‘Don’t go,’ she croaked before he could slam that door too.
He stilled, his fingers clasped on the handle, his cold back to her. ‘Why not?’
‘Please... Can’t we just...talk?’
He slowly faced her. Deep suspicion was etched on his face. ‘You want to talk?’
She nodded and bit her lip.
‘Talk about what?’
Oh, God, how could she find the words to explain herself when she’d never found them before? Alessio was such a rampantly sexy man, he would never understand why this was such a big deal to her. She’d never realised what a big deal it was either.
‘Why don’t you start with telling me why you’ve been giving me come-to-bed eyes since we met and now that we are here, on our wedding night, you reject me.’
‘I didn’t...’
His laugh was short and bitter. ‘Not in words. You didn’t need words. Your body spoke for you. What did you think? That you had to give yourself to me? Did you think I would annul our marriage if it wasn’t consummated?’
She shook her head while red-hot flames engulfed her face and burned through her brain.
‘Trust me, bella, I would rather live like a monk than have sex with an unwilling woman.’
‘I’m not unwilling. I’m... It’s just...’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘It’s just... I’ve never done this before.’
There was a long pause. ‘Done what?’
‘This. Sex.’
Alessio stared at Beth, her knees drawn to her chest, her face hidden by her hands, disbelief rising in him. ‘You’re a virgin?’
The silence that carried through the bedroom was the starkest he had ever known.
It took an age before she pulled her hands from her face to meet his eyes.
If he’d thought she was lying, the bleakness of her stare spoke the truth.
She nodded.
‘How?’
Her shoulders hunched even further.
Legs suddenly feeling like weights had been placed in them, he stepped to the bed and carefully sat beside her, being sure to keep his feet on the floor.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘I have no idea what you’re apologising for,’ he said heavily.
‘This. Here. Tonight. It isn’t that I don’t want you...’ Her voice trailed off before she whispered, ‘I got scared.’
‘Of me?’
‘I haven’t kissed a man since I was eighteen and that’s the furthest I’ve gone.’
The weight in his legs moved up to lodge in his chest and he raised his head to stare at the ceiling. Nothing but a kiss since she was eighteen?
‘No wonder you got scared,’ he muttered.
What had stopped her? Beth was beautiful. She would have had an army of men beating down her door.
He felt her eyes on him. ‘I panicked. I know you’ve been with lots of women before but I’ve never been naked in front of anyone.’
‘Beth...’ Alessio rubbed his hair and tried to gather his scattered thoughts. ‘I wish you’d told me.’
‘I should have done but I didn’t know how.’ Her voice dropped even lower. ‘The only time we’ve spent alone together since you brought me here was last night on the bridge when you told me you’d had other women lined up to marry.’
He turned his head to meet her forlorn gaze. His heart made a painful thump against his ribs.
He remembered reading the investigator’s report on her and the relief that had swept through him to read the words that there was no evidence Beth had a current lover.
He would never have guessed the bright, confident woman who had shone in that first meeting had never had any lover.
He imagined his nonchalance about other women had only added to her insecurity and could have kicked himself for telling her about them.
Beth was not of his world. She had yet to learn how to see things from a Palvetti perspective or learn to detach her emotions. He’d brought her into this world. It was down to him to teach her.
‘You know the reasons why I chose you to marry.’ He rested a hand against her cheek and stroked it gently. ‘Those reasons haven’t changed and nor have my thoughts. I have never wanted a woman the way I want you. Those other women...they were just thoughts. I never pursued them and never desired them. But you... I would have wanted you even if I hadn’t been planning to marry you.’
Her chest rose. The colour that stained her face was a lighter hue than the mortification that had been rent across it a few minutes earlier.
He pressed his lips to her and breathed her in, then nuzzled his nose against her cheek, capturing that scent of marshmallow again. ‘You’re my wife. I married you for life. There’s no pressure, bella. I can wait. We will not make love until you’re ready.’
She stared at him for the longest time before whispering, ‘I am ready.’
He brushed another gentle kiss to her then pulled away, knowing to keep touching her was dangerous. ‘No, you’re not. You don’t owe me sex.’
Beth thought her heart could burst.
Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined Alessio Palvetti could be so selfless. And understanding.
The fear that had clawed at her melted away.
Now she was the one to reach for him, placing her hands on his cheeks and forcing him to look at her. It was the first time she had touched him and she marvelled at the texture of his skin, the same yet somehow different from hers. The bristles of his stubble rubbed against her hand.
Staring deep into his eyes, she said quietly, ‘I do want you, Alessio. The things you make me feel when you touch me are like nothing I’ve felt before.’
She spoke only the truth. She did want him. She’d wanted him from the first moment she’d set eyes on him.
That dream she’d had of them together had set something off in her and suddenly she knew she wanted to feel what she’d felt then for real.
