He lifted a finger and ran it across her lower lip, then dragged it lower, and lower still, to the fabric that joined at the centre of her chest. Then lower to her navel. She gasped as he ran it over her womanhood and paused, lingering there, padding his thumb across a part of her body that no man had ever touched.
‘Though I’d be lying if I said that right now it doesn’t hold at least some appeal.’ His words appeared to be almost dragged from him, as though against his will.
Confusion and doubt were back. Uncertainty. Her insides were swirling and without her knowledge her body swayed forward.
‘I wonder if you would orgasm quickly...’ he murmured distractedly, and a sharp swell of need made her groan.
She nodded—but what was she even nodding at?
His lips twisted into a hard-fought smile and he pulled his hand away. She made a small whimper of anger, and before she knew what she was doing her free hand had curled around his wrist, catching it and dragging him back.
‘Careful, cara. I don’t think you want to play with a man like me.’
‘Why are you tormenting me, then?’ she asked thickly, holding his hand still and pushing herself against him, her eyes wide, her body screaming with need. ‘Why stir me up and then walk away? Is that fun for you? Do you like seeing me like this?’
‘Fun? No. As for why I like doing this... I can’t say. I suppose I’m a little like a cat with a ball of wool. The idea of a twenty-two-year-old virgin is not something I can understand. You fascinate me and I just don’t seem able to help myself.’
‘Then don’t,’ she whispered, sipping the last of her drink. ‘Please.’ She lifted her arms around his neck, and her lips sought his. ‘Please.’
‘You’re Col’s daughter.’ The words were gravelled. Dark and husky.
‘And yet you married me.’ She ground her hips against him, her eyes showing her every need and desire.
He swore into her mouth in his own language, and then his hand was running down her thigh, finding the hem of her dress and lifting it, pushing aside the fabric of her silky underwear. He brushed his fingers over her throbbing heat and she gasped, the sensation unlike anything she could have imagined.
‘I’m not the right man for you to want,’ he said.
And he was so right. But sensual need had overtaken any vestige of common sense.
‘Shut up,’ she said hungrily, and he laughed against her lips.
‘Shut up and do this?’ he asked, pushing aside the fabric of her underwear.
Her heart skidded to a stop. All she could do was wait. Wait for what came next.
If Emmeline had been capable of rational thought she might have cared a little more that they were in a room anyone could have walked into at any point. But she didn’t. Fortunately her husband had his wits about him, and Pietro used his body to guide her back, so that she collided with a wall near enough to a corner to provide some cover.
His finger invaded her heat gently at first, nudging inside, preparing her slowly for the unfamiliar sensation. She whimpered as he pushed deeper, a cry catching in her throat as she throbbed around him, her muscles tensing and squeezing.
‘God,’ she groaned, grinding her hips, and he laughed softly, moving his finger in a swirling motion while his thumb found the cluster of nerves at her entrance and teased it.
Her blood was boiling beneath her skin like liquid iron. She breathed out hungrily, the rasping sounds punctuating the silence of the room, and then she bit down on her lip as the sensations began to overflow, making her face blotchy with heat and sweat bead on her brow. She curled her fingers into his hair, holding him tight, and scrunched up her eyes.
The overload of feeling was something she hadn’t prepared for. Waves of arousal and satisfaction ebbed through her, rocking her to the core. She stayed perfectly still, letting them pound against her nerve-endings, and then she tilted her head back, resting it against the wall as her breathing slowed to normal.
He eased his finger out of her wet, pulsing core, and she made a small sound of surprise at the unwelcome abandonment. When she opened her eyes he was staring down at her, his cheeks slashed with dark colour, his eyes silently assessing.
The world stopped spinning.
Everything stopped except her breathing and her awakening.
She lifted a hand, curled her fingers into his shirt, needing him for support. She held him while she caught her breath—in and out, in and out—and he watched her the whole time.
Finally, after long moments of silent, stretching heat, he spoke.
‘You are far too sensual to have been uninterested in sex. Were you forbidden from dating?’
Her mind was still reeling from what had just happened. ‘I need a minute...’
She bit down on her lip but couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. She was beautiful at any time, really, but like this she was angelic.
‘What the hell was that?’
His frown showed confusion. ‘What?’
‘I... I just... Wow.’
His groan was somehow scathing. ‘Tell me you have at least touched yourself?’
Should she have? God, she supposed she should have had at least a passing curiosity in her own sexual development. Shame that she hadn’t ever explored this side of herself made her flush to the roots of her hair.
‘I...’
‘What the hell happened to you?’ he muttered. ‘How can you have ignored these feelings? This desire?’
She swallowed, but the insulting tone of his voice was making her defensive. ‘Not everyone sees sex as the be-all and end-all...’
‘Yes, they do,’ he disputed, a rough smile in his voice. ‘At least anyone who’s had really great sex does.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish I’d known this about you before agreeing to this damned marriage,’ he said angrily. ‘You need to have sex. And fast. But not with me.’
Her heart turned over in her chest. ‘Why not with you?’ she prompted.
His eyes flashed with rich frustration. ‘I told you. Educating virgins isn’t my thing. I’m not looking for the complications of that.’
