Once the valves were flipped off, he stepped out and grabbed two towels. One went around his waist, the other he ran over his chest and then through his hair. The bathroom door opened into his bedroom with a pop.
In her jeans and T-shirt, Giuliana was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the big unmade bed, her feet bare of anything but cherry pink toenail polish. He shifted back, then rethought his retreat. Taking another few steps forward into the room, he crossed his arms over his chest and trained his gaze on her face. “What are you doing in here?”
She lifted a delicate shoulder. “This is where I’ve been sleeping.”
He assumed that was over. He wanted that to be over, didn’t he? The closeness of sex and sleep was something he couldn’t risk anymore, not when all that old pain was finding it so easy to slip its locks. “We’ll move you back to the guest room.”
“It won’t change anything,” she said.
He was afraid she was right, but he didn’t want to go there with her. When he’d left the courtyard, he’d hoped to leave all the revelations of their conversation there, too. Revisiting it was just asking for trouble. So he played dumb. “Change what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her eyebrows drew together and her nostrils flared in a dramatic fashion. It was one of those expressive, Baci faces that used to make him laugh. Giuliana could communicate whole stories with just a flutter of her extravagant eyelashes, and it had fascinated him, accustomed as he was to silent family meals where no one said really anything, even when their mouths were moving.
Clearly she was irritated with him and a little impatient. “Liam,” she said. “You can put me out in a storage shed, but it won’t change . . . Never mind. I just thought you could use a friend right now.”
He didn’t need anyone for anything. He’d made damn sure to become self-sufficient in the last ten years. “We’re not friends, Jules.”
“We used to be.”
“We used to be a lot of things and ‘used to be’ is the operative phrase, isn’t it?” He had the icy tone down pat.
But it didn’t scare her off. She scooted on her cute little ass, bringing herself closer to the end of the bed. “Look. We have a history. Nobody could understand that history better than me. I thought if you needed to talk . . . I could listen. Maybe . . . maybe I could . . .”
She’d run out of fuel, probably due to his impersonal, implacable stare. Perfect. The quicker she gave up and got out, the quicker he could get on with his life. The more she was close to him, the more she rubbed against him, the more he discovered his personal demons were able to escape that place where he’d bottled them in the back of his mind.
“While I appreciate the offer, Jules,” he said, walking toward the door that led into the hall, “no.” With a flip of his wrist, he turned the knob and held it open. “If you’ll excuse me . . .”
She climbed off the bed. “Fine,” she said, visibly wounded by the rebuff.
He didn’t want to feel regret about that, either. So he tamped it down, too, and watched her cross the carpet. For just a second, he allowed the image of her in his bedroom to imprint on his memory, like the indentation of her head on the pillow beside his. His lungs inhaled her scent as she passed. Good-bye, he whispered inside his mind, crowding close as she crossed the threshold so he could take in a final breath of her.
She whirled then, her dark hair winging outward. “You don’t have to be this way—” she started, her voice hot. Her wild hand gesture caught on the towel around his waist.
It started to slip. Too late, he reached for it but missed the falling fabric.
Giuliana didn’t seem to notice. “I only wanted to make you feel better . . .” Her voice trailed off as her gaze dropped, taking in his nudity. “Oh.”
Her scent, her nearness, her entire pretty package had already acted upon him. His cock was rising as she watched and he was helpless to stop it. Damn! He wasn’t supposed to be this vulnerable. So she had to go. Now.
With deliberation, he palmed the stiff jut of his flesh, knowing just how to get rid of her. “If you want to make me feel better,” he said in a hard voice, “there’s just one thing I need.”
Her eyes still downcast and her attention on his moving hand, she flushed.
His voice hoarsened. “It’s the only thing I want from you, sweetheart.”
“Really?” She sounded wistful.
“Only.” He had to be strong.
For another moment, she looked. Then her gaze rose. They stared at each other for a second, longer moment. He continued stroking his cock, doing what he must to drive her away.
