by Daphne Clair
Slowly he moved his hands up to her breasts, and she gave a muffled cry, placing her own hands over his to press them to her, arching her body, her head flung back.
His mouth found the taut curve of her throat, roughly exploring it, and she removed her hands from his, undoing the zipper on his trousers, freeing him with clumsy fingers.
A breath audibly dragged in his throat, and then his lips were on hers again, his tongue plunging into her mouth, and she welcomed the intimate penetration, encouraging his aggressiveness. She felt both his hands lift her, cupping her as he backed himself against the solid trunk of the tree, and she opened her thighs, letting him enter her smoothly, deeply, satisfyingly, making her give a sob of pure relief. ‘Love me,’ she whispered, begging unashamedly. ‘Oh, Zito, love me.’
CHAPTER FOUR
HE DID, thrusting even deeper, taking her over, letting her consume him in turn, holding her safe and secure while she rode the waves of pleasure, his mouth on her shoulder, her throat, her breasts, sending her higher, higher, soaring into a familiar but intensely exciting world of darkness and dizziness and delight beyond belief, beyond imagination. Where he joined her, his own gutturally expressed pleasure bringing her to yet another pulsing, uninhibited peak while he kissed her mouth again and said against the gasping little sounds that forced themselves from her lips, ‘God, I love you!’
They stayed locked together for minutes, panting against each other. And then he handed her his pristine folded handkerchief and turned to retrieve her clothes, helped her dress and dropped a kiss at the top of her spine as he closed the zipper. She was still shaking, and he caught her against him and held her until she stopped, calling her darling and laughing a little anxiously but also with a hint of masculine triumph at her reaction.
They’d returned to the ballroom with her hand decorously tucked into the crook of his arm, and a glance had shown Roxane that Zito looked as well-groomed and self-possessed as always, but she headed straight for the ladies’ room and a mirror.
Although her hair, which she’d worn longer then, almost waist-length, because Zito liked it that way, had remarkably kept its casually elegant pinned-up style, her cheeks were hectically flushed, her eyes brilliant with huge glistening pupils, and her mouth moist and swollen and very red, although not a scrap of her carefully applied lipstick remained.
After repairing the damage as best she could, she’d emerged with her head high and for a decent hour or so had done her best to ignore the knowing glances and sly laughter she was sure were being directed at them, until Zito yielded to her urgent plea to take her home.
There, he’d laughed at her chagrined declaration that everyone had guessed what they’d been up to in the shrubbery, and told her it didn’t matter if they had.
‘I believe you’re proud of it!’ she accused him, and he laughed again, confirming her suspicion even as he denied the charge.
‘We’re married,’ he said. ‘We’re entitled to make love where and when we choose, provided we don’t frighten the horses. And it was fun, wasn’t it?’
More than fun, it had been awesome, amazing, but in retrospect she was slightly horrified that they’d been unable to wait until they got home.
‘I’m not going to boost your ego for you any further,’ she retorted, determined to wipe the lurking smile from his mouth. But he only laughed even more before carrying her to bed and making love to her all over again, this time in a sweet, languorous fashion that nevertheless ended in a shattering climax before she slept, exhausted, in his arms.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Zito put down his fork and pushed his empty plate aside.
Jolted back to the present, Roxane raised startled eyes and immediately lowered them again, afraid that he’d read remembered passion in them. ‘Nothing.’ She gulped more wine before digging her own fork again into her remaining pasta. With any luck he’d think it was the wine that was making her cheeks hot. ‘Do you want coffee?’
She hadn’t meant to offer him coffee or anything else. But it was the first distracting thing that came into her mind.
‘Not yet.’ Zito emptied the bottle into her glass, picked up his own half-full one and pushed his chair backward, hooking a hand into his belt and lifting one foot to rest it on the other knee. It was a pose he’d adopted often when they were alone at home. He found it relaxing…she found it very sexy. It was so outright male and so unconsciously demonstrative of how comfortable he was with his own body.
