He shushed me, looking into my eyes again though I avoided his gaze. “Emilia. Look at me.” And I did. And there was sincerity, admiration in his eyes. “You are beautiful. And these,” he said, tracing the scars again with more pressure than before, “are your strength.”

I blinked, my eyes stinging. I wanted him to touch me again. And he did. My breath shivered in my chest. He palmed my scarred breast, running a progressively firmer touch over it until my nipple puckered to a point, erect and begging for his attention. He lowered his mouth and kissed it ever so lightly.

I gasped and arched my back to meet him. He kissed it again, a light peck. And again, a little harder. Then his mouth opened and his tongue tasted, ever so slightly. And again, his tongue ran over and around my nipple until I was burning and writhing underneath him, unable to get enough of the feel of his mouth. He suckled and pulled, tasting and tugging until a small sob escaped the back of my throat. The first time his teeth touched my nipple, I jumped as if jolted with electricity. My hand, which had been wedged underneath me, pulled free and came up to weave my fingers in his thick hair, holding him to my attention-starved breast.

He turned and, while thumbing my once-injured breast, put his mouth to the task of similarly treating my healthy one. Time stretched out—maybe a half hour or more, I wasn’t keeping track—he did nothing but lavish my chest with his careful, passionate attention. And I was stunned to realize how close I was to climax just from what he was doing to my breasts.

He noticed too. His hand slipped from my breast, across my stomach and into my underwear. His mouth was still doing indescribably wonderful things to my breast as his fingers found the swollen bundle of nerves and rubbed against it in gentle circles. I closed my eyes and arched to him, my entire being inflamed with his touch. I was so close…

He removed his head from my breast and pulled back. He pulled my hands out of his hair with his one free hand. “Touch them,” he whispered, those glowing eyes holding mine captive. I hesitated and he stopped rubbing against my clitoris. I almost whimpered with the loss. “I want to watch you touch them. I want you to know what I already know—how hot, how beautiful your body is.”

I trembled under him as I slowly put my own fingertips to my erect nipples, tugging at them lightly, crying out as his hand started moving across my sex again.

“You are so beautiful,” he repeated over and over again as he watched me finger my own nipples. I closed my eyes tight and gasped as he brought me to the edge, slowed and stopped again. I almost screamed in frustration.

“Open your eyes.”

And I did.

Our eyes locked and his weren’t mirrors, or doors, but corridors, leading deep inside. I gasped and he kissed my lips, circled his hand over my sex. I pinched my own nipples and then arched my back as everything tightened inside of me.

He watched as he took me up and over the edge. I screamed his name and he gasped against my mouth, his lips pulling gently at mine. It had been a long time since I’d had an orgasm that pleasurable, that intense. My eyes rolled back as I continued to convulse with pleasure, continued to raggedly call his name. His hands tightened on me and I felt as if those ripples of ecstasy would go on forever.

I came down from that, my body burning and trembling with the intensity of my climax, but he didn’t stop. “I’m going to make you come again,” he uttered fiercely, his mouth now against my neck.

But I pulled myself away from him, tried to close my legs. “I want you inside me when I come again.”

I thought he might object to that, but he didn’t. He pulled his hand out of my underwear and quickly pulled my dress, bra and underwear off of me. I was no longer self-conscious about being naked in front of him and was anxious to see him naked, too. I unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and pulled off his undershirt while he unzipped his trousers. Soon he was only in his tented boxer briefs. Before pulling them off, he reached into the pocket of his discarded pants and extracted a foil-wrapped condom.

He pulled off his underwear and rolled me onto my back. I could tell by the strained rigidity of his handsome features that he wasn’t playing around anymore.

I swallowed as he slowly parted my legs, settling between them before rearing up to slide the condom on with one hand. I sat up on my elbows and watched him, though it only took seconds. He was well practiced at it, it seemed.

I hoped he wouldn’t cut this short, like the other times. Would we stop now? Would that same fear come back?

I held my breath as if somehow breathing would break the spell of the moment. My eyes met his ferocious gaze and he lay back down against me, pushing me gently off my elbows so I was flat underneath him. His body hovered over mine, burning me with his heat. His erection pressed against me as he kissed me again—his tongue and lips and teeth claiming my mouth, forcing it open under him and owning every inch of it. Hardly time for a breath before he was nudging his cock against me, pushing his way inside.