The Sicilian’s Marriage Arrangement

by Lucy Monroe

  “Ai, ai, ai. That man. Nothing scares him, but at least he has left us in peace.”

  Only there was very little of that over the next hour as the final preparations were made for Hope’s walk down the aisle.

  It was to be a traditional Sicilian ceremony and celebration to follow. While she looked forward to becoming Luciano’s wife, all the pomp and ceremony surrounding the event had numbed her emotions with fatigue. So, when her grandfather escorted her to the front of the church, she was in a haze of anesthetized exhaustion with no room in her foggy brain for fear or last-minute doubts.

  And for that she was grateful.

  When Joshua placed her hand in Luciano’s, a look passed between the two men that she did not understand. There had been an indefinable tension between them since her grandfather’s arrival in Italy. She wondered if they had had a business falling-out. She hadn’t asked Luciano about it because although he had not gone back to treating her like the untouchable woman, he had made sure they were never alone together.

  His hand was warm as it surrounded hers and she pushed her worries about his relationship with her grandfather to the back of her mind.

  “So, the pill was not so bitter to swallow, was it?”

  Luciano turned slowly at the sound of Joshua Reynolds’ voice. The old man looked pleased with himself.

  Would he be so happy when his business began to lose important contracts? Luciano did not think so, but he merely raised his brow. “Marriage is for life. It is in my own interests to make the best of taking Hope as my wife.”

  “You’re a shark in business,” Joshua said with satisfaction, “but traditional when it comes to family, aren’t you?”

  Luciano did not bother to reply. Joshua would have ample opportunity to learn for himself what a shark in business a Sicilian man blackmailed into marriage could be.

  The other man did not seem bothered by Luciano’s silence. “You won’t make the same mistake I did and ignore her. She’s a special woman, but I messed up my chance with her. We’re not close and we could have been.” Regret weighted his voice, making him sound old and tired. “She used to come into my office at home and sit on the rug by my feet playing with her dolls.” A faraway look entered Joshua’s pale eyes. “I guess she was about six. She’d ask me every night to tuck her in. I was too busy most of the time. She stopped asking.”

  The old man sighed. “She stopped coming into my office too. I wish I could say she had the love of my housekeeper or a nanny, but I hired for efficiency, not warmth.”

  The picture he was painting of Hope’s childhood was chilling. Having been raised in the warmth of a typical Italian household, if a wealthy one, Luciano shuddered inwardly at the emotional wasteland Hope had been reared in.

  “She is very giving.” All things considered, that was pretty surprising.

  “Takes after her grandmother and mother in that. They were like her. Soft. Caring.” Joshua turned his gaze to Hope. “Beautiful too.”

  “As you say.” Watching his new wife smile as she talked to Mamma, he wondered why Joshua had felt the need to blackmail him into marriage with Hope. “She is sweet and lovely. She would have landed her own husband soon enough. Your measures were not necessary.”

  Joshua shook his head. “You’re wrong. There was only one thing Hope wanted and I got it for her.”

  Understanding came slowly. “Me.”

  Joshua turned and looked at Luciano, his expression almost harsh. “You. She wanted you and I was damned determined she was going to have you.”

  Had she known all along then? Had she told her grandfather she wanted to marry Luciano and then waited for the old man to procure her a husband? Remembering how difficult she had been to catch, he dismissed the idea.

  He remembered too how Hope’s gaze used to follow him at business dinners and how she had been on New Year’s Eve. Luciano was positive that Joshua had witnessed more passion between Hope and Luciano on New Year’s Eve than he had ever seen with her and another man. He had drawn his own conclusions about his granddaughter’s behavior and acted accordingly.

  Hope was not devious, not like her grandfather or her new husband. She was honest and giving as both men had agreed, too soft to be party to something as reprehensible as blackmail. She would be appalled by Joshua’s ruthless actions in securing her a husband and equally devastated to know what Luciano planned in retaliation.

