Her Venice Affair (The Albury Affairs)

by OW, Christina

  If this was a dream, they would be making love and not staring at each other waiting for the other to blink first.

  But Allan was dead, right? Who is this guy?

  “Honey, it really is me. I’m so sorry for all you went through thinking that I was dead. I’m even more sorry about how we parted in Venice.” He swallowed hard, a dark shadow crossing his face his eyes squinted in what looked like pain. “After what Anthony said…and when the boat blew up…” He went silent, his eyes rising to meet hers again.

  Riana just stared at the man who said he was Allan. There was nothing about him that looked like her Allan.

  Allan liked keeping his hair in a shorter do. This guy had really long hair falling around his shoulders, framing his face in a sexy kind of way. And with that beard, he looked more like a rock star rather than the businessman who liked to stay clean shaven, his smooth, soft face absent of even one tiny stubble. Allan’s shoulders were as wide but thicker, in fact this guy looked two sizes smaller that Allan.

  But those eyes and that easy, sexy smile…

  She went on her knees and moved closer to him until he was looking up at her. She saw his hands flex at his sides before they clenched into fists. It was like he was fighting not to hold her. Like he wanted her to make the first move.

  Riana slowly raised her hand and pushed his hair away from his face. She combed it back with her fingers, and then fisted it in her hand, keeping his head held back. Then, with her other hand, she ran her fingers over his rough, hairy cheeks.

  It would be so much easier to accept this wasn’t a dream without all this hair! She sighed frustrated.

  “I know. I need a shave and a haircut. But you used to like my hair longer than my normal cut.”

  He was right. She did like his hair longer, but not this long!

  “Pinch me.”

  “What?” he chuckled.

  “Just in case I’m dreaming, because if I am, and you aren’t really sitting here…” Her voice broke with emotion and she battled to keep the unshed tears where they were. She cleared her throat and demanded again. “Pinch me.”

  Allan stared up at her quietly for a while before he moved.

  She felt his hands on her bare lower thighs and her breathe hitched. That touch…her skin knew Allan’s touch and this man’s felt so familiar.

  “I’ll do something better,” he whispered huskily.

  His hands moved up, pushing the dress higher up slowly and Riana felt like she could barely breathe.

  It wasn’t just familiar anymore. She recognized it.

  She bit her lower lip to keep from panting, her chest heaved with short breathes. The last time she felt so aroused from a single touch was when Allan was alive.

  But he is alive. He’s sitting right in front of me. Touching me like he knows my body. Like my body belongs to him.

  His hands stopped at her hips. “You wore this dress on our first dinner date in Rome. I never got to take it off because we had our first fight that night. Now I can finally take that pleasure.” He stroked her inner thighs so softly it felt like a tickle that charged her desire. “Your body knows who I am. What about your mind? Has it accepted me yet?”

  She chuckled, then laughed and cried at the same time. She opened her eyes and looked down at him through a blur of tears. “It really is you! Allan you are alive! You are alive!”

  He lifted her then lowered her slowly onto the bed before he moved over her

  “I’ve missed you so much, Riana.”

  Riana cupped his face in her hands and gave him a wobbly smile. “I’ve missed you, too. It almost killed me—”

  He pressed his lips against hers and cut her off. “You are here and I’m here. That’s all that matters.”

  With a cheer, Riana pushed him on his back and began raining kisses on his face and exposed neck, touching him everywhere her hands could reach just to make sure he was really there.

  Allan laughed heartily, rolling her back under him. She felt his lips against hers again and she could swear her heart began to beat with the same fury his nearness used to provoke. She felt alive!

  Allan stared down at her with a sober expression. “I love you. I love you with all my heart, soul and body. Please forgive me for being such a fu—uh,” he chuckled, “brainless coward.”

  Riana’s smile grew to a grin. She knew it. She’d known all along his feelings for her but it felt wonderful hearing him say those three words.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. We are together and we aren’t going to waste any more time on regret or could have been.”

  “You are the smartest girl I know, you know that?”

  “When was the last time you made love?”

  His brows drew together in confusion. “You were the last person I was intimate with.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “We’ve both been celibate for two and a half years. Are we going to add another day to that before you—”

  She never got a chance to finish. Allan pressed his lips against hers in a hungry kiss, his hands moving the rest of the dress up to her torso.

  Riana arched up on instinct trying to get closer. He pulled away, yanked the dress over her head before he descended on her again, his hands everywhere, touching, groping, teasing hungrily like a man starved. Her body responded to his touch in a way she never thought possible again.

  Tired of feeling cloth against her skin, she quickly undid the buttons to his shirt. Having an active twenty month old required her to work fast, especially when dressing and undressing her.

  Once all the buttons were undone, Allan helped pull the shirt off, while Riana moved to his pants. That only took two seconds to undo and one more second to push it and his boxers down to his ankles so that he could kick them off.

  Allan pulled away and looked at her, stunned. “That was fast. Where did you—”

  “Aha,” she said noncommittally, pulling him back down to kiss him.

