He was, though, Libby thought, her whole body weakening beneath his gaze. Like a Greek god, worshipped by the people who had once populated these lands before the forceful determined Romans broke through and reclaimed the region as their own.
Like him, she thought—truly Italian, secretly revelling in her own and far more pleasurable surrender as each of his hands cupped one firm buttock and caught her hard against him so that she could feel the thrilling sensation of his hot shaft against her belly.
A deep groan rumbled from his chest. ‘You’re the only thing of beauty around here, amore.’
His breath bathed her aching flesh as he proceeded to tell her how much, reverting to Italian with whispered caresses that drove her mindless for him until suddenly it was all too much and she heard herself pleading with him, begging, ‘Romano, love me…’ She didn’t know how much more of this sweet torture she could take.
Without wasting another second, pausing just long enough to put on a condom, he tipped her over onto the bed, his crushing weight with his naked warmth driving her into some mindless, sobbing creature, writhing with the anticipation of knowing him completely.
Vaguely, in some sealed-off corner of her mind, she thought of Luca and what she had learned about him today, but it was no more than that. Just one absent thought, because she felt nothing now. Nothing but the need to lose herself in the sound and scent and touch of this one man, in his tenderness and the driving excitement that he alone could provide for her. The past was gone—forever—and there was only her and Romano, here and now.
When he entered her she gave a sharp gasp, but from ecstasy rather than any pain. And then there was nothing but wild sensation as he plunged deeply into her eager body, bringing her legs up around him so that she locked him to her—inside of her—guided by him in a rhythmic fire dance that built and built in its intensity, until suddenly it splintered into an orgasmic explosion of sensation that went on and on and on, before they finally collapsed together, gasping in the afterglow of its ebbing heat.
She winced a little when he withdrew from her, feeling slightly tender in one or two places.
‘What is it?’ he murmured, sitting up, concern pleating his forehead. ‘Have I hurt you in any way?’
His worried expression brought a gentle smile to her lips. ‘No,’ she reassured softly and, with her fingers caressing the damp satin of his shoulder, added with a wry little tug of her mouth, ‘Just feeling a bit stretched from lack of use, that’s all.’
He thought of her first reaction when he had entered her. Although she had accommodated him comfortably enough, she had been surprisingly tight.
‘What about…’ he couldn’t remember the name of the man he had seen her with that night he’d driven over to her apartment, realised with a fierce possessiveness that surprised him that he didn’t want to remember ‘…that guy at the party?’
‘Steve?’ Steve Cullum was very good at his job, but that was as far as any respect for the man went, Libby thought, cringing, taking a measure of delight, however, in keeping Romano wondering when she noticed the storm-dark emotion…what was it? Jealousy? she speculated, with a wild leap of hope—glittering in his eyes. ‘I know you probably think I’m a woman of the world, but credit me with some discrimination,’ she laughed.
Realising, however, that that sounded as though she would leap into bed with anyone marginally more acceptable to her than Steve, she decided to tell him the truth.
‘I’ve never been one for intimate relationships without some degree of emotional commitment, and I had one of those with pretty disastrous and painful consequences,’ she reminded him, thinking of her involvement with Luca and the dreadful price she had been forced to pay. ‘It’s never been my intention to repeat the experience.’
‘You mean…you haven’t…’ Romano’s voice tailed off as he struggled to comprehend what she was telling him.
As well he might, she thought. But then, how could a man like him—a man who had had a stable upbringing, who enjoyed sex as his birthright and who had never known any real emotional pain in his life—understand?
‘Are you trying to tell me that you’ve been celibate…since Luca?’ His incredulity fell onto a silence broken only by the distant hooting of a ferryboat somewhere out in the bay.
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ she advised, turning away from those questioning eyes, suddenly ridiculously ashamed of it. ‘Some people practise celibacy as a way of life.’
‘Agreed, but rarely beautiful young women who are exposed to the public eye and every sort of temptation that would turn most girls’ heads.’
