Red Carpet Romeo

by Jenny Gardiner

  “And you brought me here to show me this because?”

  She shook her head. “No particular reason,” she said. “I thought you might find it interesting. It’s part of a show of erotic art from the Renaissance. I’m particularly partial to Renaissance art I suppose, given my family’s history and patronage of the arts for many hundreds of years.”

  “Yes, but are you partial to erotic art?”

  She smiled a tiny, mysterious smile. “It seems to be growing on me.”

  “Well, I’ve just discovered that I am,” he said. “Who knew?” He shrugged, lifting his arms up. “And now, as if I hadn’t already wanted you like crazy, I’m dying to see if we can recreate that very pose.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “So instead of dressing in costumes for role-playing, you think we should reenact famous portraits of lovers caught in the act?”

  He grabbed her hand. “For now, why don’t we find somewhere nearby that doesn’t have security cameras focused on it? Please. Or else we’ll be very caught in the act. And to be honest, I’d rather create our own positions if that’s all the same to you.”

  Valentina quickly pulled him down another hallway and into a room with an old-fashioned-looking velvet sofa and several mirrors along the walls with individual chairs tucked beneath a counter facing the mirrors.

  “It’s a sitting room off a women’s bathroom,” she said. “Back in the day, women would relax in here and freshen their makeup, perhaps rest on the sofa, enjoy a cigarette away from the prying eyes of men who didn’t approve of women smoking.”

  “So a very private room then,” he said, leading her toward the sofa.

  “Very.” She pushed him onto the couch as she fell down next to him.

  “God, I’ve been dying to do this.” He pulled her toward him, pressing his mouth to hers as he wrapped his arms around her. For minutes it seemed they were in silence but for the sound of their breathing and the occasional sigh one or the other would heave. Parker reached for the hem of Valentina’s dress and shifted the material up until it encircled her waist.

  “I hope this doesn’t wrinkle, or everyone’s going to know what I’ve been up to.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said as he pulled her on top of him, her very wet center pressed against his swollen cock, still contained inside his tuxedo pants. He pulled Valentina down with one hand, giving him access to her mouth while using his other hand to slide through her slick center, rubbing and swirling his fingers on her swollen clit as she moved against him faster and faster.

  “Parker, this isn’t enough,” she said, shifting away and quickly unbuttoning his pants, sliding them down. “Please tell me you came prepared.”

  He grabbed for his wallet.

  ”Fool me once, shame on me...,” he said as he pulled a condom from the wallet and tore the packet open in record time. “Trust me, never again will I allow myself to be caught with my pants down, as it were.”

  “Oh I don’t mind the pants down. Just as long as I can act on that.” She smiled a devilish grin.

  He sheathed himself quickly and pulled Valentina on top of him again, and she ever so slowly lowered herself onto his cock until he was balls-deep. He groaned as Valentina ground herself on him, pressing and shifting in a circular motion as she lifted and then lowered again. Parker closed his eyes to the pleasure while fumbling with his fingers to slip beneath the bodice of her evening gown. He pinched her nipples, and she moaned loudly.

  He pulled her closer, allowing him to nuzzle his mouth toward a breast, and soon his teeth found a nipple and he bit down hard, prompting Valentina to increase the pace of her hips rising and falling on his cock.

  “That’s it, Valentina,” he said. “I feel it. Do you? Are you close?”

  She replied by pumping harder, and he pressed his fingers to her center, crazily turned on as he felt his cock disappearing into her body.

  “I can’t hold it anymore. Come with me, baby. Now.” Parker groaned loudly as he froze, urging himself deep into Valentina just as she called out his name and pressed hard on him. He could feel her muscles ripple around him, milking his climax till he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, the feeling was so unbelievable.

  Parker lay there, unable to move but feeling as relaxed and happy as he had in a long, long time.

  Talk about the perfect climax to his day.

