The Italian's Innocent Bride

by Clare Connelly

  Jane’s fingers curled around his neck. He smelled so good; just like she remembered him. She kissed him back, forgetting momentarily that he was the man who’d broken her heart. Their history was lined with pain and regrets, but the fire that flared between them had nothing to do with the past. This had always been good.

  He eased her back to the floor, and sought the zip to her dress. He eased it down her back, and pushed the dress off her shoulders. It fell to her waist. She was not wearing a bra. At the sight of her perfect, small yet rounded breasts, he let out a sound of gruff pleasure. He dipped his head forward and took possession of a nipple. His stubble was painful against her sensitive flesh, but the way his mouth sent wave after wave of desire rioting through her body was anything but. She cried out as her whole body began to shake and tremble. This man had always known how to send her into a fit of ecstasy. Apparently that had not changed. She arched her back, granting him greater access to her body, as his fingers rubbed the other breast, plucking at her peach aureole while his warm tongue rolled the other until it was swollen and over-sensitive.

  “Carlo,” she ground her hips against his erection. Logical thought was impossible. Her mind had no capacity for anything but long-forgotten pleasures.

  He pushed at her dress, and she cried out in distress when he lifted his head from her breast. The cold air of her townhouse hit her like a sledgehammer. Afraid that she was going to slip out of the sensual haze, she ran her hands over her body, touching her own breasts in place of his.

  Carlo swore in his native Italian, as he bent down and lifted her from the floor. He carried her against his chest, instinctively finding the stairs and moving up them. “Where?” He demanded at the top of the landing.

  She nodded to the door of the guest bedroom because it was closer and she was desperate. He placed her down on the bed gently, kissing the bandage on the side of her head.

  He eased the dress from her body completely and threw it across the room. Her underwear was a lace g-string. He pulled it off and discarded it. Naked on the crisp white bedlinen, Jane was as hauntingly beautiful as he remembered. Of course, he’d seen her often in his dreams and nightmares. How her body had controlled him. He shook his head as he undressed quickly, and came to lie over her. He ran a hand over her feminine heart, and slipped a finger inside. She was so wet, he couldn’t help but smile.

  Jane ground her hips against him, crying out for more with complete, bodily frustration.

  “Yes,” he agreed quietly. He removed his finger, purely so that he could ease himself into her slick core. She bucked against the bed as long disused muscles flexed to stretch around his size. She reached her arms above her head and dug her fingers into the goose down pillows. “Oh, Carlo,” she whimpered, her face glowing pink and shining with moisture as his movements sent waves of feeling spiralling through her. She gripped his shoulders with her fingernails, and dug her feet into the bed, pushing up to meet each thrust he made. Her hands lifted from the pillows and found instead his muscular chest. She traced lines over his abdominals, glad when her nails left marks against his otherwise flawless skin.

  He kissed her hard, so hard that she tasted the tang of blood in her mouth. His? Hers? She couldn’t have said, but she kissed him right back, matching his intensity and silently asking for more. Her hands dug into his hips, her legs wrapped around his waist, as she began to shake with the overwhelming tangle of need that he always managed to stir in her soul.

  Her core pulsed with the frenetic release she craved, and with one loud cry, she felt her whole body convulse and splinter apart. “Carlo,” she screamed, writhing beneath him as the now unfamiliar feeling of orgasm sent her whole body spiralling into a fever pitch of sensation.

  He responded by thrusting further and deeper. He watched her fall apart, but he didn’t join her. He enjoyed her pleasure without freeing his own. He was not finished with his ex-wife yet.

  Three long years without her, and his body needed more than a quick release. He rolled onto the mattress, carrying her with him, so that she was straddled across his frame. He cupped her cheek, as he moved his waist, and watched her whole face change. She reached her arms high above her head, swaying her back and moaning as he filled her in a completely different way. Sensations tore through her, threatening to send her completely wild. Already, her face had taken on an almost feral quality, as her wild blue eyes stared at Carlo as though he were some kind of magical drug that she had remembered herself to be hooked on.

