The Marriage Surrender

by Michelle Reid

  Which category this particular gesture fell into, she wasn’t sure; she had a suspicion it was a mad tangle of all four emotions as she stood there, watching the way those long, lush lashes lowered over the dark burn in his eyes as they swept slowly over her, from satin-smooth shoulders to the high, firm thrust of her rounded breasts.

  They responded by tightening, the rosebud tips stinging into prominent life under his hooded gaze. The silence in the room was stunning; neither moved, neither breathed as Sandro slid his gaze lower, over the slender ribcage that led to her narrow waist and flat stomach, where the hollow of her navel quivered slightly under stress. Then on, further on, down across the gentle swell of her hips to linger finally on the soft cluster of red-gold curls that defined the heart-shaped apex where her long, shapely thighs met with the very core of her sex.

  That part of her began to throb softly, her bare toes curling in response. Did he understand what she was trying to do here? she wondered tensely. Did he see that she was trying to give back to him something she had taken away from him, right here in this very room three years ago?

  His face told her nothing, nor his stone-still stance.

  ‘I love you so much, Sandro,’ she burst out anxiously. ‘Please don’t give up on me yet. At least let me try to be a proper wife to you!’

  Nothing. He came back with nothing. And in the growing tension Joanna waited, exposed, vulnerable, achingly unsure of herself, breath held, heart pounding, soft lips parted and quivering, her whole person quivering like some helpless sacrifice standing there waiting to hear its final fate. His gaze drifted over her one more time, lowering, then lifting, lifting until at last he let his eyes clash with her eyes...

  Then he sighed, the sound seeming to come from some deep, dark well inside him. ‘Come here, you crazy mixed-up creature,’ he commanded huskily.

  Relief broke from her on a stifled sob, then she was across the room and throwing herself against him, feeling his arms close around her, wrapping her own arms tightly around him.

  Their mouths met in a hot fuse of raging hunger. There was no in-between. With typical drama she had let go of all her old prejudices and now she was wild for him. The kiss went on and on, consuming them both, consuming the room and the air inside it until she felt as if there was only herself and Sandro left to hold the whole world together.

  His hands were all over her, touching, stroking, learning—claiming what she was offering, accepting it as his for the taking at last.

  Eager to learn, desperate to please, she matched him kiss for passionate kiss, caress for each agonisingly arousing caress, which saw the last of the barriers between them collapse as his robe fell from his own broad shoulders. Naked together at last. She leaned against him, pressing herself into the full hard, hot length of him.

  It was a revelation: her skin seemed to sizzle in response, her senses coming vibrantly alive to rush hungrily to the surface with a need to grab their share of a new and glorious sensation. Her breasts pushed themselves into the silken whorls of dark hair that covered the rock-solid wall of his wonderful chest; her spine arched her closer to him so her hips could mould themselves to the rigid power of his hips.

  She felt the force of his response answer everything she was feeling; felt the heavy pound of his heart against the press of her eager breasts; felt the full, throbbing rise of his passion push against her arching hips; felt his arms tighten round her as if he was afraid she might turn tail and run; felt a groan of impassioned agony roll through him and the sting of his heated breath as he broke their mouths apart so he could mutter something barely distinguishable in shaken reaction to the whole wild experience.

  ‘Bellisima,’ it sounded like. ‘Bellisima...’

  Then their lips were fusing again, with an electric pleasure that had her arms hooking urgently around his neck to keep him locked in a heated embrace so intense that it left no room for the old ghosts to appear.

  When he picked her up and carried her to the bed, she clung to him, allowing him no space to move away from her as they fell in a tangle of limbs onto the mattress, where it all continued with barely a pause.

  ‘Slow down,’ he muttered at one point. ‘We should take this very slowly, step by step. It does not have to be a conflagration, cara mia.’

  ‘Yes it does,’ she argued, skimming her eager fingers over his tight satin shoulders and into that mat of crisp dark hair on his chest. ‘We took it step by slow step last time and look what happened. You lost something that belonged to you and I lost my way.’