Averting her eyes, Roxane hurriedly scooped up the remains of her meal, trying to blank her mind, pausing only to help the spaghetti down with wine.
‘Shall I make it?’ he asked.
‘What?’ Fleetingly she glanced at him.
‘Shall I make the coffee?’ he repeated patiently. ‘You’re tired.’
Thank heaven if he thought that was all it was. ‘No, I’ll do it.’ Having offered, she could hardly retract now. Standing up, she stacked his plate on top of hers.
Zito got up too, taking them from her. ‘Okay, you do it while I deal with these.’ He walked to the sink. ‘You don’t have a dishwasher?’
‘I don’t need one.’ She made herself stop looking at the way his haunches moved inside the fabric of his trousers, and turned to the coffee-maker on a small trolley between the fridge and the stove. She couldn’t offer Zito instant, although she knew he’d accept it courteously and drink it with every appearance of pleasure.
Or would he? As a guest he would never dream of implying any fault in the hospitality he was offered, but as her ex-husband he might feel no such obligation.
She reached for the coffee grinder and the dark roasted beans in their airtight container.
By the time the rich, heavy smell of percolating coffee hung in the air, Zito had efficiently washed up.
Roxane poured the coffee, black and unadulterated for him, sugar and a dollop of milk in hers.
Zito picked up the cups as she returned the milk to the refrigerator. ‘In the front room?’ he asked her.
No, she wanted to say. It was much too intimate. She’d arranged the furniture for a few people to comfortably converse.
No good excuse came to mind; the kitchen was pretty and functional but despite the thin cushions the cheap wooden chairs lacked a certain degree of comfort. She compromised with a shrug, implying the choice was his.
Taking the shrug for agreement, Zito carried the cups into the living room and placed them on the table that separated the side-by-side armchairs from the sofa.
But when she had chosen a chair he lowered himself into the other before wrapping his hand about his coffee cup and inhaling sensuously, his eyes closing—the heat of the cup, the tiny wisp of steam, the rich aroma all part of a deeply sensuous experience before he’d even tasted it. The familiar ritual renewed the ache in Roxane’s heart.
Zito sipped appreciatively, then leaned back in his chair, turning his eyes toward her, and it dawned on her that she’d been awaiting his approval. Hastily she averted her own eyes and lifted her cup.
‘How long have you had the place?’ Zito asked.
‘Six months or so.’ She took another sip.
‘Six months.’ She sensed disapproval in his tone. ‘You’ve been alone all that time?’
Her skin prickled. ‘Mostly.’
Zito moved restlessly, and his knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the cup in his hand. Roxane lifted her curious gaze to his face, and saw an ominous fullness about his lower lip, perilously close to sulking, and fire in his eyes.
She suspected he thought she was deliberately being evasive. About to clarify that she had never lived with any man but himself, she paused. They were no longer married. What right did he have to explanations or excuses?
None, she told herself against a twinge of conscience, and held her tongue, forcing her expression to remain neutral and her body to relax into the chair.
Zito gulped more coffee as if it might stop him saying something explosive. Restraining himself.
The idea was so novel Roxane wanted to laugh. For once she felt as if she had the upper hand.
They weren’t enemies, she reminded herself with compunction. So why did she feel this curious vindication?
‘It’s a small house,’ Zito said abruptly.
Instinctively Roxane defended the cottage. ‘Big enough for me.’ She gave him a deliberately serene smile. ‘And for the occasional visitor.’
That would give him something to think about.
The scowl was wiped away behind a bland answering smile, though a warning glitter lurked in the depths of his eyes. ‘Do you have many…visitors?’
She would not let him intimidate her. ‘Now and then.’ Her mother had visited for a couple of weeks, and her English cousin had stayed for a few days while touring New Zealand. A work colleague had been a temporary boarder while hunting for an apartment.
But Zito wanted to know if she’d had a man—men—here overnight.
