miraculously thinking of it at the last second, rolling it on with uncharacteristic clumsiness.
He positioned himself at the juncture of Lara’s legs and looked down into her eyes. It was another thing he usually avoided with lovers, but with Lara he couldn’t seem to move unless his gaze was locked onto hers.
Her expression was soft, unfocused. Her cheeks were flushed. Damp strands of her hair clung to her forehead. She was biting her lip.
‘Ciro...please.’
In this there was no other Lara. He had undone her, exposed her.
He felt her move beneath him and couldn’t hold on. He plunged deep inside her, feeling every muscle in his body spasming with pleasure at the sheer sensation of his body moving deep into the clasp of hers.
The very tight clasp...
It took a second for him to register in his overheated brain that Lara had tensed, and now she looked anything but unfocused. There was an expression of shock on her face. Awe. And...pain?
Ciro moved slightly and she sucked in a breath. His brain didn’t seem to be working properly. He knew he was big but he’d thought she’d be experienced enough...
‘Lara, am I hurting you?’
‘It’s okay...don’t stop now. Please don’t stop.’
She sounded breathless.
She put her hands on his hips, and even as a very uncomfortable truth made itself graphically known to him Ciro could no more deny his primal urge to move than he could stop breathing.
Lara consciously relaxed her muscles, and for a second she almost cried out because the sensation was so intense. But as Ciro started to move again she could feel the pain easing, her body adapting to his, softening around him. And then, pleasure became the dominant sensation as the steady, rhythmic glide of Ciro’s body in and out of hers led to a rising excitement, a sense of urgency and desperation that made her reach around to clasp his firm muscular buttocks, silently pleading with him to go deeper, faster...
Lara wasn’t prepared for the sudden rush of intense pleasure. It was so unexpected and overwhelming that it was all she could do to cling on to Ciro as his body bucked into hers, again and again, as he too was torn apart and lost all control, finally slumping against her, his head buried in her neck, his ragged breath warm against her damp skin.
For those few moments while they were still intimately joined, their pulses racing, Lara knew complete contentment. Something she hadn’t experienced in a very long time. But then Ciro moved, and she winced slightly as he extricated himself from her embrace. Her muscles were tender.
Ciro wasn’t looking at her. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her, head downbent. His breathing was still uneven. Lara felt a chill skate across her bare flesh and instinctively reached for a sheet to cover herself.
After a moment he got up without a word and went into the bathroom. Lara heard the hiss of the shower. She lay in bed with the sheet pulled up over her chest, totally unsure of herself and not knowing how to behave.
Should she join Ciro in the shower? It seemed like the kind of thing a sophisticated lover would do... But he hadn’t said anything and perhaps he wanted to be alone.
He suddenly emerged from the bathroom, taking Lara by surprise. He had a towel slung around his waist and his skin glistened with moisture. For a second she was breathless at the mere thought that moments ago they’d been joined as intimately as it was possible to be joined with another person.
He said, ‘I’ve run you a bath. You’ll be sore. Then we need to talk.’
Lara swallowed. Had it been that obvious? Had he noticed she was—had been—a virgin?
Feeling totally exposed, and far too vulnerable after what had just happened, Lara got up from the bed as elegantly as she could and went into the bathroom, trailing the sheet behind her.
After the bath, which soothed her tender muscles and her skin, Lara got out and dried herself perfunctorily. She pulled on the voluminous terrycloth robe hanging on the back of the door and steeled herself before going into the bedroom.
But it was empty.
She went out through the door and took a deep, shaky breath before going in search of her husband.
* * *
Lara had been a virgin. Innocent. Untouched.
Ciro was feeling such a conflicting mass of emotions and sensations that he couldn’t quite pin down what was most prominent: anger, confusion...or, worst of all, a humiliating level of relief at knowing that he had been Lara’s first lover and not that old man.
With that relief came more confusion and anger, and in the midst of it all was a residual heavy feeling of sexual satisfaction on a level he’d never experienced.
Before, it had been a fleeting thing. Soon forgotten. Much like the women he’d slept with, before. But this satisfaction felt as if it was seared into his bones and as his hunger grew for her again. Already. Insatiably.
There had been a moment out on the terrace, after Lara had said, ‘Please make love to me...’ when for a split second Ciro had been tempted to reject her. As she’d rejected him. And yet even though he might have fantasised about such a moment in the previous two years, when it had been there, right in front of him, he’d been aware of how petty it was.
And also that he didn’t have the strength to reject her. Not when his mouth had been full of her taste and his hands imprinted with the shape of her body.
Madre di Dio.
He heard a noise at that moment.
Lara.
Ciro’s whole body tensed against the inevitable reaction his new bride would precipitate. His new virgin bride.
* * *
Lara tracked Ciro down to a room she hadn’t yet been in. A state-of-the-art modern study with humming computers and shelves full of books and periodicals.
He was standing at a window which looked out over the sea. He’d dressed in low-slung faded jeans and a T-shirt. Bare feet. Messy damp hair. She could see his face reflected in the window. The long white line of his scar. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, which pulled the material of his jeans taut across the perfect globes of his bottom.
Her heart thumped. ‘Ciro...look...’
He turned around and she saw the full extent of his anger on his face. ‘Dio, Lara. How the hell were you still a virgin?’
‘How did you know?’
Even as she asked the question she wanted to kick herself for being so stupid. A man as experienced as Ciro? Of course he’d known. He wasn’t