RossellinisRevengeAffair

by Rossellini's Revenge Affair (lit)

  “Are you certain you don’t wish to have more?”

  “It won’t cure what hurts inside, Raffaele. But thank you anyway.”

  The emptiness of her voice cut to his core. Over the past three days, on those occasions when they’d crossed paths, he’d seen a different side of her. She’d been animated and excited about her purchases and, at the end of each day when he’d returned from the hospital, had discussed with him all manner of items she’d bought. He’d found himself beginning to look forward to her presence here in the suite on his return—almost a homecoming in some bizarre way. But now, she was reduced to the same frozen, cold-natured female he’d met after Kyle’s funeral. Withdrawn. Untouchable.

  Suddenly he missed the warmth of her excitement. The pleasure in her voice. It was a sensation he did not feel comfortable with.

  “I’m sorry, Lana. I should have kept the paper from you. It was insensitive of me to expose you to that.”

  “No, not insensitive. You don’t need to wrap me in kid gloves. I can take it, honestly. It just came as a bit of a surprise—that’s all.”

  She went through the motions, he noted, said all the right words, but he could tell there was far more going on inside her head than she was letting on. He felt her withdrawal from him as if it was physical. The damn picture reminded them both of their purpose, and of the end result.

  She was right, he realised with damning accuracy. Nothing would heal what hurt inside. Nothing.

  “I will deal with the paper, force an injunction on them—something, anything. They will print no more lies or conjecture about our families,” he ground the words out like a vow. Lana fell under his protection now. He needed her and, whether she liked it or not, she needed him.

  “Don’t bother, they’ll just find another way to spread the poison, to eat into my past and blow it all over the papers again.” Lana placed a small slender hand on his coat sleeve. “It’s nothing anyone hasn’t tried to do to me before and I survived the last time. I’ll survive now. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure everything is ready for tomorrow. Personally, I can’t wait to get out of the city.”

  For once Raffaele heartily concurred. While he’d be further from the hospital and the commute to the city would take precious hours from his time with Maria, once the baby arrived and was strong enough to come home, she would be secure in the new home he’d purchased. After today, that security seemed more vital than ever before.

  His gaze dropped from her earnest face to the fine tapered fingers that branded his arm. Her touch set off a jolt of electricity through his veins. Before he could think, or act, on it she withdrew her hand and rose to her feet.

  “I think I’ll take a bath and then turn in for the night. We have an early start tomorrow if we’re going to beat the delivery truck out to the house.”

  “You wouldn’t prefer to have a meal before you retire?” Food was the last thing on Raffaele’s mind, but for some reason he was reluctant to let her go and lose her company. Before he could examine his reasons for coercing her to stay with him any longer, she shook her head and turned for her room.

  Lana went through the motions of preparing for bed but her mind continued to race. By the time she’d soaked for half an hour in a foam-filled bath she was no more relaxed than she’d been when she’d first seen the newspaper. It was going to take far more than a long soak in a bath to rebuild her self-esteem.

  She stroked a washcloth over her body, removing the last of the grime of the day. If only it could be as simple to wash away the pain of rejection and failure. Her hand stilled over her flat lower belly and the picture of Maria Rossellini’s belly, swollen with the life of the unborn child Lana would have given anything to have borne, imprinted itself on her mind. Would any man ever want her knowing she couldn’t bear his children? Kyle had told her it didn’t matter, but quite obviously the evidence proved his conciliatory words to be the pathetic lie they were.

  With a frustrated sigh of resignation she rose from the bath and reached for one of the hotel’s thick fluffy towels. The texture of the warmed towelling on her skin sent a wave of heat through her body, and awoke a deep-seated want in her she hated to acknowledge. She needed to feel like a woman again—needed the affirmation she was still attractive, that life wasn’t measured in how fertile or otherwise a woman was, but instead in the other things she could bring to a relationship. The things that apparently hadn’t been enough for Kyle. Hot tears stained her cheeks as, later, she lay unmoving on the bed, waiting for sleep to claim her and give her surcease from the painful truth.

  Nine

  The night sounds from the city outside did little to soothe Lana’s tumbling thoughts. Eventually she gave up her attempt at sleep, and decided to see if she could find something to read in the main lounge. She dragged on the matching sea foam coloured peignoir to her sheer nightgown more out of habit than out of any practical need to cover herself. Raffaele would be long since in bed. The toll his time with his sister was taking on him was visible in every line on his face and the emptiness in his eyes when he returned each evening. Tonight’s fiasco with the paper had struck an even deeper cast of weariness about his features.

  Lana tied the belt of her wrap tight at her waist and opened her bedroom door. A light still burned in the sitting room and she stilled in the doorway to her room when she recognised that the object of her thoughts was still very much awake. Dressed only in navy pyjama bottoms Raffaele looked up at her, a frown creasing his brow. Lana’s eyes were riveted on the expanse of muscular tanned shoulders and his broad chest, which was dusted with a light coating of dark hair that fined and trailed to the centre of his flat abdomen, and below.

  “Is there a problem?” His voice sounded thick.