Leading him away from the subject, she asked, ‘Where are you staying?’
He told her the name of his five-star hotel and she refrained from commenting, Of course. Then he said, ‘Is that an invitation?’
‘No!’ She nearly choked on her coffee.
His face went taut and she added, ‘I can’t provide the kind of accommodation you’re accustomed to.’ Giving him justifications, palliatives. She pressed her lips together to shut herself up. Her cup was empty, but she went on cradling it to keep her hands occupied.
‘I wouldn’t complain about the accommodation,’ he answered, ‘if you were offering anything else.’
Roxane gave him a haughty stare, and he smiled, tempting her to throw the cup at him. Instead, she put it carefully onto the table.
A hint, but Zito seemed in no hurry to finish his coffee. ‘Have I offended you?’ he asked her.
As if he cared. ‘Several times,’ she answered.
His brows shot up. ‘Darling…surely you haven’t turned into a prude?’
‘Maybe I always was—by your standards.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Shy, perhaps. A little nervous at first, but that was to be expected, and I loved it. Loved your innocence and your sensuousness. You were brave and eager, and you very quickly learned to be adventurous.’
Following his lead, she had traversed uncharted pathways of sensuality with him, emboldened by his frank appreciation into sometimes taking the initiative, discovering things about his body and her own that none of the books and magazines she’d read had prepared her for, and to her astonished delight had found that by touching him in certain ways she could bring him to a kind of submission, could make him tremble in her arms.
But always it was he who finally took over, ensuring that her pleasure equalled his, that neither of them reached the pinnacle alone.
He’d been an experienced lover. Without being told, she’d known she wasn’t the first woman to be the recipient of his intensely personal sexual attention.
No use wondering if he’d been as totally fascinated by other women’s bodies as he was by hers, if he’d murmured the same admiring words, demonstrated the same absorption in the texture of their skin and hair, in the exact shape of their mouths, the curved arch of a foot, or the smoothness of a polished fingernail against his curled tongue.
Jealousy was a futile and demeaning emotion and Roxane refused to give way to it. She hadn’t while she was married to him and she wouldn’t now, when whoever he slept with should no longer concern her.
At the back of her mind she’d known all along that a man who immersed himself so thoroughly in physical activity of any kind, from sport to eating to sex—a man to whom indulging his senses was as natural as breathing—wouldn’t have gone twelve months without a partner in his bed.
Only now that he was here in the flesh, so close she fancied she could feel the heat emanating from his body, accompanied by a teasing, elusive male scent, she could no longer pretend she didn’t care.
Not to herself. But she needed to hide her feelings from him. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘even adventurousness palls after a while, doesn’t it?’
Maybe she’d shocked him a little, because he took a second to answer, turning to her with hard, disbelieving eyes. ‘You were bored with our sex life?’
She’d touched a nerve. He’d hate to think he’d been less than successful in that area. ‘I didn’t say that. Anyway, it’s pointless discussing it now.’
Backing away again, dodging the real issue. Despising herself, she met the angry scepticism in his eyes, and steeled herself not to react.
‘You should have told me,’ he said, ignoring her denial. ‘I could have arranged to spice it up. What would you have liked, darling? Toys, perhaps? A bit of bondage or S and M?’
Fierce antagonism rose at the crude suggestion and his jeering tone. ‘I’m sure you’d have enjoyed that!’ she flashed at him. Bondage would have nicely symbolised their relationship.
‘I enjoyed what we had,’ he told her. ‘And don’t tell me you didn’t! You weren’t faking what I saw in your face every time we made love, what I felt when your sweet body was convulsing against mine, when you were straining every muscle to bring me closer, deeper…harder.’
She looked away from him, staring unseeingly at the carpet while she tried to control the heat suffusing her being.
‘That isn’t why you left me,’ he said.
