The Affair: Week 4 (6 page)

As always.

“Now ask for your spanking,” he said roughly. When she hesitated, he was ruthless. He plunged his forefinger into her slit. She gasped loudly. He finger-fucked for a moment, grinding his teeth together at the wet, sucking sound it made. “Ask for it, Emma.”

“Spank me. Please . . .
give
me the last one.”

She sounded wild. He drew his finger out of her channel and popped her raised ass, this time a little more forcefully. She yelped. No sooner had he done it than he was gathering her in his arms, lifting her as he stood.

“Playtime is over,” he growled, turning and placing her hastily, but gently, on the bed. “On your hands and knees,” he directed, too strangled by lust to be polite. He waited while she steadied herself with her bound hands. He started to move away to find a condom, but she looked over her shoulder. He halted. It would have been easy to say she’d stopped him in his tracks because of the vision she made, naked on her hands and knees, the light pink blush on her ass a beautiful contrast to her flawless pale skin.

The hard thing to admit was that while all that was true, what had jerked him to a stop in the midst of frantic lust was the expression in her dark eyes.

He hardened his resolve and took a long stride to the bedside table, where he extricated a condom from a drawer. When he returned, she still was watching him over an elegant, sloping shoulder.

He began to unfasten his belt, holding her stare. “I was going to taste you first,” he bit out. “But then you had to go and look at me.” He saw one eyebrow go up at that. He realized why. He’d sounded almost angry at her . . . and he was, in a way. He was about to burst with uncontrollable, boiling lust, and he wasn’t so sure he liked this feeling of another human being controlling him. “Now I’m just going to have to wait to taste you, and I don’t like to be made to wait,” he said pointedly as he jerked down his pants and slid his hand along the underside of his cock, snarling at the resulting shiver. He was stretched so tight, even the slightest touch was almost unbearable. He rolled on the condom and looked up. Instead of being miffed or offended by his words, she was staring at his cock, her flushed lips parted.

“Jesus, face that wall,” he grated out, pointing at the wall opposite from him. He moved behind her and she turned her head slowly. He became uncomfortably aware that he was panting, and that she could probably hear him. Still, he couldn’t slow. Not with heaven within his reach. His hands on her ass, he pulled her to him, positioning her. He parted her buttocks wide, salivating at the view. She was a glossy, vivid pink that acted on his brain like the stimulant of the red flag to the bull.

“Lower your breasts to the bed,” he insisted, lifting his cock with his hand to her slit. He instinctively felt the ideal give in her flesh when she took the position and thrust. She gave a little yelp, and he tried to soothe her with his touch. He couldn’t stop, though. He thought he might be grinding a layer of enamel off his teeth as she enclosed him, squeezed him like an exquisitely tight, soft suck. Gripping her ass, he watched himself sink into paradise.

She was just a woman, like so many before. He knew this.

So why did it all feel so different?

His shaved balls bumped against her damp outer sex, and the frothing boil of lust overtook his brain. He lost all ability to think. Instinct took over. He firmed his hold on her and began rocking her ass back and forth, driving his hips in a counterrhythm. Her soft moans and surprised little gasps and whimpers when he thrust with more force intoxicated him. He’d like to fuck her forever.

He needn’t have controlled her hip movements so greatly, because he could feel her moving against him with a strength and mounting excitement. Even so, his arm muscles tightened as he crashed into her. Crashed her into him. He didn’t know which. His pelvis was smacking against her ass faster and faster, a little cry erupting out of her throat when he popped against her outer sex and drove deep.

“You feel so fucking good,” he ground out, sounding crazed to his own ears. She was driving him over the edge. He couldn’t get enough. He lifted her hips, holding her against him, taking her lower body weight. Her knees slipped off the edge of the bed. His arms flexed hard, serving her pussy to his cock, pounding into her high and hard. Her cries rained down on him, whetting his appetite even more. He was feasting, gorging himself . . . but he wanted more.

“Scream for me, Emma,” he grated out. He drove into her, a raging male animal intent on one thing. “
Scream
.”

He kept fucking her, hanging by a thread. Then it came, a high keen that grew louder like an oncoming train the more he pounded into her clasping body. He felt her muscular walls convulse around him. He let the savage loose. Placing her knees back on the bed, he fell down over her, bracing himself with his arms. He drove straight and hard into the hot, molten core of her, grunting. He lit up like a roman candle, popping and firing at first, aching and straining for full detonation. He heard Emma scream louder, her channel gripping him, and it happened.