  ‘You belong to me,’ he murmured. ‘It is all I have ever wanted, cara.’

  She nodded. ‘I understand that now. But don’t hold back from me, Sandro, for fear of frightening me,’ she begged him. ‘I need you to overwhelm me, to give me no time to change my mind, because I still have this horrible fear that at the final moment I am going to let you down again!’

  She didn’t let him down. She enchanted him. She made him fall in love with her ten times over.

  ‘You have to stop that,’ he murmured, gently removing her stroking fingers from where they were causing such havoc.

  ‘Why?’ she asked guilelessly, moving her hands to some other part of him she had already learned gave him pleasure.

  ‘This is why,’ he laughed softly, and ran his finger into the warm, moist crevice of her body that set her gasping while he lay beside her, watching her catch fire for him, watching her respond in complete abandonment to what he was making her feel.

  It moved him—moved him fiercely to see how completely she was giving herself over to him. It was as if someone had opened a box containing all her stifled emotions and now they were out and flying free: no inhibition, just pure sensual freedom.

  And it was all for him.

  ‘Sandro,’ she gasped, and he knew exactly why. But now it was his turn to feel uncertain, his turn to worry that he might just be the one to let her down.

  Maybe she sensed that, maybe she knew that there was more at stake here than just her own old feelings of inadequacy. She had treated him too badly, and for too long, for those feelings of rejection to simply melt away.

  Her eyes fluttered open and her hands reached up to mould his flushed, dark, passion-intense features. ‘If you don’t do it, I’ll die,’ she warned him softly.

  Another laugh broke from him, gruff and rueful, maybe even a little shaken, as he shifted his body over hers, letting her feel his weight, the power of his passion, before he made that vital contact and began to push slowly, slowly inside her.

  She was hot and she was tight, the untutored muscles of her pulsing silk sheath closing all around him as her slender body arched on a fierce intake of air, then—nothing.

  She simply stopped breathing, her body held in a state of complete suspension that made him pause, his dark eyes fixing on her worriedly because he couldn’t tell why she was responding like this.

  ‘Cara?’ he murmured in a thick-voiced question. ‘Do I hurt you?’

  She couldn’t answer, was too thoroughly lost in the whole new experience. The feel of him, hard and strong and so completely filling her. The heat of him, mingling with her own burning heat, fusing them together as if to make them one entity. The very intimate scent of him, blending so perfectly with the scent of herself. And, most exquisite of all, the clear, sharp, sparkling knowledge that here she was, joined at last with this man she loved so much.

  It was wonderful, like being set free of every single constraint that life had had to offer. On a sudden sun-burst of unrestrained triumph, she laughed, her arms wrapping around his neck, her long legs wrapping themselves around his lean tight hips.

  ‘I feel you, Sandro,’ she confided in silken wonder. ‘I can feel you throbbing deep inside me.’

  The words moved him. Emotionally they moved him, sending the air rushing from his lungs on a shaken gasp. Physically they moved him, adding extra substance to his masculine potency. In the next moment he was kissing her, long and deeply, his tongue matchin
g the powerful thrust of his body as he began to move, merging both acts into one glorious experience that held her completely captivated in its exciting thrall.

  Then the sun-burst taking place inside her was no longer one of mere triumph, but a sun-burst of sensation—pure, sexual sensation. It opened like a budding flower, spreading its petals wider and wider on the rippling winds of an incredible pleasure, until—on a sharp indrawn gasp—she burst forth into full bloom, those delicate petals of sensation quivering out to encompass every nerve-end, every corner of her acutely responsive flesh.

  Above her, Sandro was trembling with the constraint it was costing him to make this happen for her. With his hot mouth buried in her throat he moved on her, inside her, all around her. On fire, as she was on fire, so ultra-sensitised to every muscle pulse it was almost an agony to complete each sensual thrust of his body.

