The Titan Drowns: Time Travel Romance by Nhys Glover (highly recommended books .txt) 📕

drew her hands away and rested against her neck for several seconds. Then he was kissing her mouth again, thrusting his tongue deep and coaxing her own into an intimate dance. That pleasurable, scary feeling was building in her centre again and this time she fought to control it, fearing it would overwhelm her already ragged senses.

But Marco must have sensed what she was doing, because he drew back and looked into her eyes. His were burning orbs of melted chocolate, their lids half closed.

‘Trust me, if there is anything I am good at in this world it is this. Let me love you... it is all I have to offer in return for all you have given me.’ His words were gravelled and low, sensual in the extreme. But something in them troubled her.

She fought to clear her sluggish brain. What did he mean – given him? What did he need to repay her for? Horror started to form in the back of her mind. Had he married her to repay her for saving his life? For giving him this luxurious lifestyle?

‘You do not owe me anything,’ she said slowly, drawing away from him with caution.

His own mind seemed to be slow on the uptake, too, because he frowned in confusion. ‘Of course I do. I owe you everything.’

Her pulse was racing and she felt suddenly very sick. ‘Is that why you married me? To pay me back?’

His eyes flew open in shock as he realised what she meant. He started to shake his head. Then, very slowly he reached over and took her shoulders in his hands. He pushed her down so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Then he dropped to his knees at her side and took her cold hands in his warm ones.

‘Where I come from – when a man feels he has gathered enough wealth or become someone of worth – he chooses a wife to love and bear his children. It is what he offers her in return for her love. I have no wealth and I am not someone of value. I am a waiter whose only selfless act nearly cost the life of the most precious being in the world to him.

‘No Pia, do not say anything. Let me finish,’ Marco said as she started to speak.

Then he let go of her hands so he could run his fingers through the unruly curls on his head. He looked nothing like a waiter anymore. A young Roman god naked in all his glory was a more fitting description of him, her bemused brain told her.

‘I spent my life as a wanderer, restlessly searching for something, anything, to make me feel whole; until I met you that morning in Southampton. As soon as I met you I knew I had found what I had been searching for. But having found it, what did I have to offer you? Nothing. I have no special talents, no admirable qualities, nothing but a pretty face and a great deal of sexual experience.

‘But despite my shortcomings, you loved me. More than I thought it was possible for someone to love me. When your people told me how rare it is for someone like you to love, it made even less sense to me that I should be the object of your affections. When you refused to go without me, risked your life for me... I felt overwhelmed. I am still overwhelmed. And so unworthy.

‘You could have been a guttersnipe with less than nothing and I would still feel you gave me more than I could repay by loving me. But you aren't a guttersnipe. You are a beautiful, capable woman of this amazing world, who gave me my life and the life of my friend. And you have opened doors for me I never knew existed.

‘And it is too much. You, your love, all this... it is too much. I am terrified I will wake up tomorrow and you will have moved on as I moved on from so many lovers in my past. If you leave me, I do not think I could…’ He stopped speaking as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

When she made to reach for him he stayed her hands. ‘No,’ he croaked. ‘There is more. I do not know if I will ever have the courage to say these things to you again. So I will say them now. I will finish them now.’

He lifted his head so his dark, intense eyes could meet her gaze. ‘That was why I wanted to marry you so quickly. So I could bind you to me so you would never leave. And that was selfish of me. But I did it because I love you. I love you with every breath in my body, with all of my heart and mind and soul. I have nothing but that love and my skills in the bedroom to offer you in return for loving me. It is so little. So very little...

‘So now that you know it all. I will understand if you...’ His voice faltered and he looked away out the window at the sunny, green hillside.

Pia felt awash with conflicting emotion. That she had so misunderstood what drove him because of her own insecurities was heartbreaking. How could she have known? No one had ever loved her like this before, and that he felt as unworthy as she did to be loved was unbearable. She felt the tears burning a track down each of her cheeks, threatening to overwhelm her. She choked them back.

With shaky hands she reached out and touched his glossy curls, letting her fingers comb through the strands until she was ready to face him. Then she used them to draw his face back to hers.

‘Marco, I have never felt like this. It is as if I have been numb my whole life, not just since the LGP; long before that. You have made me feel again, and it is terrifying and wonderful all at once. I love you for the man you are, and I do not think that I have reached the depths of love you inspire in me yet. The more I know you, the more I feel for you. And as for what you do not have – well, even if you had been as rich as Croesus back there in 1912, when you came here you would have lost it all. Wealth means nothing to us here.

