Passion: In Wilde Country: Book Two

by Sandra Marton

  Her hand, the one with the cast, lay over his heart.

  Which of them had moved first? Had she crept closer, or had he drawn her to him? The increasing cold in the cabin must have been the cause… and who gave a damn about the cause?

  Lying with her this way was a bad idea.

  He had to move before she woke up.

  Easier said than done.

  She was asleep. Sound asleep.

  Maybe that would make this simpler. If she were deep in dreamland, if he moved with caution, he wouldn’t wake her.

  Slowly, carefully, he began taking his arm from around her shoulders.

  “Mmm.”

  He froze. Waited. Endless seconds crept by. When he thought it was safe, he moved his arm again. Twisted toward her so he could get more leverage.

  She gave another sigh. He felt the warm flutter of her breath against his throat.

  Sweat beaded on his forehead. Could a man sweat when the temperature in a room might as well be at the freezing point? Yes. He could.

  He could also feel the first, tentative stir of his cock.

  No, he thought, dammit, no!

  He had to get out of this bed.

  Now. Right now, except he moved and she moved, and instead of getting his arm away from her shoulders, he ended up on his side.

  With their bodies pressed together.

  Her breasts against his chest. Her pelvis against his belly. The two of them wearing thin cotton…

  His erection sprang to hard, huge, urgent life.

  He groaned. Drew in his breath. Tried to draw the rest of him in, too, but the pitiful bit of space he managed to reclaim didn’t last because his penis grew bigger.

  Was that even possible?

  And Ariel…she sighed again and scrambled closer.

  Matteo slammed his eyes shut.

  He told himself to think about cold things. Showers. Ice. The snow outside. The temperature inside. Thinking cold would do it.

  It didn’t.

  He was hard as a rock.

  A shudder went through him.

  He took a steadying breath, slid his arm out from around her shoulders. Prepared to roll away and remove himself to the hair-shirt embrace of that hideous chair because a hair-shirt was exactly what…

  Maybe he moved too fast. Maybe he let a cold draft sweep over her when he began raising the blanket. Whatever he’d done, the effect was swift and shocking, because she came awake in a frenzied flurry of arms and legs, kicking, punching, shoving him away.

  “Ariel?”

  “NO!”

  “Ariel. Honey. You’re dreaming.”

  She grunted. Swung at him. Her cast connected with his jaw.

  “Ariel.” How did you defend yourself against a cast without further damaging the bone within it? Cristo, why worry about that when her knee was seeking his balls? “Ariel,” he said. “Wake up!”

  “Never—again,” she said. “Never, ever again. Never, never, never—”

  Matteo grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back against the pillows. He rolled on top of her, using his weight to keep her from kneeing him.

  It was like trying to calm a whirlwind.

  “Listen to me. You’re having a nightmare.”

  “No,” she said, “no, oh please, oh please, don’t, don’t, don’t…”

  “Sweetheart. It’s me. Matteo. Wake up. Open your eyes and look at me.”

  Her eyes flew open. Not even the darkness of the room could hide the terror in those eyes.

  “Matteo?”

  Her voice was small. Paper-thin. He could still feel the tension in her muscles, but she’d stopped fighting him.

  “Yes.” He eased back a little, let go of her shoulders. There were tears on her face. He wiped them away with his thumbs. “Okay?”

  She drew in a long, shuddering breath. After what seemed an eternity, she nodded and whispered, “Okay.”

  “Bad dream, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  He rolled onto his side. She did, too. His arms were around her; their faces were inches apart.

  Gently, he brushed a tear-dampened curl back from her cheek.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No. Yes.” Another shuddering breath. “I don’t really remember it. Not clearly.”

  “Yeah, that’s the way nightmares sometimes—”

  “I was in a room. Not this one. It was a big room. Dark walls. Dark furniture.” She hesitated. “Someone was with me.”

  “Could you see who it was?”