  Lana stilled in shock. Surely he hadn’t been crying? Not the indomitable Raffaele Rossellini. Throughout this whole ordeal he’d shown cool calculating control or individually targeted anger—never sorrow, never weakness.

  “I—I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m sorry.”

  “You do not disturb me. I cannot sleep.” He lifted a hand to wipe his eyes and turned his head from her, away from the light.

  Hehad been crying. Lana didn’t know what to do. Her instincts wanted to drive her into the room, to stroke her hands over his cheeks and remove the silver tracing of moisture she’d glimpsed there. But she remained where she was. Raffaele would never accept comfort from her. Clearly he wanted to be alone.

  “I should go back to bed.” She turned to go back to her room.

  “No. Please. Sit with me a while. It is obvious you cannot sleep either.”

  On legs that suddenly felt as weak as water, Lana crossed the room and sat where he indicated. Next to him on the wide sofa.

  “What troubles you now, Lana? Why do you not sleep?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, knowing it was a lie. The discomfort that had slowly ignited in her earlier tonight had reached the stage where it could no longer be ignored. Her self-esteem had taken one battering straight after another over the past week and a half. She needed—her heart began to race—she needed to reaffirm herself as a woman. As a desirable woman.

  She started as Raffaele’s hand lifted and he trailed a long warm finger down her cheek to her jaw line.

  “I think you know what troubles you.” His voice dropped an octave. “I also think you do not wish to talk.”

  She nodded in silence, her eyes linked with his. His long thick lashes, still slightly damp, framed dark grey eyes—eyes that held her enthralled with the sudden flare of desire that grew within them. A shiver of anticipation ran the length of her spine, making her body straighten, her breasts thrust out ever so slightly.

  His finger traced the edge of her jaw before following the corded line of her throat and lower until it reached the edge of her wrap.

  “I do not want to talk either.” Raffaele leaned closer until she could feel his breath against her skin.

  The air in her lungs dried. Every nerve
in her body focussed on the trail of heat his finger left in its wake as he slowly eased aside the edge of the flimsy fabric and exposed the spaghetti strap of her nightgown. A tight curl of need spiralled low and deep in her belly. A tiny sigh escaped her lips only to be caught against the heat of his mouth, his tongue. She felt the tremor that spread through him as his hand slid across her skin and under the bodice of her gown to cup her breast. Her nipple beaded tight, the sensation bordering on the pleasure-pain of intense desire.

  She felt the sash at her waist loosen and fall away, the peignoir followed, dropping off her shoulders and down, imprisoning her arms at her sides in its silken folds. Raffaele brushed his thumb over her taut aureole, circling the rigid point and sending darts of pleasure deep inside to her core, then lifted both his hands to her shoulders. Slowly he eased the thin ribbons of fabric over the soft curve of her shoulder. The bodice of her nightgown fell away with the merest brush of his hand.

  Raffaele tore his lips from hers and murmured in Italian, something soft and low that Lana couldn’t understand. His eyes darkened as he looked at her—a long slow appraisal of her face, her throat, her breasts. For a moment she felt self-conscious, and started to move—to gather up the fabric to hide herself again. Kyle had been her first and only lover. This was frightening new territory for her. But the look, the appreciation, in Raffaele’s eyes made her hesitate.

  “Ti desidero. I want you, Lana. Be very certain of your reply because I will only ask this once. Will you make love with me tonight? Just tonight. I need you.”

  The plea in his voice was her undoing and her strength at the same time. This strong influential man wanted her.Her . In itself it was a powerful aphrodisiac, but the sensations he aroused in her were her affirmation. In answer she leaned forward, feathering light kisses across his forehead, his cheekbone, until she reached the corner of his mouth. The taste of him was on her lips and she wanted more. Much more.

  She pressed her lips to his, and whispered, “Yes.”

  It was all he needed to hear. Raffaele stood in one fluid motion and scooped Lana’s delectable willing body into his arms. He was not prepared to sate the clawing overwhelming need to be with another person, to do what he wanted with her, on a couch in the sitting room. No, he wanted the comfort and expanse of his bed, the privacy of his room.

  The gentle golden light of the lamp in the sitting room cast long deep shadows in his bedroom as he laid Lana against the covers of his bed. She pulled her arms free of the sleeves of her wrap and raised them to him. For an instant he questioned the wisdom of his decision but the instant was fleeting, overwhelmed instead by the inferno of want that now drove him to seek comfort and diversion in her body.

  Her gentle hands caressed the width of his forearms and slid upwards as she rose to her knees letting her clothing fall to her waist and beyond. Her long blonde hair flowed over her shoulders, the tips caressing her breasts, enticing him to do the same. He bent his head and buried his face between her breasts, cupping them with his hands as he inhaled the intoxicating fragrance of her skin. His tongue darted out to trace the line of one breast, to caress the underside. Her gasp of pleasure was his reward as he continued his journey, laving her skin with strokes of his tongue until he worked his way to the tight nub of her nipple. Her fingers tangled in his hair as he suckled at the tiny button of flesh, coaxing a moan of delight from deep within her throat. Then he afforded the same attention to its partner, taking every care to bestow the same concentration as he had before.

