Loving Venus (Sally-Ann Jones Sexy Romance)

by Sally-Ann Jones

  Their great-grandfather would have been proud of her, he knew. What a woman!

  Shaking his head in amazement and grinning delightedly, he climbed into the driver’s seat she vacated for him before she dashed around the car and got in beside him.

  “You’ve done a great job,” he whispered admiringly as he cast his eye over the sparkling walnut, the smooth leather, the glass and chrome that shone like newly-cut diamond. All his animosity was briefly forgotten.

  “Thanks,” she said, basking in his pleasure. “It was Tonia’s idea.”

  “Good old Tonia.”

  They smiled at each other shyly.

  “Let’s show her off,” Alessandro said, releasing the handbrake reverently. “We’ll take her up into the foothills. She hasn’t been there for more than a decade. She’ll enjoy the views as much as we will, I’ll bet.”

  He released the handbrake, put the engine into gear and they were off, gliding over the bumpy surface of the road as if it had been manufactured of the smoothest silk, the engine so quiet they could hear the birds singing as they tumbled in the cloudless blue of the sky. But Annabella was aware of nothing but the fact that Alessandro was beside her, his strong hands resting casually on the wheel, his tousled hair blowing in the warm breeze wafting through the open windows, his full mouth curved into a half smile, the musky scent of him tantalizing every one of her senses.

  She couldn’t have spoken a word if he’d decided to make conversation. Her heart thudded in her chest as if she’d spent a whole day tossing hay bales and she was embarrassingly aware of an unfamiliar heavy ache between her legs as well a disconcerting dampness there. She’d always scorned the weak heroines in old-fashioned novels who fainted when their lovers appeared on the scene but now she knew exactly how they felt. She was limp with desire and knew she would be incapable of doing anything while she was sitting so close to this outrageously handsome relative of hers.

  Alessandro was glad he had something to partially distract him from his second cousin whose shallow, quick breathing seemed miraculously to match his own. Not that he could entirely concentrate on the winding, climbing road. His eyes kept straying to his passenger. She was wearing, perhaps in honour of the Bentley, a pretty dress from the same era as the enchanting frock in which she had bewitched him at the village dance. It hugged her curves, exposing her rounded, alabaster arms and just a glimpse of perfectly-formed knee. From its simple curved neckline rose her own lovely white throat, then her proud chin and her wide-eyed face in its halo of wild curls and tendrils.

  “Where did you find your outfit?” he asked, attempting to be chatty. Yet he hardly recognized the husky voice as his own.

  She coughed, attempting to clear her throat that seemed choked with an unknown emotion. Even her lips didn’t seem able to function properly, they were so dry. She licked them before answering, “Tonia and I discovered a trunk in the attic. This was in it, as well as the…”

  “The beautiful green silk,” he finished. He could see her in it! How often had he pictured himself helping her gently out of it and…

  She nodded, so amazed he remembered it that she couldn’t speak.

  He drove on, relieved they weren’t on the main road to Rome, where the traffic was always heavy and very fast. He was too conscious of her presence to be able to drive in his usual efficient, speedy way and found himself letting the car meander from one side of the narrow, quiet little roads to the other.

  Neither knew how long they had been driving. Each was too enthralled in the spell of being with the other to notice that the sunny day had long given way to a perfect, amethyst twilight and that now the ebony sky was filling with stars, a full moon climbing slowly above the tops of the lines of cypress trees.

  It was only when the Bentley began to judder along the road that they were aware of the time and the fact that they had run out of petrol.

  “We’ll have to walk to the nearest village and buy some,” Annabella whispered. It had been so many hours since either had spoken that it would have seemed almost sacrilegious to have spoken aloud.

  “But I have no idea where we are,” Alessandro confessed. “I’m completely lost. And there is an oak forest over there, perhaps full of wild boar. It would be foolhardy to go wandering around now.”

