by Jennie Lucas
He closed his eyes, his breathing shallow and quick. Through the tall windows, the sea breeze blew against his hot skin as he felt her climb back over his naked body on the leather sofa. Naked.
He couldn’t look. He was afraid if he did, he would explode. And he wanted to last for her. He should be able to last, damn it. With any other woman in his past, he’d always been able to last as long as he wanted. His sexual stamina was legendary.
But with Honora, he’d lost his power. He could not resist her. At any moment he knew he would surrender...
She lowered her soft naked body over his. She leaned forward to kiss his lips, and he felt the press of her pregnant belly, her full breasts against his chest, felt the whispered caress of her long hair. As she kissed him, a sigh came from the back of her throat.
And moving down, she lowered her naked hips to his, pulling him slowly, slowly inside her.
His lips parted in a silent gasp as his hands gripped the leather cushion beneath his body. He felt like he was hanging on by a thread.
Making love to Honora...
This woman he’d wanted for so long...
Pregnant with his child.
His wife.
All he could think of was her; he had to please her, to pleasure her.
His whole body was tense, on a razor’s edge of desire.
* * *
Honora had never felt so wicked.
She was naked, in the middle of a grand room in a beach house, totally unprivate, where anyone in the open hallway could walk by—or someone outside could peer right into the enormous windows and see them, if they wanted.
But here she was, like a shameless wanton. It was only the second sexual experience of her life, but somehow, it felt different, as if their roles were reversed. She felt powerful, alive, with this billionaire playboy tycoon beneath her thighs, under her control.
Why did she feel this way? Because they were married? Because she was pregnant with his child? Or some other reason?
Her heart raced as she looked down at Nico’s darkly handsome face, at his closed eyes, his rapt expression, as if what they were experiencing together was something wholly new, something holy.
And it was.
When they’d first slept together last Christmas, she’d been an untried girl, dreaming of a powerful man. Now she felt like she’d come into her own. She was a wife. A mother-to-be.
She was a woman.
Feeling him inside her, she felt pleasure burn through her body, from her scalp to her toes and everywhere in between. Gripping his powerful shoulders with her hands to support her weight, she lifted her hips, then lowered them again, drawing him inside her, deep, deeper still. His shaft was so wide, so hard and thick. He filled her deeper than she’d imagined. But he could not break her.
She heard him gasp, and he gripped her hips, stilling them.
“I can’t, Honora. For the love of heaven—”
But seeing her power over him only increased her desire. When had she become so wicked? Was it the moment they were wed? Or had this passion always been inside her, waiting for the right moment—the right man—to set it free?
Leaning down, she kissed his mouth, licking his upper lip with a small flick of her tongue as he gasped her name.
Still gripping his shoulders, she slowly began to ride him. She closed her eyes as pleasure coiled deep inside her, tighter and tighter as her breasts bounced softly against her pregnant belly with each thrust. She held her breath as the tension built inside her, higher and higher. She dug her fingernails into his skin, going harder, faster, letting him stretch her wide, filling her to the hilt as her movements grew rough—
He gave a strangled curse and said her name as a prayer. “Honora!”
She exploded, soaring into the sky with a joyful cry, just as he poured into her with a guttural shout.
Afterward, she collapsed over him. They held each other, naked, on the white leather sectional, surrounded by tall windows, as the warm summer breeze oscillated the translucent curtains, caressing their skin.
Turning to her side, Honora rested her head on her husband’s chest, listening to the beat of his heart as he softly stroked her hair, both of them sweaty and tangled in each other, the only sound the distant plaintive call of seagulls.
And it was in listening to his heart that she finally knew her own.
Her eyes flew open.
She was in love with him. Utterly, completely in love with the man in her arms. The man who’d promised to be hers forever. The man who wanted to give her everything. His name. His fortune. His honor. His life.
Everything. Except his heart.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NICO HAD FLOWN the transatlantic route many times since he’d moved to New York and created his real estate development firm. He’d justified the expense of the state-of-the-art Gulfstream G650 because it gave him space and privacy, either to work in the sitting area, or to sleep in the private stateroom. Time was money.
The New York–Rome route had been the most frequent for the last two years, as he’d quietly bought everything his estranged father possessed, both assets and debts. After his father’s death, he’d remained in Rome to distract himself with multiple billion-dollar deals, a new resort on the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia and other projects that were a quick flight away—Dubai, Athens, Barcelona.
He’d told himself there was no longer any point in trying to acquire his father’s ancestral home, the Villa Caracciola, in the quaint village of Trevello on the Amalfi Coast. The former palace was decrepit, barely clinging to the rocky hillside. When his father’s elderly widow, Princess Egidia, had still refused to sell it, even at top dollar, he’d let it go. Fine. Let her live there without staff and barely enough money to pay the electric bills. It seemed a just punishment.
But as he traveled back to the Amalfi Coast with his new bride, Nico found he’d changed his mind. Perhaps taking possession of the villa where his young mother had been seduced and betrayed would finally exorcise the ghosts of the past.
