Ivy placed her hand on the side of his face, enjoying the masculine texture of his skin so different from her own. ‘You make me feel beautiful...’ Her voice caught on the words, so intense were her emotions. She didn’t want to spoil the moment by blurting out her feelings. They weren’t part of their arrangement. But holding them in, keeping them hidden, made her heart ache with the pressure of keeping them contained. She spoke them with her hands instead, stroking each of his eyebrows, down the length of his nose, around his mouth.
He brought his mouth down to hers, kissing her deeply, lingeringly, his tongue playing with hers in a dance as old as time itself. A primal dance, erotic and playful, yet with deadly serious intent. His intention was clear—she felt it in every stroke of his tongue, every glide of his hand, every erogenous zone he touched. He wanted her. He was going to have her. She would enjoy every heart-stopping second of it.
Ivy breathed in the scent of him, the musk and salt and aroused male smell that so tantalised her senses. He lifted his mouth off hers to work his way down her body, leaving branding kisses that sent her pulse skyrocketing. He went from her breasts to her belly and beyond, her skin tightening in anticipation. He parted her with his fingers, exploring her most intimate flesh with his lips and tongue. The tension gathered in her swollen tissues, a delicious tension that built to a crescendo. And then the storm broke and she was flying, falling, swirling and spinning in a vortex of intense, spine-tingling pleasure, the ripples and aftershocks spreading throughout her pelvis. ‘Oh, wow...oh, wow...oh, wow...’ Her breaths came in stuttering gasps, her limbs feeling spent and useless.
Louis kissed his way back up her body, holding her gaze when he got close to her mouth. ‘I love watching you come. You hold nothing back.’
Ivy was holding far more back than he realised. Love flowed through her as passionately as her orgasm had just done. She could feel it fill every part of her being, a deep attachment to him that was going to be hard to ignore for much longer. But how could she tell him? It wasn’t something he wanted to hear from her. It wasn’t something he wanted to hear from anyone. He’d been a playboy for a long time, and he would go back to being one once their fling was over.
Her heart contracted at the thought of him moving between lovers in the future. One after the other, each one a fleeting encounter that meant nothing more than a temporary relief of lust. And back in her normal day-to-day life she would be grieving the loss of his intimate touch, mourning the end of their passionate fling. How would she bear it? She ran her fingertip over his sensual bottom lip, her gaze carefully avoiding his. ‘I hope I can be just as responsive with someone else when the time comes.’
The silence thrummed with an unusual energy as if each and every oxygen particle had been disturbed by her comment. Even she was disturbed by her comment. How could she ever make love with someone else? Who would make her flesh sing the way Louis did? It was unthinkable. Impossible.
By the time Ivy brought her gaze back to his, Louis’ expression was masked, all except for a camera-shutter-quick movement at the back of his gaze. No more than a rapid blink—a reset, an unwelcome thought swiftly, ruthlessly blocked. ‘I seem to remember I promised to take you out to dinner, but I got a little waylaid.’ His tone was mildly playful but it was at odds with his screened features.
Ivy stroked her hand down his lean jaw, one of her legs hooking over his. ‘How can you think of food at a time like this?’
His mouth came down to just above hers. ‘Believe me, ma chérie, I am definitely not thinking of food right now. I’m only hungry for you.’ His kiss showed her just how hungry, his hands urgently moving over her body even more so.
Ivy pressed herself closer, drawn to the heat and power of his hard male body, her smooth legs entwined with his hair-roughened ones, her body on fire. He moved away only long enough to get a condom and she watched him smooth it over himself, her pulse racing with excitement, her inner core heated with longing. He positioned himself over her, balancing his weight so as not to overpower her, his entry swift, sensual, sense-spinning. Tingles shot through her sensitive tissues, her body gripping him, welcoming him, pleasuring him as his pleasured her. His guttural groans were music to her ears, his deep, rhythmic thrusts ramping up the coil of tension in her core. She was climbing a mountain, higher, higher, the pinnacle just out of reach. She wanted. She wanted. She wanted. The aching throb in her body was accompanied by the chant in her head.
‘Please...please...please...’ She didn’t care that she was begging. She didn’t care that she was thrashing beneath him like a paper boat in a storm-tossed sea.
‘Come for me.’ Louis’ voice was husky. ‘Don’t hold back. Don’t be frightened of it. Let it take you.’
He slipped his hand between their bodies and slowly caressed her moist and swollen flesh. The delicious sensations came from far-off places in her body, gathering to a feverish point in her female centre. And then they exploded in a shower of sparks and tingles and spasms that carried her to another plane of existence. An exquisite existence of sheer mind-blowing, planet-shifting ecstasy. It was bigger and better than anything she had experienced before, the monumental force of it almost terrifying. How could her body split from her mind in such a way? How could her body contain so many nerve endings? So many pleasurable settings that fired with such heart-stopping intensity?
Louis kept moving within her, taking his own pleasure with deep thrusts and guttural groans until, finally, he tensed all over and then gave one last shuddering groan as his orgasm hit. Ivy held him through the storm, feeling completely undone by the way his body responded to hers. So powerful, so potent, so primal and passionate. She moved her hands up and down his back in smooth massaging movements, listening to his breathing quietening, enjoying the relaxed weight of him lying over her.
‘Am I too heavy for you?’ His lips moved against the sensitive skin of her neck where his head was buried, and she shivered.
‘No...’ She gave a long blissful sigh and stroked her hand over the taut shape of his buttocks. ‘If anyone had said a few weeks ago I’d feel comfortable with a naked man sprawled over me after making mad, passionate love to me, I would have laughed. Or fainted.’
He leaned up on one elbow, a smile tilting one side of his mouth, his eyes dark and lustrous. He traced his finger from her chin to her sternum and then back to her lower lip, teasing it with a feather-light caress. ‘It’s good you feel comfortable with me.’ His smile slowly faded and his gaze grew serious. ‘But neither of us can get too comfortable with this arrangement. The time limit still stands.’
Ivy had to work hard not to show her disappointment. She was conscious of her every facial muscle, of trying to control the micro-expressions that might betray her emotions.
The time limit still stands.
He wasn’t budging from his rules on their fling. In spite of the fabulous sex, in spite of their friendship and the increasing closeness she felt was growing between them, he was determined to keep things temporary.