  He would make sure she never found out.

  He didn’t want her hurt, but he did want her grandfather to realize the folly of blackmailing Luciano di Valerio.

  Hope stood in the bathroom and brushed her hair and then fluffed it around her face for the tenth time. She’d tried pulling it up, but hadn’t liked the severity of the effect, besides what woman wore her hair up to go to bed? It hardly seemed conducive to a passionate wedding night, but then neither did her hiding in the bathroom for an hour and a half.

  Luciano was waiting out in the suite’s bedroom. She’d come into the en suite to get ready on his suggestion. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now she was struggling with the courage it took to open that door and join the man she had married. It was the joining part that had her cowering like a ninny in the bathroom.

  She should be ready.

  They’d come close to making love twice. She’d been naked with him, for Heaven’s sake.

  None of that seemed to matter to the nerves shaking her equilibrium until she felt like a soda bottle ready to fizz over the side in a bubbly mess.

  She wanted Luciano. Desperately. But she was afraid. Afraid she would disappoint him. Afraid it would hurt. Afraid that once they had made love, he would lose interest in her. She was something different in his life, not one of the sophisticated jet-setters he was used to having affairs with. Not like Zia.

  She was just Hope. A cultural anachronism. A twenty-three-year-old virgin. Could she maintain his interest once the newness wore off, the uniqueness of making love to a woman of no experience?

  A hard tattoo sounded on the door. It had been gentle an hour ago and thirty minutes ago and even fifteen minutes ago, but the impatience he must be feeling was now coming out in the force with which he rapped on the door.

  “Hope?” Definitely impatience in his voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you coming out, cara?”

  She stared at the door as if it might explode into flame at any moment. If it did, she wouldn’t have to go through it, she thought a bit hysterically. Of course it didn’t and she forced herself to cover the few feet so she could unlock and open the door. She turned the handle and pulled the door toward her.

  He stood on the other side, a pair of black silk pajama bottoms slung low on his hips. The rest of his magnificent body was naked.

  She swallowed. “Hi.” She was making Minnie Mouse impersonations again. That only happened around him.

  “You are frightened.”

  What had been his first clue? The ninety-minute-long sojourn in the bathroom or the death grip she had on the door now? “Maybe a little.”

  “You have nothing to fear, tesoro mio,” he said with supreme confidence, “I will be gentle with you.”

  Easy for him to say. Not that she doubted his gentleness, but this was different than anything they had shared before. It was premeditated. She found that being overcome with passion was a very different animal to psyching herself up to making love completely for the first time.

  If that weren’t enough, what they were about to do would have permanent ramifications. The wedding was a ceremony, this was the reality of being married. She was about to become one with this man, a man who inspired both feelings of awe and love in her. But with love came trust, or so she had always believed.

  “I’m not afraid of you.” Just the situation.

  He put one brown hand out toward her. “Then show me, little one. Come to me.”

  Luciano waited tensely for Hope to come to him. He did not know how much longer he could keep a rein on his desi
re.

  The last few weeks had been interminable.

  There at the last, when he had given her the ultimatum: marriage or go home to Boston, he had not even been thinking of making the marriage deal come off. He’d only been thinking of his need to possess her and his commitment not to do so outside the bonds of marriage. He had made a promise to her and the only way to keep that promise was to marry her or send her away.

  That his ultimatum had led to the marriage he needed to regain control of the family company caused him satisfaction rather than guilt. He had not intentionally seduced her into marriage. He had kept his promise and courted her and he would be a good husband to her. He would keep his vow of fidelity and she would give him passion and children.

  Joshua Reynolds had been right in that at least. The pill was not bitter to swallow, but the water it had gone down with had been rancid. The only way to rid his pride of the aftereffects of the blackmail was to plan a suitable measure of justice for the old man. Luciano did not want to ruin him completely. Joshua was now family, but he would learn a necessary lesson about Sicilian pride.