No more waiting. No more sick fear.
Heart hammering, she brushed her lips lightly to his.
He reared back and grabbed at the hands holding his cheeks. ‘Beth...’ Her name came out as groan.
She pressed the tips of her fingers to his cheeks. ‘Everything you made me feel was so new and...so much that I panicked. I don’t want to be scared any more. I don’t want to wait.’
He breathed heavily, his jaw taut.
She could see the anguish of his internal battle in his eyes and her heart expanded all the more for it.
‘I made this commitment to you, Alessio. I want our wedding night.’
There was a long moment when neither of them spoke, when his eyes did nothing but bore into hers, as if he were trying to read her thoughts.
And then the tightness of his jaw loosened and his mouth closed on hers in a kiss of such tenderness she could have cried. His hand touched her shoulder, gently moved across her back and then up to cradle her head.
And then he splayed his fingers in her hair and parted her lips with his.
Everything inside her bloomed.
Beth closed her eyes and sank into it, letting her senses run free to savour the dark heat of his breath and the firmness of the lips that had taken control and were manipulating hers. Every nerve ending tingled.
When she felt the first dart of his tongue against hers, a bolt of sensation crashed through her.
But there was no accompanying panic.
He kissed her for an age in a slow, deep, sensual fusion, then slowly laid her down.
‘Any time you want me to stop, tell me.’
She stared into the emerald eyes, hooded and dark, her heart thumping too hard and too near her throat for words to form.
All she could do was touch his face.
Her breath quickened.
When he brought his head down to c
laim her in another deep kiss, the warmth that flooded through her had her looping her arms around his neck and lifting her chest to press against his.
She could have cried when he pulled away and stepped off the bed, but the tears would only have turned into gasps, for he hooked his hands on his jeans and pushed them down.
He was already fully aroused. It was a sight that filled her with thick warmth and made her pelvis tighten and pulse.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from him, the man who had deceived her and blackmailed her into a marriage and a life she didn’t want, yet who had awoken something feminine and primitive in her. A man who, she was learning, was capable of empathy and tenderness.
Domenico had been wrong about him, she thought dimly as she watched Alessio kick his jeans away, but then the rest of her thoughts slipped away as he lay back down on his side beside her.
She put her hand to his jaw and rubbed her palm against the stubble. There was something about the way the bristles felt against her skin...
He skimmed a hand across her chest to the one closed button. He undid it then, like the last time, parted the shirt, first one side, then the other.
Her fingers clutched at his cheek and she inhaled deeply through her nose, keeping her eyes on his, taking strength from the desire swirling back at her.
Her nightshirt was slowly peeled off her body and discarded, then new heated sensation danced over her skin as he ran his hand between her cleavage and over her stomach to rest on the band of her knickers.
Beth swallowed back the automatic panic rising up her throat and slowly raised her abdomen, lifting her bottom from the mattress so he could tug her knickers down.
His eyes still didn’t leave her face, not even when he pulled the knickers over her feet and threw them onto the floor.
Not until he’d kissed her again and laced his fingers through hers did his eyes move from her face to drift over her body.
She was certain he must be able to see her heart beating like a giant hummingbird’s wings beneath her chest.
Alessio took in every inch of Beth’s beautiful body with that one long look.
There was not one inch of her that didn’t make his loins sing and tighten way past the point he’d ever considered endurable.
The times he’d imagined this moment...
He’d imagined himself devouring her whole.
He’d imagined a tangle of limbs and a frenzy of urgency.
He’d never imagined she was a virgin.
But he would have guessed at her inexperience, he thought thickly, seeing the way she subconsciously pressed her thighs together when he cast his gaze over her soft, downy womanhood and the colour that crept over her face when he looked back into her eyes.
There was a shyness in her returning stare but no fear.
That she would trust him of all people with this, the most precious gift a woman could give a man...
It made his heart swell so hard that, without his ribs to contain it, it would have burst out of him.
He placed a hand flat on her shoulder then slowly drew it down her. Her throat moved and he felt her body quiver. When he reached her breasts, her fingers squeezed against his and her breaths shortened.
His breath shortened too.
He’d never in his whole life been as aware of his arousal as he was then. It was more than a mere concentration in his loins. It lived in him. It breathed through his skin, lifting all the hairs on his body, and tingled on the pads of the palm and fingers exploring her beautiful body.
She nestled her face closer to his, her shining eyes staring straight into his.
He drew his hand lower, over her belly then down to her hips and thighs, watching her expressive eyes’ responses to his touches.
And then he drew it all the way back up to capture her chin and bring his face down for another kiss.
Her response was full of such passion and hunger that if he hadn’t such a tight handle on his own raging arousal he would have rolled on top of her, spread her legs and thrust straight into her.
Instead, he kept his ardour in check and explored her body anew, this time with his mouth as well as his fingers.