  When her fingers caressed him, be shivered—not with cold, but with excruciating pleasure. When she kissed him, he groaned in anguish, but urgently kissed her back. But when the flower-burst began to happen inside her, he stopped moving altogether, watched her begin to bloom, felt the initial quivers of that final sensation take fierce hold of her, and with smooth, slow, careful timing, he guided her into that earth-shattering climax. Then he felt his own sun-burst begin to grow ever stronger, but only when she leapt did he give in to it; only when she cried out his name did he let go.

  Reparation. It was his own reparation to hear the woman he loved so much crying out his name at this point of intense exaltation.

  After that, everything splintered into a wild electric storm of pure feeling.

  And neither had let the other down. Both lay there, still clasped tightly together in the prolonged and powerful aftermath, unable to move, their two hearts pounding as one.

  ‘OK?’ Sandro murmured when he could manage to speak at all, pushing up on his forearms so he could lay slightly trembling fingers against her flushed, damp cheek.

  For an answer she kissed the hand, because it was impossible for her to use her voice yet. The biggest obstacle in her life had been surmounted at last and she was no longer a virgin—not in heart, not in mind, and definitely not in body.

  ‘They were pretty inadequate, weren’t they?’ she whispered eventually.

  ‘Who?’ he demanded, already stiffening because he sensed rejection on the way.

  ‘Those animals,’ she explained, and opened her love-enriched blue eyes to gaze in wonder up at him. ‘They had no idea what this is really all about.’

  She thought he might get angry, was aware that he had a right to be angry with her for bringing that incident up at such a special moment. But Sandro was Italian, and Italian men were by nature very macho. He grinned—the kind of lazily smug grin that was ready to accept a compliment even if it was a very back-handed one.

  ‘See what you have been missing out on all of these years?’ he said arrogantly. ‘Now, perhaps, I will get a little respect around here.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, and suddenly the old Joanna was looking up at him, the blue-eyed, saucy minx he had first fallen in love with. ‘But can you repeat the performance? ’ she challenged him. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

  He repeated it, several times in fact, during that long, dark, steamy night

  The next morning she awoke to find herself curled around him. His arm was resting in the hollow of her waist, just below her ribcage, and his other was beneath her pillow, beneath her head, long fingers tangled amongst the tumbled silk flow of her hair.

  She had never seen him look so wonderful, or so content, and she lay there for ages just gazing at him, basking in the full, glorious beauty of what they had shared the night before.

  Then another need began to demand supremacy. Hunger pangs bit at her with a ravenousness she hadn’t felt in days, weeks, months—years! She got up, stealthily sliding herself away from him so she wouldn’t wake him, before padding softly across the bedroom with the intention of going to her old room to get dressed.

  Then she spied his discarded tee shirt, lying where he must have angrily tossed it the night before, half on the back of an upright chair, half trailing on the floor. Sheer impulse made her snatch it up and take it with her out of the room.

  She pulled it on over her head. It was huge, the hemline reaching well down her slender thighs. Grinning to herself, she continued on her way to the kitchen with her bare feet pressing into the cool mosaic tiling floor, aware of every tiny nook and cranny. In fact, she felt so super-sensitive to everything that even the brush of the soft, smooth cotton across her breasts was unutterably electrifying.

  Freedom, that was what all this elation was, she recognised. She felt as if she’d been set free from eternal bondage. Reborn overnight into a completely different person.

  A person who could even hum happily to herself while she prepared freshly squeezed orange juice to have with her breakfast of hot buttered toast.

  ‘You sound cheerful,’ a deep voice said.

  She turned from what she was doing to find him leaning in the open doorway. He had already taken a shower and shaved, and he was wearing a pair of old boxer shorts and nothing else—except for the short-stemmed red rose he had stuck into the elasticated waistband.

  Her senses began to sizzle, memories of the night before surging up like a fire to almost engulf her. This man, she thought breathlessly, this wonderful, sexy, dynamic man—is my lover!

  My lover.

  Possession gushed through her, plus a fierce sense of heart-bursting pride and a far more unrighteous sense of feline power—for, no matter how incredible he had made her feel last night, Joanna knew without a doubt that Sandro had felt it all just as deeply.

