Prince's Virgin In Venice

by Trish Morey

  ‘You’re trembling...’ He breathed rather than said the words as his lips worked the soft folds and ridges of her ears, his breath fanning like a musical breeze against her skin. ‘Are you cold?’

  Anything but. She was alight with fire, flames were burning her up from within, breathing life into the coals that already glowed hot deep down in the pit of her belly.

  ‘No...’ she whispered on a gasp of oxygen, and that tiny, one-syllable word was all she was capable of before his mouth once against captured hers and she was sucked back into the vortex of his kiss.

  Was it possible to spin any more out of control?

  Yes, she realised when she felt his fingers tug on the pull of her zip. Clever fingers to find such a well-disguised invisible zip, but even the knowledge that he was a man used to finding his way into women’s clothing couldn’t stop another rushing tide of heat as her dress loosened around her and threatened to fall away.

  And, then like the burst of cool air that swirled into the exposed space at her back, a surge of panic saw her hands fold over her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra and there would be nothing between them...

  It was too late, and she realised how unsophisticated it must make her look, but all she could do was clutch her dress to her all the harder.

  ‘So shy,’ he said with a smile. ‘Anyone would think...’

  She turned her head away, but not before he’d seen the truth she tried to hide skittering across her eyes and the heated blush flooding her skin.

  ‘No...’ he said, and when she dared look back she saw disbelief mixed with something that looked like horror in his eyes. ‘But you can’t be a virgin. How old are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wanting to run away. ‘I didn’t realise virginity came with a use-by date.’

  * * *

  He let her go and stepped away. Ran a hand through his hair. A virgin! Why the hell hadn’t he picked up on it? She’d been like a startled doe trapped in the headlights from the start—flighty and nervous and blushing like a schoolgirl. And desperate to point out that she was no courtesan. All the clues had been there and yet he’d been too blind to see what had been staring him in the face.

  He turned and she was still standing there, holding her dress to her breasts like a shield. ‘Rosa,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you tell me? You should have told me.’

  ‘When should I have done that, exactly? When you found me lost in the square and you asked my name? Or when you were kissing me on the motorboat and asked me to make love to you? When would have been the best time to slip my lack of sexual expertise casually into the conversation?’

  She had a point. But a virgin?

  He shook his head. Virgins were trouble. They had expectations. It wasn’t a sacrifice most made lightly—parting with the known and the safe for the unknown. They took the act of love as an act of sharing and a promise of commitment. They had hopes and dreams he had no way of fulfilling.

  ‘Look—’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said cutting him off. ‘You asked me to spend the night with you.’ The end of her tongue found her lips. ‘I said yes. So why should this make a difference?’

  ‘It’s your first time,’ he replied. ‘You don’t want to waste it on a one-night stand. And that’s all it will be, Rosa. That’s all it can ever be—one night. I can’t offer you any more than that.’

  ‘I just want to finish what you started. I don’t want any more than that.’

  No? That was what they all said, and then afterwards would come the tears.

  ‘Rosa—’

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I really want to. I’m just a bit nervous, that’s all.’

  She took a deep breath, then took her hands away from her dress and let it crumple to the floor, standing naked before him but for her panties.

  Breath hissed through his teeth. Dio, but she was beautiful. Curvy, with dark-tipped breasts and a narrow waist that begged a man to run his hands down the sides, to drink them in, to feel for himself the exquisite flare of her hips.

  An erection he thought had been banished by her revelation kicked back into life with a vengeance.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked, taking a step closer. Because she needed to be certain.

  ‘I’m sure,’ she said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Oh, Rosa,’ he said as he swung her into his arms, ‘Your first time—all I want you to do is feel and enjoy.’

  He laid her on the bed and sat beside her, held her face in his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth.

  * * *

  She was so nervous, her skin alive to sensation and his every touch like a brand, but he stilled her with his kiss. Soothed her.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said, as if he could see inside her.

  She smiled tremulously up at him and he kissed her again before dipping his mouth lower, kissing her throat, her collarbones, her shoulders, then kissing first one peaked nipple and then the other.

  ‘So beautiful,’ he said, and returned to her mouth, his kiss deeper, giving and taking more.

  Her hands moved of their own volition, wanting to feel, to explore. His muscles bunched and shifted under her hands, and every touch, every texture, fed into her need, adding to the mix bubbling in the cauldron inside her.

  She’d thought it would be quick, that it would be over soon. But he took his time exploring her body with his hot mouth and his clever fingers, until every nerve-ending in her body felt as if it was about to explode. When he drew down her underwear and touched a hand to her mound, one finger sliding between her slick folds, she almost did. Then and only then he stood and peeled down his leather trousers.

  His erection sprang free and she gasped, feeling a momentary spike of panic. He was too big...there was no way... But then he was back, kissing her, and she could feel him hard against her belly, and she knew she wanted him inside her—whatever it took.