  “A man. Big. Dark hair. Rough voice.” She swallowed hard. “He was laughing. He had a low, mean laugh.”

  Matteo stiffened. She was describing Pastore.

  “And what happened?”

  “I don’t know.” She shuddered. Matteo drew her to him. She sighed. “Did I say anything? When I was dreaming?”

  He cupped the back of her head, felt the silken strands of her hair kiss his fingers.

  “You shouted ‘no.’ And something about never again. You sounded—”

  “He was going to—to—” She gasped for breath. Her voice was high and thin. “He put me on the bed and he got on top of me and he laughed and he said—he said, at least I was good for something, and he jammed his knee between my legs and I said no, no, please, no, and he just laughed and he—and he—”

  Pastore, Matteo thought with grim certainty. She was talking about her husband.

  “Hush,” he said, gathering her even closer. “Cara, it’s all right.”

  She was sobbing, hanging on to him as if he were her only hope for salvation in a world of incredible evil.

  “I’ll keep you safe,” he promised, his words soft, his touch gentle even as hatred blazed in his heart. “Trust me. It’s going to be all right.”

  She fell asleep in his arms.

  He couldn’t sleep at all.

  He held her, and stroked her when she moaned in her sleep, and as dawn began streaking the sky, he considered his next steps.

  Until now, he’d acted on instinct.

  That wasn’t sufficient anymore.

  They were being hunted by a predator, and one of the reasons predators were successful was because their prey acted on instinct. Something was after you? You ran. Blindly. That was your destiny, if you were the prey. You just ran, and you left a trail any clever killer could follow.

  He was tired of being the prey.

  He was Matteo Bellini. Well-educated. A member of the bar. A respected figure, a civilized man of the 21st century.

  But there was another side to him, one that belonged to Sicily and the old ways. Those old ways were in his blood.

  And Tony Pastore was a walking dead man.

  * * *

  He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, the cabin was filled with weak early morning light.

  Ariel was still in his arms, her face pressed to the place where his shoulder and neck joined.

  She was warm and soft, and she smelled sweet.

  Despite everything that was happening, he had to admit it was a nice way to start the day.

  The bed was regular-sized, but the mattress was old. It dipped in the middle. That must have been how she’d ended up lying in his arms that first time, why she’d remained there through the night.

  Surely, he hadn’t reached for her in his sleep.

  He wasn’t a man who did that kind of thing.

  Sex was sex. Sleep was sleep. He rarely mixed the two. He suspected women didn’t approve of his preference for sleeping alone. Not that any ever complained, but he often sensed disappointment when he’d leave a woman’s bed in the middle of the night, or politely rise from his own and say he’d drive her home.

  He’d only once made the mistake of saying he’d phone down to the lobby and arrange for a taxi. The reaction to that had made it easy to know he was much better off getting up, getting dressed, and having his car brought around.

  Luca, who knew how he felt about not spending the entire night with a woman, ha
d once teased him about it.

  “You find the right woman,” he’d said, “you’ll keep her straight through the night.”

  Matteo had raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying that’s what you do?”

  His brother had grinned. “I’m saying that’s what I’ve been told.”

  They’d both laughed.

  Obviously, Luca wasn’t laughing anymore. He’d fallen in love and married. That meant he came awake every morning to this, the warmth of a woman in his embrace, her hair streaming over his shoulder, her breath a whisper against his throat.

  Matteo’s arms tightened around Ariel. Amazing, how right it felt to hold her. To feel the beat of her heart against his.

  He knew he should wake her. The storm seemed to have passed, but for all he knew, it might return. If they got moving now, they could put some more distance between themselves and Lake Serene while he tried to figure out what their next step should be. What he’d done until now, heading north instead of back to the city, getting off the highway and taking back roads, ditching the GPS and his smartphone, was surely not enough. He needed a plan, and he could work on it while Ariel got some coffee going. It probably dated back to the Pleistocene era, but it would get his brain functioning…

  She shifted her weight.

  It brought her flush against him, and it made him want to groan.