Her tongue slipped out to moisten her lower lip. “It would be my pleasure,” she whispered, moving his hand to replace it with hers.
He swallowed his groan. “Giuliana . . .”
“Shh.” Her other palm pushed against his chest and he stepped backward. She kept the pressure on his breastbone and he continued moving, until the back of his legs hit the end of the bed. She pushed again, and he fell to the mattress, his erection sliding through the circle of her fingers.
Before he could take a breath, she was crawling over him. Her mouth fastened on his. Without thought, his hands found her waist, slid down to her hips, applied enough pressure to bring her flush against him. The denim of her jeans abraded the skin of his groin, a gentle but cruel pleasure.
He rolled, reversing their positions. Now he was between her parted thighs, his weight flush to her pelvis, his upper body propped on his elbows. “This is how we play this game,” he said.
Her mouth trembled. “Oh, Liam. It’s not a game. It’s never really been a game.”
Of course it was. It had to be.
He slid his hands under her shirt to cup her breasts. The lace of her bra tickled his palms and he quickly found the middle clasp. With a twist of his fingers, he had her silky skin in his possession. Her naked flesh was hot, her nipples budding as he brushed them with his thumbs.
She moaned. The sound galvanized him. He stripped the shirt from her and untangled her arms from her bra straps. Then he mouthed her skin, tasting all the scented sweetness from her throat to her breasts. He ringed them with kisses and then sucked on her nipples, trying to ignore the way her twisting lower body enflamed him.
But he had to taste more of her. The flat of his tongue circled her areolas and then traced a path down the middle of her torso. Kneeling to the side, he laved her navel while he yanked open her jeans and slid them lower on her thighs along with her panties.
He moved to the end of the bed and slipped her clothing all the way off. Then he stroked her legs with the flat of his hands, starting at the top of her small feet, working past her ankles, and smoothing up her calves. He pushed gently on her knees and then her inner thighs, creating a place for himself on the mattress between them.
“Liam . . .” She moved restlessly.
He ignored her, still taking that slow journey over her skin, like a man learning her by touch alone. His fingertips found the hot creases at the juncture of her thighs and she jerked and moaned again. He notched his fingers and thumbs in those sweet crevices and pushed outward to open her more fully to his gaze.
The sound she made was anxious and he soothed her by running one thumb across her clitoris. “It’s going to be so good,” he promised her. “Better than ever.” The last time ever.
She dug her heels into the bed and lifted herself into his teasing thumb. “Don’t make me wait.”
He leaned down to kiss that tender skin between her hipbone and mons. He tongued the heated warmth of it, then sucked there, lightly. She lifted into the stinging kiss and he sucked harder, knowing he’d leave a mark behind.
Wanting to mark her forever.
Forever his.
He kissed the little bruise, then shifted to the other hip. As he kissed her delicate skin, he let his finger slide through the folds of her sex. As he slowly penetrated her slick opening, he deepened the kiss. She lifted into his possession ag
ain, impaling herself deeper and pressing her skin into the hot suction of his mouth.
He laved the second mark, his heart pounding against his ribs. It thumped harder as he lifted his head and took her in: flushed face, tight nipples, splayed legs. His hand at her sex, his finger nestled inside her. He drew it out, mesmerized by each emerging wet inch, and then took her again, with two. Her dark curls were damp with her arousal and he ruffled the fingers of his free hand through them, delicately brushing the hard button of her clitoris with each stroke.
Her palms were pressed tight to the sheets at her side. She was trembling, her breasts quivering as desire took her higher. “Liam,” she whispered again, a warning note in her voice.
She was close to climax.
“Not yet.” He took his fingers from her body and brought them to his lips. Her brown eyes were fixed on him as he drew off their wetness into his mouth, tasting her. He savored the flavor and reached for more, curling his fingers as he breached her body again.
Giuliana moaned as he withdrew them and he paused with their glistening length poised over her belly. He could hear his own harsh voice on that day that she’d run from him in the vineyard. I want to write my name on your belly with your come.