  Chapter Twenty

  Of course Valentina felt conflicted. She’d just had incredible sex with the handsomest man in the place. And had she mentioned that it was incredible? Something about him brought out some unrequited horniness she didn’t quite know what to do with. Which meant she’d love to take him back to her apartment at the palace so they could fuck like rabbits till dawn. But (a) she couldn’t stay up all night when tomorrow was the wedding since she desperately needed a good night’s sleep, and (b) no way could she allow anyone to see him sneaking in or out of her apartment, ’cause she’d never live that down.

  Plus what would they do about Gisele? She’d notice him missing of course. And the first thing she’d do would be to come to Valentina and say she needed help finding her brother. Who of course would be naked and possibly even tied to the bed if Valentina had her way, and then what would she say to Gisele?

  After she and Parker lay there for some time recouping their lost energy stores, she rallied them.

  “We’ve got to slip out before the party ends or there will be problems,” she said as she stood and pulled her dress down, trying hard to press out the wrinkles in her gown but having little success. It didn’t help matters that her hair was a shambles and her lipstick smeared on her mouth. Oy, what was she going to do?

  Parker was zipping and buttoning relevant articles of clothing and pulling his cummerbund back into position when Valentina looked at his crotch.

  “Oh, Parker,” she said, pointing at it. “I’m so sorry.” There was a visible wet spot where Valentina had rubbed herself against him earlier.

  “I think you’ll need to follow closely behind me so that no one notices,” she said. “And in the meantime, hopefully they won’t figure out that I look like I just had a quickie in the ladies’ room.”

  “But you did just have a quickie in the ladies’ room.”

  “Correction: ladies’ lounge.”

  “Point taken,” he said. As they walked by the Two Lovers, Parker gave the couple a quick thumbs-up.

  “Thanks, Zeus,” he said with a grin as Valentina playfully smacked his bottom to get him moving.

  “Zeus has nothing to do with your good fortune,” she said. “That’s all me.”

  “Believe me, I’ll be thanking you for days to come.”

  As they returned to the main gallery, crowds were beginning to thin out, so they got Parker’s coat and her wrap and called for their driver, allowing them to slip out unnoticed.

  They feigned indifference to one another once back at the palace, just in case someone might notice them together. When they reached their apartments, Valentina reverted to business-as-usual Valentina instead of just-enjoyed-intimate-sex-with-the-man Valentina.

  “Okay, so, well, good night then,” she said. “Thanks for a fun night.”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Parker said, slipping a foot between the door and the doorjamb. “I knew you would try to pretend nothing happened again.”

  “Parker,” Valentina said with a sigh. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow. We need a good night’s sleep.”

  “I know,” he said. “And what better way to sleep like a baby than a little tumble between the sheets followed by a cozy spooning of our bodies?”

  He heard voices down the hall and quickly pulled her toward him and pressed them both inside the doorway, shutting the door quietly.

  “My sister,” he said. “And some guy. He better just be acting the gentleman and walking her back to her room. But to be honest, I really don’t want to deal with whatever that is. Looks like you’re stuck with me. I promise I won’t keep you awake. Not any longer than you�
��d like to be.”

  “Parker Hornsby, you are going to be the death of me,” she said. But he pulled her toward him and placed his mouth over hers, and managed to put an official end to any and all objections she might have thought about raising.

  ~*~

  There was no cock crowing at dawn, though there was a certain someone’s cock that maybe wanted to crow, but Valentina needed to get rid of Parker before anyone detected they’d been together, so she practically pushed him out of bed and sent him on his way.

  “Can we spend time together later?”

  “No,” Valentina said as she ushered him toward the door. “It’s bad luck to see the bridesmaid before the wedding.”

  “Isn’t that the bride, and it applies to the groom only?”

  She shook her head. “I’m making this up as I go along. Humor me.”

  He reached for her to get one last kiss before he got to the door. “Now, no going all cold-shoulder on me later, right?”