  His hands skimmed down the length of her body, to her slender waist, to the curve of her hips. She was so soft, so warm, so giving as her hands followed an identical path. He knelt on the bed with her, curving his arm around her waist and drawing her against his bare torso, against the straining flesh confined in his pyjama bottoms. The sensation of skin against skin was almost his undoing as they cleaved together. With his free hand he swept away the silken swathe of hair at her neck then bent to nip gently at the graceful curve of her throat and at the tender skin behind her ear.

  He felt her hands at the drawstring of his pants, felt the fabric give. It was too soon. She’d drive him over the edge with her touch he knew, and then—ah, si—it was too late to stop her as she gloved him with a firm stroke of her hand. A groan tore from his throat, her name on his lips. Her fingertips caressed the tip of him, spreading the moisture she found there before she stroked him again in a long caress that made everything inside him tighten and bunch with longing, craving release.

  “Protection,” he growled even as he strained against her hand, his hips already fighting to assume the rhythm that would bring swift release.

  “I’m safe, Raffaele. I won’t get pregnant.”

  “You are certain? Because I cannot wait. I want you now.”

  “Then take me now.” A secret smile curved her lips, in the semi-lit room she was beautiful. It was all he could do not to throw her against the covers and take her in one deep thrust.

  Instead, he watched as she swung one leg off the bed, then the other and stood slowly before him. The last scraps of her nightwear cascading off her hips and exposing the golden triangle of curls at the apex of her thighs, her long slender legs. Legs he wanted wrapped around him this instant.

  He reached for her, taking her lips in a punishing kiss, parting them with a sweep of his tongue and probing deep inside the moist heat of her mouth with a promise his body cried out to deliver. He guided her back to the bed without breaking his kiss and spread her beneath him. A push of one hand dispensed with his pyjama bottoms, exposing his hungry flesh. Then, at last, he was nestled at her entrance. He could feel the welcoming heat that emanated from her body and could hold himself back no longer.

  Her eyes glistened in the near dark. He watched intently as her pupils all but consumed her irises as he guided the head of his penis inside her. Every muscle in his body locked rigidly in place as he forced himself to stop, to savour the sensation of her slick heat as it pulled gently against him. Enticing him further. He withdrew slightly then surged forward again and felt her inner muscles bunch and tighten along his length. He could control himself no longer, nor would he want to even if he was still capable of such control. A sheen of moisture broke out on his skin as he hesitated one precious second longer before giving in to the instinctive need that drove him to sink himself to the hilt, to lift her legs to his hips. She wrapped herself around him, tight. Barely allowing him any room to withdraw and sink himself within her again, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered as the rhythmic pull of her drew him ever deeper.

  Time disappeared, the world around them receded to a shadowed purgatory that could no longer touch him, could no longer hurt. He gave himself over to the moment, to the heat, to the passion. His climax built with overwhelming speed, taking him to a place where pain and suffering no longer existed, where only pleasure reigned. Lana’s legs tightened around him, he felt her thighs quiver, heard her cry of release and he hurtled over the edge and into the realms of pure unadulterated satiation.

  Lana lay, wrapped in the band of Raffaele’s arms, and listened carefully as his ragged breathing slowed to a steady pace once again. Her heart still hammered in her chest, her nerves still tingled with the aftermath of their lovemaking. She hadn’t believed her body was capable of such dizzying heights of pleasure. Lovemaking with Kyle had always been good, better than good. But this? This was off the scale.

  Her mind quickly sobered. What had she done? She’d been widowed only eleven days and she was already finding comfort in another man’s arms. And not just any man—Raffaele Rossellini, the person responsible for Kyle and Maria getting together all along. Raffaele’s arms tightened around her waist, one hand starting a lazy circle across her belly.

  “This is no time for second thoughts, Lana,” he whispered against her neck before pressing his lips at her nape then licking gently at her skin.

  “I’m not,” she protested, as a new enticing spiral of desire wound within her.
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br />   “Do not lie. Not to me, not to yourself. It is only natural you should feel…uneasy.” His hand slid up to caress her breast, his palm lightly skimming across the surface.

  “It’s so soon. I shouldn’t have—” Her voice broke and his ministrations ceased, and she felt the mattress shift as he raised above her. His fingers gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him, eye to eye.

  “Lana, Kyle left you a long time ago. If not physically, then at least mentally. Take tonight. You deserve it. We both do. You enjoyed what we have shared together, yes?”

  “Yes,” she sighed. She couldn’t deny it.

  “We have the rest of tonight. Let’s not waste it.”

  She could feel his growing arousal against her hip and her insides clenched in feminine anticipation. He wanted her again so soon? This was the salve she needed, this was the dressing to her wounded heart, her self-esteem.

  “No, let’s not.”

  She pulled his head down to her and kissed him with all the invitation she was capable of and felt the shudder run through his body, felt his arousal firm and harden, felt the hammering of his heart beat as she stroked her fingertips across his chest. He was addictive. Already she craved more of him, his touch, his taste. The pleasure she knew he could bring her. The escape from the reality of her world.