His Reluctant Bride

by Sara Craven

  Paolo, she thought. Paolo and his awful mother down at Lake Trasimeno. She hadn’t given them a single thought. But then she doubted whether either of them had spared much time to consider her plight either.

  Whatever, she would have to leave a message with some excuse to explain her abrupt departure alone. Paolo would probably not be pleased, but that couldn’t be helped. And she’d probably done enough to convince his mother that the Manzone marriage was a non-starter, so some good might come out of the bleak misery of this ill-starred visit after all.

  But three long hours later she was still waiting. She tried to occupy some time at the piano, but was too irritated by her own lack of concentration to continue, so she put the music away, and closed the lid gently. Another goodbye.

  She wandered restlessly round the heated stillness of the garden, trying not to look at her watch too often, and failing. She still had no idea what flight she’d be able to catch. Maybe there wouldn’t be one until the next day, now, and she would have to spend the night at the airport, but even that could be endured.

  Anywhere, she thought with sudden passion. Please, God, anywhere but here. I can’t be with him for another night. I can’t…

  The sun was setting when she at last heard the sound of the Jeep. She’d been curled up in the corner of the sofa, but now she stiffened, sitting upright, her eyes fixed painfully on the open doorway. She heard his footsteps, his voice in a brief exchange with Guillermo.

  Then he came into the room and stood looking at her, in silence, a strange intensity in his dark gaze that parched her mouth and made her tremble inwardly.

  She found words from somewhere in a voice she barely recognised as hers. ‘The road—is it ready now? Can we go?’

  ‘Sì,’ he said quietly. ‘It is open.’

  She touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips. ‘Then—I’d better get—my things.’

  He said something soft and violent under his breath, then came to her, his long stride swallowing the distance between them. He took her wrists, pulling her to her feet in one swift, almost angry movement.

  Then he bent his head, and kissed her on the mouth with a searing, passionate yearning that made her whole body shake.

  ‘Forgive me.’ The words were forced from him hoarsely as he looked deeply, hungrily into her eyes. ‘Laura, forgive me, but I cannot live one more hour without you.’

  She should stop this now, a small sane voice in her head kept repeating as Alessio kissed her again. Stop it, and step back, out of harm’s way. Anything else was madness.

  Madness, she thought as coherent thought spun out of control, leaving nothing but this terrifying frenzy in her blood that demanded to be appeased.

  Madness, she told herself on a small sobbing breath as she slid her arms round his neck, and let him carry her out of the room.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE whole villa seemed hushed, its only sound his footsteps as he strode swiftly with her along the shadowed corridor to his bedroom.

  Alessio kicked the door shut behind him, then crossed the vast room, putting Laura down on the canopied bed. For a long moment he looked down at her, then he bent and quite deliberately took the neckline of her dress in both hands, tearing the thin cotton apart like paper.

  She gasped, her eyes dilating in sudden uncertainty, and saw his swift, crooked smile.

  He said softly, ‘Do not be frightened, carissima. I have wanted for so long to do that, but now I will be gentle, I promise.’

  He released her from the tangle of fabric, tossing it to the floor behind him, before stripping off his own clothing with unhurried purpose. Then, at last, he lay down beside her, framing her face in his hands as he kissed the lingering doubt from her wide startled eyes, then moved down to her mouth, his lips moving almost languorously on hers until he felt the tension leave her, and her slender body relax trustingly into his arms.

  He let the kiss deepen, opening her mouth so that his tongue could seek the moist heat of hers, while his fingertips stroked her face and throat, and the vulnerable angles of her slender shoulders, his touch light and almost undemanding. Almost—but not quite.

  He felt the growing tumult of her breathing as he began gently to caress her small, eager breasts.

  Her rosy nipples were already hard with desire when he freed them from their lace cups, and bent to adore them with his lips and tongue. She gave a tiny whimper, her head moving restlessly from side to side, colour flaring along her cheekbones.