  “What shall we do?” Annabella asked, surprised she was not more concerned about their predicament. She would have been enjoying herself thoroughly if she hadn’t been worried about Tonia’s concern for their not returning to Casa dei Fiori. The housekeeper might think they’d had an accident.

  Alessandro shrugged in his Italian way and, in the moonlight, she saw that he didn’t seem particularly concerned either. In fact, he was half smiling in that way she found so dangerously attractive.

  “Won’t Tonia be frantic?” she wondered aloud.

  “No. Without wanting to boast, I think she’s driven with me too often to know how unlikely it is that I would have an accident in a country lane. She’d put two and two together and realize the Bentley had either broken down or run out of fuel. Don’t worry about Tonia, Bella.”

  Bella.

  His lips made the name sound like a caress. His mouth lingered on the syllables so sensuously it was as if he had reached across and brushed her mouth with his.

  Her body juddered as violently as the now stationary car had minutes before and she was sure he must have noticed the hot rush of colour to her face and neck.

  But he was wrestling his own emotions, his own disobedient body that he was struggling to control.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Neither spoke and the silence was punctuated only by their hot, quick breath.

  An owl hooted eerily and Alessandro suddenly wondered if his second cousin might be afraid to be stranded in a strange country in the dark. He was a man, he was older than she. He must start acting responsibly.

  “Are you all right?” he inquired into the darkness. He could only just see her face now and the ivory gleam of her bare arms and legs.

  “Yes,” she murmured, suddenly aware that she’d dragged him away from whatever he had been doing in the cottage and hadn’t given a thought to the fact that he might have had something planned for tonight. Perhaps he’d been hoping to see Claudia. But, because of her, Annabella, he hadn’t eaten for goodness knows how long. She wondered if he were hungry, although food was the last thing on her mind, and remembered that in another existence, or so it seemed now, she’d had the foresight to pack a picnic lunch.

  “Do you want something to eat?” she asked, her voice trembling under those hungry eyes of his. They seemed about to devour her.

  “What?” he questioned absent-mindedly. How could she think of food at a time like this?

  Doing her best to ignore her clattering heart and the urgent clamour deep and low inside her, she replied as nonchalantly as possible, “Tonia helped me pack a basket of cold chicken and home-made bread. I think there’s wine, too, and mineral water.”

  Alessandro sighed. It was obvious she wasn’t feeling any of the terrifying, cliff-hanging excitement he was experiencing or she wouldn’t be thinking about her stomach. He dredged a normal response from the rational part of his brain and said flatly, “I wouldn’t mind some wine.”

  With shaking hands, Annabella turned and reached on the back seat of their great-grandfather’s car for the basket and managed to extricate the wine without having to move her body too close to Alessandro’s. She instinctively knew that to touch him would make her blood leap inside her as if a lightning bolt had struck her. There was a corkscrew too but she was as unable to use it as if she had been a tiny baby.

  Mutely, she held out the bottle and the corkscrew for her relative and noticed, with surprise, that his hands were trembling too. Or perhaps it was just the soft moonlight playing tricks.

  Knowing she’d become lightheaded and even less able to control what she said if she didn’t eat something with the wine, she twisted again in her seat and stretched for the food she and Tonia h
ad prepared, breaking pieces of chicken in her hands and tearing the bread into chunks which she piled into her lap. She was sure there were cutlery and napkins in the hamper but she didn’t trust herself to find them successfully.

  “Are there any glasses?” Alessandro demanded, having opened the vin santo.

  “Er … I’ll look,” she promised.

  But before she could look into the basket again, he merely offered her the bottle with a gesture of impatience. She took a swig from it and felt the clean, earthy taste flood all her senses, loosening her composure almost immediately. She passed it back to him and watched with a kind of rapt fascination as his lips rounded on the glass, exactly where hers had been. He took a long, desperate draught of the liquid and returned the bottle to her. Its neck was still warm where his mouth had been and she drank greedily, relishing the heat on the glass.

  She gave him a piece of chicken and another of bread and they ate together, the bottle on the floor at his feet. Neither had realized how hungry they were until they tasted the succulent flesh and the yeasty, crusty dough.

