was a quality to his voice Serena had never heard before. She gripped him tight with her thighs, trapping him. ‘No,’ she said huskily. ‘You’re not hurting me... It’s...been a while.’
He stopped, and for an infinitesimal moment Serena thought he was going to withdraw completely. But then he slowly thrust in again and relief rushed through her.
Luca reached under her back, arching her up into him more as he kept up a steady rhythm that made it hard to breathe. She could feel her inner muscles tight around him, saw his gritted jaw, the intense look of concentration on his face.
Luca pressed a searing kiss to her mouth before trailing his lips down, closing them over one nipple and then the other, forcing Serena’s back to arch again as spasm after spasm of tiny pleasures rushed through her core.
She locked her feet around the back of Luca’s body and he went deeper, but she couldn’t break free of that sliver of control that kept her bound, kept her from soaring to the stars. A blinding flash of insight hit her like a smack in the face: she recognised now why she couldn’t let go in this moment of intense intimacy—the reason why she’d never let herself feel this deeply before—it was because she’d always been too afraid of losing control.
Which was ironic. But being out of control on drink and medication had been—perversely—within her control. This wasn’t. This was threatening to wrench her out of herself in a way that was frankly terrifying.
A small sob of need escaped Serena’s mouth as that elusive pinnacle seemed to fade into the distance. The turmoil in her chest and body was burning her. But she couldn’t let go—even as she heard a guttural sound coming from Luca’s mouth and felt his body tense within her before deep tremors shook his big frame and his body thrust against her with the unconscious rhythm of his own release.
She felt hollowed out, unsatisfied.
Luca withdrew from her body, breathing harshly, and Serena winced minutely as her muscles relaxed their tight grip. As soon as Luca released her from the prison of his arms she felt the need to escape and left the bed.
She barely heard him call her name as she shut the bathroom door behind her, locking it. Her legs were shaking and tears burned the back of her eyes as the magnitude of what had just happened sank in. There was something fundamentally flawed, deep inside her. She’d been broken so long ago that she couldn’t function normally now. And Luca had to be the one to demonstrate this to her. The ignominy was crushing.
Serena blindly reached into the shower and turned the spray to hot, stepping underneath and lifting her face up to the rush of water. Her tears slid and fell, silent heaves making her body spasm as she let it all out.
She heard banging on the door, her name. She called out hoarsely, ‘Leave me alone, Luca!’
And then, mercifully, silence.
Serena sank down onto the floor of the shower as the water beat relentlessly down over her body. She drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her head onto them and tried to tell herself that what had just happened wasn’t as cataclysmic as she thought it was.
* * *
Luca looked at the locked door. He wasn’t used to feeling powerless, but right now he did. He cursed volubly, knowing it wouldn’t be heard because he could hear the spray of the shower and something that sounded suspiciously like a sob.
His chest hurt. Was she crying? Had he hurt her?
Luca cursed again and paced. He went to his wardrobe and took out some worn jeans, pulled them on, paced again.
Dammit. No woman had ever reacted like that after making love with him. Running to the bathroom. Crying. And yet...
Had he really made love to Serena? Luca asked himself derisively. Or had he been so overcome with lust that he’d not taken any notice of the fact that she clearly hadn’t been enjoying herself?
He winced now when he thought of how tight she’d been. And her husky words...It’s...been a while. To be so tight he’d guess a lot longer than ‘a while’. Which meant what? That her reputation for promiscuity was severely flawed, for a start. And she’d been awkward, slightly gauche. Not remotely like the practised seductress he might have expected.
He’d seen how her face had tightened, become inscrutable. She’d shut her eyes, turned her head away... But Luca had been caught in the grip of a pleasure so intense that he’d been unable to hold himself back, releasing himself into her with a force unlike anything he’d known before.
For the first time in his memory Luca was facing the very unpalatable fact that he’d behaved with all the finesse of a rutting bull.
The spray of the shower was turned off and Luca became tense. He felt a very real urge to flee at the prospect of facing Serena now. But that urge stemmed from some deep place he wouldn’t acknowledge. She hadn’t reached him there. No one had.
* * *
When Serena emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a voluminous terrycloth robe, she still felt raw. The bedroom was empty, and a lurch of something awfully like disappointment went through her belly to think that Luca had left.
And then she cursed herself. Hadn’t she told him to ‘leave me alone’? Why on earth would he want to have anything to do with a physically and emotionally wounded woman when there had to be any number of willing women who would give him all the satisfaction he might crave without the post-coital angst?
Still...it hurt in a way that it shouldn’t.
Serena belted the robe tightly around her waist and, feeling restless, went out to the living area. Her hair lay in a damp tangle down her back.
But when she looked out through the glass doors she saw him. He hadn’t left. Her heart stopped as something very warm and treacherous filled her chest.
As she came closer to the open doors she could see that he’d pulled on soft faded jeans. His back was broad and smooth, his hair ruffled. From her hands or the breeze? Serena hovered at the door, on the threshold.
And then Luca said over his shoulder, ‘You should come and see the view—it’s pretty spectacular.’
Serena came out and stood not far from Luca, putting her hands on the railing. The view was indeed exquisite. Rio was lit up with a thousand lights, the Sugar Loaf in the distance, and the beaches just out of sight. It was magical. Other-worldly.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ she breathed, curiously soothed by Luca’s muted reaction to her reappearance.
He said lightly now, ‘I find that hard to believe.’
Serena’s hands tightened on the railing. ‘It’s true. Before...I wouldn’t have noticed.’
She could sense him turning towards her and her skin warmed. Just like that. From his attention. She glanced at him and his face looked stark in the moonlight.
‘Did I hurt you? You were with me all the way and then...you weren’t.’
‘No!’ Serena blurted out, horrified that he would think that. ‘No,’ she said again, quieter, and looked back at the view. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Then...what?’
Why wouldn’t he let it go? Serena wasn’t used to men who gave any consideration to how much she’d enjoyed sex—they’d usually been happy just to say they’d had her. The wild child.
Luca’s voice broke in again. ‘You’ve already come in my arms, so I know what it feels like, but you shut down.’
Serena got hot, recalling the strength of her orgasm when he’d been touching her in the jungle... But that had been different... He hadn’t been inside her.
And she hadn’t been falling for him.
The realisation hit her now, as if she’d been blocking it out. She was falling