‘Even with your wife?’ she responded archly.
‘Not a real wife, remember?’
She bit down on her lip and nodded. ‘So? What am I meant to do?’
‘Well, you’ve waited twenty-two years. I guess a few more won’t kill you.’
But it might kill him, Pietro thought as he turned his back on her. Walking away as though he was completely unaffected was damned near impossible with the raging hard-on between his legs.
A virgin. And yet so gorgeous and wanton and sensual. God, he wanted to take her to his bed. Despite what he’d said, the idea of teaching Emmeline Morelli just what her body was capable of stirred all kinds of animalistic masculine fantasies in his mind.
Being the first man to move inside her... Hell, the need to possess her was so savage it was beneath him.
He couldn’t do it.
He’d married her because he loved Col Bovington like a father, and he would resist the urge to sleep with Emmeline for that exact reason.
No matter how damned much he was tempted.
He was the adult. The experienced adult. He had to control this beast of desire that was burning between them or he’d never forgive himself.
* * *
‘I’ve always liked Rome.’
Col’s voice had a wistful note. Or maybe Pietro was imagining things, because, in the back of his mind—much as it must be in Col’s—was one single question: was this the last time Col would come to Italy? Was this the last time he’d look down on this ancient city?
‘It’s a city like no other.’ Pride pierced Pietro’s statement.
‘Si,’ Col agreed, a smile on his face. His eyes scanned the skyline, taking in the glistening lights of the city in the distance set against the inky black sky. ‘How is she?’
Guilt slashed through Col. A feeling that was as unwelcome as it was foreign.
‘Is sh
e settling in? Happy? Adjusting?’
Pietro could close his eyes and remember the way her body had felt. The way her body had closed around his finger. The sounds she’d made as she’d come—hard.
He clamped his teeth together and focussed on the cupola of il Vaticano, willing his libido to remember where he was and with whom.
‘It’s still very early,’ he said noncommittally.
‘But you are getting along?’ Col pushed.
Pietro expelled a breath. ‘Sure.’
If you could count barely seeing each other and then him making her come for no reason other than he’d wanted to the second he’d seen her.
‘Good.’ If Col had doubts he didn’t express them.
Pietro propped an elbow on the bannister and turned to face his friend slowly, weighing his words with caution. ‘I think you need to tell her the truth.’
‘About what?’ Col joked.
It fell flat.
‘She’s stronger than you think.’ God, Pietro hoped that was true. ‘She’ll cope with it. What she won’t cope with is discovering you’ve lied to her.’
‘I know her better than anyone.’
Col’s words held a warning and Pietro heeded it. Not because he was afraid, but because the older man was probably right. Col had drawn a line in the sand and Pietro had no intention of walking over it.
He sighed gruffly. ‘Then consider talking to her.’
‘I can’t. I need her to have more in her life than me.’ His eyes shifted to Pietro and his skin looked pale all over. ‘If she knows she’ll come home.’
‘So? Let her.’
‘No. Damn it! The whole point of this is... I don’t want her to nurse me. She deserves better than that.’
Pietro was very still, watchful. Waiting. ‘You don’t want her to nurse you? She’s your daughter. When my father was sick—’
‘It’s not the same.’ Col seemed to wince at the abruptness of his answer. ‘I’m sorry, Pietro. I don’t mean to belittle what you went through. But it’s not the same.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she is my only child. She will be orphaned when I die. Because she adores me and idolises me and I will not have her seeing me weakened and bedridden.’ His jaw clenched firmly. ‘I love her too much for that.’
An aeroplane passed overhead, leaving a trail of white cloud shimmering against the night sky. Pietro stared at it for a moment, wondering about the plane’s destination and the people that occupied its belly. He wondered too at Col’s ‘love’. Was it love that could so easily lie? Could you love someone and deny them an opportunity to say goodbye?
* * *
‘Did you think he looked tired?’ Emmeline asked when Pietro returned to the lounge room, having said farewell to the American Senator.
The question caught him off-guard in its directness and perception. Then again, she was the much-adored daughter of the man—of course she’d notice small changes.
‘Perhaps.’ He sidestepped the question with surprising difficulty, his gaze resting on Emmeline’s face.
She was distracted, toying with the hem of her dress, her fingers running over its silky edge as she nodded slowly. He knew what that dress felt like because he’d held it in his hands. He’d touched it and run his fingers over it and then he’d found her heart and driven her crazy against the wall.
‘He did. I suppose it’s jetlag... Or something.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
He sucked himself back into the conversation with difficulty, his arousal straining against the fabric of his pants. It was unwanted. So was the guilt that was sledging through him. Guilt at deceiving her despite the fact he owed his loyalty to Col and not to Emmeline.
‘I’m going out,’ he murmured, speaking the words before he’d even realised what he’d intended.
‘Out?’ She frowned, flicking a glance to the slim wristwatch she wore. ‘It’s after ten.’
His laugh was softly mocking. ‘In Roma that is still early, cara.’