  He looked at her face. She was so beautiful. So very beautiful.

  Such an overused word. There had to be a better way to describe her. The silky hair. The lush mouth.

  She flattened her hand over his chest and…his heartbeat quickened. And threw her leg over his.

  High over his.

  She was damn near sprawled over him now, hand on his heart, thigh on his thigh, face buried in his shoulder. He could feel the heat of her through her scrubs, through his jeans, feel her heartbeat, breathe her in and out.

  No, he thought, but it was too late.

  His early-morning, male-in-the-prime-of-his-life reaction was as swift as it was predictable.

  He had an erection the size of Manhattan.

  And she’d had a nightmare about rape.

  Idiot!

  Okay. Back to last night’s concentration on cold and ice and, hell, it wasn’t working. He’d have to grit his teeth, put some space between them and do it without waking her. Carefully, slowly, he began easing away.

  Good. Half an inch. Half an inch more.

  Not good.

  Moving away had changed the angle of his body. Her leg was still over his. His penis was within kissing distance of—

  “Matteo?”

  Her voice was blurry with sleep. How could she be so soft? So warm?

  “Yes,” he said briskly, directing his gaze at the ceiling. “Good morning, cara. I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just—I was just—”

  “What time is it?”

  Time to get the hell out of the bed.

  “I’m not sure. Early.”

  She lifted up a little. Her cotton top strained against her breasts, outlining them with perfect clarity.

  What would her nipples taste like? Honey? Cream? Wildflowers?

  His damnable penis twitched.

  Roll over, he told himself sternly, and get out of this bed.

  I will, his self answered, in another hour or two.

  “Matteo?” She paused. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For last night. For getting me through that nightmare.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “If you hadn’t been here…”

  “But I was.” He cleared his throat. It struck him that he’d been doing a lot of throat-clearing lately. “I’m the one who should thank you. For letting me sleep with you.”

  “Oh.”

  Brilliant, he thought, biting back a groan. Just the thing to say. She must have thought so, too, because she seemed suddenly aware of how they were lying and she drew back, putting the distance between them he’d tried, and failed, to achieve.

  She also took her leg off his. He fought the desire to wrap his hand around it and bring it back where it belonged.

  “I’ve never slept with a man before.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “I said, I’ve never slept with a man before.”

  Impossible, he wanted to say. You’re married. Of course you’ve slept with a man before.

  “I’ve had sex.” Color rose in her face. “I mean, I know I have. I don’t—I don’t recall the specifics, but I know it. But sleeping this way, in someone’s arms all night… That’s new for me. Don’t ask me how I can be so sure because I can’t tell you. I just am.”

  Her tone was grave. He wanted to pull her into his arms again, but he sensed the fragility of the moment so he reached for a tendril of her hair instead and let it sift through his fingers.

  “Well, that makes us even, cara,” he said softly, “because I’ve never spent the entire night with a woman in my arms before.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I never wanted to.”

  “Oh,” she said again, but this time he could almost see the smile within the softly spoken word. “Well, I didn’t give you much choice. I mean, we only have this one bed.”

  He chuckled. “We have that chair. You could have left me to its not-very-tender mercies.”

  “You mean…” She blushed. “You mean I invited you to share the bed?” She hesitated. “I kind of recall that.”

  “Your good deed for the day. If I’d stayed in that chair, I’d be Quasimodo this morning.”

  She laughed. How could he not lean in and kiss her?

  God, she tasted so sweet. And the feel of her mouth under his…so soft. So tender.

  He didn’t think, he simply drew her closer. Closer. Drew her into the cradle of his body.

  She melted against him.

  The feel of her. The heat. The delicate press of her breasts against his bare chest, the instant pout of her nipples—he could feel those tiny nubbins of flesh seek him through her soft cotton top.

  His response was as swift as it had been before, his penis rising hard and hot and rigid against her.

