by Kim Lawrence
‘I mean protection…you’re not taking the pill.’
Comprehension dawned and the mortified colour flew to Sophie’s cheeks. ‘No, I’m…not.’
‘And I have nothing, unless you…?’
Marco watched her blush all over—well, the bits he could see anyway.
‘Sorry, no.’ She was filled with shame.
She wasn’t a risk taker or reckless.
How, she asked herself, could I have not have thought about the consequences?
When Annie had revealed her unplanned pregnancy she had secretly wondered how her otherwise highly intelligent sister had not taken precautions to avoid this situation.
Sophie had found it impossible to imagine a situation where she would take the same risk.
And now she almost had! Worst of all, it hadn’t been her who had shown restraint, it had been Marco. She burned with shame.
‘I want babies, but not like this.’
It was Marco’s turn to feel awkward; the women in his life did not talk of babies.
‘My sister has a little boy. We all love him and I know she wouldn’t be without him but…’
Marco nodded in understanding. ‘There is no father?’
Sophie nodded. ‘I wouldn’t want that.’ She looked at him with glowing eyes. ‘Thank you.’
Marco gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘I am no saint, but I will not do that to you.’
Being regarded in the light of a noble, self-sacrificing hero made him uncomfortable, especially when he realised how close he had come to losing control. Even now his body throbbed with the need to bury himself deep in her softness and give in to the primal urge as old as time. She was so innocent, and her eyes were still blazing with unfulfilled passion—she had so much to learn.
He took her chin between his fingers and tipped her face to his. ‘I said I cannot but that doesn’t mean you cannot.’
‘I don’t understand…I’m…’
‘Let me show you, cara, I will enjoy that.’
‘But you…’
He took her hand and kissed her fingertips one by one. ‘There are many ways of bringing pleasure.’
‘I don’t know what you mean…’
Her response gave Marco a very poor opinion of her previous lovers. He nibbled her earlobe, making her shiver, before kissing his way to her mouth and whispering against her lips, ‘Let me show you.’
Dizzy with longing she said please at the same moment he lowered her back onto the bed and lay down beside her. Unfolding her fingers from the cover she clutched he peeled it back, exposing her beautiful body and sending the ache in his loins up another several painful notches.
One hand on the curve of her hip he looked down at her.
Sophie, suddenly overcome by the emotion, tried to turn her head.
‘No, look at me, Sophie.’
She looked at him, her face filled with a mixture of longing and fear. ‘I suppose this is chemistry. Mum says that cakes and love are both about chemistry—not that this is love obviously.’ He didn’t join her laughter. ‘I’m babbling again, aren’t I?’
‘You’re not afraid of me, are you?’
She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I’m afraid of the way you make me feel…not in control.’
A flicker of something moved in his eyes. ‘Not being in control has much to recommend it, cara. Stop thinking and feel it…’
She forced her lids apart and looked at him with glazed eyes. ‘Feel?’ she whispered throatily.
He bent his head and, with his eyes still connected with hers, pressed his mouth to the side of her mouth. ‘Feel this,’ he said, sliding his fingers with seductive slowness over her ribcage before cupping one aching breast in his palm and rolling the erect tight pink peak between his thumb and finger.
Sophie gasped at the contact, moaning low as his expert caresses sent ripples of sensation through her body.
She opened her mouth to tell him she could feel it and she liked it when his tongue slid deep into the moist warmth of her mouth, silencing her. His fingers moved lower, sliding over the curve of her belly, his touch leaving trails of tingling fire, and he seemed intent to explore every inch of her skin.
‘But tonight one of us will stay in control—me. You can relax…let me do this for you.’
‘Do what?’
He smiled and kissed her, a kiss that began slow and that morphed into ravening hunger.
‘What a waste,’ he breathed.
She lifted her passion-glazed blue eyes to his face and shook her head.
‘We could have been doing this for weeks.’ His voice thickened as he added, ‘You have the most beautiful body I have ever seen…’ The mixture of lust and reverence in his husky comment sent a thrill through her body.
‘I’m…’ She stopped, her eyes squeezing closed and her voice drying as his hand moved to her other breast and he bent his head to it. The erotic caress of his tongue and mouth drew a hoarse moan from her throat.
‘You’re so sensitive,’ he rasped, sliding down her body. The friction created by his chest hair grazing her breasts drew a deep moan from her throat.
Marco watched her writhe, gasp and bite her lip as he traced a wet path with his tongue over the silky skin of her stomach. She felt like satin, warm and soft and womanly, and the scent of her skin excited him more than he would have thought possible.
Kneeling at the bottom of the bed he took one slender foot and raised it to his mouth.
‘What…?’ Sophie’s eyes opened and she watched, startled, as he ran his tongue over the blue-veined delicate arch of her foot.
Her head fell back and she gave a slow smile. There was clearly a lot more to erogenous zones than she had imagined.
Her eyes connected with Marco’s. The shadow on his jaw accented the maleness of his beautiful face, his lean, muscle-ridged torso in the half-light gleaming dull gold.