  He lifted her leg and she felt a thrill rush through her knowing what was coming. She fought an excited giggle as she returned his hungry kisses.

  She cringed biting down a yelp when he drove into her. It hurt, a lot. For a person who’d given birth, she shouldn’t be so tight.

  Allan kissed her chin, her nose, her eyelids and her forehead before he sucked on her earlobe and whispered in a shaky voice. “I’m sorry. I know it’s been a long time. Damn I swear you’re tighter!” He kissed her lips. “I’ll try to be gentle.”

  She nodded, holding on to him as the pain faded to discomfort.

  He stared down at her, his brown eyes rich with lust and love. She touched his face, her fingers moving over his handsome features, features she thought she would never feel again, then moved down to his chest. She could feel his restraint on his muscles there. She knew he didn’t want to hurt her but she could feel the toll it was taking from his trembling tense muscles.

  He leaned down and took her nipple into his mouth. She felt her body shiver with pleasure from his teasing ministrations. She buried one hand in his hair to hold his head there, the other holding on to his shoulder. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the solid muscle that flexed under his skin.

  He released her nipple and moved up to press his rough cheek against hers. He then moved inside her again, his fingers knotted into her hair, his breath warm on her lips, her breasts crushed against his hard chest.

  The discomfort broke into hot desire as he filled her slowly again and again. Fire burned inside her and Allan’s passion fed it like fuel.

  He wrapped his arms around her, his body flexing over hers as his lips brushed against her ear. “Hold on to me, Riana. I want you so close that I can feel your heart beat in my chest like it used to when we made love.”

  Riana’s body trembled at his words delivered in a husky voice. So hot and wet in her ear that it made her tremble again.

  She wrapped her arms around him tightly, her legs automatically going around his waist to hold him there like she was going
to keep him from disappearing again. She wasn’t going to lose him a second time.

  His breath hitched in his throat. His hardness thrust into her again, filled her aching void, remolded her flesh to fit his again, and his rhythm increased.

  “Allan!” Riana buried her face in his neck and breathed him in. She wanted him to fill her in every way.

  Allan tightened his hold on her. She felt only his thrusting hardness filled with hungry desire. She could feel her orgasm build in her womb. Her fingers dug into his back, grasping for some sense of reality, but this was as real as it was going to get.

  He’s alive. He’s here, making love to me. It is real.

  Sheer desire and genuine emotion rushed through her veins. He thrust harder and she gasped with a cry as he sank deeper. Waves of pleasure crashed over her, threatening to send her flying into oblivion. The pleasure mounted and overcame her—nothing less than exquisite torture. The orgasm exploded, tearing through her. It claimed her with shuddering intensity and she screamed out his name.

  They had always been good together, but this, this was on an entirely different level.

  Allan drove himself into her one last time. He drew up, his back arching as he was completely seated inside her. The push of his body against hers felt like he still wanted to go deeper. He shouted his release, her name on his lips. His tense muscles slacked in relief under his glistening skin.

  Watching him reach his peak inside her, claiming her as his as his warm seed heated the walls of her empty womb, where his daughter once grew, made it even more real. It was absolute perfection.

  Perfectly real, she thought with a content sigh.

  She knew it was a weird thought to have at that moment, but she hoped he had left another gift inside her. And this time, they’d share the miracle from conception to birth, to its first smile, first laugh, first steps, first words and all of its firsts. Together.

  Allan collapsed on top of her, breathing hard and his body shaking and jerking as he continued to spurt inside her.

  Riana closed her eyes, finally catching her breath. For a long moment, they simply stayed wrapped around each other, happy about the second chance they were granted.

  * * * *

  Allan hugged Riana closer to him. They had spent most of the night and into the early hours of the morning making love. Now they just laid together in companionable silence, each of them lost in their thoughts.

  But Allan could bet they were thinking of the same thing—each other and how lucky they were to have this second chance. Many people begged and prayed for a chance like this and never got it. He was never going to take her for granted ever again.

  Allan moved to hold Riana more comfortably against him as he battled sleep. He smiled at Riana’s declaration to never ever go to sleep again in fear he might disappear. Silly, yes, but he understood her perfectly.

  He loved the feel of her warm skin against his, her fingers trailing lazily on his chest as she made small content sighs and mumbled incoherent words under her breathe. Two and a half years he’d gone without this. He was learning to appreciate the saying ‘you don’t know what you have until you lose it’.

  He wasn’t going to lose her again.

  He tightened his grip on her and Riana hugged him back. He felt her hand snail across his torso, and too late he realized that he should have stopped her wandering fingers.

  She tensed then pushed up onto her elbow and pulled the covers down.

  He wanted to yank them back before she saw them but it was useless judging by her startled gasp and horrified expression. She sat up, not caring that she was naked, and pushed the covers further down to his waist.

  Allan watched the emotions play on her face silently, wishing there was a way to avoid explaining. He thought he’d postponed this discussion when she didn’t notice them when they made love…obviously not.

  “Allan, what the hell happened to you?” she shrieked.

  Allan didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t remember exactly how he got the scars, only that Anthony was responsible for them. He was focused on saving Riana and had no concern for himself. All he remembered was the report of the gunshots and the explosion, but his body never registered the pain.