  She gasped as he slid his hand under the cotton top and cupped her breast. He rubbed his thumb over the taut nipple; her breath shuddered and she kissed him, her lips parting, giving him access to the honeyed sweetness of her mouth. Her fingers swept into the hair at the nape of his neck and he shoved her cotton top up, dipped his head and took her nipple between his teeth.

  Magic.

  This was magic.

  She moaned and shifted her body against his, lifted herself so that his penis nuzzled at the apex of her thighs.

  “Ariel.” His voice was thick. “Are you sure you want this?”

  “Yes,” she said, “oh please, Matteo, yes!”

  His hands went to the drawstring at her waist. His fingers felt thick. Clumsy. He fumbled with the string, cursed, finally undid it.

  The pants fell like the petals of a flower.

  She was naked beneath them, her skin warm and silken. He stroked her hip. Her belly. His fingers dipped lower. Lower…

  She cried out.

  He groaned.

  She was hot. Slick. Ready, so ready…

  No, he thought. Don’t do this. She doesn’t know anything about herself, doesn’t know she has a husband.

  Her hands were at his fly. The zipper gave, not all the way but enough so her fingers brushed against his cock.

  “Help me,” she whispered, and he was lost.

  He tumbled her onto her back. Brushed her hand away so he could finish undoing the zipper. His penis sprang free and she touched the tip with one finger, just that, but he shuddered and knew he would come if she did it again.

  “Wait,” he said, tugging down her pants, and then he was between her thighs. She arched toward him and he thrust into her, hard and deep.

  Her muscles convulsed around him and s
he cried out with pleasure as her orgasm swept through her.

  “Matteo. Oh God, Matteo…”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. Say my name. Say it.” He slid his hands under her bottom, lifted her to him, pulled back, thrust forward within her silken walls.

  A sob of pure ecstasy burst from her throat.

  He wanted to follow her into oblivion, but not yet. Not yet. He was close; he could feel his balls tightening, his thoughts starting to blur, and he told himself to wait, to hold on, because even this wasn’t enough.

  “Ariel.” His voice was hoarse. “Ariel. Open your eyes.”

  Slowly, her lashes lifted.

  “Look at me,” he demanded. “I want to see myself in your eyes.”

  She reached up, caught his face, lifted herself to him and brought his mouth to hers for a deep, hot kiss.

  “Matteo,” she sobbed, and the world spun away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  He collapsed on her, his breathing hard and fast.

  He kissed her throat. Her mouth. Her eyelids. Drew the scent of her—woman, sweat, sex—deep into his lungs.

  She whispered his name. Stroked his shoulders. His back.

  He kissed her mouth again, lingered over the sweetness of it. Then he rolled off her and drew her into his arms so they were breast to breast, belly to belly, her face an inch from his on the pillow. Tendrils of dark gold curled damply against her forehead.

  “Sei bellissima,” he said softly. “You are so very beautiful.”

  Her mouth, rosy from his kisses, curled in a Mona Lisa smile.

  “Black eyes, cross-stitching, and all?”

  He smiled back at her. “Beautiful,” he said again, and kissed her.

  “So are you.”

  That made him laugh. “Me? No, sweetheart, I don’t think so. “

  “But you are.” She cupped his jaw, smoothed the tips of her fingers over his five o’clock stubble. “In such a sexy, masculine way.”

  He grinned, caught the tip of one finger between his teeth, sucked it gently into the warm, wet heat of his mouth.

  “Sexy and masculine, huh?”

  She smiled. “Uh huh. There are some men who are beautiful, but in a different way. When I was dancing, I knew a couple of guys like that. Not that male dancers are always gay. I know people think they are, but it’s not true. For instance, there was a married couple I danced with. In fact, she was the prima ballerina and he was the premier danseur, you know, the lead male dancer, and they…and they…” Her words tumbled to a halt. “Ohmygod,” she said, “ohmygod, Matteo! Did you hear what I said?” Her voice shook with amazed delight. “I remembered something! That I’m a dancer. With…”