  As Hope took the first step forward, all thoughts of vendettas and lessons faded from Luciano’s mind. It filled with the primitive need to mate with his woman.

  This woman.

  Hope.

  Her violet eyes were dark with conflicting emotions. It was the fear that kept him rooted, waiting for her to come to him. She was so beautiful in her cobalt blue silk gown. It swept the floor as she walked and it pleased him she had not opted for the traditional white for their wedding night.

  He liked this indication of the fire within her. The hottest part of a flame was blue and when she was in his arms, she burned that hotly.

  She stopped two feet away from him. “I’m nervous.”

  This he had not missed. “There is no need, carina.”

  “What if I don’t satisfy you?” Doubts swirled in her lovely eyes. “I’m not like Zia and the rest. I’m completely without experience.”

  She said it like she was admitting the gravest sin, but the words had a devastating affect on his libido.

  He had to touch her or go mad.

  Forcing himself to gentleness, he reached out and put his hands on her shoulders and brushed his thumbs over her collarbones. The fine bones felt fragile under his strength.

  “Your innocence is a gift you give me, not a shortcoming you must apologize for.” How could he erase the doubts? “I am honored to be your first lover, cara.”

  She still looked painfully unconvinced.

  “I do not want you to be like Zia. It will please me to teach you all I want you to know.”

  Her eyes widened at that. “Teach me?”

  “Si.”

  Understanding warmed her eyes. “You like that. In some ways, you’re a total throwback, aren’t you? You really like the idea of being my first lover.”

  He didn’t deny the charge. He felt primitive with her. “Your only lover.”

  She nodded. “My only lover.” She swayed toward him, her lips soft and inviting. “Then teach me, caro. Make me yours.”

  Her words and the anticipation in her gaze splintered the final thread of his control. He pulled her into his body with less finesse than an oversexed teenager. She didn’t seem to mind; her entire body melded to his and her arms came around him in a hold as fierce as his own.

  Covering her mouth with his own, he demanded instant entrance. He got it, penetrating her sweet moistness with all the need tormenting him. In the back of his mind was a voice telling him to slow down, to savor her sweetness, but the primal yearning of his body did not listen.

  Her tongue shyly dueled with his and small, feminine hands moved to cradle his face while she twisted her satin clad body into him.

  Groaning, he swept her up into his arms and marveled at the passion exploding from her small body. She was frightened no longer. It was as if his first touch had dispelled her every concern.

  He laid her on the bed and stepped back, his breath coming like an Olympic runner’s after the triathlon. Santo cielo! She was perfect.

  She leaned up on her elbows, the tight points of her nipples making shoals in the material. “Luciano?”

  “If we do not slow down, I will hurt you.” That knowledge was enough to temper the desire raging in his body.

  He would not hurt her. She was too small. Delicate.

  He had to be careful.

  She sat up and stripped her nightgown down her arms, baring breasts flushed with arousal. Then she extended her hands to him. “Come to me, Luciano. Please.”

  Was this wild wanton his wife, the sweet little Hope that blushed when he spoke too frankly?

  Her pansy eyes were dilated widely; her small body trembled. “I don’t want to go slow.”

  “It is your first time.”

  “I know.” She drawled out the word. “And I don’t want the chance to get scared again. When you touch me, nothing exists for me but you.”

  He felt a smile come over his face and suddenly his need for satisfaction was almost wholly sublimated by his desire to show her what it felt to be made love to by a man who knew how to savor a woman.

  “You will not be scared, cara mia. You will beg me for my possession and I will give it to you only when you want it more than the air that you breathe.”

  Hope shivered at Luciano’s words, her tongue flicking out nervously to wet her lower lip. She was back to feeling fear despite his assurances, or maybe because of them. It was a sensual fear born from the heated expression in his dark brown eyes. Tonight, there would be no stopping.

  He leaned down and tasted her lips. “You are sweet, mi moglie. Like candy.”