  “Go, go,” she said, managing to not respond to that ten-million-dollar question. Because she really couldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Just as Parker slipped from apartment thirteen, he heard a noise and looked to see a shadowy figure backing away from apartment eleven where, theoretically, his sister was fast asleep.

  “Stop!” he said in a loud whisper.

  “Ack!” said the person, who turned out to be none other than Valentina’s brother Tomasso.

  “What are you doing leaving my sister’s apartment at this hour?” Parker hoped Tomasso wouldn’t turn that question right around on him, hoping instead that Tomasso didn’t even know his sister was staying there.

  “Parker! Fancy meeting you here. You’re”—he pointed from the door Parker had just left to Parker and back again—“just leaving as well, I see?”

  But Parker wasn’t having any of it. “Where’s Gisele? What are you doing here?”

  Tomasso held up his hands. “It’s all good, my friend. Your sister and I got to talking and it was late, so I just fell asleep on the sofa. I guess she went to bed because I didn’t see her. I wanted to get back to my own bed to catch a few hours of sleep before the wedding.”

  Parker eyed him suspiciously. “Okay then, you should get going.”

  Tomasso ran his fingers through his thick, wavy dark hair. Parker cursed those Italian men who looked as good at dawn after sleeping on a couch as they did the night before in a fresh tuxedo. Come to think of it, the two of them here in their rumpled formal wear didn’t bode well, did it?

  Tomasso took the cue and practically ran down the hall, leaving Parker to return to his apartment and hopefully catch a few hours of sleep.

  ~*~

  “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Gisele said when Parker came into the living room around noon.

  Parker yawned, stretched, and rubbed his belly. “Speaking of tomcats,” he said. “Does the name Tomasso ring any bells?”

  Gisele blushed. “What?”

  “A certain Italian stallion was seen leaving this apartment somewhere around dawn. Any idea why?”

  “And who might have seen him leaving? Maybe someone who was trying to sneak back into said apartment?” She crossed her arms and drummed her fingers.

  “Let’s not worry about me,” he said. “I’m a grown-up.”

  “Um, news flash, sweetie,” his sister said. “Me too. Besides, if you’re going to play the ‘who’s the grown-up card,’ Valentina and I are the same age, so what goes for one goes for the other.”

  Parker pursed his lips. “Tomasso said you two were just talking. Let’s hope that’s all it was.”

  Gisele glanced at her watch. “Gee, look at the time. We need to start getting ready!” With that, she scurried out of the living room and into her bedroom.

  “We’re not done with this conversation, you know,” Parker said.

  “Just as soon as you’re ready to talk to me about you and Valentina, then we can discuss me!”

  Women. Parker rolled his eyes and poured a cup of coffee for reinforcement. It was going to be a long day.

  ~*~

  Once again, the women chose to get ready together, leaving Parker on his own. At half past four, he stood at the base of the Grande Staircase, drumming his fingers against his crossed arms, impatient for Gisele and Valentina to arrive. They needed to be at the church no later than five for the seven-o’clock candlelight service, and he was determined to make sure they were on time.

  He kept glancing at the top of the steps. When finally he caught his first glimpse of Valentina, his breath hitched in his chest.

  She stood at the top of the wide, red-carpeted staircase, absolutely enchanting in an embroidered royal-blue silk crepe gown with an overlay of chiffon softening the overall effect and causing her to look positively royal. The bodice and sleeves were a lace illusion. Draped across her shoulders was a coordinating cape with a small train that accented the gown’s train.

  She wore long, elegant white gloves, a silver velvet sash—from the order of the royal cherubim—secured with a diamond-encrusted bee pin, the symbol of the Romeos since the time of the Renaissance. Her hair was scraped back loosely in a chignon with loose tendrils framing her face, and atop her head was a diamond-and-sapphire tiara that sparkled when it caught the light, even more so because some of the gems were set en tremblant, so they moved with the wearer.

  Until now, Parker hadn’t given true thought to the royal lineage from which Valentina hailed. But she was indeed a princess in all but official title, standing atop the staircase as if she owned this palace.

