Behind this door lay the stage of her unseen existence. Where she walked barefoot, dressed and undressed, reflected, shed tears. Where she sang in out-of-tune abandon as she cooked her meals, danced in front of mirrors to snippets of music that blipped inside her head, washed away exhausting days under the spray of hot water, drowned her angers and anxieties in steaming baths and surrendered to oblivion after a book dropped from her hand at the strike of 1 a.m…. or after she’d pleasured herself.
Crossing this door into that microcosm became his highest goal. To be allowed into her sanctuary, to be given the privilege to witness her secrets, see to her safety, cater to her needs.
She turned, her eyes overflowing with so much emotion that his mind seized. Then her whisper floated in the silence, impeded, unsteady.
“I wanted to be on my turf when I said this. I-I…”
She was going to say goodbye. No. He couldn’t let her. “Don’t say anything now, bellissima. Just get some sleep. When you’ve taken it all in, let me see you again. We’ll take it from there.”
Her gaze wavered, then she groaned. “God, I’m so stupid. You must be exhausted. Oh, just go please…”
He caught her arm, stopped her babbling. “The last thing I need now is sleep. What did you want to say? If it’s anything other than ‘I don’t think this should go any farther,’ please say it.”
Her flush rose. His whole body bunched as her lips parted on a hectic inhalation and she burst out, “I want this night, Durante. Or this day. Or whenever we are. And I want as many nights and days as I can ha—”
Durante couldn’t wait for her confession to finish exiting her lips before he devoured it along with them. The way she met his ardor halfway with as much ferocity told him everything he needed to know. This time there was no hesitation on her part, as there was no intention of holding back on his.
He stilled the tremors invading the fullness of her lower lip in a bite that made her cry out, arch into him, all lushness and surrender. The taste and feel and scent of her eddied in his arteries, pounded through his system. Her urgency spilled into his mouth in moans and gasps that blanked his mind. He gathered her thighs through the layers of cloth, raised her, opened her for his bulk, pinned her to her door with the force of his hunger. His tongue drove inside her as his erection thrust against her heat through layers of barriers, losing rhythm in the wildness.
Her tongue slid against his, rubbed, tangled, her lips suckled at his, her teeth matching him nip for nip until he slammed against her, rattling the door, the wall that housed it.
This—as she called it—was everything. It couldn’t be spoiled, could only deepen and widen and intensify. This wasn’t rushing things, wasn’t too soon. This was how it should be. They didn’t need time to know this was right. It was. Time would only provide the leisure to explore and savor all the ways of how right it was.
But this totality of response was also frightening. His grip on control was softening, the need to ram inside her, here, now, ride her until she convulsed around him, drenched his flesh with her pleasure and he pumped her full of his, was replacing his mental faculties. And that was after just a kiss.
But it wasn’t a kiss. It was a rehearsal for their mating, enough to portray what that would be like. Something so outside the realm of his experience he couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
He knew that on a fundamental level. He had to know the rest.
He tore his lips from the lock of her passion, shuddered with her cry, her lurch, her demand that he resume their fusion.
He molded her features with his mouth as if mapping them into tactile memory. “Tell me your name, bellissima. I need to know it now, to whisper it into your lips and against your every pleasure point. I need to think it, have it fill my mind as I look on your beauty. I want to roar it as I fill you.”
“Gabrielle…” Her moan penetrated his brain, lodged in his erection. Gabrielle. Yes. Laced with femininity and strength and complexity. It fit her. But then she’d make any name exceptional, magical. “Gabrielle Williamson.”
Everything decelerated as her full name sank into his mind. Then it hit bottom, detonated like a depth mine.
Gabrielle Williamson. The woman who’d recently approached him with an offer he’d refused, as he had dozens of similar ones.
She hadn’t accepted “not interested” for an answer, had contacted just about everyone who had an in with him to secure face time with him. He’d heard from many on her behalf, but it was one of his associates who’d finally roused his curiosity. Gerald Whittaker, as shrewd a businessman as they came, had said she was confident her offer was one he couldn’t refuse. When he’d said that he’d heard the Don Corleone line too many times for it to work, Gerald had had every confidence himself that she must be on to something Durante would want to know about, that he should at least give her a chance.
Out of respect for Gerald’s opinion, he almost had. He’d also wondered what kind of woman had such a rock so taken with her.
But he hadn’t agreed to meet her. Because he’d found out exactly what kind of woman she was. The most casual background check had returned a screaming verdict. Don’t let her within a mile of you.
So he hadn’t. Not because he’d believed himself in any danger from the femme fatale whose favorite snack was billionaires. He’d been disgusted by the picture he’d put together. Of her stringing Gerald around, using him to get to an even bigger prey. Him. The offer he couldn’t refuse would have been the pleasure of having her, no doubt. She’d have been confident that he, like dozens before him, would succumb once she had him in range of her charms. He’d fleetingly entertained agreeing to her panted-after meeting, just to get the message across that he could snack on women like her. If he was into junk food.
He shouldn’t have been so smug. He should have known that she’d have more cards to play. And she’d played them. Played him. And how. She’d reinvented her approach, hit from another angle. And she’d struck the bull’s-eye. He hadn’t only proved himself susceptible to her wiles, but he also must have been her easiest quarry ever.
Gabrielle Williamson. She was the woman with whom he’d spent the most revitalizing, enthralling time of his life, a time he’d planned never to end. The woman who’d made him forget exhaustion and every preconception about himself and what he could feel. The woman who was wrapped around him, her flesh feeling as if it were as vital to him as his own.