  His wife. She loved the sound of that and her lips clung to his, but he pulled back to sit at the end of the bed.

  Her eyes had closed during the kiss, but opened again. He was looking at her feet. “Luciano?”

  He lifted her right foot into his hand. “You are very small, Hope.”

  “And you aren’t.” His hand swallowed her.

  His eyes dared her to imply that was a bad thing while his fingers moved against the sole of her unexpectedly sensitive foot. She didn’t feel like laughing though.

  She wasn’t feeling ticklish, she was feeling excited and more so by the second.

  She moaned as he brushed his thumb over her arch. He smiled and did it again. And again. And again. Then lifted the foot to kiss the instep and she moaned again, this time several decibels higher. What was he doing to her?

  Feet were not erogenous zones. Were they?

  “You smell of wildflowers.”

  “Bath salts,” she panted.

  He rubbed his lips along her arch, not kissing so much as caressing. “You’re soft like silk.”

  He flicked his tongue out and licked. Her toes curled and air hissed out of her lungs on a shattered gasp.

  “There are over seven thousand nerve endings in your feet.”

  “R-really?” she asked breathlessly and then cried out as he pressed between two of her toes and she felt the reaction in a totally different part of her body.

  He laughed softly. “Si. Really.” He touched her gently, but firmly. “If I caress you here, you feel it here.”

  He brushed the nest of curls between her legs through the slick material of her gown while his other hand massaged her foot. Oh, man, he was right.

  She tilted her pelvis upward, desperate for more intimacy, confused by her body’s reaction to his not-so-innocent massage. “Yes. Oh…I felt it.”

  “And do you feel this also, carina?”

  She bowed completely off the bed as he touched her again. “I feel it! It’s…” Her voice trailed off into a gasp of pleasure.

  By the time he had given similar treatment to her other foot, she was incoherent with pleasure, having flopped back against the pillows, her body totally open to whatever he wanted to do to her.

  Silk slid sensuously against her legs as he pushed her nightgown up inch b
y slow inch. He trailed his fingertips along her calves, pushing her nightgown up further until his mouth pressed against the skin behind her right knee. He tasted it and the dampness between her legs increased.

  Whimpering, she squirmed against the bedspread as he continued his erotic tasting up her legs until he’d pushed her gown into a crumpled mass of blue silk around her waist.

  Oh, Heavens. He wasn’t going to do that. He couldn’t. She couldn’t let him. She tried to scoot backward. “You can’t kiss me there!”

  His response to her frantic efforts to get away was a sexy smile as two big hands clamped firmly to her thighs. Holding them apart when she instinctively tried to close them, he also held her securely in place. “I promise you will like it.”

  “I…”

  Then his mouth was on her. There. She’d read about this, but it felt more intimate than any words could describe. His tongue did things to her that had her body arching toward him, not away. An unbearable pressure built and built inside her.

  The pressure burst without warning and her entire body went taut, every single muscle convulsing in rigidity and she screamed. She couldn’t hear her scream over the blood rushing in her head, but she could feel the rawness in her throat from the strain.

  Luciano wanted to give Hope a surfeit of pleasure, finding vicarious satisfaction in her passion. He could feel each muscular contraction of her virginal body in his inner being. He had never experienced another woman’s pleasure so fully as his own and the experience was its own kind of fulfillment.

  She shuddered under his ministering mouth, the taste of her growing sweeter with each explosion in her flesh. He didn’t stop, pushing her to one higher plateau of ecstasy after another.

  Her breath was labored, but then so was his. He felt on the verge of exploding, but he couldn’t make himself stop. The sounds of her enjoyment were addictive. Each cry made him feel like the conquering male. Each moan of rapture made his own sex throb with pleasure and desire.

  “Luciano, it’s too much. Please stop. Please…Please…Please…” She was sobbing with each breath, but still she pressed herself against his mouth.