Love Letters Volume 4: Travel to Temptation Read online

  He flashed a blinding smile. Laugh lines fanned from the corners of his eyes and bracketed his mouth. He raised his right hand to reveal a foil packet curved into his palm. “I did too.”

  Within seconds he was sheathed and positioned between her quivering thighs. He stared down at her, silent and questioning, waiting for her to say the word. But no words would come.

  Her hesitation made him falter. Indecision cooled his smoldering gaze. “Samantha?”

  The ragged edge of his voice yanked her from her stupor. He shifted, pressing onto his hands and peeling the warm weight of his chest from her. Cool air teased her nipples to painful points. Instinctively, she followed, grasping his shoulders to leverage herself off the bed. She flattened her breasts to his chest and fastened her mouth to his, kissing him with everything she had and hoping it would be enough to convey all she couldn’t say.

  “Is that a yes?” he rasped as she fell back onto the pillows.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  His polite response made her laugh, but it collapsed into a startled yelp when he grasped her hands in his and pushed her arms high above her head once more. The crisp hair on his chest teased the tight tips of her breasts. He kissed her deep, maintaining possession of her mouth as he entered her and set a relentless pace, driving her higher and higher with each thrust.

  Soft, sweet kisses chased deep, hungry ones. His tongue slid over her teeth. He drew hers into his mouth, sucking greedily. He whispered her name against her lips, demanding, coaxing, and utterly exacting, refusing to back down until she took every bit as eagerly as he gave.

  He rocked against her, his thick shaft stroking her clit with every advance. His lips clung to hers as the walls of her pussy swelled with each retreat, clamping down on his cock and holding him deep inside her. His breath blew hot on her cheeks and chin as words tumbled from his lips. He bathed her in throaty growls, showering her with words she didn’t know but understood in the depths of her soul. She held his gaze, searching for the answers she needed but seeing only the same helpless desire reflected in them.

  Her climax coiled inside her, sinuous and stealthy. Quicksilver zips of pleasure set her nerve-endings on fire. Sweat slicked the skin of her belly and sheened his gorgeous face. She wriggled one hand from his grasp to stroke his cheek. He turned into her caress and his lashes lowered, shielding her from the heat of the fiery passion in his eyes. She wanted it back. Desperately.

  “Luca!” She gasped his name, turning the simple syllables into a four-letter plea.

  His eyes flew open. Their gazes met and held, and in that moment Sam knew she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. This trip was madness. The impulse to seek him out once seemed a daring plot. It was supposed to be an adventure. A challenge. A lark at best. These few stolen days were meant to amount to nothing more than a fond memory once she returned to the demanding chaos of her days and droning monotony of long, lonely nights.

  How was she supposed to survive him? What man could ever compare to the familiar stranger whose easy smiles and devastating kisses claimed her body, mind, and soul?

  “Samantha.” He savored her name as his eyes devoured her. “Jien tiegħek.” The fire burning in his gaze conveyed the meaning in his words. “You are mine and I am yours. Yours.”

  He pinned her to the bed with one hand, setting her mind awhirl. Like a pinwheel she spiraled madly, wave after wave of mind-bending release gathering around her, swirling tighter and tighter.

  His arms gave way. Soft, supple lips sought hers. He pecked the barest kiss to the corner of her mouth and she plunged into the vortex. Luca closed his eyes at last, channeling the intensity that rolled off him into the release pulsing from his body, but it was too late. They’d seen too much.

  Shudders racked his body. He buried his face in the crook of her neck. When the tremors began to subside, he kissed the pulse throbbing in her throat. “Sabiħa Samantha. We are meant to be.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut tight, focusing on the whoosh of their labored breathing rather than facing the truth embedded in his simple statement. He could be what she needed. He might be her family.

  He pressed a tender kiss to her ear and roused himself, murmuring something about the condom and promising to be as quick as possible. The click of the bathroom door should have been a reprieve, but the resulting silence only gave her too much room to think. Rolling onto her side, Sam kept her eyes squinched tight when the soft squeak of door hinges heralded his return. The mattress shifted under his weight. A heavy arm looped around her waist, hauling her snug against him. Warm breath stirred her hair. Mere seconds ticked by. The rhythm of his body synced to hers with such ease, the realization spawned a rush of hot tears. Her breathing hitched as she batted them back, swallowing the emotion until a hard lump lodged in her throat.

