Page 65 of Royally Roma
Show me.
He stood back, rested against the opposite counter, and waited. His bold command hung in the air, and she stood before him blushing and breathless. Motionless.
Then she shed her clothes, letting them fall, like damp leaves on the forbidden forest floor. And there was something so sensual about her baring her beautiful body while he stood there fully clothed, taking her in, admiring every inch of alabaster skin.
“Julia.” He groaned and moved toward her. There was nothing but gravity between them, an unseen force drawing them toward one another in equal measure. Desire given, desire returned.
He lifted his hands to the delicate curve of her waist and turned her ever so slowly for his inspection. He committed her to memory. Every possible angle. Every dip, every smooth, gorgeous contour. Until she was forever captured in his mind’s eye, and the impossibility of the moment became eternal.
He slid his hands to cup her breasts from behind as she stood turned away from him.
“You are the softest, most beautiful creation these hands have touched,” he whispered, sending a ripple through her hair.
She sighed, her lovely body going slack and falling against him. Which was all well and good. It was time. Time to sweep her off her feet.
He didn’t want to think anymore. Not about the throne. Not about his grandfather. Not about all the duties that awaited him outside these four walls.
He just wanted to feel. To lose himself in a reality that would never be his. To just let everything and everyone go.
Everyone but her.
If only for a night.
She gasped as he gathered her in his arms and carried her to the bed, that kingdom of crisp white sheets that had been tormenting him since the moment he’d first crossed her threshold. He set her down on the edge of the mattress and knelt between her legs, gently pushing her knees apart. He needed to see everything, taste everything.
She shuddered and let her eyes drift closed as he placed a worshipful kiss on the tender inside of each thigh. Then his mouth moved deeper, closer to the warm, wet wonderland of her center. He ran his palms down the willowy length of her legs, then draped them reverently over his shoulders. And she was open—ready, ripe, and resplendent. He was right there, poised to take her dreaming, even though it was a dream that would never last, a dream that might destroy them both.
Then in a moment of suspended butterfly breath, her eyes fluttered open. “Wait...what are you...?”
She was shivering. Aroused and afraid, her face flushed. Niccolo knew without a doubt that he was about to take her to a place she’d never allowed herself to go. He wanted to tell her there was nothing to fear. What was about to happen wouldn’t irreversibly change her. He wouldn’t let her lose control.
But those would have been lies.
He wanted her to come apart. Needed it. After tonight, he’d never touch her again. But she’d remember him. He’d make sure of it.
He smiled. “Lie back, darling. Lie back, and let me kiss you.”
He slid his hands beneath her perfect bottom, lifted her hips and licked his way inside her.
“Oh my God,” she murmured, barely louder than the mew of a kitten.
Then her hands were in his hair again, and she was trembling in his grasp. Rather than finding relief, his hunger became insatiable. With every tremble of her body, every muffled sigh, he grew more and more ravenous. He kissed her until she was undulating beneath him, rising to meet his mouth.
He was on the verge of coming, and he was still fully clothed. Dressed, but desperate for release.
He had to get control of himself. This wasn’t about him. It was about her. About giving her something real. He’d taken enough from her.
It pained him to think there would be another man in her bed one day. After he’d gone. Thinking about it caused something black and furious to swirl in the back of his head, at the base of his skull.
So he pushed tomorrow away, as far off as he could. There was only the here and now, the delicious rise and fall of Julia’s hips, the sweet, agonizing sighs coming from her lips. His name. Over and over again.
She was free-falling, tumbling to her end. And when Niccolo knew without a doubt that she’d become lost in the delicious descent, he brought his hand to her center.
Then, with a single touch and one last kiss of adoration, she fell apart.
JULIA COULDN’T SEEM TOcatch her breath.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing did as she lay panting and tingling, with Nico’s head still between her legs.