It wouldn’t be the main goal of his honeymoon, of course. As they boarded the private jet in New York, all Nico could think about was making love to his wife. After their time together at the Hamptons house, he should have been satiated. Instead, he desired her even more. He was bewitched. Obsessed. Honora would be the main focus of this vacation.
But in spare moments, he would set his lawyers loose on his widowed stepmother, and force her to sell the Villa Caracciola. How hard could it be?
Once the jet was in the air, the smiling flight attendant served them a light meal of fruit and freshly baked crusty bread, cheese and ham, and sparkling water. As Nico and Honora ate, they looked at each other over the glossy oak table, and he felt shivery inside. By her dazzled expression, the way she bit her passion-bruised lips, he thought she must feel the same.
It was only the presence of the flight attendant, flirting with his security chief on the other side of the cabin, that kept Nico from sweeping all the food off the table and taking Honora right there. As it was, he barely tasted the food, and as soon as Honora was done their eyes met, and without a word, they rose and went to the private stateroom in the back.
Locking the door behind them, he kissed her passionately and drew her down to the bed. They remained there for the entire transatlantic flight, making love, sharing a shower in the tiny en suite bathroom—laughing at the tight squeeze of space. Holding each other quietly in bed afterward, they whispered the secrets of their hearts into the darkness.
At least, Honora whispered the secrets of her heart. How lonely she’d been as a child, how she’d never felt smart in school, how she’d always felt like a burden to her family.
Nico didn’t answer. He just listened. Listened? He devoured and consumed her secrets like a miser tucking away pieces of gold. But he himself did not share. He’d learned long ago t
hat being vulnerable was just offering rope for someone else to hang him with.
So he marveled at her fearlessness, as she confided that she’d never thought she deserved to be this happy, not after the way her parents had died in a car crash when she was a child. Somehow she seemed to think it was her fault—he didn’t understand why, but he assumed she had her reasons. And he promised himself that he would never, ever use any of it against her.
Nico was her husband now. Her protector. If he could not love her, or feel emotions as she did, he could at least do one thing: keep her secrets as closely as he kept his own.
By the time the jet was preparing to land at a small airport near the Amalfi Coast, Nico was nearly licking his lips in anticipation of their honeymoon—two weeks of nothing to do but make love to his beautiful, sensual wife, showing her the pleasures of Italy, the delicious pasta and fresh seafood, and swim in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
And then, to cap it all off, in his spare time, he’d toss his wicked stepmother out of her rathole and raze the Villa Caracciola to the ground. In its place, he’d build a brand-new modern mansion in which to start his new dynasty.
He might have no idea how to be a parent, but he could for damn sure build his daughter a palace to live in. Whenever he felt anxious, wondering how on earth he would make his child feel loved when he himself had never known what that felt like, he reassured himself with the thought that his wife could be in charge of nurturing and loving.
Nico would be in charge of building an empire. He would protect and provide for them in a new ancestral home. The Villa Ferraro.
As he and Honora descended the steps of his private jet to the tarmac, it was full morning. The sun was warm, perfectly suited to his white collared shirt and dark trousers, and Honora’s red cotton maternity sundress and sandals. Nico felt tired, having gotten very little sleep on the flight, but happy. What was it that made his wife so addictive, like a drug he could not resist?
And how was it possible that he’d barely noticed her for all those years? How had he never truly seen her until he’d been exhausted and drunk with a bad concussion last Christmas?
“We’re here,” Honora said, gripping the handrail as she stood at the top of the steps, looking out rapturously at the tiny airport nestled behind the hills. “Italy.”
He smiled down at her. It gave him so much pleasure to see the joy in her eyes. And at such a small thing—a honeymoon on the Amalfi Coast. He looked forward to a lifetime of seeing her lovely face light up with delight, knowing he was the one who’d put it there.
Not to mention a lifetime of nights where he made sure her full lips were bruised from the passion of his kisses.
As they came down the steps to the tarmac, with his security chief following, Nico saw Gianni, his personal assistant from the Rome office, holding a briefcase. Behind him, he saw a large SUV and a driver... Nico’s mouth fell open.
“Welcome to Italy, sir.” Benny Rossini, the young chauffeur he’d banished from New York City, smiled at Nico’s new bride. “Honora.”
Her face lit up. “Benny! You’re here now?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “I’m managing the new villa.” He puffed up his chest a little. “A promotion. But I can still be your driver wherever you need to go.” He gave a low laugh. “Driving along the Amalfi Coast is not for the fainthearted.”
Nico scowled. When he’d told his residential staffing manager to move the young driver to another job, he’d never imagined he’d move Rossini here. He felt irritated. Really, Sergio should have known. He paid his staff well enough to expect them to read his mind.
It didn’t matter, Nico told himself firmly. Honora was his wife now. Besides, they’d be at his estate for only two weeks. Surely he could endure his employee’s presence for such a short time. And it wasn’t like Rossini and Honora would be spending time alone together.
“Good to see you, Rossini,” he said coldly, taking Honora’s hand. As he helped her into the back of the luxury SUV, Nico added, without looking back, “Gianni, with me.”