Sophie felt her throat close up as emotions rose up inside her. She could have looked at him forever and it wouldn’t be long enough.
His compelling emerald eyes still on her face, Marco hooked her foot over his shoulder and, leaning forward, slid one finger along the exposed inner aspect of her silky thigh. Then he bent his head and moved closer to her aching core.
Sophie’s smile vanished as she twisted and arched, and reached for him. ‘This is too…I…You can’t want…’ she whispered.
A muscle clenched in his cheek as he took the hands outstretched to him and moved them shockingly to the damp heat between her thighs.
‘That’s for me.’ Sophie felt the warm breath of his whisper fan on her cheek as he moved her hands, pinioning them with one of his above her head.
He arranged himself beside her and, watching her face, put his own fingers where hers had been.
Sophie lay there, open to him, her entire body suffused by a sensual lethargy.
‘Feel this,’ he purred, stroking her.
Sophie moaned and pushed against his hand, the shocking eroticism of his caresses driving every other thought out of her mind.
His clever fingers drove her to the brink and drew her back twice, before he slid a finger into her and stopped as an expression of shock spread across his tense sweat-slicked features.
‘Dio mio, how is this possible?’
Sophie did not hear his hoarse question; he had touched a place inside her and the level of pleasure went up a thousandfold. It was too much…she felt as if she would explode and then she did.
There was fire and storm and then she was safe and content in the eye of the storm, her body still throbbing with pleasurable aftershocks.
Marco did not hold her in his arms for long. He did not trust himself—the temptation was just too great.
Sophie watched him stand. ‘You’re going?’ You were a one-night stand—of course he’s going—and he’s had no fun.
He bent over her and, picking up the cover from where it had slipped, draped it over her. The sight of her body only increased the pressure pound
ing in his skull; primitive need pulsed through his body. He ought to be shocked that she was a virgin but he wasn’t. The idea of being her first lover was incredibly and painfully arousing.
He looked at her and felt feelings he did not recognise stir. ‘If I don’t I might do something we both could regret. It is possibly a good thing that I did not come prepared?’
Sophie, who was already feeling guilty and selfish, supposed he was trying to make her feel better until he added, ‘I could have hurt you. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It didn’t come into the conversation and I wasn’t sure if you’d notice and…’ She stopped. ‘Am I still technically a virgin or did that count as…?’
‘I really don’t know, but we will leave no room for doubt tomorrow.’
‘You’re coming back?’
‘I am coming back.’
Sophie smiled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BY TWELVE the next day there was no technicality about it: she was officially no longer a virgin.
She looked at the man beside her and ran a finger along the dappled pattern on his stomach cast by the sun streaming through the slatted blind.
‘You are a very beautiful man.’
‘You,’ Marco retorted, ‘are beyond direct for a virgin.’
‘Ex-virgin,’ she said smugly.
‘I stand corrected.’
‘I nearly fell over when I saw you.’ Marco had appeared at ten-thirty; walking into a meeting she was having with a furniture conservator he calmly announced the meeting was over.
He had then dragged—well, maybe not dragged; she had gone willingly enough—her upstairs in full view of several interested painters.
‘Why were you surprised I said I was coming back.’
‘I assumed you meant tonight.’
‘If I had waited until tonight there is a strong possibility I would have killed someone.’ The comment came, if not from the heart, from an area equally important to him.
Sophie hugged herself and laughed. ‘God, but I love being irresistible!’ It would not last but while it did she was going to enjoy it. She wouldn’t allow herself to think past the moment for fear of spoiling it.
‘You are.’
She turned her head. ‘What?’
‘Irresistible and unforgettable.’ He would definitely never forget the moment he heard her startled gasp of pleasure as he had slid into her for the first time.
She had been so silky hot and tight around him that he had had to struggle for control.
Afraid of hurting her he had tried to be gentle, but Sophie had not been afraid; she had responded with all the passion he had known she possessed, wrapping her legs around him and urging him on with frantic pleas.
‘What will the men think?’
Would she be able to command their respect if they thought she was sleeping with the boss? It concerned her but not, if she was honest, enough to stop her contemplating a repeat performance with pleasure.
‘They will think nothing,’ Marco lied, knowing that the men would realize what had happened and it was not in his view such a bad thing. He had seen the way some of them had looked at Sophie and considering how good she looked up a ladder he could not blame them.
She looked even better in his bed.
‘I have decided.’
‘What have you decided?’
‘We will open up the palazzo. We will have a ball to show off your work.’
Sophie regarded him doubtfully. ‘I have to tell you my recent experience of balls is not that great!’
Marco pushed aside her concern with a wave of his hand. ‘I have seen your organisational skills—they are second to none—and if you need any help my PA is on maternity leave but I understand from her husband that she is going a little stir-crazy. She would, I’m sure, love to lend a hand.’
‘You want me to organise it?’ Sophie was startled by the suggestion.
He looked bemused by the question. ‘Of course.’
‘What date did you have in mind?’
He gave one and she looked at him in stunned horror. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I have every confidence in you.’
