by Helen Brooks
They were married six weeks later at the same village church. This time the bride wore a simple but exquisite silk taffeta ivory dress and carried a small posy of English daisies, and the groom a black Nouveau jacket and black trousers with an ivory patterned waistcoat. Cherry wondered if it was proper to stand at the altar on your wedding day with such lustful thoughts, but she couldn’t help it. Vittorio looked so good she had gone weak at the knees when she saw him.
The church was packed to overflowing again. Vittorio had flown her relations and friends out from England two days before the wedding, but Liam hadn’t accompanied Angela and her mother although she had included him in the invitation. Her mother had confided that Angela and Liam were ‘having problems’. From the way Angela had batted her eyelashes at Vittorio and contrived to take him aside when she’d only been at the villa for a few minutes Cherry wasn’t surprised.
She didn’t know what Vittorio had said to her sister, but Angela had emerged from the tête-à-tête flushed and angry and wouldn’t say a word to anyone the rest of the day. However, she did behave herself on the wedding day, keeping a low profile and staying out of Cherry’s way—which was all Cherry could have asked for. Her mother, openly thrilled that one of her daughters had made such a brilliant match, suddenly seemed to have decided that Cherry was the favourite, twittering around Vittorio and practically falling over her own feet if he so much as looked at her. It was both funny and sad, and Cherry wasn’t sorry that the English contingent were leaving the day after the wedding.
The dancing went on late into the night, and Cherry knew she had died and gone to heaven as she floated in her husband’s arms in the moonlight, the party going on around them but their eyes only for each other.
At last their guests began to leave, and she smiled as she sensed Vittorio’s impatience as the last few lingered. A perfect host normally, he was being tested to the limit.
They walked into the house locked in each other’s arms, and when they reached the master bedroom Vittorio turned her to face him before he opened the door. ‘No other woman but you has come here,’ he said very seriously, his dark eyes stroking her face in a way that made her tremble. ‘I want you to know this, mia piccola. I have had many woman, you know that, but I have never brought one into my bed in Casa Carella.’
She touched the silken rasp of his chin where the black stubble made him look even sexier. ‘I’m glad.’
She hadn’t been into his bedroom before. Since he had proposed Vittorio had been very proper. So proper, in fact, that she had felt like ravishing him more times than she could remember. But he had insisted they were going to wait for their wedding night, even though she knew he found it more difficult than she did.
‘You are to be my wife,’ he had said, sounding very Italian. ‘The mother of my children. It is right that it is so.’
And now it was their wedding night. She gazed at him with huge, wondering eyes and he scooped her up in his arms, opening the door and then kicking it shut behind him as he bent his head to hers. She kissed him back with total abandon and touching innocence, wanting him more than she could have thought possible. Simply by looking at her he could fill her with a raging desire; now he was her husband and she didn’t have to dream any more.
He kissed her as he’d never kissed her before, the skill of his mouth and tongue making her realise just how much he’d held back over the last weeks. His tongue teased and caressed, working a magic that had her moaning long before he undid the buttons of her dress. His hands were shaking slightly as he let it pool at her feet, and as she stepped out of it his fingers stroked over her body, lingering on her breasts in their lacy cups. ‘So beautiful,’ he murmured huskily. ‘So perfect.’
He picked her up again, carrying her over to the vast bed and peeling off the rest of her clothes, making small growling sounds in his throat as he let his lips caress and suck her darkened nipples until she cried out in pleasure, unable to contain herself.
She was desperate to feel every part of him against her and tugged at his clothes, helping him undress with fingers that felt clumsy and inexperienced. ‘I—I’m not very good at this—’
‘I am glad that this is so.’ As he kicked off his trousers and joined her again on the bed he cupped her face in his hands, kissing her with a sweet tenderness. ‘I am the first. You have no idea what that feels like to a man, and it is more than I deserve.’
Vittorio was a lot of things, but humble wasn’t one of them, and for a moment Cherry studied him. When she realised he was perfectly serious all her worries about being inexperienced and inadequate melted away and now it was she who pulled him to her with a fierceness that thrilled him.
When she had thought about their physical union Cherry had always imagined it would be quick, lusty and exciting. It was lusty and exciting, all right, but far from quick. Once he had her in his bed Vittorio became intent on giving her pleasure, touching and tasting and kissing every inch of her feverishly sensitive skin. Hot, sweet sensation had her twisting and turning, digging her nails into his hair-roughened body as she writhed and moaned, and when he found the core of her with his lips and tongue the need to feel him inside her became a mind-consuming craving. But she needed to touch and taste him too…
Her love for him delighted in intimacy after intimacy, and as he showed her how to touch and please him she exulted in the pleasure she gave, feeling like a goddess as she let her instinct guide her in a sexuality she’d never imagined she possessed, following him as she’d once done on the dance floor, move for move. But this dance of love was beyond anything imaginable.
It was a long time before he eased himself between her thighs. Her eager wetness accepted him even as he tried to go slowly, aware of her tightness as her body adjusted to its satin invader. ‘Am I hurting you?’ he whispered raggedly, the muscles in his arms bunching as he raised himself slightly to look into her face.
There had been one brief splinter of pain but now her muscles welcomed his thickness, and in answer she arched for deeper penetration, wanting all of him.
His body responded immediately and he moved harder and faster, stretching and filling her until he possessed her to the hilt in a driving rhythm that took them both into ecstasy and then over the edge, to drown in wave after wave of a pleasure so intense it was almost painful.
She was still trembling and helplessly drugged with pleasure minutes later, when he turned on his side, pulling her against him and kissing her hard. ‘You are perfection,’ he murmured lazily, kissing her eyelids, her nose, her brow, before returning to her mouth, swollen from passion. ‘Utter perfection. How have I lived this long without you? I love you with all my heart, mia piccola. You know this?’
Yes, she knew it. She smiled a smile that made him catch his breath with its sensuality.
‘Prove it,’ she whispered softly, reaching up to take his lips in a passionate kiss that brought his body to instant life.
‘Gladly,’ he whispered back, a touch of laughter in his voice, but then the smouldering fire ignited into redhot flames and there was only the language of love. The best language of all.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Helen Brooks 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97415-5
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Copyright
