How could hair feel alive? she wondered dimly, shivering as sensation tingled from the top of her head and spread through her heated veins.
Their entwined fingers tightened.
The hand in her hair dived through the locks and gently traced the rim of her ear.
Her legs weakened.
The hand at her ear slowly skimmed down the side of her neck. The hummingbird in her heart was trying to beat its way out. It almost succeeded when the eyes her gaze was locked on drew closer and closer, the lids closing, and the wide, firm mouth she had once believed she would kiss for ever brushed against her aching lips.
CHAPTER NINE
MASSIMO, EYES CLOSED, rested his mouth against the softest lips in creation and breathed Livia in.
He felt her quiver. The nails of the fingers entwined in his dug into his hand.
Emotions were erupting through him, so many it was impossible to pinpoint one and say this was what he was feeling.
The only certainty he could find was that this was where he needed to be.
He needed Livia’s touch like a fish needed water.
And he needed to touch her like a drowning man needed air.
A tempest raged inside him, a storm crashing onto the drowning man.
Livia was the air he needed. She was on his mind with every breath he took.
The thunder of his heart vibrated through his bones. When she placed her small hand on the top of his chest he knew she must be able to feel it too.
He could feel her heartbeat through their tightly wound hands.
The fingers splayed on her soft neck drifted back up to spear her hair. He hadn’t realised that he’d been afraid the changes she’d made to her hair would have changed its texture until relief had coursed through him on the dance floor to find it had the same silky feel.
He’d been as helpless not to touch her then as he was not to touch her now.
Livia was more than air. She was the fire in his heart, the water in his veins, the earth that kept him grounded.
Their lips moved slowly together, fused mouths parting, the kiss deepening.
Her sweet breath curled into his senses.
Their entwined hands released. Arms wrapped tightly around each other, bodies crushed together, tongues danced as the desire he had fought since she had stepped into the cabin of his private jet was finally set free.
A million tastes and scents and sensations filled Livia’s starved senses. Being wrapped so tightly in Massimo’s arms and being kissed so deeply and passionately was awakening the last parts of her she had kept locked away.
He’d torn the last of her barriers down but the feelings erupting in her were too heady, too familiar and too wondrous to be frightening.
If she were to be cast away on a desert island and allowed to choose only one person to join her on it, there was no question of who she would choose. Massimo. He was scarred on her heart and etched in her soul.
She didn’t want to think of what she was doing—what they were doing. She needed this too much. Needed him too much.
Only now, as she drowned in the heady delights of his touch, did she understand how starved she’d been since she’d left him and how slowly time had crawled in those awful dark days.
To feel the crash of their hearts pounding so violently together through their embracing bodies...
Everything inside her bloomed wide open and light poured in.
Her stomach swooped as he lifted her into his arms.
He’d carried her like this on their wedding night, she remembered dreamily, pressing her mouth against his neck and inhaling the Massimo scent that had always made her stomach swoop all on its own.
There was such tenderness in the way he laid her down on the bed that the light that had poured inside her sparkled and glimmered through her skin and veins.
His hooded eyes glimmered too.
She could feel his hunger as keenly as she felt her own.
Gently he brushed away the locks of hair that had fallen across her face.
No words were spoken between them. No words were necessary.
She raised her hand and palmed his cheek. The bristles of his beard grazed against her skin.
Their mouths locked together.
The hand palming his cheek slipped around his neck, her other hand sliding around his waist, pulling him down so she could feel his solid weight on her. She needed to feel that brief crush of her lungs before he shifted to release the weight, needed the assurance that she hadn’t fallen into a dream.
She couldn’t bear it if this was nothing but a dream. She’d suffered too many dreams in those dark days where they would be making love only for her to wake to the cold reality of a lonely bed.
There had been nightmares too, ones where he’d found someone else. One in particular had stayed with her for days. She’d been walking down the street when she’d spotted Massimo walking arm in arm with a faceless woman. She’d run after them but couldn’t catch them, screaming his name as loudly as she could but no sound coming out. She’d awoken from it with a start, tears soaking into her pillow and her heart cold with a fear a hundred times worse than she’d felt in the nightmares from her childhood.
Being with him like this, here, now, evoked only warmth in her soaring heart.
She was flying.
For now, tomorrow didn’t exist.
There was only now.
His hands stroked down the sides of her breasts and down to her hips where he gathered the skirt of her dress and hitched it to her waist, his mouth raining kisses over her face, her hands scratching into his scalp. They only broke away so her dress could be pulled over her head and discarded.
She saw the pulse in his eyes as he dragged his stare over her body, naked save for the skimpy black knickers she wore.
Heat flooded her with an intensity that stole her breath when he dipped his head and kissed her breasts in turn, and now it was his shirt she was scratching at, grasping to untuck it.