  He lifted his hand higher to the gash on her head, and for the briefest of moment, the gentle and considerate touch threatened to poke a hole in the magic of what they were doing.

  “I’m fine,” she murmured through snatched breaths. “Absolutely fine.”

  He nodded, but a small finger of compunction pointed itself towards him. His wife had been smashed over the head with something metallic and smooth only four days earlier. And he was shamelessly taking exactly what he wanted – no, needed – from her. Just because he could.

  “Stop it,” she shook her head away from his hand, and lowered her mouth to his chest. She ran her tongue along his middle, from his navel up to his neck, and then back down to one of his nipples. She nipped it between her teeth then smiled playfully against his chest. She’d missed this. The wild abandon of two bodies completely in synch. Her fingers instinctively reached for his and laced through them; their arms lifted sidewards as one.

  Beneath his caramel skin, his cheeks were flushed. She felt a smile on her face, as the power of what she did to him came back to her with a resounding thud. Though his body controlled hers utterly and completely, so too did hers render him powerless.

  She arched her back and felt him jerk inside of her. As her own waves of pleasure became almost impossible to cope with, he erupted, bringing her with him on a wave of pure, red-hot pleasure.

  She fell forwards, her head against his shoulder, her long blonde hair splayed out across the pillows, as her frantic breathing slowly returned to normal. His unique fragrance was still driving her wild; her pulse was hammering beneath her skin. She bit down on her lip, refusing to think. She couldn’t let herself crash back to reality. Not while she was in his arms and he was still buried deep inside her.

  But reality was not easy to keep at bay. The aftermath of their lovemaking had become more and more unpleasant in the course of their marriage. Initially, they’d held one another close, all night. She remembered those heady first few weeks, when their marriage had been fresh and she’d still believed in fairy tales. But, time had passed and resentment had built. Desire hadn’t faded but the self-hate that followed the deep sexual satisfaction had become an unbearable inevitability.

  Slowly, it began to flow over her body now. She rolled away from him, her breathing still forced, as she stared up at the ceiling. Goosebumps covered her slender frame. The house, after days without an occupant, was cold.

  She hadn’t noticed until now, because Carlo had predictably made her blood feel like volcanic ash. She sat up, shakily, and slid her legs over the edge of the bed.

  His hand snaked out and latched onto her wrist. “Hey.” His voice was gravelly. It sent arrows of awareness firing through her body.

  She didn’t look at him.

  “Cara,” he said with a note of exasperation. “That needed to happen.”

  Her laugh was frighteningly thin. “Did it? Why?”

  “We were both tense.” He shrugged, and propped his powerful body onto one elbow. He frowned as he took in her fine frame. He let go of her wrist so that he could run a finger down the knots in her spine, visible through her pale back. “It was tension release.”

  It was not tension release. Not for Jane. It had, instead, built a whole new chasm of stress into the pit of Jane’s stomach.

  The last three years had been predicated on the fact that Jane was over her ex-husband. That she’d got him out of her system, and could therefore live a perfectly unaffected life.

  Only he wasn’t out
of her system.

  If anything, three years apart had made her desire for him as great a necessity as water and food.

  She felt a sob bursting through her body and she stood hastily, in an effort to suppress it.

  “Where are you going, Jane?” Again, the impatience. The sarcastic frustration at what he’d called her ‘childish behaviour’ in their last fight. The fight that had ended their marriage.

  “Away from you,” she said firmly, without looking at him.

  He sighed wearily. “Fine. Let me know when you’re ready to be reasonable.”

  She straightened her spine and walked out of the guest room, without looking at him. It was only when she had pulled the door shut behind herself that she gave into her emotions. A silent cry burst from her, but it was no less powerful for the lack of noise. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and slowly, she let them fall.