She gave a heedless little shrug. ‘This lady wasn’t for turning.’
Absently he smiled at her rehash of a phrase coined when she was far too young even to remember it. So was falling into bed with him a rebound reaction? he wondered suddenly. A retaliatory response to finding out what Luca had done?
‘Why did you change your mind?’
He meant with him, Libby thought, realising she had walked into her own trap. She could feel the intensity of his dark regard inviting her to bare her soul.
Because I feel safe with you!
She didn’t say that, though, because she couldn’t put herself into such a vulnerable position. Apart from which, it didn’t make sense. OK, she might feel as though there hadn’t been a minute of her life when this man hadn’t haunted her dreams, but she still knew surprisingly little about the deeply private person she sensed he was beneath that invincible veneer. She didn’t even know if he was involved with anyone else. He certainly hadn’t shown her any sign of affection beyond his driving need for her just now, she realised, sitting up. Making love with her was just a pleasant diversion, something that might have happened with any reasonably attractive and willing partner where he was concerned.
‘Why, Romano…’ through the screen of her lashes that hid a host of painful doubts, she watched the glide of her fingers over one powerfully contoured arm, saying rather coquettishly, ‘you should know that you’re totally irresistible to women!’ And paid for it when he reached up and caught her hand in a merciless clasp.
‘Don’t play games with me, Libby.’
Of course. He would need her to be straight with him, she thought, her gaze raking over the grim seriousness of his features.
‘I—I don’t know,’ she stammered, unsure what to say. ‘Sometimes you meet someone whose chemistry just fuses with yours—and bang!’’
A masculine eyebrow arched in wry response. ‘Not quite how I would have put it,’ he murmured drily, ‘though a very expressive description none the less.’
‘I didn’t mean that!’ she protested, flushing.
He chuckled deeply. ‘I know you didn’t,’ he said, releasing her hand to reach up and trace the patch of colour that was spreading across the very photogenic structure of her cheek. ‘I just enjoy seeing you blush.’
Dragging his index finger across her kiss-swollen lips, he suddenly let it penetrate the warm cleft of her mouth in such a suggestive manner that Libby felt a needle-sharp response that made that other, more secret orifice throb with awakening desire.
‘So…you’re steering free of commitment and yet you’re happy to make love with me,’ he remarked, feeling that part of himself he had thought satisfied stir from the way her warm, moist mouth closed provocatively around his finger. ‘Does that mean, then, that you would entertain no qualms about being my mistress?’
Libby’s throat contracted in an almost painful spasm. Mistress, not girlfriend, she forced herself to recognise.
Distracted by the erotic messages she was getting from that wet finger which was now circling the outline of her lips, tentatively she murmured, ‘Is that what I am?’
He smiled and stopped the suggestive torment, and began fondling her hair instead, his hand sliding down the rich fiery curtain to where the finer strands tapered out just above her breast. ‘You’re naked in my bed.’ He cupped the soft mound in his palm, felt its instant response as his t
humb brushed to and fro across the burgeoning nipple, then with calculated skill dragged his drying finger over the sensitive tip. He saw her eyelids come down, heard her groan against the pleasurable resistance it caused. ‘I would not have thought there was any doubt about it, carissima.’
And she would be his to do with as he pleased, Libby thought. To drive delirious with his hands and his lips and his voice, pushing her past the boundaries of ecstasy until she was nothing but his sexual slave, ready to do anything for just one gram of his infinite tenderness—for the pleasure only he could provide—because she had been destined to love him.
She wanted to protest, hearing some small voice inside of her trying to warn her that she would only be inviting heartache if she was to continue with this madness. Because it was madness, getting herself involved with Romano Vincenzo. But her body didn’t want to listen so that when he pushed her back against the pillows and came down onto her she was already eager for him again, groaning her desperate need into the warmth of his hard, insistent mouth.