He saw those possessive marks he’d made inside her hipbones. He saw her tousled hair, her swollen mouth, her breasts.
Her belly, where their child had, so briefly, slept.
Shaking his head, he tried putting that from his mind. This was not a moment for reflection, but for sex. Her skin turned him on, her slender limbs, her taste . . . He put his fingers to his mouth again and sucked it off.
I want to write my name on your belly.
Ten years ago he’d made her pregnant. Now he’d marked her, those kisses flaming against her skin.
Her pretty skin, he reminded himself. Those rounded breasts. The triangle of curls that shielded her pussy.
His gaze traveled up to her liquid brown eyes and he couldn’t separate her anymore into those sexy parts. She was Giuliana, the girl, the woman, the one he’d never been able to forget.
“Liam,” she implored. “Come inside me. Come inside me now.”
But he had one thing to do first. A final secret to tell. His fingers dipped inside her body again. She cried out, her inner muscles clamping down to hold him there. Recognizing that the crisis had arrived, he placed his other hand over the top of her sex, applying steady pressure to her pelvis even as he curled his thumb inside the open petals to stroke the sensitive center.
His breath soughing harshly in and out of his lungs, he watched her gather and make the final leap. Crying out, she tightened around his penetrating digits, bathing them with more fluid.
Her eyes closed as she calmed. He was gentle as he withdrew from her body, but she shuddered anyway and opened her eyes. “I don’t want it to be over,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“We’re not over.” Not yet. He would take her up again, this time with his cock inside that heated channel. But he had something to write first, and he started at that first red passion-bite on her hip, moving across with his forefinger toward the other. She watched through half-closed eyes, her gaze languid.
She didn’t ask what he was doing. It only took a moment. Then he reached for a condom. With a little smile, Giuliana sat up and took it from him. He saw the liquid on her belly glisten as she rolled the rubber over his rock-solid shaft.
And then he was on top of her again, their bodies shifting against each other. She cried out as he entered her. He gathered her closer and buried his face in the shiny length of her hair.
That dark place in his mind opened. Each thrust seems to release another flow of pain from it to mingle with the consuming pleasure of this last episode of sex with his wife. A tender anguish clutched at his heart and that was hurting now, too, so much that he had to hide the dampness in his eyes against Giuliana’s silky locks as he sealed his secret message with the weight of his body against hers.
She was already planning on leaving Edenville. He had no faith that he’d make a better husband now than he had ten years before. But neither fact changed what he’d written across her flat belly, in that place where there could only be honesty between them.
I’ll love you always.
Giuliana’s schedule for the rest of the day was too busy for her to spend much time thinking about what happened in Liam’s bed that morning. As a matter of fact, she had a lot of things she didn’t want to think about, so the small, midweek wedding taking place in the cottage during the late afternoon served as yet another welcome distraction. A little frisson rolled down her back when Allie asked her to do a ride-along as the younger woman chauffeured the bride and groom to a cozy B and B nearby. But it was a favor for Napa Princess Limousine—Stevie’s business—so Giuliana didn’t see how she could refuse.
Once they reached the inn’s parking lot, her job was to ferry the fresh flowers into the bridal suite while Allie toted their overnight bags. She returned to the car, the sight of the groom carrying the giggling bride over the threshold burned into her mind. Her hands, clothes, and hair held on to the scent of sweet peas and roses.
Sliding into the passenger seat, she slid Allie a wary glance. Now was the natural time for her to bring up the sale of the Tanti Baci land. Would her youngest sister understand?
She needed both her sisters to understand.
But the traffic was heavy as twilight descended, and Allie seemed to be saving her focus for the cars around her. It was nearly dark by the time they reached the turnoff to the winery. The silence between them was only broken by the crunching sound of the tires across gravel. Then the car turned into the lane that led to the farmhouse and they both let out a little gasp.