  “I’m scared too.” His whispered declaration made her spine stiffen. Luca ran his hand over her hip and stroked the curve of her thigh, soothing her as one would a skittish horse. “I keep telling myself this is just infatuation, that this thing between us might pass.”

  She tried to muster a modicum of indignation, but his admission wormed its way past her defenses and the gentle strokes of his big, broad palm felt too damn good.

  “But it won’t.”

  His quiet confidence fanned the flicker of hope his confession sparked inside her. “What do we do?” she asked.

  Luca sighed. “I’m not sure. We make choices. We take a leap. We simply hang on until we figure out which direction we sail.”

  Sam scoffed at his philosophical response. “Sail? You do realize that Tennessee is landlocked, don’t you?”

  “You do realize that we do not have to make these decisions at this very moment, don’t you?” He mimicked her snide tone, but she could hear the patient indulgence in his smile. “You are raining on my afterglow.”

  She huffed a sigh but relaxed into his hold, flexing her fingers as if the gesture alone would release the tension caused by the questions mounting inside her. Her breathing slowed as she tried to calm the pounding of her heart with each deliberate inhalation. She half hoped he’d read her gusty exhales as the precursors to a post-coital snooze. It didn’t work. Luca’s put-upon sigh packed enough force to blow her good intentions out of the water.

  “Fine. I will make love to you again,” he announced without preamble.

  Her incredulous bark of laughter rocked their entwined bodies. Craning her neck, she peered over her shoulder. He looked as eager and guileless as a boy about to be handed an ice cream cone.

  Befuddled by the absolute certainty in his eyes and unable to remain indifferent to the hope blossoming in her chest, she pressed her cheek to the pillow and stared at a blank spot on the wall. But that expanse of endless ecru didn’t help slow her heart or cool her blood.

  “Gee, thanks, but how is that supposed to help?” She fell back on sarcasm as a defense, but the quiver in her voice gave her away.

  He splayed one large hand across her abdomen and snugged her closer. Rogue fingertips grazed the underside of her breast. Sam shivered, her nipples puckering in anticipation. He brushed tender kisses to the shell of her ear. “It’ll help me a great deal.”

  Her defenses crumbled the moment his hand closed around her breast and scattered to the wind when she felt his dick stir and fill. Hot and hard flesh nestled into the crevice of her ass. Wicked fingertips pinched and twisted her nipple.

  His breathing grew ragged and slow. He abraded his palm with the pebbled tip. “I want to taste more of you, just to be certain. We may need to make love over and over so we can both be sure it isn’t simply desire, Samantha, but I’m willing to do so.”

  He brushed her hair aside and nipped at the curve of her neck. His hand traveled in a sensuous path over the slope of her breast, across her quivering belly, and into the tangled curls between her legs and back again, mapping every inch of her.

  “So self-sacrificing,” she murmured, pressing back to meet
the deliberate thrust of his cock as he moved between the cheeks of her ass.

  “I’m a saint.” His gusty laugh tickled her ear. Talented fingers slipped between her legs. She clamped her thighs together, trapping his hand right where she wanted him most. He teased her clit with the pad of his middle finger. “Open for me.”

  The steel in his voice spoke of rigid determination. Spreading her legs wide, she planted her foot behind his bent knees and turned her head. Luca captured her lips in a bruising kiss. The blunt head of his cock pushed inside her swollen folds. Breath hissed from his lungs when the length of his cock slid against her wet pussy.

  “Condom.” She panted the word in a last-ditch effort to cling to whatever shreds of sanity she had left.