She gave a small moan as he moved away momentarily, keeping her mind and her eyes closed as she heard him rip off the condom, quickly deal with another, reaching for him with no loss of desire, her arousal only heightened by the thought of what was to come.
Nudging her thighs apart, he pushed deeply into her wet softness, dragging a shuddering sob from her throat as her body opened for him, taking him in further with every hard, penetrating thrust. And this time their coming together was quick and urgent and yet even more intense than the first, leaving them both breathing heavily from the ferocity of their ungovernable hunger for each other.
He was in the kitchen when she came downstairs, having left her to freshen up alone. He had showered and changed into a short-sleeved white linen shirt and black jeans.
Unobserved in the arched entrance, she leaned against the cool marble pillar, remembering her angry thoughts about him not being able to handle a dinner party, when in fact, watching him move capably around the superbly appointed kitchen, she had to accept that this man—the man she had so foolishly fallen in love with—could handle anything. Including her.
‘You like the minimalist look, don’t you?’ she commented later when they were finishing the beautifully cooked omelettes he had prepared, because every room in the place was starkly serene. From the pale, sparsely adorned walls and dark, uncluttered furniture to the opulent marble, fine mosaics and understated furnishings.
‘Si. Life is full of complications,’ he responded. ‘People are a complication. It’s good not to have too many—too much detail—in one’s personal space.’
And his very private residence reflected that, Libby realised.
‘Am I a complication?’ she probed, her gaze fixed on the movement of his prominent Adam’s apple as he finished his wine.
‘Si. Very much so,’ he drawled.
Why? Because you didn’t plan to wind up in bed with me? she thought, with a resurgence of that little voice she hadn’t wanted to listen to as she noticed the thin crease between his eyes despite his teasing tone. Because there are too many unresolved issues between us—like Giorgio?
‘All mistresses cause complications,’ she demurred, wondering if there was someone else in his life besides the little boy who might be laying claim to his affections. Like the lovely Magdelena perhaps?
‘Si,’ he agreed, his manner suddenly more abrupt. ‘Now, drink up your wine—it’s too good to waste—and then, cara, I fear I must take you back.’
Guiltily she realised she had lost all track of time, and as she swallowed the last mouthful of the cool white wine, trying to behave as though she was just another of his sophisticated female friends he had just happened to take to bed this afternoon, she couldn’t help thinking what a spectacular lover he was and how, after what had transpired between them, her life was never going to be the same again.
And if going to bed with Romano Vincenzo wasn’t inviting trouble, she thought, berating herself as she heard his cellphone ring, she didn’t know what was.
‘It’s Giorgio,’ he said moments later, with a snap of the small mechanism in his hand, and the grave expression on that handsome face caused Libby’s heart to plummet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
GIORGI hurt? Wounded? Just from taking a trip with his grandmother to the coast?
A fall, Sophia had said. While he had been jumping off a low wall. How could it have happened? Libby wondered, beside herself.
All the way back to the mainland she had sat with her hands twisting in her lap, with Romano sitting there beside her, piloting the plane, his face darkly grim.
What was he thinking? Libby wondered now as, still saying very little, he drove them back from the airfield. The same things that were racing through her own mind? That if they hadn’t been making love—if they had returned earlier…
Pointless speculation, she realised, because neither of them could have prevented it happening. But if she’d been with Giorgio…if it had been her or Romano with him instead of Sophia…
She closed her mind sharply to that unjust judgement of his mother’s capabilities. She was the boy’s grandmother—had helped bring him up, after all.
It was dark when they arrived back at the castle and Libby was racing through the softly lit courtyard before Romano was even out of the car.
‘Where is he?’ she asked breathlessly of Angelica, whom she met carrying a basket of fresh flowers through the great hall. ‘Is he upstairs?’
‘Giorgio?’ Angelica’s lined face broke into smiles. ‘Ah, si. He go straight to bed. He was so tired.’ She gesticulated to Libby, looking so happy that Libby wondered if in fact Angelica had been told what had happened.
