Prince's Virgin In Venice

by Trish Morey

  Like a rubber band stretched too far, she snapped. ‘Why did you ask me to come with you tonight?’

  Slowly, almost as slowly as the boat they were travelling on, he turned his head towards her. His expression told her nothing and his face was a mask of stone.

  ‘Because you were lost and alone. Because I thought I could help.’

  She scoffed. ‘I think we both know that’s not true, Vittorio. I don’t want that line you spun me about chivalry and concern for my happiness and well-being and not wanting me to miss out on the last night of Carnevale. I want the real reason.’

  He was silent for a few seconds, but Rosa wasn’t going to give him time to make something else up.

  She gathered the strength to ask the question that had been plaguing her ever since that woman dressed as Cleopatra had burst onto the scene. ‘Who is Sirena to you?’ she demanded. ‘What claim does she hold over you?’

  ‘None. Sirena is nothing to me.’

  Rosa gave a very unladylike snort, and if it made her sound like the country girl she was, instead of some pampered city girl with polished manners, she didn’t give a damn. ‘You expect me to believe that when I witnessed her draped all over you like a limpet.’

  ‘That meant nothing,’ he said. ‘Whatever Sirena likes to think.’

  She shook her head. ‘She thinks you’re going to marry her!’

  He looked shocked.

  ‘I was there,’ she said. ‘I heard what she said.’

  He took a deep breath and sighed, long and hard. ‘My father wants me married. It would suit him if I married his friend’s daughter. That is all.’

  ‘That’s all?’ She laughed into the mist, her breath turning to fog. ‘What I don’t understand is why I had to get dragged into your mess. Did you know she’d be at the ball tonight?’

  ‘I’d had word.’

  Finally something that made sense. She gave a long sigh of her own. ‘So there we have it,’ she said, nodding her head as she looked out into the mist and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. ‘You invited me to come with you to make her jealous.’

  ‘No! It was never to make her jealous.’

  ‘Then what? To run interference? To make a point? Was it sport you had in mind? Is that what asking me to go with you was all about?’

  He said nothing—which told her everything she needed to know.

  She heard his deep breath in, felt him shift as he ran his hand through his untamed hair.

  ‘You were lost.’

  ‘One of your strays?’

  He sniffed. ‘Maybe. And I thought I could help you—and you could help me—at the same time.’

  She shook her head ‘Bottom line, Vittorio, you used me.’ Even as she said the words tiny tears squeezed from her eyes. She’d had such high hopes for this night. He’d made her think all kinds of things. That she mattered. That he cared. That she wanted...

  ‘Rosa...’

  ‘No,’ she said, turning further away, because he didn’t care, and the disappointment of the evening was weighing heavily down on her, crushing her.

  ‘Rosa.’ His hands were on her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘And that’s supposed to make it better? That’s supposed to make it all right?’

  She hated it that her voice sounded so quaky, that she sounded so needy, when she’d thought that growing up with three brothers had toughened her up for anything. She hated it that she could feel the warm puff of his breath on her hair. She hated it that his hands were on her shoulders and it wasn’t enough. She hated herself because she wanted more.

  ‘No, it’s not all right. I hurt you.’

  She sniffed as he turned her with his big hands, but she didn’t resist. Didn’t resist when he drew her against his body and wrapped his arms around her. Didn’t object when she felt him dip his head and kiss her hair.

  ‘Can you forgive me?’

  It felt so warm, being cradled against his big body. So firm. So hard. And the drumbeat of his heart added another note to the lullaby chugging of the engine, made the movement of the boat beneath their feet like the rocking of a cradle.

  ‘I’m sorry that I hurt you,’ he said. ‘I knew Sirena would be angry. The only reason I said I should never have invited you was because I’d anticipated Sirena’s reaction. I knew she’d be furious and she didn’t disappoint. To subject you to that was unthinkable. You didn’t deserve that.’

  She should pull away. Her tears had passed and she should put distance between them, she knew. He’d treated her shamefully and she should want nothing more to do with him, apology or no. Why should she forgive him?

  But she remembered the way he’d looked at her during the entertainment. She remembered the warmth of his hand, that shared moment when it had seemed the world was made of magic. His body felt so good next to hers. So very warm. And that was a kind of magic too. Was it wrong to want the magic to last just a little bit longer?

  He stroked her back and she felt the crushing disappointment of the evening ebb slowly away. ‘It was a good party,’ she said. It was a concession of sorts. Because it had been an experience. She had so much to tell Chiara in the morning. ‘I enjoyed it. Most of it.’

  He squeezed his arms and she felt the press of his lips to her hair again, and she knew she wasn’t drawing away from him any time soon.

  ‘That’s good. I’m sorry that Sirena had to spoil it for you.’ A moment later he added, ‘No, I’m sorry I had to spoil it for you.’

  Rosa thought about how the woman had looked in her costume, her limbs so long, her skin so smooth and perfect. The woman had made Rosa feel so ordinary. So drab and inconsequential. The woman would have made the real Cleopatra feel inconsequential.

  ‘She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?’