Allie braked. “Oh. Pretty.”
The simple lines of the old farmhouse had been edged with white fairy lights. It appeared magical from this distance, or maybe that was just because Giuliana had so many enchanting memories of her childhood there. Perhaps the whole past year had been worth it—and maybe even the heartache after, because surely there would be heartache after—if she had been able to reclaim that time that had been lost to her.
The limo moved forward to halt in the parking area beside the house. Both sisters climbed out, then Giuliana hesitated. If she went inside to check on Stevie, she’d have to face both sisters at once. If she took the shortcut to Liam’s house, she’d have to face him. They’d been silent after their lovemaking, getting up and dressing as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t sensed the good-bye in every move, in every touch.
As if she hadn’t asked for just that very good-bye by planning to sell the land.
Allie gestured with her hand. “Come inside. We’ll open a bottle. Feel like chardonnay?”
She felt like screaming. Her sister’s polite hospitality only scraped against her already raw nerves. “I don’t know . . .”
“Liam waiting for you?”
The farmhouse was the rock, Liam the hard place, and Giuliana couldn’t find breathing room between the two of them. “I . . . I guess I can have a glass while I see Steve.”
But they found Jack in the kitchen, who said his wife was asleep. He put an arm around each of the sisters and hugged them close, his mouth brushing the top of Allie’s head and then Giuliana’s. “I love her so much,” he murmured. “I was so damn scared.”
Air couldn’t get past her tight throat. Giuliana clasped Jack just as tight. “Everything’s fine,” she told him, rubbing his back. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”
And it struck her once more that no one had comforted Liam when he’d received her call from Tuscany. While she’d been by herself in Italy, he’d been just as alone in Edenville. In that tense house with his strained parental relations, very alone.
Jack bussed each of the sisters on the forehead and then moved away, a smile banishing the last shadow of worry in his eyes. “So, we celebrate now, yes? What can I make for my lovely sisters-in-law?”
She had to s
mile back. He could be such a gentleman, handed down from both his European and his Southern families. “Jack,” she said, letting impulse guide her. “Stevie’s such a lucky lady to have you.”
He went serious again. “She’s my light.”
Giuliana might have lost it at that, but then the kitchen door opened. Penn walked in and was instantly leapt upon by Allie, who peppered him with kisses. He hitched up her butt with both hands, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Thank you for putting the lights on the farmhouse,” she said, and gave him a few more juicy smacks.
“I helped,” another voice said. “What do I get?”
Liam. His gaze settled on Giuliana as he walked into the kitchen and she felt her cheeks go warm.
Allie threw a smile in his direction. “A glass of wine with the rest of us. Jack’s opening chardonnay.”
Jack obliged, though Liam opted for beer. Somehow Giuliana was swept outside with the group, settling on a picnic table placed on the close-cropped grass. Hands occupied, her youngest sister left the house last. Allie set a plate of cheese and crackers beside a battery-operated lantern.
Finally, she took a seat across the table from Giuliana and placed in front of her the item that Kohl and Grace had found.
About the size of two teacups, the fairy lights and lantern illuminated the metal that shined dully beneath its tarnish. The decorative gemstones were dirty, too, but managed a muted wink or two from beneath the dust. Giuliana slid along the bench, edging away from it. Perhaps it wasn’t the legendary treasure, but it appeared to be silver and gold and there were “sparklies,” as little-girl Allie called any kind of jewel. What else could it be?
“I made a call to a friend who runs an antiques store in Napa,” Allie said. “We think it’s a wedding cake topper.”
Giuliana jerked her gaze to her sister’s face. “Anne and Alonzo’s?”
“Maybe. We should page through her diary again, see if there’s a mention of it. But it makes sense. My friend tells me toppers came into vogue in the 1890s and were customary by the 1920s. The tradition is said to have been launched by Queen Victoria in 1840. She had an ice sculpture on top of the cake served after her wedding to Prince Albert.”
Can't Hurry Love Page 23