Romano had caught Libby up before she was even at the top of the stairs. They met Sophia just coming out of Giorgio’s room.
‘How is he?’ Romano quizzed rhetorically, striding past his mother without even waiting for an answer, but as Libby made to follow him Sophia moved slightly but effectively enough to block her path.
‘It is not good for him to have too many people around him at the moment,’ she advised coolly, her golden eyes raking over her ex-daughter-in-law’s dishevelled hair and creased cotton sundress looking for clues, Libby was certain, as to what had been going on. ‘He is better than I feared, but the doctor recommended that he should rest.’
‘He’s my son, Sophia!’
Libby’s determination to stand up to her stunned the woman enough into letting her pass. Her anxiety, however, was replaced by shock when she found Giorgio not lying prostrate and in pain as she had feared, but sitting up in bed in his navy-blue pyjamas, grinning impishly up at Romano, who was already sitting down beside him on the bed.
‘Oh, Giorgi!’
Libby virtually flung herself down beside him, clasping him to her with a fierce protectiveness for a few gut-wrenching moments before realising that in her haste to do so her leg had collided with and was still lodged firmly against Romano’s.
‘He’s all right,’ he said softly, his eyes darkly reassuring, while the child prattled excitedly away to them both in totally incomprehensible Italian. ‘Speak English, mio ragazzo,’ he advised gently.
The little boy obeyed. It seemed he had fallen down and cut his knee and the nice man in the big tent had patched him up and told him to take it easy for the rest of the day.
‘Nonna bought me a big ice cream—’ he spread his young arms to show them just how big it was ‘—because she said I was very brave. And afterwards we went to the aquarium because it had a moving floor underneath it and I couldn’t walk very well because of my knee. Do you want to see it?’ he invited proudly, already pushing back the bedcovers, totally unaware of the questioning glance his mother exchanged with his uncle.
‘I don’t think that will be necessary, Giorgio.’ Romano was restoring the sheet around the child’s waist. Beneath the avuncular smile and the weakening relief that was every bit as strong as hers was, Libby decided, she could see
the annoyance in the taut cast of his jaw.
‘Why did Sophia make it sound as though the boy was lying at death’s door?’ he complained impatiently, bewildered by his mother’s making such a drama out of what had turned out to be nothing more than an unfortunate but natural childhood scrape. ‘I can’t understand why she had to worry us senseless over something that warranted little more than a sticking plaster. She’s not usually given to states of such blind panic.’
Nor would she ever be, Libby supplemented mentally, seeing his mother’s ruse for exactly what it was.
‘I could hazard a guess,’ she said, stroking Giorgio’s hair, the words tumbling out of her before she could stop them.
Romano looked at her obliquely. ‘Please do.’
She hadn’t wanted to, but those compelling eyes were far too commanding, and now, shifting her position slightly so that her leg wasn’t so intimately connected to his, she found herself blurting it out. ‘She came home and we weren’t here. That meant we had gone off somewhere together. She doesn’t want me getting involved with you and possibly taking another of her sons away.’ She had also probably derived great pleasure from causing her distress, Libby thought, but kept that little piece of speculation to herself.
A line furrowing his brow, Romano stood up, his proud Latin features hard and brooding. ‘She’s been given no reason to fear that,’ he stated.
No, of course not, Libby thought, with a sudden sharp twist of something beneath her ribcage. She had been just a pleasurable diversion for him on a rather—for her at any rate—traumatic afternoon.
‘We were out together. That’s enough for any mother to wonder,’ she communicated to him as levelly as she could, and then, aware of young ears listening, lowered her tone to add, ‘Especially if she doesn’t like the woman her son is seen to be knocking around with.’ There. That sounded careless enough, didn’t it?
‘I’m not…what is this phrase? Knocking around with?’ he stressed irritably, slipping his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. ‘Some sort of English slang?’
Blackmailed For Her Baby (Bought For Her Baby Series Book 4) Page 12