  Dante had come up with a theory, which he was kind enough to share with the police and Matthew. Allan at the time didn’t care about anything, let alone a few wounds to trouble himself to provide an explanation.

  “Allan!”

  He felt her shaking hand move up to his shoulder—he had minimal feeling there—and cursed under his breathe. She was going to cry for hours over this, he just knew.

  “Allan!” she cried, a lone tear running down her cheek from her watered eyes.

  He sat up and pulled her into his arms, settling her against his chest as he leaned back against the headboard of the bed.

  “I had an accident, but I’m fine now.” He kissed her forehead. “There is nothing to stress about. Please don’t cry.”

  She tilted her head back and he wanted to kick himself for not getting the scars removed when the doctors had suggested it, when he saw her tear stained face. He thought he had deserved them as a reminder of how he had failed her. Now, she was never going to get over them. They were going to be a constant reminder of their nightmare.

  “Please…tell me what happened?” she whispered.

  When he didn’t answer right away, she leaned a little away from him and touched the round scar on his side that had a twin at his back. Then she touched the one at his ribs—the unlucky shot as he called it—that had a twenty-centimeter surgery scar line that ran up across it. It felt weird when she pressed making contact with…he had no idea.

  He hadn’t cared to find out what the piece of rib the bullet broke off was replaced with. Dante might know. Whatever it was, it felt foreign, like it wasn’t supposed to be a part of his body.

  “Are these bullet wound scars?”

  He could tell she was about to get hysterical.

  “I know that is a burn scar, but how the hell did you get torched?” she demanded, laying her hand on his shoulder.

  Allan took her hands in one of his the other cuddled the side of her head and brought it back to his chest.

  He felt Riana shake against him as she silently sobbed. He took a deep breath and began. “I’m not exactly sure. It all felt like a nightmare. A blur of events of a hellish nightmare.”

  She slipped her hands out of his and wrapped her arms around him. He stroked her back with his free hand, trying to sooth her. She wasn’t going to take what he was about to say well.

  He told her about Anthony threatening to harm her if he went through with the takeover, also explaining the reason for a bodyguard—not for himself, but for her. Then, with great difficulty, he told her what Anthony had said about what he’d done to her. He felt her tremble then, her hold on him tightening. Then he finished with what Dante had described as what could have happened to him on the yacht, ending with the explosion.

  “I’m sorry I left you alone. I knew the danger but I was too much of a damn coward—”

  Riana pressed her fingers on his lips then lightly brushed his lower lip with her thumb. “Tonight, you said you love me more times than I thought you possibly would, so the past—that fight—doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Then she swallowed visibly and a worried look crossed her face. “Allan, remember when you asked me how I got away and I had no idea what you meant?”

  Allan felt his own body shake with both dread and relief. Dread that Anthony would have hurt her if he had found her on the yacht and relief that she had left before he had a chance to. “That doesn’t matter either. You are here and you are safe. That’s all I care about.”

  “Allan, Anthony got his driver to take me to the airport. I didn’t know he was planning to…” Her voice trailed away as tears flowed down her face.

  The first thing that came to mind was to be suspicious of her and her relationship with Anthony. But he didn’
t dwell on it long, refusing to allow the thought that they had plotted against him. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged, crying harder. “I don’t know. I told him we broke up and he got this scary look on his face as he came toward me. For a moment I thought he was going to hurt me and I started wishing you hadn’t left me alone. But then he stopped a foot away from me, picked up my bags and said he’d have his personal driver take me to the airport. Since I had no other means, I took the offer. When I got back home, Theresa—”

  “Hold up,” he blurted out, raising his hand. “What does Theresa have to do with this?”

  “She’s the one who told me you were dead. She said it was my fault and I should be the one who died.”

  Allan felt his temper flare. “You mean to tell me that Theresa knew you were alive and said nothing about it!”

  Riana stopped crying. “Why would she think I was dead?”

  “Because before Dante corrected the media, the report was that there were two casualties in the yacht. You and me,” he bit out through clenched teeth.

  The moment he saw Theresa he was going to ring her neck!

  All this time, she could have ended his suffering. True, he’d asked Dante not to tell the media he was still alive until he felt he was ready to face the world—which was supposed to be never—but Matthew and Melody knew he was alive. And somehow Theresa had found out, too. She had tried to go to Italy to be with him just a month after the explosion and that’s when he bought a new yacht and sailed as far away from everyone as he possibly could.

  Then the media found out that he was still in the land of the living, but since they couldn’t find him, they labeled it a rumor and he a ghost. Over a year of being called a ghost and Riana didn’t know?

  “Where have you been, Riana?”

  She blinked a few times like Allan had just pulled her out of her thoughts.

  “I was in New Providence. After she told me, and I saw the news…I had to escape. I thought if I ran away it would turn out not to be true and I wouldn’t be forced to face that you died. So I ran to my brother.” She stared into his eyes. “Allan, that’s the second time in over two years I’ve admitted aloud that you died.”