  Her shaking hands went to his body, seeking his hardness, driven by the harsh flowering of her own need, but Alessio stopped her, clasping her fingers, and raising them swiftly to his lips.

  ‘Not yet, my sweet one,’ he whispered. ‘It is too soon for us to enjoy each other as lovers should. This time, mia cara, these first moments must be for you alone.’

  His hands traced a slow golden path down her body, brushing away her last covering as if it had been a cobweb. And where his hands touched, his lips followed, warm and beguiling. Luring her on.

  Telling her—promising her that, this time, there would be no turning back. That the passionate covenant of his nakedness against hers would be fulfilled.

  Laura’s breathing rasped fiercely in her throat as her aroused senses responded with renewed delight to his caresses, to the physical fact of his nearness, and the warmth of his bare skin brushing hers.

  His mouth returned to her breasts, suckling them tenderly as his hand slid between her thighs. She gasped a little in mingled excitement and apprehension, remembering that first time, but discovered at once there was to be nothing painful or threatening in this delicate exploration of her most intimate self.

  She found herself sinking into a state of almost languid relaxation, aware of nothing but his fingertips moving on her softly and rhythmically at first, then increasing the pressure into a pattern of deliciously intense sensations. His thumb was stroking her tiny silken mound, coaxing it to heated tumescence, while, at the same time, the long, skilful fingers eased their way slowly into her moist inner heat, forcing the breath from her lungs in a sigh of totally voluptuous pleasure.

  His lips moved back to hers, kissing her unhurriedly, his tongue stroking hers, thrusting softly into her mouth, mirroring the frankly sensual play of his hands.

  Her earlier languor had fled. There were small flames dancing now behind her tightly closed eyelids. She could not hear, or make a sound, her whole being concentrated on this relentless, exquisite build of pleasure that he was creating for her.

  Her body was writhing against his touch, begging mutely for some surcease from this incredible, unbearable spiral of delight that had become almost an agony.

  She heard a voice she barely recognised as hers crying out hoarsely as he brought her at last to the peak of consummation, and held her there for an endless moment, before releasing her, and allowing the first uncontrollable spasms of rapture to shudder fiercely through her body, devastating her innocence for ever as she confronted, for the first time, her own sexuality, and his power to arouse it.

  And as the first harsh glory of her climax softened into quiet ripples of satiation, there were tears on her face.

  Alessio kissed the salt drops away, holding her close, soothing her, murmuring endearments in his own language.

  At last she murmured huskily, ‘You should have warned me.’

  ‘Warned you of what, carissima?’

  ‘How you were going to make me feel.’

  She felt him quiver with laughter. ‘You do not think, mia bella, that might have sounded both conceited and presumptuous?’

  She buried her own smile in his shoulder. ‘Well—maybe—a little.’ She hesitated. ‘But I don’t expect you’ve had many failures,’ she added with a touch of wistfulness.

  There was a silence, then he said gently, ‘Shall we agree, mi amore, to allow the past to remain where it belongs?’ He paused, altering his position slightly but significantly, making her gasp soundlessly. ‘The immediate future shou
ld concern us more.’ He slid his hands under her, lifting her slightly towards him. ‘Or I think so—don’t you?’

  His dark eyes were questioning, his faint smile almost quizzical as he looked down at her, and she felt the hardness of him between her thighs, pressing at the entrance to her newly receptive body.

  Laura was suddenly aware of a pang of physical desire so strong—so incredible—that she nearly cried out. Suddenly, she knew that she could not allow herself time to think—to become afraid. To doubt her own capacity to absorb all that male size and strength, and return the pleasure he’d gifted to her only moments before.

  Instead, she found herself reaching for him, forgetting her instinctive shyness as she caressed the powerfully rigid shaft with fingers that shook a little, making him groan softly, pleadingly. And then, with a total certainty she barely understood, guiding him into her. Surging almost wildly against the initial restraint of his first thrust to welcome him deeply—endlessly. To defy once and for always any discomfort that might still linger for her in this complete union of their bodies.