‘What does matter is what you have given me. Love is the greatest gift a woman could ever want or need and you have given me yourself and your love. And you have given me back my soul.

‘Make love with me now, Marco. Teach me… I will trust you with my heart, and my body and my newly recovered soul if you will trust me with yours. And I will love you forever, marriage or no marriage. And for us, that is a very long time.’ She smiled through her tears at her last little joke.

Then, he was sweeping her up and raining little, desperate, choking kisses all over her face and neck. And Pia was wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in close, revelling in the sweetness, revelling in the fire burning at her core, revelling in her own overloaded senses as he took her higher and higher.

And none of what they did to each other was about skills. It was all about worshipping the other with their bodies. Giving pleasure, as they took it; wholeheartedly, blissfully and completely.

When his lips found one of her sensitised nipples and his mouth closed over it, sucked it deep, she cried out with the shock and pleasure of it.

‘Nice?’ he growled at her when he let her go, remembering her assurance that what they did together would be “nice.” But it was more than nice and he knew she knew it.

‘Ohhhhh…’ was all she could manage. Her hands were shaking as they pulled him closer, but this time it was not with fear, it was with frenzy. And when his fingers found their way into her soft, moist petals, she felt her control give way. She let go; trusting him, loving him and aching for him as he took her over the edge into that first mindless moment of ecstasy.

Then, while she was floating back to earth he was opening her body and pressing into her tight sheath. And she barely felt the twinge of pain as he broke through her maidenhead and sank home.

‘Oh, Pia...’ he breathed, his voice choked with emotion. ‘I love you so...’

And then he was moving, slowly and gently at first, as he stretched her body to accommodate his size. Then, as the fit became perfect and slick, he began to thrust into her desperately.

‘Cazzo!’ Marco cried as she began to move under him, unconsciously matching his thrusts so that their joining was deep and rhythmic.

‘Gesù Cristo!’ The low, guttural exclamation was uttered as he arched up, burying himself still deeper inside her.

His thrusts became more frenzied, pounding into her flesh in deep, hard stabs that had her gasping with heightened sensation, caught between pleasure and pain. But she didn’t want him to stop. The last thing she wanted was for him to stop. She tipped her hips up to meet his next thrust so that she felt it right to her womb. And then the reverb started, spreading out from the deepest place within her until her whole body shook with it and she spasmed, screaming, as she flew off into the abyss.

Somewhere a long way away, she heard him cry out her name and felt him convulse inside her. But that was too far away. And all she could do was feel with every cell in her body. Feel with such intensity that it left her raw and shaken as she wept in deep, gulping sobs as their bodies shuddered together and became still.

‘Dear god,’ she whispered in shock through her tears when the last of the little explosions had finished. ‘I did not know.’

‘Hmm?’ He lay against her, his skin sweaty and so hot. She loved the weight of him pressing her down into the bed, pressing into the cradle of her pelvis.

When she didn’t explain, he lifted his head. ‘Did not know what?’

She buried her head against his chest to hide from his knowing eyes.

‘Pia?’

‘That I could do that. During sex. I have never even had an orgasm before. I did not think I could.’

He grunted and then chuckled, nuzzling her neck. ‘Of course you could. Your other lover was not much good, I think.’

‘Lovers. And no, I think you are right. I never thought… well it was amazing.’

‘Yes,’ he said fiercely. ‘It was. I have never known it to be like that before, either. My skills were sadly lacking, but loving you must have made the difference. I do not know.’

She looked up and grinned with delight. ‘It was good for you too?’

With an exasperated grunt he nipped at her shoulder. ‘Not good, better than good. Better than great. You, my darling girl, were amazing, sí?’

‘Sí.’ A little bud of pride began to open inside her. She was amazing. The man who had known so many other lovers thought she was amazing. And it felt like the truth because she felt amazing. She felt beautiful and sexy and special. And it was all because of this incredible man she had found on a sinking ship.

‘I do love you, my husband. More than you can possibly know.’

‘Oh, I do know, now. I still feel… like an idiota for thinking you would simply take Paulo in my place, or worse, that you might have died waiting for me to return.’ He shuddered and buried his head in the crook of her shoulder kissing her there over and over as if to make up for his mistake.

‘No one has ever loved you enough, I think.’ She smiled and