‘I never said it was.’ Unable to bear his nearness any longer, Roxane stood up, taking a couple of steps away until she stopped before the empty fireplace, its curved grate and tiled surround surmounted by a mantelpiece holding a photograph of her parents alongside books and a Venetian glass vase.
She turned to face Zito. ‘It had nothing to do with sex, you know that. You were a wonderful lover.’ She was certain he knew that too. ‘But it wasn’t enough.’
He put his unfinished coffee down on the table and stood up. ‘All I know is that giving you my heart, my life, my love wasn’t enough for you. You walked away from all of it without so much as a goodbye.’
‘The letter I wrote—’
He waved a hand angrily, making a derisive moue with his mouth. ‘—told me nothing! Gratitude and assurances that it wasn’t my fault, but you needed freedom to be a person in your own right—I’m surprised you didn’t write that you were going off to “find yourself.” Oh, and I forgot—’ he snapped his fingers ‘—you signed it with your love.’
As if that had been the major, unforgivable sin. She hadn’t known how else to end the anguished, muddled attempt at explanation. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wincing. ‘But if you read it…’ Surely she had conveyed some idea of her feelings, of the pressures and the growing panic that had forced her to take that drastic step.
‘Of course I did! Twice, before I tore it up.’
Roxane’s heart dropped several inches. He’d read her pathetic outpouring in mounting rage and incredulity, no doubt, and then relieved his feelings by destroying it.
‘Maybe if you’d read it more carefully—’
‘Would that have changed anything? You’d left me, given up on our marriage, so what difference could it make?’
None, she supposed. Only she had wanted him to understand, in some way. Futile, of course. If he hadn’t understood when they were face to face, how could he have understood simply because she’d tried to put it in writing?
‘You’re right,’ she said hopelessly. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’
Irritation crossed his face. ‘What does matter to you, Roxane? Not your marriage vows, not your so-called love for me…’
Steadying her voice, she said evenly, ‘Taking responsibility for myself.’
‘By going back on your solemn promises to me? To God? You call that responsibility? What about till death us do part?’
He was striking at her most vulnerable inner self. Her conscience smote her often enough about reneging on her vows. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing back then,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t as mature as I t
hought.’
‘You were legally an adult,’ he reminded her harshly.
‘Then why didn’t you treat me like one?’
His eyes glittered as his gaze passed over her in a telling, insolent inspection. ‘I thought I did.’ His voice descended to a deep purr. ‘You had no complaints at the time.’
Roxane couldn’t help a hot shiver of response to that explicit glance. Determined not to let him sidetrack her into those perilous pathways, she repeated, ‘This is not about sex.’
‘Then tell me what it is about,’ he challenged. ‘What did I do to you that was so terrible?’
‘Nothing!’ she said. ‘Not deliberately. You were just…you.’
She saw his jaw clench, his face going sallow. ‘I was the man you fell in love with,’ he reminded her after a moment. ‘Did I change?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But you didn’t want me to change either.’
Zito spread his hands in a gesture of exasperation. ‘Why should I? You were my perfect woman, everything I ever dreamed of…until you left me.’
Maybe it was true. Maybe all he’d ever wanted in a woman was sweet compliance and great sex. And at first she’d been happy to give him that, devoting all her energy to being everything he asked of her, his perfect wife, pleasing him in every way possible. No wonder he’d been astonished and enraged when he discovered that she had needs and wants of her own that didn’t necessarily coincide with his.
‘You don’t understand,’ she told him. ‘You never did.’
He said something explosively Italian, and turned on his heel to stride over to the window again as if he didn’t trust himself to stay near her, then swung round and glared at her across the room. ‘You’ve put a couple of thousand miles of ocean between us and cut off all communication, and you blame me for not understanding?’
He made a scornful sound and chopping gesture in the air, and Roxane had to hide a painful little smile. When he was under stress his ancestry showed. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he bit out. ‘You were too young. Too young to know what love really is, to commit yourself to marriage, to permanence. I suppose you felt you were missing out on the things other people your age were doing.’