  He sighed and placed his chin on her head. ‘Beauty is an empty vessel,’ he said, his deep voice a bare whisper over the chug of the motor. ‘It needs something to fill it. Something meaningful and worthwhile to flesh it out and make it whole.’

  She was struck by his whispered words. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘Something my mother once said.’

  ‘She sounds very wise.’

  ‘She could be, at times.’ A pause. A sigh. ‘She’s dead now.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thank you, but it’s not your fault.’

  ‘I understand. But my mother is gone too. She was diagnosed with leukaemia. She died three years ago. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about her...that I don’t miss her.’

  He shook his head. ‘And now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry, and your turn to say it’s not my fault.’

  She laughed a little at his words, then stopped. The sound was so unexpected when her thoughts had been tuned to disappointment. ‘The language of death. It’s so complicated.’

  He loosened one arm and lifted his hand to her face, touching her gently with the knuckle of one finger. He was so gentle that she barely felt the brush of his skin against hers, and yet his touch sent bone-deep tremors through her. Made her want to lean into his hand.

  Then he took her chin and lifted her face to his. ‘Maybe instead we should talk the language of the living.’

  Her breath hitched in her throat. His hand was warm against her skin, his face filling her vision. She swallowed. ‘I think I’d prefer that.’

  His eyes were dark blue against the foggy night and the force of them pulled her towards him.

  Or maybe it was just the motion of the boat drawing their faces together. Or perhaps the fog muted every word, rendering every breath more intimate than it would otherwise have been. Because suddenly his mouth was hovering mere millimetres over hers, then even closer, his warm breath mingling with her pale puffs of air, and then his lips met hers and her world tilted on its axis.

  He had soft lips. In
a face that looked as if it had been chiselled from stone she hadn’t expected that. Nor tenderness, surprising in its sweetness. But there was warmth and heat and the feel of his long-fingered hands through her hair. The combination was lethal.

  Time stood still. The chugging of the engine disappeared under the whump-whump of her own heartbeat in her ears. The world was reduced to this boat, to this one man and one woman and the magic swirling like the fog around them. She sighed into him, melting as his mouth moved over hers, parting her lips so that she could taste him, and his kiss deepened, his tongue tracing the line of her teeth, duelling with hers.

  He tasted of coffee and liqueur, leather and man, and underneath was another layer which was heat and strength and desire, and she wanted more.

  This was a kiss—not a mere peck on the cheek like he’d given her earlier. This was a kiss that spun her senses out of control, a kiss that melted her bones and short-circuited her brain.

  When finally they drew apart her knees were trembling and her breathing was ragged, as though she’d run a sprint.

  ‘Rosa...’ he whispered in her hair. His breathing was coming fast too, and she could see that he had also been affected by their kiss. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You’re sorry that you kissed me?’

  He made a sound, like a laugh. ‘Oh, no. I’m not sorry for that. Not sorry at all.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she said, still clinging to him, afraid that if she let go he might take his arms away and her legs wouldn’t have the strength to hold her up. ‘I think...’ she started. ‘I think that I forgive you.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘But only on one condition.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Only if you kiss me again.’

  He growled.

  To Rosa it sounded like a cry of triumph, of victory, as he swept her up in his arms and twirled her around so that her feet left the deck. At any other time she would have been fearful of falling out of the vessel, but not now. With Vittorio’s strong arms around her she felt that nothing could go wrong. And when he put her down his big hands were cupping her face.

  ‘I dreamed about this,’ he said.

  She was breathless all over again. ‘You dreamed about kissing me?’

  ‘More. I dreamed about spending the rest of the night with you.’

  She gasped. There was no way she could prevent it. It was as involuntary as the flip of her stomach and the sudden clench of muscles between her thighs she’d never realised existed.

  ‘But that’s up to you. Let’s see about my earning your forgiveness first.’

  His mouth descended once more. She felt the tickle of his falling hair around her face, the graze of his whiskered cheeks and the exquisite, unexpected softness of his lips as his mouth met hers.

  He took it slowly. He nibbled and suckled at her lips, teased her tongue with his and beckoned hers into the heated cavern of his mouth; he reassured the rest of her body that it wasn’t missing out by sending his hands underneath the cloaks and sweeping them in arcs from her shoulders to the curve of her behind, and if forgiveness could truly be earned in a kiss he was earning a lifetime’s worth.

  But the kiss didn’t end there. He changed gear, ratcheting up from gentle and considerate to plundering. Demanding. And she gave herself up to passion and to a heat such as she’d never known. She was burning up from the inside out.

  Tiny details assumed major status. The precise angle of his mouth over hers, the puff of his breath on her cheek, the creak of leather as his arms moved around her. Tiny things, insignificant in themselves, and yet all part of something major, something momentous. Her breasts were straining tight inside her bodice, her nipples ached, and all she knew, with the tiny part of her brain that was still functioning, was that she never wanted these feelings to end.

  Was it magic? Or merely lust?

  She didn’t care.

  What did it matter when it felt this good?

  By the time his head drew back she was lost to it. They could have fallen into the dark and frigid waters of the canal and she would have noticed nothing—not even the steam that would have come from their union.