Every part of Livia’s body had been etched in Massimo’s memory but he stared at her feeling as if he were seeing it all for the first time.
His memory had played tricks on him. He’d forgotten how damned sexy she was, how perfect she was.
He’d forgotten the way her legs writhed when she was hungry for him and to see them doing that now...
He kissed her breasts again, with more savagery than the first tender kisses he’d placed on them. He’d forgotten, too, how much she loved him lavishing attention on them. She was as receptive to his touch as he was to hers, the perfect fusion that had so blown his mind the first time they’d made love and every time after.
He moved down to her belly, divesting himself of his shirt as he went, then gripped her knickers in his fingers and pulled them down her legs to land in the pile their other clothing had formed. Working quickly, he removed the last of his own clothing too.
He could smell the musky heat of her excitement...
There was not a single thing about Livia that didn’t set his blood aflame.
He kissed her thighs, digging his fingers into the pliant flesh, then ran his tongue between the soft mound of dark hair between her parted legs.
There was a clenching in his heart. Fresh memories assailed him of the first time he’d shaved her bikini line for her and trimmed the hair. She’d been about to make an appointment at a salon when he’d suggested with a wolfish gleam that he do it for her. Her eyes had pulsed with agreement.
It had been sexy. It had been fun. The trust she had bestowed in him had blown his mind as much as everything else they had shared. After that first time they’d adopted their own language for it. It had always ended with wild lovemaking.
Her bikini line now was smooth but the rest was as nature intended. It looked to him that she hadn’t bothered with it since she’d left
him. For a woman who always liked to feel her best as well as look her best, right down to always wearing matching underwear that no one other than him would see, this told him everything he needed to know.
Livia hadn’t been with anyone since they’d parted.
No other man had buried his face between her legs and experienced her uninhibited wild responses, the soft moans and pleas...
No other man had teased her to orgasm with his tongue alone.
He knew he had no right to feel such relief at this. But he did.
Livia was his. Just as he was hers.
Gripping her hips, he snaked his tongue back up her petite, curvy body, inhaling her skin, tasting it, nipping it, the primal eruption that had so consumed him the first time they’d made love stronger than it had ever been.
She belonged to him. And he belonged to her. He would always belong to her.
Elbows resting either side of her face, he gazed down in wonder. The same ragged-breath wonder reflected right back at him.
Why had he let her go? How could he have let this beautiful, sassy woman walk away without a fight?
With a groan, he plundered her plump, delectable mouth. Her arms looped around his neck and she arched her back so her breasts crushed against his chest as they devoured each other with a hungry desperation. Her legs hooked around his thighs, encouraging him, and he drove inside her in one long thrust.
The relief at being in Livia’s tight, slick heat was such that he had to screw his eyes shut and drag in a breath lest he lose control immediately.
But, damn, a man could happily die like this.
Livia’s head had gone. She’d lost control of her sanity when Massimo had brought her to orgasm using nothing but his tongue and now, with him sheathed so tightly inside her, the sensations were too incredible to do anything but cling tightly to him and soar in the heavenliness they were creating together.
The hummingbird that had nestled in her heart had broken free and she was flying high in the sky, reaching for the stars.
They made love with abandon, Massimo driving into her with fury tempered by tenderness, wet kisses, bites on necks, nails digging into skin, nothing existing but this moment, them, together, the fire that had always blazed so brightly between them reignited but now burning with the blue flame of desperation.
For the first time ever she found herself fighting release. She didn’t want this to end. She wanted these wonderful feelings to last for ever.
From the concentration carved on Massimo’s face and the pained desire she caught every time she looked in his eyes, he was fighting the same battle.
Squeezing her eyes shut tight, she pressed her mouth into his neck and fought the growing sensations pulsating deep inside her pelvis. But it was like fighting against the tide. The pleasure was just too much...
She forgot all about fighting when the pulsations turned into an eruption that spread through her like a rippling wave. All she could do was tighten her hold on him and submit to the waves carrying her as high as the soaring hummingbird of her heart.
* * *
Livia opened her eyes with a start and immediately rolled over to check Massimo was still there. She’d fallen asleep in his arms but at some point after drifting off she must have disentangled herself.
The night was still dark but hazy light filtered in from the moon and stars. She swallowed back her relief to find his solid form lying peacefully beside her, facing her on his side. His chest rose and fell steadily.
She inched closer and covered his hand, then gently brought it up over the mattress to her lips. She razed the lightest of kisses against his knuckles and soaked in every detail of his sleeping face.
Something sharp and painful filled her chest. The hummingbird had nestled back into her heart. If Massimo opened his eyes he would see its thrumming wings beating through her skin.
She swallowed again and tried to regain control of her suddenly erratic breathing.