  He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, feeling a little wimpy for getting all worked up just looking at her. But how could he not? She was so breathtaking.

  When she arrived at the bottom of the steps, he reached for her hand.

  “I thought you were supposed to let the bride shine on her big day.”

  “I will.”

  He sized her up from her dazzling tiara to her custom-dyed satin Manolo Blahnik pumps. “I’m sure that was your intent,” he said. “But I’m afraid you will be, hands down, the most beautiful woman in that cathedral.”

  She blushed and smiled. “Why thank you, Parker. You’re none too shabby yourself in your handsome white-tie ensemble. You look positively edible.” She licked her lips and he groaned.

  “I’ll be counting the minutes till dessert then,” he said with a wolfish grin, locking elbows as he escorted her to their limo.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  People were filing into the Cathedral of Santo Giacomo il Maggiore in droves. For royal weddings like this, guests ran the gamut from other royals throughout the world to heads of state to family members. The glow of thousands of candles warmed the chilly cathedral as guests streamed in through the massive wooden doors of the towering medieval Gothic cathedral.

  Valentina peered from the holding area where they were waiting to watch the processional of guests taking their seats. There were many men in military uniforms, replete with badges and medals plastered all over their dress coats. Others had dressed in national costumes, and many, like Valentina, looked positively royal in sashes and badges and tiaras.

  Valentina seemed only to have eyes for Parker in his formal wing-collared white shirt and tie topped with a Marcella waistcoat and a black tailcoat with silk lapels. He looked from another era, so formal and elegant. And gorgeous. No wonder she fell so madly for him back when she was young. What wasn’t to love? Except, well, when she didn’t love him so much. But still. Sometimes things changed, and she didn’t want to be seen as not being willing to reevaluate decisions along the way.

  Before the actual ceremony began, the wedding attendants marched two by two down the nave, or center aisle, of the church. Little did anyone know, it was the first official “outing” for Parker and Valentina, linked as they were, arm in arm. Valentina let out a tiny wave as she passed her mother and brothers and then her aunt, the q
ueen, and her uncle. She wondered if they could read on her face how she was feeling. As they approached the altar, they turned to take seats opposite the choir and kept their fingers locked as they remained seated side by side.

  Luca stepped from the shadow, taking his place at the altar to await his bride. He looked sharp in his navy-blue tailcoat with brass buttons, corded wrists, badges, and stars and bars with colors and shoulder rank boards. He looked as if he alone could command a fleet of sailors or a platoon of soldiers.

  A trumpet voluntary began to swell from the organ, and all eyes turned toward the back to see Larkin, resplendent in a hand-embroidered ivory satin gown with thousands of pearls sewn into the heart-shaped bodice. She wore a Basque-lace veil that draped over her face, trailing atop a fifty-foot train that was held aloft by a cadre of adorable children in coordinating ivory taffeta gowns as their white patent leather shoes clicked quietly on the stone floor.

  The archbishop welcomed the guests to the nuptials of Prince Luca and Larkin, and the long service began. Throughout the service, Parker and Valentina exchanged glances and smiles, and when Luca and Larkin exchanged vows, the two attendants squeezed their fingers together.

  Church bells pealed as the couple was officially pronounced man and wife, and Luca and his princess kissed, then turned toward their adoring audience and, hands clasped, held their arms aloft to a great cheer from the crowd. They proceeded down the nave to the awaiting horse-drawn carriage that would take them back to the palace. Despite the winter chill and the continued snowfall, the parade route to the palace would be lined with well-wishers from throughout the country.

  Each pair of wedding attendants rode in their own smaller covered carriages, which protected them from the weather, and as luck would have it, prying eyes.

  Because once Parker had made certain Valentina was secure in the carriage and their footman had closed the door behind them, he leaned into her and swiped his tongue to her lips, urging a kiss from her mouth.

  She complied, her warm mouth settling over his as their tongues entwined.