  Luca answered with a tortured groan then tore himself away from her. Gooseflesh rippled her back. She curled her fingers in a fist and shoved it under the pillows, unwilling to show exactly how badly she wanted to chase after his warmth. The rending of the wrapper made her stomach flutter. Her heartbeat thrummed in time with his raggedy breaths. A flood of relief gushed through her when his hand came to rest on her hip. He swirled his hand over the curve of her ass, reverent, possessive and sure. She buried her face in the pillow as she battled back the unexpected tears.

  “Up.”

  Anxious to comply, she pushed up on her hands and scrambled to her knees, meeting him face to face in the center of the tumbled bed. Luca framed her face with both hands and kissed her so sweetly she lost the ability to breathe. He dropped his gaze and palmed her breasts, pressing them together as he relieved her of their weight. His fingers glowed golden brown against skin that never saw the sun. Each graze of his thumbs made her nipples furl a little tighter.

  “I want you to ride me.” He turned his head toward the mirror mounted above the dresser. “I want you to watch as you fuck me. I want to see you see yourself with me inside you.”

  Casting a sidelong glance at the gilt-edged mirror, she spied their nude bodies caught in its reflection. She swallowed hard and lowered her gaze, a blush heating her face. But there was no denying she wanted the exact same thing. Even his latex-clad erection bobbed its approval.

  She trailed the tips of her fingers the length of him then raised a questioning eyebrow. “How?”

  “Come here.”

  He turned to face the foot of the bed and pulled her into position in front of him. Resting on his heels, Luca hummed appreciatively as she straddled his thighs. His prolonged “Ahh” ruffled her hair when she impaled herself on him. Her ass pressed into the taut ridges of his abs. She came to rest atop his straining thighs with a matching sigh.

  She let her head fall back against him, watching through lowered lashes as he smoothed his hands over the curve of her stomach and traced the dip of her waist. His fingertips pressed into her hip. The stark contrast between light and dark, hard and soft, masculine and feminine, proved more arousing than the thick fullness of his cock buried in her to the hilt. Covering his hands with hers, she laced their fingers and raised them to her breasts. Together they massaged the soft globes and she began to move.

  Luca blazed a trail of hot kisses across her shoulder then sank his teeth into the curve of her neck. He slipped his hands out from under hers, leaving her to mold and shape her own flesh as he sought to conquer more, all the while whispering wicked truths in her ear.

  “Look how good we fit.” He circled her clit with one finger. “We were made for one another. I want you in every way.” She moaned and rode him faster, matching the demanding rhythm of his caresses. “So wet.”

  Sam cried a protest when he pulled his hand away. His other arm wrapped snug around her waist, the muscles in his thighs bunched as he pressed her up onto her knees. She fell forward, catching her weight on her hands as he held her close, keeping his dick pressed balls-deep in her. Tossing her hair from her eyes, she looked up and met his gaze in the mirror. He raised his glistening fingers to his lips and used her juices to slick them before sucking them into his mouth and drawing greedily.

  “Next, I will eat you until you scream,” he promised, his voice cast deep and raw. “I will love you with my mouth while you pull my hair and call my name, but first, I must stop wanting to be in you. Someday I’ll stop…” His teeth scraped her neck and his hand slid between her legs again. He thrust into her so hard her breasts swayed and his balls slapped against her dripping sex. “How will I ever get past being in you, my Samantha?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered in a rush. Wagging her head, she let it hang. “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I only know I needed you. This.”

  The weight of her surrender pulled at her. Her ass rose high in the air as her cheek pressed into the mattress.

  Luca curved over her back, driving into her with jerky, reckless strokes as he fingered her clit. “I can give you all you want. I will. A home. Babies…”

  She gasped. He knew everything she’d ever wanted. She’d given him access to all her hopes and dreams when they were safe and smug in their separate little worlds, and now he used them to break her.

  He shifted, slowing his pace and gentling his touch. “You were right to come to me. We were meant to be together, Samantha. Stay with me and I will give you everything.” Wrapping his hand around her waist, he eased her back, forcing her to lift her head and meet his eyes in the mirror. “Together we can be everything you need. You know I’m right. That’s why you should stay.”

  He worried the edge of her ear with his teeth as he slowed, leaving her teetering on the brink. Meeting hers in the mirror above the dresser, his dark eyes gleamed with a passion that burned hotter than the need for mere physical release. The moment hung suspended in time.