  It was that same sense of power that brought on the very provocative response he received from her.

  ‘Nice legs,’ was all she remarked, before turning casually back to what she had been doing with a pile of fresh oranges and a juice-squeezer, deliberately ignoring the rose—just as she’d used to do.

  She heard him move, felt the tingle of anticipation begin at her toes and start to run through her as his bare feet brought him to stand behind her. His hands slid around her waist and his dark head bent to nuzzle her nape, making her smile as she tilted her own head to give him better access.

  ‘Mmm, this is the life,’ he murmured. ‘My sexy wife smelling of oranges and wearing my cast-off shirt.’

  She turned within his arms so she was facing him. ‘Here,’ she said, and held her sticky fingers up for him to suck clean.

  He did so quite happily, while his eyes held onto hers, filled with dark, lazy promises. But, for all her nonchalance, she felt a shy blush coming on, and she lowered her gaze to watch her slicked fingers collect the rose from the waistband of his shorts.

  ‘Where do you keep producing these from?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘Secret,’ he said. Then he was suddenly very serious. ‘No more ghosts left now?’ he questioned gently.

  She shook her head, smoothing the deep red rose across her lips, then absently doing the same thing with it down the centre of his hair-roughened chest ‘Do you forgive me for the hell I’ve put you through?’ she countered.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ he said. ‘You were in trauma. It closed you in behind a wall no one else could get through. I tried. Molly tried. And, although we did not understand why you were like you were, we were perceptive enough to realise something pretty dreadful must have happened to you to change you so radically, what seemed like overnight.’

  ‘Did you ever guess at the truth?’

  ‘I considered it as the most logical option,’ he said. ‘But, as you yourself pointed out, you had no cuts, no bruises, no evidence that pointed to a physical assault on your person...’

  She shivered, then sighed and moved closer to him, so she could wrap her arms tightly round him. ‘I want to forget it now,’ she whispered sadly.

  ‘Sure,’ he agreed. ‘Why not? Three years is more than long enough to le
t something as bad as that obsess your mind.’

  ‘And today is the—fourth day of my new life,’ she said, lifting her face so she could smile at him. ‘What shall we do with it?’

  His eyes began to gleam. She blushed again.

  ‘Are you insatiable or what?’ she chided.

  ‘With you, satiation holds no bounds,’ he murmured huskily. ‘And I have three long years of wretched celibacy to catch up on.’

  ‘Oh, Sandro—no!’ she groaned in remorseful protest.

  He actually looked shocked at her response. ‘You think I would accept less than the best?’ he demanded.

  ‘But you told me you had a mistress!’ she cried.

  ‘You would have preferred it if I had used another woman as a substitute for you?’

  ‘No,’ she confessed huskily. ‘But I would have understood it if you had done.’

  ‘My pride may have demanded I mention a mistress,’ he ruefully conceded, ‘but I could not even bring myself to look at another women—never mind fancy one! But—hell,’ he added on a small sigh, ‘I was bitter about it. Especially during this last year, when you had disappeared altogether. I felt you had stripped me clean of my ability to be a man, amore,’ he disclosed heavily. ‘It was not a nice feeling, I promise you!’

  ‘I do love you so,’ Joanna informed him anxiously. ‘I never wanted to treat you like that; I just couldn’t help myself!’

  ‘I was actually beginning to convince myself that I was much better off without you when you called,’ he admitted.

  Joanna groaned and hugged him tightly, in case he might decide he was still better off without her—in which case it would be her turn to refuse to let go!

  ‘But the moment I heard your voice on the telephone it was as if something inside me caught alight,’ he went on softly. ‘I felt alive again suddenly—bursting with it, sizzling with it So much so that even before you arrived at my place of work I had decided that you were never going to escape me again, even if I had to imprison you to keep you there! Then I was going to chip away at every last damned bloody stone in the wall you stood behind until I found the woman I fell in love with!’