  Still he didn’t rush. Her body was burning up with need. She was panting with it, desperate, searching for relief, when he reached for a packet on the bedside table. He ripped it open and knelt above her, sliding protection down his long length. So long...

  And then he was there, nudging at her entrance and sending those acutely sensitive nerve-endings into a frenzy. He kissed her deeply, opening her to him, his tongue plundering as he raised one of her legs over his hip and plunged into her.

  Stars exploded behind her eyes. Stars that sent shimmering fragments whirling around the delicious feeling of fullness at her core.

  He held himself still, his words coming in heady gasps. ‘Are you all right?’

  She remembered how to breathe, drawing in a ragged breath. ‘I’m good,’ she managed.

  He started to move, to withdraw, and she missed him already. Newly found muscles clamped down, trying to hold on to him, and just when she thought he was lost to her he was back, and she was better than good.

  He picked up the rhythm and in the friction he generated she found her stars again, this time strewn on the surface of the sea, wave after wave of shimmering sensation building inside her with every thrust. She was tossed higher and higher, faster and faster, until with one final plunge the star-filled waves crashed over her and washed her bonelessly to the shore.

  She came back from the delicious place he’d sent her to slowly. Reluctantly. She wondered why the world in front of her eyes seemed so much the same as it had been before when everything had irrevocably shifted.

  She’d expected to feel different. Regretful. Maybe even a little sad.

  Instead, she felt...good.

  Vittorio lay breathing hard next to her, his body hot, his skin slick with sweat. He lifted his head and kissed her cheek. ‘Did I hurt you? Are you okay?’

  She smiled and shook her head. There’d been a momentary flash of pain, but it had been los
t in a shower storm of stars.

  She kissed him back. ‘Thank you. That was nice.’

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘Nice?’ he growled as he rolled out of bed to pad to the bathroom.

  She grinned and scooted up the bed, slipping under the covers to hide her naked body. It was insane, after what they’d just done, but with him gone she felt exposed again.

  ‘Very nice?’

  She heard him chuckle and then he returned, sliding into the bed alongside her.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, unsure of the protocol. ‘Should I go home now?’

  ‘I promised you one night,’ he said, settling her into the crook of his shoulder so he could dip his head to kiss her again. ‘We might as well make the most of it.’

  * * *

  It was later, much later, and Vittorio’s body was humming its way down from another crescendo. Rosa’s fingernails were idly stroking his chest, and she asked, ‘What happened to the kitten you rescued?’

  He’d been so lulled by the rhythmic strokes of her fingernails, making swirls in the hair on his chest, that he almost missed the question.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The one you pulled from the bag in the stream.’

  ‘You heard that?’

  ‘I was nearly at the stairs when I saw Sirena was talking to you and Marcello. What happened to it? Did you keep it?’

  ‘I took it to the housekeeper.’

  He thought back. There would have been no point taking it to his father. His father would have told him that he was his mother’s son and therefore weak—too weak to be the heir to the throne.

  ‘My father would have told me to show some backbone for once in my life and throw the wretched thing back where I’d found it.’

  But Maria had cried when she’d heard his story and she’d taken it and cuddled it before setting about finding it some bread to soak in milk.

  ‘She kept it in the kitchen to keep down the mice.’

  The thick medieval castle walls had shifted so often over the centuries, and been renovated so many times, it was impossible to plug all the tiny hidey holes. He’d often arrived in the kitchen to find Maria breathless as she chased after another mouse with her straw broom across the flagstones.

  ‘You had your own housekeeper?’

  ‘Que?’ Too late he realised he’d almost given too much away, but this woman had a way of breaking down his defences. Of disarming him. ‘Oh. After my mother died...’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, filling in the blanks as she understood them, relieving him of the need to finish while the circles of her fingers grew larger, sweeping lower over his abs. ‘Somebody had to look after you both.’

  ‘Somebody had to,’ he agreed, lulled by the caress of her nails on his skin.

  Maria had looked after them, along with a castello full of staff and courtiers and advisers. For a moment he felt guilty that he couldn’t tell her, and that once again he was keeping secrets from her. But it wouldn’t be the same if she knew. It would change things. It always did. It was better to leave it the way she understood it to be—that he was a friend of someone whose family had once been something important in Venice.

  ‘Your father sounds very controlling. I mean, not just the kitten, but expecting you to marry who he chooses.’

  He gave a low snort. ‘That’s one word for it. But I’ve been married. It ended badly.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said, and she chuckled as both of them remembered their earlier conversation.

  ‘Some families are like that, though, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘Expecting to stage-manage their children’s lives, maybe even wanting them to live the life they couldn’t.’

  He nodded, feeling the caress of her fingertips like a balm to his soul. ‘What about your family, Rosa?’ He smiled apologetically. ‘Your papà, I mean. What’s he like?’

  ‘Wonderful. He’s the one who urged me to leave home and find work somewhere else. I was happy at home—it was nice taking care of the house for everyone after Mamma died—but one by one my brothers married and left home, and eventually there was just my papà and me. He told me that if I didn’t leave home and the village I’d never see anything of the world, and I’d be stuck looking after him when he got old.’