  Somehow, despite her firmly held belief that Carlo Santini was way in her past, she’d let him back in.

  On legs that were trembling, she moved down the carpeted hallway, towards the sanctuary of her own bedroom.

  She pushed the door inwards, then leaned against it, with her eyes shut.

  When she opened them, she screamed.

  Involuntarily, the sound tore through the townhouse, pulling Carlo out of his angry frustration. For this was a blood curdling cry of absolute fear. He sprung from the bed and ran towards the noise, pushing the door inwards and fixing Jane with an urgent gaze of inquiry. “What is it?” He demanded, spinning around and surveying the room. His eyes fell on to her bed. Or, more specifically, on the object in the centre of her bed.

  His lips were a grim slash in his handsome face as he surveyed the metallic object, stained crimson with dried blood.

  His mind moved quickly. It was undoubtedly the weapon. The instrument that had inflicted the gash on the side of his wife’s head. And it had been put here, in the middle of her most private piece of furniture, in the most private room of the house, by whomever had attacked her. It was, indeed, a message. He or she could reach her.

  He turned to face Jane, and when he saw the exhaustion and fear on her features, he felt an odd sense of vulnerability wash over him. An answering emotion, to complement hers.

  “Jane, I need you to pack a bag. Quickly.”

  Her blue eyes focussed on his face, but it was obvious that she wasn’t comprehending. He shook his head slowly and then moved towards her wardrobe. He opened the doors and examined her assortment of clothes.

  Her taste had changed since he’d met her, he couldn’t help noticing. This wardrobe was stocked with elegant, prim outfits in shades of grey, beige and black. Her clothes were bland. Designed to make her look bland? He pulled a few dresses from hangers, then rifled through her drawers until he found her underwear.

  He stuffed it all into a shopping bag, then turned back to his ex-wife. She was in the same position she’d been in when he’d walked into the room. Her back against the wall, her hands by her side. She was naked.

  He groaned, cursing himself that he could feel attracted to her even in that moment – at the most inappropriate time imaginable.

  She was shaking, though, and that realisation subdued any flash of desire he had been feeling.

  He walked across to her and laced his fingers through hers. Gently, he tugged her from her bedroom, and returned them to the guest room. Her clothes were where they’d been discarded in haste. He pulled the dress over her head, taking care not to touch her injury.

  “I can do it,” she stammered, grabbing for the zip and pushing it upwards. She fumbled but managed to get it most of the way up, then sat on the edge of the bed.

  “God, Carlo. Whoever hit me has been in my house.” She looked at him beseechingly. “Right?”

  He nodded, as he pulled his own clothes back on. “Yes, cara.”

  “Oh, God.” She dipped her head forward, and felt nausea burst through her. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Yes.”

  Fully dressed, he put an arm around her waist and half lifted her off the bed. “We will leave now.”

  His car was waiting downstairs, and Jane didn’t hesitate to return to its luxurious sanctuary. She looked out at her home as though it were a prison. She shivered as they drove off.

  “Constable Warren?” Beside her, Carlo spoke into his cell phone. “The man who attacked my wife has been inside her house. I’m sending a member of my security detail to meet you at her address. I expect him to be kept apprised of your investigation.” He paused, to examine his wife carefully. “I am taking Jane somewhere safe.” He reached out and put a hand over hers. “No harm will come to her.”

  The car glided through the streets of Kensington, a sleek black beast in the jungle of the city.

  “Where are we going?” She asked, as it nudged further out to the west of London.

  “Somewhere safe,” he said firmly.

  “Safe?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Why would someone attack me?” She turned to look at him, her face ashen. “It wasn’t a random attack. Not some junkie.”

  Carlo agreed, but he kept his expression neutral. “What makes you say that?”

  She pulled a face. “Who would hit someone over the head, render them unconscious, and yet still take the time to break into the house, leave the weapon on a bed, but take nothing?” An hysterical laugh bubbled inside her. “What in the world would possess someone to do that?”