He exploded into a million pieces.

* * *

She came back to herself, knowing she was still the practical, dependable Emma Shore she’d always been, and yet somehow knowing at the same time that she’d never be that girl again.

She absorbed the sound of their twining, panting breaths. It was a nice sensation. It lulled her. His weight was partially on her, pressing her down into the mattress, and it too was delicious: a heavy, solid comfort. She wished he’d press her down even more firmly. The idea of fusing with Vanni Montand even more securely and deeply created a sweet, swelling sensation of longing in her breast.

The feeling of him sliding out of her tender body was jarring and highly unwelcome. She must have made a sound of protest, because he kissed her ear and spoke in a sex-roughened, low tone that raised goose bumps along her damp nape.

“Here. Get under the covers. I’ll come and join you in a minute.”

She felt the edge of the sheet and duvet brushed against her naked hip and realized he’d pulled back the bedding. At the urging of his hands on her waist, she rolled over and swung her body so that her head sunk against a decadence of pillows and her feet slid between cool, exquisitely soft sheets. She blinked woozily, staring up at the striking image of him as he stood next to the bed and pulled the sheet and fluffy comforter over her. She curled onto her side, her cheek pressing against the silk of the pillow sham. Her gaze dropped over him and she swallowed thickly. He was still dressed in his crisp white dress shirt. He’d jerked up his pants as he stood, but his cock still protruded from the opening of his fly. The condom clung to his relaxed, but still-formidable sex. Her muzzy, sexually satiated state partially evaporated when she recalled how he hadn’t removed all of his clothing with that woman—Astrid—either.

He turned, and she saw him in profile, and the intrusive thought scattered. He was so beautiful. It didn’t matter what she knew about his lack of interest in intimacy with women or his challenging sexual practices. It didn’t matter that he would get his fill of her soon, she realized as she watched him walk to the adjoining bathroom and open the door.

Her hunger for him wasn’t something to be picked apart and tested rationally. It just
was
, and all she could do was pray she’d survive relatively unscarred after he’d gone.

When he opened the bathroom door a minute or two later, her eyelids were drifting closed. She immediately perked up upon seeing Vanni walking toward her wearing a pair of low-hanging black pajamas that left very little to the imagination. Once again, she was struck by the golden-brown smoothness of his skin. His naked torso was a living sculpture of lean, well-developed muscles, his abdomen so taut she could have easily bounced a quarter off his flat stomach. Ridged, oblique muscles slanted like an arrow to his crotch, seeming to defy her not to look in the downward direction. He stalked toward her and the bed. Despite her acute awareness of his gaze on her, Emma couldn’t tear her gaze off the image of his cock pressing lightly against soft cotton and hanging between his strong thighs: the very picture of temptation.

“Emma.”

He stopped next to the bed. She looked up at his face sluggishly. His aquamarine eyes were narrowed and his angular jaw was hard.

“Yes?” she rasped.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

She had a vivid memory of him saying something similar when he’d bidden her to him that first time in the Breakers’ dining room, and how intimidated she’d been.

Why are you looking at me like that?
he’d demanded.

For the first time, she realized he’d seen naked desire in her eyes even back then, and had recognized it when she hadn’t. Understanding that, her former confusion melted away. She continued to stare up at him, sliding her gaze over his torso and lingering on the small, brown disks of his nipples. Her lips parted in wonderment when she saw them roughen and tighten. Slowly, she met his gaze.

“I can’t help it,” she said softly.

His eyes seemed to spark. Her heart jumped with excitement but she forced herself to remain still when he abruptly reached for the corner of the bedding and flipped it back, exposing her naked body. His gaze traveled over her, hot and possessive.

“Why shouldn’t I look at you, when you look at me like that?” she whispered, her skin prickling and her nipples tightening under his stare.

“Because your eyes make me want to do things I shouldn’t,” he said, his gaze fixed between her thighs, his stare hungry. Her clit pinched tight. She had an almost overwhelming urge to touch herself to ease the friction. He came onto the bed next to her, and her excitement only amplified. He took her into his arms and drew her against him. A small shudder went through her at the delight of pressing to his hard male length, the tips of her breasts crushing against warm, smooth skin. Their close contact was momentarily broken when he twisted, turning out the bedside lamp.

Then he was gathering her into his arms in the darkness. Emma exhaled shakily, her cheek pressed against a dense pectoral muscle. Her thigh was wedged beneath his legs. She could feel the outline of his cock. He was growing erect again. He felt sublime. Her curiosity goaded her.

