The Itinerary

A Night of Passion

By the time Nico had ushered Haley out of the dimly lit den of sacred delights, her senses were utterly beguiled. The musky aromas of incense and sweat, the rhythmic drumbeats still thrumming in her veins, the lingering imagery of intertwined bodies writhing in sensual rapture - it all conspired to suffuse her with a wanton, needy ache.

And Nico, damn him, looked sinfully edible in the smoky haze of streetlamps flickering through the fog. His tousled chestnut waves fell across his brow in a pantherish slant, and those glittering emerald eyes smoldered with a ravenous hunger that robbed Haley of coherent thought.

She scarce realized they'd reached his flat until he was guiding her up a wrought iron stairwell clinging to the side of an aged Amsterdam canal house. Everywhere Haley looked, the city unfolded in a riot of twinkling lights and shadowed archways promising delicious mystery just out of view.

Nico's loft was located at the very top, the sort of hideaway aerie overlooking the historic cityscape that novelists and artists pined for. As he ushered her inside, Haley drank in the eclectic decor with unabashed delight.

Plush Turkish rugs layered across the hardwood floors in a kaleidoscope of jewel-toned patterns. Tapestries scavenged across the Mediterranean swathed the exposed brick walls in warm hues of saffron and cinnabar. Intricately carved furnishings were positioned in cozy vignettes perfect for curling up to debate philosophy, sip spiced Batavian arrack, or...indulge in far steamier activities.

A wrought iron staircase spiraled up to a lofted alcove where Nico's living area flowed seamlessly into the bedroom beneath a set of skylights now painting the room in ghostly moonbeams.

"Welcome to my humble pied-a-terre," Nico murmured over the dull roar of her thundering pulse. Calloused fingers trailed up her arm in an exquisitely slow caress. "Though I can assure you, its modest exterior belies its...indulgent amenities."

Haley swallowed hard against the blatant sensuality cloaking his honeyed timbre. Turning to face him, she found herself utterly arrested by the fiery intensity blazing in those pale emerald depths.

"Show me," she rasped, the words tasting of unvarnished sin on her tongue.

That devilish half-smile flashed wickedly before Nico hauled her hard against the scorching ridge of his body. Hunger turned feral in the space between their shared breaths just before his mouth descended to plunder hers with explosive ardor.

Haley melted against him, savoring the woodsy cedar-spice of his skin intermingled with the potent musk of his arousal. Calloused fingers tangled through her tousled waves to angle her head for deeper pillaging while his other hand meandered down the slope of her spine to clutch her hips flush to his rigid arousal.

A low, wanton moan sawed from her throat at the all-consuming pleasure-pain of feeling every sculpted inch of him branding her softness. She reveled in the taste of Nico, the scent of him, the ridges and hollows and textures that formed this virile Renaissance ideal of smoldering masculinity.

All thoughts of propriety or restraint fled. This man's sheer physicality and soul-deep intensity intoxicated her more potently than the most virtuoso of devadasi performers.

Without conscious thought, Haley's fingers flew to unfasten his shirt and divest him of the offending garment barring her from devouring his bronzed torso properly. Layer by layer, article by article, she conquered each plane of his magnificent body until only one salaciously teasing linen barrier remained.

"Vishnu devatas," Nico ground out in strained Italian against her malt-whiskey tresses. His commanding touch stripped her tunic up and overhead to leave her standing bare from the waist up, save for a delicate lace beneath garment. "Perfection unparalleled."

Those words - his praise, his desire - ignited Haley's blood into a molten inferno. Lunging upward, she crushed her mouth to the swell of his lower lip in a desperate, messy clash of tongue and teeth and unapologetic lust.

Already, her knees quaked with overpowering arousal, too weak to support her weight as she scaled the granite slopes of Nico's magnificent physique. Rather than resist her unraveling control, he hoisted her up into his embrace so she could sheathe those excruciatingly toned legs around his narrow hips.

The thick ridge of his arousal ground against her damp center, eliciting a guttural groan from her, then him in echoing response. Haley clutched his shoulders for leverage, raking her nails across his tanned skin as her mouth found the masculine tan line of his sculpted throat.

With a low growl rumbling through his chest like a pagan summons, Nico somehow strode them both to the precipice of his bed without relinquishing their erotic clench. A sweep of his arm cleared the coverlet, and then they were tumbling amid a flurry of tousled sheets and tattered garments and tangled rapture.

He smothered her senses, invaded every pore, branded his masculine essence onto her very bones until Haley no longer knew where her own form began or ended. All that existed were searing caresses and carnal moans and the two of them chasing explosive rapture with wild abandon.

At some point their remaining scraps of attire joined the ruins surrounding them. Nico's nude, arousal-flushed body sheathed itself between Haley's splayed thighs, their sexes melding together with delicious friction.

When finally he pierced her with one sinuous stroke, Haley cried out in pure ecstasy. Her nails scored down his flexing back, anchoring herself to his sublime invasion. Not since the most devout of devadasi writhing in sacred union had Haley felt so divinely transcendent.

Nico began to move - slow, rolling thrusts perfectly angled to impale her deepest luxuries. Each punishing plunge robbed the breath from her lungs in plaintive mewls of pleasure-pain. Yet when he resorted to hollowed endearments in Italian, she begged for more...harder, deeper, faster.

He obliged with escalating ferocity, driving into her drenched core over and over until the explosive crescendo thundered through them both in climax. They shattered together, Haley's rapturous cries swallowed by Nico's plundering kiss in messy, unrestrained ecstasy.

In the aftermath, they lay intertwined in sweaty ruin amid the tangled bedsheets. Haley trailed languid caresses across the heaving expanse of Nico's abdomen, savoring the musky potency of his scent mixed with the earthy petrichor aroma of spent passion.

"Well," she rasped in wordless awe, still gulping air. "Your amenities certainly lived up to their reputation."

A low, thoroughly satisfied rumble vibrated beneath her palm. Strong arms contracted around her, pulling Haley down to drape her body fully atop his. She hummed in pleasure at the delicious friction against her overstimulated nerves.

"And we've only just begun sampling the evening's indulgences," Nico purred, flexing beneath her in a slow, sinuous grind that sent renewed shivers ricocheting across her sensitized skin. "This night's curriculum has merely found its opening overture."

Long, dexterous fingers delved through her raven tresses to anchor Haley's mouth to his in a drugging kiss. Every stroke of his questing tongue robbed her of breath and senses and coherent thought. When at last he released her on a gasping exhale, she found herself helplessly, hopelessly addicted to his earthy cedar-smoke essence.

"Show me more of your...extensive amenities, then," she whispered in a voice gone husky with blatant yearning. "I've barely scratched the surface of your repertoire."