  Carlo’s guilt was a butterfly, flapping its wings in his stomach, brushing him with shame and culpability.

  “What did I do? I haven’t hurt anyone. Not a soul. I don’t understand.”

  You married me, he thought with a roll of desperation. And I am the son of a vicious, notorious mob boss.

  The certainty that someone was trying to hurt Carlo, by attacking Jane Lang, was now as obvious to him as the London sky was lead grey.

  Unfortunately, his wife had no knowledge of his father’s criminal associations. She had no knowledge of Carlo’s long-running animosity with that underground network of society’s dregs. Was it any wonder she had been left surprised by the violence against her?

  Carlo settled back in his seat.

  One thought, and one thought only, gave him comfort. He would never let any further harm come to her. He would keep her safe, no matter what that cost him. Obviously the security measures he’d put in place to protect her had not been sufficient. Which left only his personal protection. And he would wrap it around her as a bulletproof shield. For as long as it was necessary, he would protect her. Jane Lang was too valuable, too pure, to be sacrificed to his father and his father’s enemies.

  “No one will hurt you, Jane. I intend to make sure of it.”

  Jane nodded, but worry and fear were forming a stone in her throat. “Carlo…,” she looked at him, her eyes enormous in her pretty face. “I’m scared.”

  He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest.

  He would hunt down the man, woman or beast who had made his wife’s face pale like that, and he would make sure they could never hurt her again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Not here.” She shook her head obstinately, her feet planted firmly in the paved footpath that ran along the front wall of his Roman villa.

  “Si,” he grunted, shouldering open the gate and waiting for her to follow him.

  Jane eyed the elegant building with distaste. It was stunning, of course. Just the kind of home a man like Carlo Santini would own. Set on the outskirts of Rome, in the premiere Residential district, it had spectacular views over the whole city. She could see the Forum, and the Colosseum, and the spikes and turrets of the Vatican. The view had enchanted her, initially. But now it brought back too many vivid memories of long evenings, alone, looking out and wondering where her husband was. And who with.

  The villa itself was grand and imposing. Set behind a tall, red brick wall, the house was four stories high and rendered in a pale brown.
The roof was original – small terracotta squares that spoke of an ancient time in Roman history.

  She ran her shaking fingertips over the fence, but did not step inside the gates.

  The twelve months she’d spent as mistress of Villa Vista had not been happy.

  “Jane,” Carlo said quietly, his eyes beseeching. “The villa is the most secure place I could think of to bring you.”

  It was the first property he’d bought. Then, in the beginning flush of obscene wealth, and with the certainty that his father’s past could reach out and ruin everything, he had needed somewhere safe and secure. Villa Vista was a fortress. Discrete cameras hooked into the roofline captured every angle of the property. Their footage was reviewed by an independent security agency, as well as an automated system constantly scanning for unusual activity. The property was alarmed; the windows were bullet proof, the front door impenetrable, and there was an enormous safe room that could be accessed from his bedroom.

  Faced with a need to protect Jane as he was presently, this had been the only option.

  “I swore I’d never come back,” she remarked bitterly, her eyes drawn again to the house. The black wrought iron balconies that stepped out from each bedroom on the top two floors were like bulging, black eyes. She stared at them, and wrapped her arms tight around her middle.

  “You used to like it here,” he said, quietly interrogating her.

  “Maybe at first. But not for a long time.”

  “You were happy in Rome,” he pushed, scanning her pale face with renewed curiosity.

  Jane seemed to close up before his very eyes. She squared her shoulders and shot him a look of obvious disbelief. “That you thought so shows how little you knew me.” Still, what choice did she have? If someone was actually targeting her, until she knew who and why, she was wisest to stay away. And whatever threat was out there, she felt safe with Carlo. At least, safe from others. Not safe from the fires of need that seemed to flare between them.

  She stepped into the walls of the villa and shuddered.