Dio, her golden skin had that same marshmallow scent of her hair.
When he closed his mouth over a puckered cherry nipple, she writhed beneath him and moaned.
The taste of her skin was its own aphrodisiac.
As he moved lower, kissing every part of her belly, he marvelled at the soft yet jagged moans and the hands that followed his movements so she was always touching him...and then he tasted the musky, heated scent of her excitement...
Beth was floating on a cloud.
It felt as if Alessio had shrouded her in a cocoon of bliss, her body awakening to new pleasures that sent her senses soaring.
His touch...
When he’d kissed her right in the heart of her own swollen arousal...
His tenderness had stopped any shyness she would have expected to feel at this most intimate experience and she closed her eyes and melted into it.
The pulse that had throbbed low inside her since he had brushed his lips against hers for the first time had grown. The feeling she was on the crest of something magical thrummed through her like a low buzz dancing through her cells.
But, just as she found herself reaching the peak of the crest she was climbing, he moved his mouth away.
The disappointment was fleeting.
He kissed his way back up in another sensory explosion before finding her mouth. His chest crushed against the hyper-sensitive skin of her breasts as their tongues tangled together and a new taste played on her senses...
That was her taste, mingled with the dark taste of Alessio, and when she wrapped her arms around his neck she became aware of even more: the musky heat of his skin...the feel of his skin, warmth flushing and pulsing in her pelvis, and...
A heavy weight pressed against the top of her inner thigh that she realised with a thud of her heart was the weight of his arousal.
He pulled his mouth away and raised his head to look down at her.
The hunger she’d felt in his touch and kisses reflected in the swirling emerald.
His next kiss was almost chaste.
He shifted, only a touch, but enough to part her thighs a little more and for his arousal to...
She swallowed, suddenly frightened of the thick, heavy weight pushing against her.
As if he sensed her fear, Alessio placed his hands either side of her head and gently stroked his fingers through her hair. His mouth found hers again, a long, lingering brush of his lips on hers.
The fear left as suddenly as it had arrived and she tightened her hold around him.
His hips moved and the weight pushing against her increased.
His mouth moved to rain kisses over her cheeks.
His arousal pushed in a little further.
‘I’ve got you, bella,’ he whispered into her ear.
Slowly, gently, he rocked into her, bit by bit, inch by inch, kissing her and stroking her, relaxing her into his love-making so thoroughly that by the time he was fully inside her she opened her eyes with astonishment at the incredible feelings suddenly filling her.
He filled her.
Dear God, Alessio was inside her, a part of her, and...
Staring straight back at her.
Eyes locked on hers, he began to move.
Sensation she could never have imagined whirled into life.
He made love to her with a tenderness she could never have imagined. She knew he was holding back, that all of this was for her virgin pleasure, and her heart bloomed all over again for him.
The cocoon of bliss shrouded her again and lifted her back to the clouds. She clung to Alessio, taking him with her as she soared high, climbing the crest, higher and higher until s
he found herself flying into a world of bright lights and stardust as the pleasure finally found its peak and erupted through her.
It took a long time for her to drift back to earth and when she did she found herself on another cloud.
If she climbed off this bed now she wouldn’t be surprised to find only air beneath her feet.
CHAPTER NINE
ALESSIO WAS SLUMPED on top of her, breathing heavily into her neck, his skin damp with perspiration.
She kissed his ear.
He mumbled something and raised his head.
Beth read the question in his eyes and, with a smile, palmed his cheek.
He kissed her gently then rolled off her onto his back.
The sudden chill on her skin at the removal of his heat made her shiver but before she could feel the cold too much he tugged at the sheets and brought them up to cover them both. She turned on her side to face him.
Alessio reached out to turn the light off.
The instant darkness was welcome.
He felt exposed in a way he’d never experienced before.
He’d been so intent on making sure it was good for Beth that it wasn’t until now, that it was over, that he could appreciate how mind-blowing it had been for him.
He could still feel the thrills of his release in his loins, on his skin and in the thuds of his heart. There was a weight in his limbs but for once there was no immediate lethargy in his brain.
What he had felt in her arms...it had been more than physical. It had been something else. It was this unidentifiable something else that must account for the feeling of exposure.
But, however out of kilter and exposed he felt, he could not feel as exposed as Beth must.
He shifted onto his side to face her. His vision had adjusted enough to the darkness to see her eyes were open and on him.
He captured a lock of her silky hair. ‘Did I hurt you?’
The tip of her nose rubbed against his. ‘No.’
‘Any regrets?’
‘None. If anything, I feel relief.’
‘Relief?’
Beth thought of what she should say to explain what she was feeling without making herself sound weak.
She’d seen enough of the world to know men thought of sex differently from women.
A Cinderella To Secure His Heir (Cinderella Seductions Book 1) Page 9