‘I’m not wonder woman. The last ball I attended I hid in the kitchen with Mia…my sister,’ she added in response to his questioning look.
‘You have changed.’
‘And you want me to be hostess too, I suppose?’
‘Who else would be hostess?’
She rolled onto her stomach, an expression of anguish twisting her soft mouth downwards. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you of Allegra.’
His expression froze. ‘You did not remind me of Allegra.’ Sympathy and pity were two things he did not want, especially from Sophie. ‘My marriage is not a subject I wish to discuss.’
Because it was still too painful or because he couldn’t bear to hear the name of the woman he still loved?
‘What about your mother—wouldn’t she feel slighted if a total stranger acted as hostess?’
Sophie had only recently realised his mother was that Carlotta Speranza. A discovery she had made when she had waded through the albums she had discovered in one of the attic rooms.
She had realised halfway through that, though there were plenty of snaps of the photogenic actress and her husband, there were none of them as a family and only a couple of formally posed ones of Marco as a boy.
When she had mentioned this to Natalia and wondered if it was possible some albums were missing, the older woman had said, no, that wasn’t likely.
She had not come right out and said that Marco was neglected as a child but from the things she had mentioned the inference that his parents were too busy with their lives to bother about him was inescapable.
‘How did Marco’s father die?’ Sophie had asked, studying the face of the man in the photo. How could you have a child and ignore him?
It was inexplicable to Sophie.
‘You don’t know.’ Natalia had lowered her voice and looked around as though expecting to see people lurking in the shadows. ‘He was assassinated, shot. He was dead before he reached the hospital,’ she said, crossing herself.
Sophie was deeply shocked by the revelation. ‘Did they ever find out who did it?’
The housekeeper shook her head.
‘Poor Marco.’
‘Then he went and got himself married.’ Muttering under her breath she loaded Sophie’s plate with more of the delicious freshly baked sponge cakes topped with jewelled candied fruit, saying sternly, ‘You must eat if you wish to keep that lovely figure.’
Marco thought she had a lovely figure too. Sometimes, Sophie reflected, life was very amazing.
‘My mother!’ Marco looked amused by the suggestion. ‘She will come and be charming if she does not have a better offer but she will not exert herself.’
‘You’re not close,’ she probed, wondering if this part of his life was forbidden her too.
‘No closer than we ever have been.’
‘You never speak of your family.’
‘You never speak of yours,’ he countered, pressing a kiss to her throat and murmuring, ‘You taste good all over.’
Sophie felt it was only polite to return the compliment so it was a little later on, after a lot of frantic kissing, that she said, ‘I don’t mention my family because it is so large and the relationships so convoluted, it would take a week. You, on the other hand, don’t mention your family because everything with you is on a need-to-know basis. But if you want to know, my father has been married three times and my mother is the only one alive. She was his second wife. She moved back to Balfour when my stepfather was killed.’
In the act of throwing off the covers Marco slid back down into the bed and pulled her to him. ‘This I didn’t know.’
Sophie lay her head on his chest; the steady thud of his heartbeat made her feel safe and cherished, made her feel as if she belonged.
‘How?’
‘It was in Sri Lanka, a
n intruder. I wasn’t there. Mum was taking Annie and me back to school in England when it happened. Only Kat was there and she was very young.’
‘And you were so much older?’
‘No, but I didn’t see it.’ Sophie gave a shudder. ‘Kat needed a lot of TLC.’
‘And your TLC?’
‘I was at school.’
Something in her voice made him tilt her face up to his. ‘This was not a good time for you?’
‘They had a good library. I like books.’ Books had been her substitute for friends.
‘And everything else?’
‘A nightmare. I wasn’t good at anything and I was only tolerated because my sisters were popular. I missed Mum and…’ She stopped and tried to pull away. ‘You’re not interested in this ancient history and I don’t normally whinge on like this.’
‘You told me because I asked and I am interested.’ A thunderstruck expression settled on Marco’s face as he realised he spoke the truth.
He wasn’t sure what, if anything, this meant but there was a shade of unease in his eyes as he threw back the covers. Depositing Sophie, who was curled up in a ball like a small kitten, a few feet away, he got up.
‘I’ll email you some information on the ball, guest list and so forth.’
‘I haven’t said yes, yet.’
Marco paused in the act of pulling his boxers up over his slim muscular hips. ‘But you will.’
‘Why are you so sure?’
‘Because I’m irresistible too and I will say please.’
‘I’d prefer a kiss.’
Marco’s eyes slid from her pink just-kissed lips to the warm swell of her magnificent breasts and he grinned. ‘I think we can do better than a kiss.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘PROBLEMS?’ Marco asked when he walked into the study and found her frowning over a colour-coded chart.
He had come straight from the office. Actually, coming straight from the office had become something of a norm of late; he was spending most of his time at the palazzo and even working from home on occasion when there were not men with hammers knocking something down.
‘Not really.’ She laid down her pen and got to her feet.
But didn’t rush into his arms; he noticed that and he didn’t like it.
