by Abby Green
Chiara had taken off her shoes in the car on the way back and when they reached the castello Nico insisted on carrying her from the car, in spite of her sleepy protests. But by the time they reached the bedroom Chiara was wide awake—and very aware of Nico, and the way his jaw was stubbled after a day’s growth.
Nico put her down and turned on a couple of lamps—just enough to see. He came and stood behind her in front of the mirror, where she was trying to reach the back of the dress.
‘Let me.’
She took her hands down and felt him find the zip and pull it down to just above her buttocks. She shivered minutely.
‘Cold?’ he asked disingenuously. It was the height of summer.
She wanted to scowl, but when she looked at him in the mirror her heart stopped. He was so dark...and towering over her. She shook her head.
He smirked. ‘I didn’t think so.’
He pushed the dress off her shoulders and then tugged it all the way over her hips, so it fell to the floor in a swish of silk and chiffon. Now she wore only a strapless bra, that barely contained her breasts, and panties.
Nico undid her bra and that fell away too, releasing her breasts. Chiara wanted to turn her head away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was bending his head now, pressing a kiss to where her neck met her shoulder, and she shuddered as a wave of desire raced through her body.
He stood up and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Look at yourself, cara, you’re beautiful.’
Reluctantly, Chiara looked at herself, and watched Nico undo her hair and loosen it so that it fell over one shoulder, almost touching her breast.
His hands came around and cupped her breasts and she caught her breath. She could see her nipples peak into hard points, her skin flushing with arousal.
Her belly was a perfect rounded curve and Nico’s hand moved down, over her belly and lower, under her underwear. She couldn’t breathe.
‘Keep looking at yourself.’
It was a command that Chiara had to obey. One of Nico’s hands was on her breast, kneading the tender flesh, finding a nipple and tweaking it, and his other hand was between her legs, fingers seeking and exploring right into the heart of her, where she was hot and damp and aching.
Her legs opened to give him more access. She groaned and bit her lip, unable to take her eyes off what he was doing to her. He was winding her tighter and tighter, his clever, merciless fingers moving in and out until she couldn’t stop a gasp of shock as she exploded in a spasm of pleasure so intense her legs turned to jelly.
Nico finally turned her quivering body around and hauled her into him before kissing her senseless.
After a long moment, when she aftershocks of pleasure had finally diminished, Nico pulled back. He smoothed Chiara’s hair back from her brow and said, ‘See? This...this is all we need.’
Chiara was too spent to argue, and when he laid her down on the bed and pulled the sheet over her she let sleep claim her, obscuring the fact that she knew pain would be an inevitable part of living with Nico because she was in love with him.
* * *
Nico looked down at Chiara sleeping, and even though his own body throbbed with sexual frustration he didn’t mind. It had been intensely erotic, watching her fall to pieces around his hand and fingers like that, through the mirror.
Seeing Alexandra earlier had been a shock. It was always a shock. Except this time Nico had truly resented her intrusion on a private moment. And when she’d started to attack Chiara it had taken him a couple of seconds to realise that Chiara had stepped up to her, confronted her. He hadn’t noticed because he’d been so blinded by rage.
A kind of rage he couldn’t remember feeling before. Not even when he’d found Alexandra in bed with his friend.
No one had ever defended Nico like that.
He could remember being beaten by a group of lads when was a young teenager. His father had found him, bruised and bleeding on the ground, with the boys standing around him jeering. His father had just stood there and said, ‘Get up, boy. You’re a Santo Domenico. Show them!’
And Nico had somehow hauled himself up and limped home.
When Chiara had walked away earlier, Nico had been aware of a load lifting off his chest. As if he’d finally broken free of some shackle. He’d barely even glanced at Alexandra’s stricken face as he’d gone after his wife.
His wife. His lover. The mother of his child.
Nico felt a surge of protectiveness race through him. He knew he couldn’t give Chiara everything she wanted—not even for her was he willing to expose himself to the vulnerability of loving someone again. Seeing Alexandra was a sign he couldn’t and wouldn’t ignore.
But he and Chiara had all they needed. They didn’t need anything deeper.
CHAPTER NINE
CHIARA FLIPPED ONTO her back and lazily moved her arms and legs, just enough so that she didn’t sink like an overinflated beach ball to the bottom of the pool. It was late summer and she loved the evenings, when the intense heat was lessening and she could go down to the newly installed infinity pool and cool off.
She looked up into the azure blue sky. There was only the sound of the sea water lapping against the shore nearby, and the call of the birds. The workmen restoring the outside of the castello had finished for the day, as had the interior decorators, who were moving through the castello room by room, accompanied by someone from the Italian National Heritage Trust to make sure none of the original features were damaged.
Chiara sighed. She felt...restless. In spite of the soothing surroundings. Content...but not happy. And then she castigated herself. She had it so much better than many people. She had no reason to complain.
Her husband was unfailingly solicitous. He was considerate. He never spent more than three days away from home. And when he was at home... Chiara blushed even now to think of how intense the attraction still was between them. In spite of her pregnancy.