She pressed her mouth back against his knuckles. His fingers twitched.
Feeling herself in desperate need of air, she released his hand and slipped out of the bed. She wrapped her robe around her naked body and padded out of the bedroom.
At the back of their chalet, down the steps of their veranda, was their private garden and swimming pool. Livia sank onto a sunlounger by the pool and stared at the sun peeking over the horizon.
The cusp of a new day was showing its face but for Livia this cusp was the beginning of the end. This was the day she would say goodbye to Massimo for good...
The realisation hit her like a cold slap.
She didn’t want to say goodbye.
Her feelings for Massimo were as strong as they’d ever been and the feelings he’d had for her were still there too. He’d shown it with every look, every touch and every kiss.
Why had they let that love go? Why hadn’t they fought for it? The love they had once shared had been everything.
Massimo had slipped away from her. That was the truth. It had been so gradual that to begin with she’d only sensed it. That was what had brought her fears and insecurities out and deepened her loneliness and homesickness. Everything had escalated from that.
She talked too much but he didn’t talk enough. Not about the things that were important.
That needed to change.
She looked up at the brightening sky and breathed in the warm, fragrant air. The chirrup of awakening birds sounded all around her, a joyful sound that sparked hope in her heart.
Where there was life there was hope.
What they had was worth fighting for. All she had to do was make Massimo see that too.
Filling her lungs with resolve, Livia walked back into the chalet.
If she had any chance of saving their marriage, she needed her phone, which was in the bedroom.
She pushed the door open quietly.
Massimo lifted his head. He’d woken to an empty bed. He’d registered this little fact before his eyes had opened, an emptiness where warmth should be.
He breathed a little easier to see Livia’s silhouette in the doorway.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, his voice croaky from sleep. He had no idea what time it was other than it was early.
It was the deepest sleep he’d had in...since she’d left him.
She stared at him for the longest time before a smile curved over her beautiful face and she released the robe wrapped around her.
‘I needed some air,’ she said as she padded to the bed.
He pulled the sheets back and held his arms out for her, his body responding automatically to her unashamed nudity.
His desire for her was the one thing he’d never been able to turn off.
She nestled into his embrace.
He closed his eyes and breathed into her hair, his chest swelling. For long silent moments they did nothing but lie entwined together.
This would be the last time he held her like this.
‘Why did you get spearheads added to your tattoo?’ she murmured, tracing it gently with her finger before kissing it. ‘I thought it was finished.’
‘I thought it was finished too.’
His tattoo hadn’t been finished but their marriage was.
He tightened the embrace. Regrets swirled in the air around them but it was too late for regrets. However good it felt to spend one last night with Livia, they were better off apart. They both knew that. You couldn’t play on broken strings. The strings that had bound them together hadn’t merely broken; they’d been irrevocably severed.
Whatever desire-driven thoughts had consumed him when they’d been making love didn’t change the fact that he was better on his own. He worked better and functioned better.
Their lips found each other and the hunger that had always left him feeling starving when he was without her reared back to l
ife.
They could have this, he thought dimly as she sank onto his length, her hair falling onto his face.
One last moment of bliss together before they said goodbye for good.
CHAPTER TEN
AFTER A LATE breakfast in the lodge, it was time to say goodbye. The guests who’d stayed the night left first until it was only Massimo, his immediate family and his grandfather’s care team left.
Heart heavy, Massimo walked with them to the jetty where the cruise liner awaited. This return journey would be much shorter than the outward one. They were sailing to Viti Levu and flying to Rome from there on a private jet he’d chartered for them. After two months away from their homes, his family was looking forward to their return to Italy.
Unspoken between them all was his grandfather’s health. It was the reason they were flying back. Jimmy had reserved all his energy for this stay on his birth land and his party. A two-month sail might be too late for him to have his last request of dying in his home met.
Madeline wrapped her arms around him and looked up at him with an unusually serious expression. ‘Come home soon, Massimo. Please?’
Instead of the usual vague response he gave to these kinds of requests, Massimo found himself kissing his sister’s cheek. ‘I’ll try.’
She tightened her hold. ‘Try harder. We miss you.’
For the first time he found himself thinking that he would try.
Something had shifted in him. For all his dread at being cooped up on an island with his family, the weekend had gone much better than he’d anticipated. The more time he’d spent with them, the easier he’d found it. There had been an acceptance he’d never felt before. Or was it that he now looked at his family with fresh eyes?
Gazing over his sister’s head, he saw his mother fussing with his grandfather’s wheelchair. His mother loved to fuss. She was never happier than when doing things for those she loved, whether it was ironing shirts to within an inch of their lives or slaving over steaming bowls of simple home-cooked food to fill their bellies with. His father was the same too.
A Passionate Reunion in Fiji Page 10