  “Staying is no crazier than boarding the plane in the first place.” His voice was thick with desire and compelling in its resonance. “I need you too, my American girlfriend. You came to me because I needed you as you need me.” He caught her clit between his thumb and forefinger and drove into her so hard she squeaked his name. “Come for me now, Sam. Give yourself to me. I swear I will love you well.”

  Keeping her eyes locked on the mirror, she relinquished her tenuous hold on control and reveled in the erotic vision of their bodies locked together. He teased her pussy, the circling strokes of his fingertips growing clumsy with haste. Once again, he swamped her senses with a tidal wave of words knotted together from every language he knew. She whispered the only words that mattered as the rising tide of her climax swept her away. “Yes. Oh yes, Luca. Yes.”

  He came hard and hot, pummeling her quaking body with each striving thrust. His shout of triumph bounced off the hotel room walls.

  Panic swelled in her throat, but he smothered it by collapsing onto her with a grunt. She lay there, spent and stunned, pinned to the bed by his weight and the force of his will. The ragged edges of their labored breathing finally slowed, and at last Luca shifted to his side, curling his long, lean body around hers.

  “I dreamed about kissing you, Sam, but I never dreamed we would be this good.” Her heart stutter-stepped and he tightened his hold on her. “I know you are thinking in practicalities, but let them go for now. Reality is easy to bend and mold, but you…you are my proof that dreams come true. Stay…”

  Fear made her breath hitch, but something warm and certain unfurled in her gut. Common sense told her no, but every cell in her body wanted her to say yes. She closed her eyes and pictured him windblown and smiling at helm of his boat. The knot of anxiety in her throat eased when she imagined herself seated at one of Camilleri’s cloth-covered tables surrounded by his family. Theirs. The family he said he wanted to give her. “I want to…”

  “You don’t have to rush to decide.” Luca dotted her bare shoulder with lingering kisses. His fingers splayed wide over the curve of her stomach, dark and unmistakably masculine against her pale skin. “We’ve known each other a lifetime already, we only need to determine how we’ll proceed with the rest. Stay with me.”

  Sam exhaled
soft and slow. The sureness in his tone worked like magic, smoothing away the ragged edges of doubt. Covering his hand, she slipped her fingers between his and held on tight.

  “I’ll still have to go back.” She sighed and snuggled deeper into his embrace. “I have an apartment…my things.”

  “If you like, I will go with you. Together we can chart it out.”

  “Chart it out.” She chuckled and gave his fingers an appreciative squeeze. His breathing slowed, each feathery exhalation washing away her defenses. “Luca?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I dreamed about you loving me,” she confessed.

  A smile stretched his lips as he mapped the curve of her neck with meandering kisses. “Then it seems both of our dreams have come true, my Sam.” He settled his head on her pillow and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply then letting go with a contented sigh.

  Golden sunlight filtered into the room. Birdsong and boat horns battled it out as the sea breeze stirred gauzy curtains.

  His voice came thick and raspy, the rumble of his words rolling through her like a gentle wave. “I wonder what we will dream of next.”

  *

  N Is for Naughty

  By Christina Thacher

  “Miss Gemma?” Tui called.

  “Coming.” Gemma went into Gran’s room. It used to be the dining room—not that they’d ever used it for formal dinner parties—and had huge windows overlooking Lake Taupo. Gemma wanted to believe Gran still enjoyed the view.

  Gemma took the hair brush—tiny and soft, designed for a baby’s head—from Tui, the day nurse, and began smoothing Gran’s hair.

  Not long ago Gran had brushed Gemma’s hair, after school or before a class picture. Gemma would wriggle with impatience, but Gran believed in the one-hundred-strokes theory. Seemed the least Gemma could do now was to care for Gran’s wisps of white hair, even if Gran’s watery blue eyes stared at the window, registering nothing.

  When she reached a hundred, Gemma gave her a kiss, then looked over at Tui, whose mouth was twisted with some emotion, pain or anxiety perhaps.