  But this time there was no pain, only the heated, silken glide of him possessing her—filling her completely over and over again.

  Making her realise, with shock, as she clung to his sweat-dampened shoulders, her slim hips echoing his own driving rhythm, that her body had not yet finished with its delight.

  That his urgency had captured her too, lifting her, all unaware, to some other unguessed-at plane with heart-stopping speed, showing her that the pinnacle of rapture was there, waiting for her if only—if only she could reach…

  Then the last remnants of reality splintered, leaving nothing but the primitive agony of pure sensation. And as she moaned aloud in the final extremity she heard Alessio’s voice, hoarse and shaken, saying her name as his sated body crumpled against hers in sheer exhaustion.

  The warm scented water was like balm on her sensitised skin, at the same time soothing the frank, unexpected ache of her muscles. Laura lay in Alessio’s arms in the deep sunken bath, her head pillowed dreamily on his shoulder as his lips caressed the damp silk of her hair.

  There was no point, she thought, in trying to rationalise what had just happened between them. It defied reason or coherent thought. It just—was.

  And now nothing would ever be the same again. Or, at least, not for her.

  For him, she thought with sudden unhappiness, it was probably just routine. Another eager girl to be taught the art of sexual fulfilment by a man who was undoubtedly ardent and generous—but also diabolically experienced.

  He said, ‘Where have you gone?’

  She glanced up at him, startled. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she parried.

  ‘A moment ago you were here with me, and happy. But no longer. So what happened?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She sent him a deliberately provocative look under her lashes. ‘Perhaps you’re better at reading bodies than minds, signore.’

  But his glance was thoughtful rather than amused. ‘And perhaps you do not always tell the whole truth, signorina.’

  She turned, pressing her lips passionately against the smooth skin of his shoulder. ‘Alessio, I am happy. I swear it. I—I never dreamed I could feel like this. Maybe I’m a little—overwhelmed.’

  ‘And maybe you also need food.’ He was smiling now as he reached forward to drain the water. ‘I think we must forget dinner, mia bella, but maybe I can coax Emilia to provide us with a little supper, hmm?’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Laura groaned as he helped her out of the bath. ‘What is she going to think?’

  He grinned. ‘That we have the rest of the night to enjoy, carissima, and need all our strength. She will feed us well.’

  And so she did, although, to Laura’s relief, Emilia allowed Alessio, who had gone on his quest wearing only a pair of jeans, to bring the basket of food from the kitchen himself.

  Laura, having ruefully examined the ruin of her dress, had put on his discarded shirt. Now she pirouetted self-consciously for his inspection.

  ‘What do you think?’

  The dark eyes glinted. ‘I think perhaps supper can wait.’

  She laughed, and skipped out of range. ‘But I’m starving, signore. You wouldn’t want me to faint.’

  He slanted a wicked grin at her. ‘Well, not through hunger, certainly.’

  The basket contained cold chicken, cheese, red wine and warm olive bread, which they ate and drank outside in the courtyard, while the goddess Diana stared over their heads with her cold, remote smile.

  Laura said, ‘I don’t think she approves of us.’

  ‘According to the old stories, she approved of very little,’ Alessio said lazily as he refilled her glass. ‘My grandfather originally commissioned the statue, but I think he was disappointed in the result, and I know my parents were planning to have it replaced at some point.’

  ‘Yet they didn’t?’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘They did not have time,’ he said eventually, his voice expressionless. ‘My mother was killed on the autostrada when I was sixteen. A lorry driver fell asleep at the wheel, and his vehicle crashed through the barrier. And my father never recovered from her death. Within the year, he had suffered a fatal heart attack, which his doctors always believed was triggered by his grief.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Laura sat up, staring at him, shocked. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything…’

  He touched her cheek gently. ‘Carissima, I have not been sixteen for a very long time. And I was looked after with infinite kindness by my godfather, the Marchese D’Agnaccio, and his wonderful wife, Arianna, so I was not left to mourn as a lonely orphan.’