  Her hand stopped and her head lifted.

  ‘I don’t think I should be talking about my father right now.’

  He patted her shoulder. ‘My fault,’ he said, wondering why he had asked. He didn’t need to know anything more about Rosa than what she’d brought to this bed. He didn’t need to know about her family. He didn’t want to hear it. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘Talk?’ she said, her fingertips back in action and growing bolder, her nails raking circles around his navel, swooping in and out. Teasing. Taunting.

  His loins stirred. ‘You’ve got a better idea?’ he asked, his voice laced with a gravel edge.

  Her fingertips edged lower, gliding over his tip. Her courage was growing by the minute. She’d always been a quick learner.

  ‘Could we, do you think...? Just once more?’

  Could we? He was suddenly harder than the question was to answer. But he had to remember she was new at this. Brave, curious, but inexperienced.

  ‘You’re not too sore?’

  She shook her head, her fingers encircling him. Stroking him.

  ‘Right now I’d like you to make love to me again,’ she said. ‘I can be sore tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  VITTORIO WOKE TO watery sunlight slipping through the gaps in the heavy brocade drapes, a supreme sense of satisfaction and a goodly measure of anticipation. But sunlight...? So the fog had lifted.

  He rolled over on his back and reached out an arm, searching for the source of his satisfaction and the reason for his anticipation, only to find the other side of the bed empty and the sheets cold.

  What the...?

  He rose up on his elbows. ‘Rosa?’ he called into the gloom, his eyes scanning the room, searching for any evidence of her.

  But the chair where he’d flung her dress after he’d peeled it off was empty and the rug where he’d placed her shoes after he’d slipped them off was bare. There was only his rapidly discarded leather trousers littering the floor.

  ‘Rosa!’ he called, louder this time, swiping back the covers to pad barefoot across the carpet to the bathroom. But that room was dark and empty too.

  She was gone.

  He headed back to the bedroom, sat on the side of the bed and picked up his watch from the side table. Almost noon. Dio, what time had they got to sleep? The last thing he could remember thinking was that he would shut his eyes for ten minutes to recover—and then he didn’t remember thinking anything at all.

  He put his head in his hands and thought back. She’d said something about working today. He’d wondered at the time if it had just been an excuse to escape the party, but she’d told him she was a cleaner in a three-star hotel. Maybe she did have to work. Which meant... What godawful time must she have left?

  He stood up on a sigh and headed back to the bathroom, swiping open the nearest curtains on the way. Milky light spilled into the room, banishing the gloom, while outside, if Venice had a hangover it didn’t show.

  Venice was getting on with being Venice. Vaporettos and gondolas alike were ferrying tourists backwards and forwards, rubbish barges filled with last night’s garbage were skulking out of the way as a water ambulance screamed along the canal.

  He had to get back to Andachstein.

  Even so, he thought as he looked at his face in the bathroom mirror, his hands stroking his rough jaw, it was disappointing that she’d cut and run before he could make love to her one last time.

  He stepped under the rain-shower spray, sighing in approval as he turned his face
into the hot water and felt it cascade down his body. Just because he was in a fifteenth-century palazzo it didn’t mean he had to go without modern plumbing.

  He smiled to himself. A virgin. Rosa had started out so shy and timid and then turned to liquid mercury in his arms, as sinuous as the canal that weaved its way outside his windows. One spark and she’d sizzled with sensuality, turning an otherwise dark night into a blaze of heat and passion.

  He’d been honest—at least as far as commitment went. He’d laid all his cards on the table. One night and one night only, and definitely no chance of for ever. So it was probably for the best that she’d already gone. It avoided any of those awkward post-coital conversations when last night’s warnings tended to get somehow twisted by the act of intercourse, when words took on a different meaning from how they’d been intended and first understood.

  How many times had he heard the same old arguments? ‘But that was before you made love to me...’ and ‘I thought you cared about me...’

  At least she’d saved them both that anguish.

  He roughly towelled himself off and dropped his towel on the floor as he headed for the dressing room. A virgin. How about that? It had been a long time since he’d encountered a virgin. He didn’t tend to move in the same circles as teenagers or gauche twenty-somethings.

  She’d made him laugh. And she’d been perfectly right. It wasn’t as if virginity self-destructed if you didn’t use it up. It was just that most people he knew seemed to have found a way to dispense with it before they’d abandoned their teens.

  He had his underwear and trousers on, and had just pulled a white shirt from a hanger, was reefing it over his shoulders, when he saw it. A glint of something gold amidst the tangle of linen and coverlets on the bed. His eyes narrowed. A trick of the watery light?

  He moved closer as he buttoned his shirt. No. There was definitely something there. Something small.

  He reached down and picked it up and realised what it was as the pearl swung free on the ring that attached it to a golden stud. One of Rosa’s earrings.