Her cheeks darkened, and her eyes were huge in her face as she looked at him. Her pretty face twisted into an expression he didn’t recognise, but then it was gone. She was herself again. Unfazed, uninterested.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Thank you for tonight.’
‘You’re thanking me?’ he said with disbelief. ‘I invited your father here for my own purposes as much as yours.’
Her smile was a twist of pale pink lips and then she stood, moving towards him.
‘I didn’t mean for that.’
As she passed him he caught a hint of her vanilla and rosebud fragrance and his gut clenched with barely controlled need. The desire to snake his hand out and catch her around the waist, to pull her to him and make her come again, filled him like an explosion. His head turned as she left the room, following her by instinct. The way that dress pulled against the curves of her arse as she walked...the way her long legs glided as if she was in a damned ballet...
He needed to get out of the house before he did something really rash. Like give in to temptation and invite his wife to his bed...
CHAPTER FIVE
HIS BEDROOM WAS far enough away from hers that she wouldn’t necessarily hear when he came home each night. But somehow in the month they’d been married her ears had trained themselves to hear the slightest noise.
Like the opening of his bedroom door and the shutting of it a second later.
She heard the tell-tale click and her eyes drifted to the bedside table. She reached for her phone, checking the time. It was just after two.
How did he do that so often and still look so damned fresh the next day?
She tried not to think about who he’d been with and where. Though she didn’t need to be a genius to work it out.
He’d made no effort to hide his virility, and they’d agreed before marrying that he’d continue his life as before. And he was doing that. It was Emmeline’s fault that it no longer sat well with her.
She turned over in the bed, flipping on to her other side so she could stare out of the window. It was still warm, with the breeze that drifted in offering a hint of relief—but not much. The day had been sticky.
Was there only one woman in his life? Was it the beautiful redhead from the wedding?
She closed her eyes and the woman’s face came to mind. She’d been stunning—but so clearly cosmetically enhanced she should have borne her surgeon’s signature somewhere on her body. Was that the kind of woman he went for?
Emmeline would never be like that.
She blinked her eyes open but it was too late. An image of her mother had seared into her brain and she made a small sound in the dark room.
Patrice Bovington had been beautiful too. Stunning without cosmetic enhancement. But that hadn’t stopped her from seeing her doctor regularly, having a little Botox dabbed into her forehead, a tad of filler in her lips. Over the years she’d changed, but so subtly that it was only in looking back at photos that Emmeline could recognise the fact that beautifying herself had become an unhealthy obsession for her mother.
And a foolish one too. For there would always someone more beautiful, more svelte, younger. Why make one’s appearance the hallmark of one’s self-esteem?
‘You could almost be pretty if you put some effort in.’
She sat upright in the bed, the fever in her blood burning out of control. Did he know that looking pretty had led to all the problems she’d had with her mother? Guilt made her stomach flop as she remembered their last argument. The day before Patrice had driven her Mercedes convertible into an enormous elm around the corner from the house.
Emmeline rolled back to her other side, staring at the wall now. But it was no good. Her mind was wide awake, her legs restless, her body warm.
She sat up, then pushed her feet out of the bed.
She’d only swum a handful of times since arriving at the villa. Both times when she’d known Pietro was out of the house.
And now he was fast asleep�
��probably exhausted from seducing some beautiful woman all evening.
Emmeline changed into her swimsuit quietly. If she could hear the sound of his door clicking open and shut then he could certainly hear hers. She tiptoed out into the corridor, pausing for a second, her breath offensively loud in the silent evening.
The stairs were around ten steps away. She moved quietly but quickly, like some kind of night-time ninja.
She’d just wrapped her fingers around the top of the bannister when his door was flung open.
He stood there in a pair of shorts, otherwise naked, his scowl landing on her as though she’d driven a herd of elephants through the house.
‘Did I wake you?’ she whispered, not sure why she was keeping her voice down given the fact they were the only two in the house.
‘No. I was up.’ His eyes dropped to the swimsuit that was clearly on display, his frown deepening. ‘It appears we’ve had the same idea.’
‘Oh.’ She didn’t dare look at his shorts but, yes, she supposed they could be swimming trunks. ‘It’s a hot night...’ she finished lamely.
His grunt was an agreement of sorts.
She prevaricated on the steps for a moment, contemplating going back to her room and then deciding against it. When he began to move towards her, though, her pulse kicked up a notch. Her breath was held in her throat.
‘What are you doing?’
He looked at her as though she’d gone mad. ‘Going for a swim. We just discussed this.’
‘Oh. I thought...’ She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply; it was a mistake. The smell of him filled her, reminding her of how it had felt when he’d touched her so intimately.
‘The pool is more than big enough for the both of us.’
He was right, of course, and now she felt like an even bigger idiot. It was bad enough that he thought her some kind of inexperienced prim virgin. Worse when she confirmed those thoughts by acting just like one.
‘I know that,’ she snapped, resuming her journey down the stairs, moving quickly to stay ahead of him.
At the bottom she moved ahead—not waiting for him, not wanting him to think that she saw this as a joint venture. He wanted to swim and she wanted to swim. That didn’t mean they would be swimming together.
Her Wedding Night Surrender (Harlequin Presents) Page 6