Since she’d turned eight months pregnant he’d decided not to go back to New York for work until after the baby was born, and he’d promised that once Sofia was old enough to travel they would all go as a family.
Sofia.
They’d already agreed on the name.
Sofia, after Chiara’s beloved nonna.
Maria was now living in at the castello, along with two other permanent household staff. Chiara had little to worry about except for the fact that no matter how considerate Nico was, how solicitous, it was as if a glass wall separated them. She could get close, but not too close. He maintained a distance that she couldn’t seem to breach, no matter what.
The only time she seemed to get closer to the man behind the wall was when they made love. No matter how ‘pregnant’ Chiara was feeling—fatigued, et cetera—as soon as she laid eyes on Nico it all fell away and she became a mass of needy hormones.
‘Here you are...’
Chiara stopping moving in the water and promptly sank like a stone. She popped up again quickly, spluttering and blinking to clear her eyes of water, to see that Nico’s voice hadn’t been an aural hallucination. He was standing at the side of the pool in short swimming trunks, holding a towel and looking too gorgeous for words.
It was so unfair. As her body got progressively rounder, his body remained as beautiful as ever. Lean and hard-muscled. Not an ounce of spare fat. And that tantalising hair on his chest, leading down to the line dissecting his six-pack and then disappearing—
Chiara forced her eyes up to see an amused expression on his face. She scowled. He was disturbing her peace. ‘You’re back early.’ He hadn’t been due back from Rome till tomorrow.
An expression she couldn’t decipher crossed his face fleetingly before he dropped the towel and dived gracefully into the pool, surfacing just inches away from Chiara.
Predictably, her body was already responding, tingling. Every cell was aligning with
his, like magnet filings finding true north. He reached for her, his hands finding her arms and pulling her towards him until her belly touched his.
She put her hands on his arms, feeling the muscles bunching under his skin. He smiled and it made him look ten years younger. Carefree.
‘You can admit you’re pleased to see me.’
When he was like this—charming—it was almost impossible to forget that she had to keep her guard up: the final bastion of her self-protection.
‘Fine,’ she conceded. ‘It’s nice to have you home.’
He winced. ‘Nice? Now, that is not a word levelled at me too often.’
Chiara’s legs touched his as she trod water. He didn’t have to—he was so tall. He started to move backwards, though, taking her with him as he moved down the pool.
‘Nico...’ She groaned, hating it that he could manipulate her so easily.
He ignored her, lazily pulling her along as if she was learning how to swim. Chiara gave up and let him tug her. She could feel the damp tendrils of hair where they’d fallen out of her high bun, clinging to her cheeks.
And then he stopped and stood, and Chiara could stand too, now it was shallow enough. He looked at her for a long moment, and there was something almost desperate in his gaze that made Chiara’s heart hitch, but then it was forgotten when he kissed her, and tingling awareness exploded into full-on arousal.
Nico’s hands traced Chiara’s body through the swimsuit, cupping her breasts, her bottom. She ached for him. Every time. He walked her back to the wall and she leant against it, looking up at him, breathing fast. Her peace was well and truly shattered, but she didn’t care any more.
He looked down at her, rivulets of water running down his chest and face, hair flopping forward damply, making him look endearingly young.
She could feel him against her. Hard. Potent. She reached down under the water and pulled down his shorts, taking him in her hand. It was the only time she felt marginally powerful in this relationship—when he looked at her as he was looking at her now, slightly dazed. Flushed.
‘Turn around,’ he said.
She took her hand from him, turning around to face away from the house out towards the sea beyond. Her heart was drumming with excitement. He peeled the straps of her bathing suit down and freed her breasts, reaching around to cup them and tease them to hard, aching points.
Chiara leant her head back against him. She sensed his desperation as he pulled down her suit over her hips and her legs. He was naked behind her, and then he was pushing her legs apart, pulling her back so that he could thrust into her in one smooth but cataclysmic thrust.
Her body clenched around him in need as he slowly began to thrust in and out, building up an inexorable rhythm until Chiara was biting down on her hand to stop herself from screaming out loud. Nico slammed into her and sent her body flying into an orgasm so intense she thought she might pass out.
He wasn’t far behind her, and he collapsed over her back, shuddering his release deep inside her for long moments.
After a few minutes he pulled free and turned her around. She was still dizzy.
‘What do you do to me?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘I didn’t intend on ravishing you in the pool, but I get near you and...’
She looked up at him, the aftershocks of pleasure still coursing through her system. ‘I could say the same of you,’ she said shakily.
It was in these brief moments, in the aftermath of pleasure, that there was some demolition of the wall between them. But soon Nico would recover and return to his cool, solicitous self. She could see it happening now. The raw, open look was fading from his face and he was stepping back.
She felt very naked—because she was naked, she realised. Her swimsuit was somewhere at the bottom of the pool.
Nico said, ‘Stay here. I’ll get you something.’
He waded out of the pool, his body gleaming, muscles rippling, and went up the steps, totally and unashamedly naked. He went into the small cabana by the pool, which held supplies, and when he re-emerged he had a towel hitched around his waist and was carrying a terrycloth robe for her.