While his security chief, Frank Bauer, followed with their luggage in a separate vehicle, his assistant accompanied Nico into the back of the SUV, which had been fitted with two facing rows. Before the chauffeur even started the engine, Nico was speaking to his assistant in rapid Italian, telling him he wished to restart legal efforts to force the Villa Caracciola from the elderly widow’s possession. Gianni seemed surprised, then moved forward, pulling up legal documents on his tablet.
Glancing up toward Benny Rossini, sitting in the driver’s seat, Nico wondered whether he was listening. He didn’t trust the young man, and the last thing he wanted was for his stepmother to be forewarned—or, for that matter, for Honora to hear a version of the story that might make Nico look like he was somehow the villain in this. Pressing the button to lift the privacy shield, he turned back to his assistant with a scowl, and told him in the same language that any delay was unacceptable. He wanted the Caracciola property now.
“Oh.” Honora looked between the two men in dismay. “Are you planning to discuss business on the drive? In Italian?”
He saw how tired she looked, and was worried about her and the baby. “Feel free to rest. The drive to my villa will take an hour.”
She stared at him for a moment, then produced a sudden cheerful smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll just go sit in the front with Benny.”
And before Nico could stop her, she hopped out of the back seat and went to sit with the young, handsome driver on the other side of the privacy screen.
As the SUV pulled away from the airport ten seconds later, Nico’s assistant prattled on about how they could get around a governmental delay, which apparently was based on some claim that the widow’s villa, two hundred years old, had “historical and architectural significance”—a classic stunt.
But he was distracted now. All he could think about was his wife, on the other side of the privacy screen, sitting beside Rossini, who was clearly infatuated with her, and though he had little money, perhaps the young man could offer her things Nico couldn’t. Like emotion. Like vulnerability. Like love.
A curse went through Nico’s mind.
“Sir? What do you think?” his assistant said in Italian into the sudden awkward silence.
Nico bared his teeth in a grin. “Just do whatever it takes to win.”
His eyes strayed toward the closed privacy screen. He wondered what they were talking about. He wanted to lower the screen, but that would be an admission of jealousy, which he didn’t want to make. He couldn’t show Honora how important she was to him. That would give her too much power and make him feel...weak.
He had nothing to worry about, he told himself firmly. After all, it wasn’t like his employee would be stupid enough to make a pass at his wife, with Nico himself sitting in the back of the SUV.
* * *
“I’m telling you, I’m in love with you!”
Sitting in the front seat, Honora drew back from the young driver, scandalized. “How can you say such a thing! I’m Nico’s wife. I’m pregnant with his baby!”
Benny looked mournful, in a handsome, pudding-cheeked sort of way. He reminded her of a particularly forlorn basset hound. “I wish I’d only been brave enough to tell you before he seduced you...”
“Stop it!” As he started to reach his hand toward her, she slapped it away. “Watch the road!”
He did as he was told, gripping the steering wheel with both hands as they went around a taut hairpin curve on the cliff, practically dangling off the edge. It was a little terrifying, especially with her longtime phobia about car crashes. But not as awful as being pestered like this.
“And for your information,” she added tartly, “Nico didn’t seduce me. If anything, I seduced him!”
“No, that can’t be...”
“It is,” Honora said, exasperated. “He was drunk on Christm
as Day, he’d just broken up with his girlfriend, and I took heartless advantage. So there!”
That wasn’t exactly how it had happened, but she was fed up with Benny mooning after her.
The truth was, she’d been a little relieved when he’d been transferred to a different position in the Ferraro business empire. She felt sorry for him, and a little guilty, but she wanted him to be happy. When she’d come up here to sit beside him, she’d hoped to discover that the weeks and miles of distance, not to mention the fact of her marriage, had helped him gain a little perspective. She’d thought they could have a short private discussion that would put them both at ease.
But it had only made things worse. So much worse.
He was pale. “You’re telling me I no longer have a chance?”
Honora wanted to scream. “You never had a chance with me! Never!”
He narrowed his eyes as he stared forward at the road. His expression was surly. “Because he’s so rich, right?”
Her sympathy was disappearing. She was getting tired of friends, people who should have been on her side, implying she was some kind of gold digger.
“Because I’m in love with him.” It was strange to realize that she was saying the words for the first time aloud, and not to Nico but to some other man who was stupidly making a pass at her.
His jaw dropped. “You can’t!” He stared stonily at the road. “Nico Ferraro is a selfish bastard. He doesn’t care for anyone but himself. And sooner or later—” he glanced at her “—he’s going to hurt you. A man like that can do nothing else.”
Honora felt a shiver of fear. Was Benny right? Would Nico break her heart and leave her crying and alone?
No. Impossible. He wouldn’t leave her. He was the one who’d first wanted marriage, not her.
But you love him now, and he’ll never love you back, whispered a small voice.
Setting her jaw, she pushed the painful thought away. “If this is how you show loyalty to Nico as your employer, and to me as a friend, I think you should seriously consider finding another job.”