  When the impromptu meal was over, Alessandro resumed his position of being in charge and suggested they try to sleep, then be ready to wake at first light so they’d be able to walk for petrol.

  “I think we should move into the back because there’s more room in there and we’ll be more comfortable,” he suggested. “I know I don’t want to sleep with the steering wheel in front of me all night.”

  With that, he opened his door and climbed into the rear where he discovered a blanket at the bottom of the hamper.

  “Come on,” he prompted Annabella, who had stayed where she was. “It’s much roomier back here.”

  Tremblingly conscious of every cell in her second cousin and gnawingly aware that she was excruciatingly in love with him, she reluctantly did as he beckoned, accepting the other half of the blanket he held out to her. She pressed herself against the side of the Bentley, too afraid to leave the hard coldness of the door lest she weaken and allow herself to lean closer to him and his warm, spicy scent.

  Alessandro couldn’t have slept if his life depended on it, he knew. Never had he yearned for a woman the way he yearned for this usurper. She’d closed her eyes and was, he thought, dozing, so he could feast his eyes on her. Disappointingly, she’d drawn the blanket right up under her chin but he could still delight in the dusting of freckles on her slightly up-turned nose, be enchanted by the imperious curve of her tawny eyebrows and the even more determined jut of her little chin. In the moonlight, her pale skin was like purest satin.

  Annabella, her eyes closed although she’d never felt less like sleeping, felt his gaze on her face and, despite herself, her eyes flew open and met his. They were arresting, his eyes. Never before had she seen them burning with such intensity, such passion. It must, she thought again, be the moonlight making him look like that. Fringed with jet lashes, they seemed to speak to hers, suggesting words his mouth dared not utter. His silent mouth, however, also seemed to have a language of its own tonight. His full, red lips were slightly parted and she blushed to imagine them on hers.

  Alessandro’s heart leapt when she turned those emerald eyes to him and looked straight into his soul. She could be in no doubt about how much he wanted her, he thought. It was impossible for him to hide a desire of such an unbearable intensity.

  Afraid of yielding to it, he quickly looked away, using the excuse of wanting water to avoid her glittering, demanding gaze. He felt for another bottle in the hamper and was relieved to find one. He drank thankfully, avoiding her eyes, then passed it to her and, as she had done, feigned sleep.

  The nocturnal hours dragged past and, finally, both of them did doze a little, lulled by the gentle night noises of the birds in the forest and the soothing swishing of the branches in the breeze. But, in the hour just before dawn, when the air grew cold and they each slept soundly, one reached for the other without realizing it.

  Alessandro surfaced to semi-consciousness enough to marvel at how real his dream seemed. They were in each other’s arms, her hair soft against his lips, her strong arms returning his own embrace. Through the summer cotton of her dress he felt her taut nipples against his chest and he thrilled to the moan of desire she gave when, unable to contain himself any longer, he brought his mouth down on hers.

  Was this really a dream? he wondered, revelling in its sensuality. Before he had time to realize that Annabella really was in his arms, his wine-sweet tongue was flirting with hers, echoing the act that his whole body longed to perform with a hunger that was undeniable.

  He couldn’t stop now, although she was still asleep, perhaps also believing it was a dream. Would it be so bad to make love to her here on this lonely country road? His mind flew back to her first moment at Casa dei Fiori a few short weeks ago and the kiss she’d given him when they met again after all those years. She had wanted him then, certainly. And he wanted her now, he was certain.

  With a sob, he felt for the zipper in the small of her back and tore it down to reveal her beautiful, heavy breasts in the snowy white, innocent bra. Too impatient to unclasp this modest garment, he hurriedly pushed one strap off her shoulder and lifted one breast from its confines before dropping his head and taking the erect nipple into his mouth.