He held it out at the top of the steps and Chiara crossed her arms over her breasts self-consciously. ‘I can’t walk out like this—what if someone sees?’
‘They’re all having dinner in the kitchen on the other side of the castello. I was just in there.’
Chiara glared at him. He was daring her. Something rebellious rose up within her—a wish to try and unsettle him, break him out of that cool, impersonal place he went back to whenever they’d been intimate.
So she waded out too, and went up the steps, aware of the water sluicing off her body, which still felt too sensitive.
Nico’s eyes were dark by the time she reached the top, his mouth a tight line. She stood in front of him for a long moment, for once revelling in her nakedness.
Nico bitterly regretted goading Chiara. He should know by now that she was never to be underestimated. She stood before him like a beacon of fertile sensuality—heavy breasts, wide hips, her rotund belly carrying their child. And suddenly he was the one afraid of people looking out of a window and seeing her. He didn’t want anyone else’s eyes on her. Ever.
He put the robe around her shoulders, waited till she’d fed her arms through and then belted it firmly.
He might have thought she was unaware of her power over him—the insanity that consumed him until he was buried inside her and the world returned to sharp focus—but after watching her sashay up those steps like a fertile warrior goddess he knew better.
He could feel himself drawing back, to the place inside where he didn’t feel so raw. He took a step away and saw some of the light in her green eyes fade. He ignored the pang in his chest. He didn’t need that.
‘Maria said dinner will be ready when we come in.’
Chiara forced down the frustration to see Nico so utterly in control again. ‘Fine. I’ll take a shower and clean up.’
Chiara watched as Nico strode back up the garden towards the castello. For a moment she could almost imagine he was one of his ancestors—a marauding Greek or Moor.
The truth was that Chiara wouldn’t ever have got close to a man like Nico if it hadn’t been for extraordinary circumstances. She was average in height, and looks, and was becoming more like a beached whale with every passing day.
Yet, remarkably, they still had insane chemistry. Which was all very well—for now. But what would happen when Nico’s desire for her fizzled out, as it invariably would? And what would happen when the baby was born and they had to deal with a whole new reality? Babies tested the best of relationships.
Would she have the strength to keep up the pretence that she was okay with just this and not more? Or would the huge cracks that she knew were ever-expanding just below the surface of their relationship appear and tear them apart completely?
She couldn’t imagine a man like Nico settling for life with a wife he no longer found attractive, and she wouldn’t be able to bear it if he took mistresses.
She was going to have to talk to him. But while the after-effects of his lovemaking still flowed through her blood like nectar she thought Just not yet.
A week later
Nico leant against the door that led outside from the kitchen, where a small vegetable and herb garden was laid out. Chiara was on her knees, planting something in the ground, wearing a huge sun hat to keep the sun off her face. Her hair was long and tangled down her back, and with irritating predictability all Nico wanted to do was go over, wrap her hair around his hand and tug her head back so she presented her lush mouth to him.
Irritating because he couldn’t see an end to this desire that seemed to pulse through his system with growing force. Not less force. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to find his wife attractive, but her role as his wife of convenience wasn’t meant to include mak
ing him feel insatiable lust.
At least if that diminished Nico might feel some semblance of control returning. Right now, control was an elusive concept.
She must have sensed his presence, because she turned around and looked up. Her face was flushed and she smiled and Nico found it hard to breathe.
He said, ‘What are you wearing?’
The smile slid off her face and Nico could breathe again—but he felt like a heel.
‘They’re old dungarees belonging to my father. I thought they’d be perfect for doing some gardening.’
Nico couldn’t take his eyes off her. She shouldn’t have looked remotely sexy in a sleeveless vest and cut-off voluminous dungarees, but right then he was hard pushed to drum up a sexier image.
Chiara clambered to her feet, which were in bright pink flip-flops. Today her toenails were painted purple. Desire hit Nico directly in his solar plexus and moved down lower.
She said, ‘Actually, I’m glad you’re here—there’s something I want to show you.’
Nico saw how flushed she was and said, ‘When was the last time you drank some water?’
She blinked. ‘Um...lunchtime?’
He made a disapproving noise and called back into the kitchen for some water. Maria came out with a bottle, clucking like a mother hen. Chiara took it and rolled her eyes at Nico before taking a few big gulps. It didn’t help Nico to cool down when he saw drops dripping down her chin and under the neck of the T-shirt.
Dio. He was a walking hormone and she was the pregnant one. Pathetic.
‘You said you wanted to show me something?’
She nodded and started to walk out of the small garden towards the area where the chapel and graveyards were situated. He stopped in his tracks when he saw that the old graveyard, full of his ancestors, had been completely cleared of foliage and that men were working on the gravestones, cleaning them and re-engraving them.
He could feel Chiara’s eyes on him and his skin prickled.
‘When did they start this?’ His voice was sharp.
Chiara sounded nervous. ‘When you went to Rome. I asked the landscape gardeners to look at it and one of them knows someone who cleans headstones. Do you mind?’ she asked.