“Why shouldn’t you do those things to me?” she whispered. His cock swelled against her thigh. For a moment, he didn’t speak, and her entire awareness focused on the feeling of his penis throbbing next to her skin.

“Because I rode you hard earlier, and I took you like an animal just now. You will be tender.”

Emma shifted slightly against him, focusing her attention to the sensation between her thighs. He was right. She
was
slightly sore. With her amplified awareness of him, however, her sex also felt tingly with excitement. She swept her hand along the smooth, taut skin that covered his ribs, a spike of excitement going through her when she felt him shiver and his cock lurch.

“I feel fine,” she whispered. She started slightly when he captured her wrist and pinned it next to her outer thigh.

“Don’t try me more than you already have,” he said.

She blinked in the darkness at his hard tone.

He exhaled heavily, and she sensed his frustration and regret. “I want to talk to you about something else,” he said, his voice calmer and hushed. “Are you on birth control?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “The pill.”

“I would like it very much if you saw my personal physician tomorrow before we return to the suburbs. I’ll see him as well.”

“Why?” she asked numbly.

“So that we can both have exams in order to determine if we’re safe. Sexually.”

She didn’t respond, her mind whirring.

“Would that be all right? We can sign releases so that we can see each other’s results.”

She leaned away from him, cool air filling in the space between their pressing skin.

“You really do think that I’m still sick in some way, don’t you?”

“
No
,” he said emphatically, his hand curling around her shoulder and bringing her back against him. “That’s not it at all. I just want to be inside you.”

“You mean . . . without a condom?”

“Yes. If you’re on birth control and we’re both healthy, I don’t see what’s preventing it.”

She sagged against him. He brushed his fingers through her hair, causing prickles of sensation along her neck and ear.

“What are you thinking?” he demanded.

“Well . . . it’s just . . . how do you know I won’t sleep with someone else while you’re away one of these times?” she fumbled.

His stroking fingers paused. “Do you plan to?”

“No!”

“So what you’re really asking is, how do you know that
I’m
not sleeping with someone else when we’re not together, is that right?”

“Yes. I guess so.”

He resumed stroking her hair. She could almost hear him thinking in the silence that followed. “Vanni?” she prompted after a moment, her anxiety getting the best of her.

“I was just thinking of how to respond to reassure you,” he said quietly. “The only thing I can think to do is be honest. It’s up to you whether or not you believe me. I’d understand if you didn’t. Do you recall me telling you at the beach after I returned from France that I was having trouble sleeping and eating because I couldn’t stop thinking about you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, entranced not only by his words, but also by the deep rumble of his voice vibrating against her skin and ear.

“I tried to be with another woman.” She stiffened in his arms. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I thought, considering the circumstances, maybe it was called for.”

“What happened?” Emma whispered warily.

“I started out with the single-minded intention of getting you out of my head,” he said thoughtfully, his fingers curling in her hair, his palm cupping her head, his fingertips rubbing her scalp. Despite her anxiety over the topic, she found her eyelids drooping at his touch. “But it didn’t work. I didn’t want her.”

“How do you know there won’t be another that
does
make you forget me?” she whispered.

Her head dipped as he exhaled deeply. “I just know. You have my word. I know I’ve told you I’m selfish, but I’m also honest.” One finger caressed the shell of her ear, making all the tiny hairs there stand on end. “I’ve never asked this of a woman before. I’d prefer to have the boundary there, to be honest. Both in the literal and figurative sense,” he added dryly. “But you’re very rare,” he continued slowly, his voice low and gravelly. She had a distinct mental image of him staring up into the darkness, his expression thoughtful. “I dislike myself enough at times. I couldn’t bear to make it any worse by . . .
spoiling
you in any way . . . something so fresh.” Her heart paused in her chest when he faded off. “It’s something I just couldn’t do,” he resumed more firmly. “So in short, the only thing I can give you is my word. Maybe that’s not enough for you. I can tell you this, though. When I was in high school and college, I was a walking, talking lit fuse. I was determined to travel fast and furious all the way to hell without even a brief stop. Nothing made sense to me. Nothing mattered. It’s a wonder I made it to adulthood alive. Then something happened that brought me to my senses, something that made me realize the one thing that did matter, the one thing I could control, was my word. I couldn’t control anything else but that. It became my anchor. If I said a thing was going to happen, it happened. Too much else in the world didn’t make a bit of sense, but
that
, I could control. I’ve fought to make that my reality ever since then.”