  He sucked and licked hungrily, thrilling at her groans of pleasure. He felt his own body harden even more and knew he wouldn’t be able to wait much longer. Usually, he could temper himself, timing his lovemaking to allow his partner to build up to a crescendo of delight before climaxing with her. But with Annabella, all notions of control were out of the question.

  He lifted the other breast from its cup and began to tease the rosebud pink nipple when he, too, heard a moan escape from deep inside him. Annabella’s hands were under his shirt, her fingers tantalizing the lean, hard torso. He brought his mouth up to hers as she slid her fingers down his back and felt the blood pulse through him as she sucked unashamedly on his tongue.

  He forced his eyes open at the very moment she did and both knew that this was very much a reality. A reality they both wanted more than they’d ever wanted anything before.

  As her hand pushed down, between his layers of clothes and the hot, bare skin of his firm buttocks, Alessandro allowed his to tangle in the red triangle of hair below her navel. Hungry guttural sounds filled the air as he fondled her there, tantalizing her by not touching her where she most wanted him to be.

  Annabella squeezed the flesh of his buttocks, pushing herself up and against him so their pelvises met and she could feel him bucking and throbbing against her belly.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” Alessandro rasped, now letting his fingers touch her where she was damp and hot.

  “I know,” she panted. “We must stop.” But, even as she whispered these words, her fingers were on his trouser button, then on his zip.

  With a hoarse groan, his own hand clamped over hers.

  “This is madness!” he breathed, with every intention of forcing her hand away from him.

  But instead, their fingers linked and even they seemed to mimic the lovemaking they both wanted so badly.

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her palm, as if giving it unspoken approval for what he knew it hungered to do.

  For a moment, she lifted her face and their eyes met. It was a moment of calm in a frenzied, desperate few minutes. Annabella looked into his blazing eyes and knew that he wanted her. She let her gaze rest on the strong features of his face – a face she’d loved since she was twelve, a face that had hardly changed, except that, impossibly, it had become even more devastatingly handsome. He was her Alessandro, deep, deep down inside himself, no matter how cold and unfeeling he pretended to be. And she’d been in love with him since she had begun her journey to womanhood. Now she’d reached the destination. With certainty, she lifted her lips to his again and they kissed tenderly.

  Alessandro, too, felt as if they’d reached a kind of truce. She may have taken from him
everything he held most dear, but she was, essentially, his beloved Annabella. An exquisite, grown-up version who knew exactly what she wanted.

  The calm was not to last for long. During that long, sweet kiss, her hand slid down to where he throbbed for her and his returned to its maddening, teasing of her body’s most precious secrets.

  “Bella!” he sighed, his breath entering her mouth.

  He pushed her damp panties down and slid her beneath him so that she stretched helplessly on the seat, every pore of her longing for him. With shaking hands and her heart hammering so hard she was sure he could hear it, she helped him tear his boxer shorts and trousers off, her eyes widening at the sight of him. Wanting to take in all of his hard, muscular body, she ripped at the shirt he was still wearing and there he was, bending over her in all his beauty.

  “You’re fabulous!” she cried hoarsely, reaching for him and arching her back so she could take his arousal in her mouth and feel his hardness against her tongue. She sucked and licked at him, his ragged breathing proof that he was not shocked by her behaviour but delighted by it. But spiralling deep, deep down in her was a wild yearning to have him there, filling her yawning, burning emptiness.

  “I want you inside me,” she begged. “Now, Alessandro!”

  With a deep sigh of contentment, he lifted himself from her lips and slid down, teasing her for just a few more seconds with his knee pushing hard against her dampness. Her body convulsed once, twice, as if molten electricity were slamming through her veins and she sobbed with longing for more.

  “Do you want me?” he demanded, although she was beyond speech.

  “Tell me you want me inside you,” he insisted.

  For answer, she took his rigid shaft in her hand and guided him down, lifting her hips to meet his.

  He thrust slowly, tentatively, his almost black eyes never off hers.

  She gasped as pain wracked through her at her body’s initial resistance to his onslaught then a cry of utter joy escaped her as he broke through.