  ‘Make love to me, Rosa.’ His breathing was rushed and ragged, his voice no more than a rasp on the night air. ‘Spend the night with me.’

  A spike of fear made its presence known—an age-old fear that she’d carried with her all her womanly life—and despite her earlier fantasies about the magic of the night that fear reared its head.

  Sure, she wasn’t completely naïve. She knew how things were supposed to work. But what did she really know of the intimacy of the bedroom? What if she couldn’t? What if she did something wrong? What if it hurt? What if she made a fool of herself?

  But those fears were no match for the arousal that spiralled up from within and surrounded her. Like a suit of armour, it protected her from her fears. There were still curling tendrils of doubt, but they were all but blunted, making room for anticipation and heady excitement, because this night would be a night like no other.

  And somehow she knew she couldn’t be in better hands.

  She sucked in a breath while he waited for her answer, needing the cold night air to cool her while it could. ‘I’d like that,’ she said, and he gave a low growl of approval in his throat.

  He took a moment to yell instructions to the driver and she had a sense of the boat changing direction as he turned her face up to his for another kiss.

  Maybe it was just lust, Rosa thought as he pulled her against his mouth.

  But there was magic happening tonight too.

  Pure magic.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FROM THE FIRST moment their eyes had met Rosa had recognised that there was something about this man, something magnetic that had drawn her towards him, something commanding. But something that scared her, too. There was an edge to him, as though if she ventured too close she might fall.

  And yet she’d agreed to spend the night with him.

  But now, stepping from the deck of the motorboat and into a building, she felt a further sense of unease. Because it wasn’t any ordinary building.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked as he led her by the hand towards a flight of stairs. It was not a hotel, as she’d been expecting. And it was no humble apartment. ‘Is this your home?’

  ‘What? Here in Venice? No,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s a private residence. I just get to stay here occasionally.’

  He shrugged, as if having access in any capacity to a palazzo on the Grand Canal was nothing special.

  Rosa looked around. Maybe this palazzo didn’t quite rival Marcello’s in grandeur, but it was still very definitely a palazzo, and it was filled with treasures of Murano glass, sculptures, chandeliers and gilt everything.

  ‘So where do you live?’ she asked, her heels tapping on the marble staircase.

  ‘North of here. Near the border with Slovenia.’

  ‘Near Trieste?’

  He turned to her and smiled. ‘Do you always ask this many questions when you’re nervous.’

  ‘I’m not nervous,’ she lied on a lilting laugh.

  But a few moments later he opened the door to a bedroom and her heart all but jumped out of her chest with nerves.

  He dimmed the lights, but there was no dimming the vision that met her eyes, because across the room was a wide bed—impossibly wide. She swallowed. There was only one place this could end, and she wanted it, but still...

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’ he offered, already stripping away her armour of cloaks, peeling away her courage at the same time. ‘Prosecco or another spritz?’

  She shook her head. She didn’t need more alcohol, or anything with bubbles. There was already too much fizzing going on in her blood.

  ‘Then water.’

  He pulled a bottle of water f
rom a cabinet and poured them both a glass. She accepted it, more to give herself something to do with her hands rather than because her throat was suddenly desert-dry.

  She was still contemplating that bed. She knew what the act entailed, but why was there no guidebook for the prelude? Dio, she really hoped she didn’t mess this up.

  She heard the soft tap of his glass being put down on a cabinet behind her, and then a sound that could only be the unbuckling of his leather trousers and a long zipper being undone. She clutched her glass with both hands.

  Help!

  ‘Rosa...’ he said as he gently took her arm and turned her towards him.

  He was bare-chested, dressed only in the leather of his costume pants. Her hungry eyes could not help but drink in the muscular perfection of his shoulders, his chest and his sculpted abdomen. She’d thought him perfect wrapped in leather of blue and gold, but now, dressed only in a pair of leather trousers slung low over his hips, he looked even more magnificent.

  Breathtaking. Heart stopping.

  Terrifying.

  He smiled, then eased the glass from her tangled fingers and put it aside. ‘Now,’ he said, as he put his hands to her neck and eased her hair back over her shoulders. ‘Where were we?’

  Her mind was a blank. She had no idea what he was talking about, let alone how to answer.

  But his warm hands answered his question for her, meeting at the nape of her neck and drawing her closer to him. Closer to his intense blue eyes. Closer to his parted, waiting lips.

  She felt the heat of his mouth, the warmth of his hands at the back of her head, holding her to him. She felt the heat of his body even before he drew her still closer and her breasts met the hard wall of his chest as he deepened the kiss.

  Her breasts ached for release. Her nipples were pressing hard against a suddenly too tight bodice as her blood swirled drunkenly around her veins. Her legs felt boneless and she had to put her hands to his chest to steady herself. But once they were there steadying herself against his body was the lesser priority. She needed to feel him, to drink in the texture of his sculpted body, to see if he felt as good as he looked.

  And he did. He was magnificent, his body a landscape of contrasts. Hard muscles. Smooth skin. Wiry tangle of chest hair. Firm nub of nipples. But the realisation only ramped up both her desire and her nervousness.