  Oh, but I think you were, she told him silently. However well you were looked after. And I think, too, that this explains some of the contradictions I sense in you. The way you seem to retreat to some remote fastness where no one can reach you. The emotional equivalent, perhaps, of this house.

  He said, ‘You have left me again.’

  She bent her head. ‘I was thinking of my own father. He died of a heart attack too. He’d liquidised all his assets, remortgaged the house to start up an engineering business with an old friend. He came back from a business trip with a full order book to find the place empty, and his partner gone, taking all the money with him. He must have been planning it for ages, because he’d covered his tracks completely. We were going to lose everything, and Dad collapsed on his way to the creditors’ meeting.’

  Alessio drew her into his arms, and sat with her, his lips resting gently against her hair.

  After a while, he said, ‘Would you like to sleep a little, mia cara?’

  She found her eyes suddenly blurred. ‘Yes,’ she whispered shakily. ‘Yes, Alessio, please. That would be good.’

  He took her hand and led her back to the shadowed bedroom. Gently he unbuttoned the shirt, and slipped it from her shoulders, then put her into the bed and drew the sheet over her.

  As he came to lie beside her Laura turned into his arms, and heard his voice murmuring to her softly, soothingly, in his own language until drowsiness prevailed, and she drifted away into oblivion.

  It was very dark—some time in the small hours—when she awoke to his mouth moving gently, persuasively on hers, calling her senses back to life, and her body to renewed desire.

  She yielded, sighing in sensuous acceptance as she fitted herself to him, waiting—eager once more to be overwhelmed—to be carried away on the force of his passion.

  But he was, she soon discovered, in no hurry to enter her. No hurry at all.

  Instead, she found herself shivering—burning in response as his fingertips stroked and tantalised every warm inch of her, awakening needs that, yesterday, she had not known existed.

  His lips caressed her breasts, tugging gently on the hardening nipples until she moaned faintly, then kissed their way down her body, until he reached the joining of her thighs to demand a different kind of surrender.

  She was beyond protest,
unable to resist him as his mouth claimed her, and she experienced the intimate sorcery of his tongue working its dark magic upon her.

  The breath sobbed in her throat as her body writhed helplessly beneath him, torn between shame and exaltation.

  He was smiling against her skin, saying that she must speak—must tell him what she liked—what she wanted him to do to her. And was it this? And this? And—most of all—this? And as she was swept away into the maelstrom of anguished pleasure he had unleashed for her she heard her own drowning voice whispering an endless, ‘Yes.’

  It was almost dawn before they’d finally fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and the next time Laura opened her eyes it was full morning, and sunlight was pouring through the slats of the shutters. For a moment, she lay still, savouring her memories, then she turned her head to look at the sleeping man beside her. Only the bed was empty.

  She sat up bewilderedly in time to see Alessio emerge from the bathroom, pushing a white shirt into the waistband of his jeans.

  She said, ‘You’re dressed,’ and was ashamed of the open disappointment in her voice.

  He was laughing as he knelt on the bed beside her, and kissed her mouth. ‘I have to wear clothes sometimes, carissima. People expect it. Besides, I must go out. It seems that Fredo has recovered consciousness, and is asking for me.’

  She stretched delicately, watching the sudden flare in the dark eyes as the sheet slipped down from her body. ‘Shall I come with you?’

  He glanced swiftly, regretfully at his watch. ‘Next time, carissima. Now I really must go.’ His hand tangled in her hair, drawing her head back for another kiss, longer, slower, deeper than the last, and she slid her arm round his neck, holding him to her.

  ‘Stay here, and get some rest,’ he told her softly, detaching himself with open reluctance. ‘Because you will need it when I return.’ He paused. ‘I shall tell the servants you are not to be disturbed.’