Lily’s heart pounded as she watched him undress, carelessly tossing his jacket onto a nearby chair in a way she suspected was uncharacteristic. Because even in jeans, he somehow always managed to look immaculate. Maybe that was an Italian thing. ‘Shouldn’t you hang that up?’ she questioned nervously as his white shirt fluttered to the ground.
Pausing midway through easing his trouser zip down over his aching hardness, Ciro registered the sudden shyness in her voice and he gave a low laugh as he pulled his trousers off and wriggled out of his boxers.
‘If you think,’ he said as he joined her on the bed and pulled her warm and compliant body into his arms, ‘that I am capable of anything right now other than maybe this…’
This was a kiss. A kiss which seemed to go on for ever. Which made the world shift and blur, leaving Lily a helpless victim of her senses. He moved his lips away and began to touch her breasts, his fingers drifting in provocative circles over her aroused flesh. She felt his hand skate proprietorially over the flat of her stomach and her eyes flew open to find that he was watching her, his dark gaze fiercely intent. ‘Oh, Ciro,’ she breathed.
‘What is it, angelo mio?’ he murmured, moving his hand down and rubbing his fingers luxuriously against the soft bush of curls.
‘Oh, Ciro, I…” His thumb flicked across the engorged button of flesh which was concealed beneath the damp tangle and she gave a moan of pleasure because this was just bliss. She felt all the worries of the past recede. She saw nothing ahead but a bright and gloriously golden future. And Ciro was responsible. He was the one who had taken her fortunes and turned them around. The man who had picked her up when she was at her lowest ebb. Who had seen something in her. Something good. Something he liked enough to make him want her as his wife. He had scooped her up and made her feel safe and, now that the nerves of the wedding ceremony had passed, she could concentrate on all the glorious possibilities of the present. An overwhelming sense of gratitude washed over her and so did something else. Something which was bubbling up inside her and which felt too big and too important to hold back. Something she could give to him, with all her heart, if she dared to open the floodgates. ‘Ciro?’
‘What is it, dolcezza?’
‘I.I love you,’ she whispered.
There was a pause. ‘Of course you do,’ he murmured. And even though countless women had said it to him in the past, even though he had always dismissed the pat little sentence as meaningless—her declaration pleased him. Because she was his wife and she should love him. Just as he would love her in every way he could.
Lily’s lips were tracing heated little kisses across his throat and he realised that they hadn’t even discussed contraception—but that, for once, it really didn’t matter. She was his wife. If she got pregnant, so what? Wasn’t that what marriage was all about? He moved over her, touching his mouth to hers, feeling his erection pushing against her belly—and it was bigger and harder than he could ever remember feeling before. Dio—but this was so close to pleasure that it almost felt like pain. And not just in his body—for wasn’t there an unfamiliar ache deep in his heart as he looked at her?
‘I don’t want to wear protection,’ he said, his voice shaking as he made this unusually candid admission. ‘I want to feel you. Just you, Lily. My skin against your skin. My hardness against your softness. No barrier, mio angelo—no barrier at all.’
‘Then don’t,’ she said shakily, her arms wrapping around his broad back, her lips kissing his neck—inhaling the raw, citrusy smell of him, scarcely able to believe this was happening. ‘Don’t wear anything. Just… make love to me, Ciro. Please. Or else I think I’m going to die with the wanting.’
For a split second, something inside him jarred. Was it the sudden urgency of her words which surprised him—or just the assertive way she had expressed them? Yet Ciro knew he should rejoice in the fact she was relaxed—because wasn’t tension supposed to be the enemy of a virgin’s enjoyment? He splayed one hand luxuriously over her peaking breast while the other positioned himself to where she was wet and waiting. He could feel the powerful roar of his blood as it pounded senselessly around his veins and her wide blue eyes looked straight up into his.
‘Lily,’ he said, and entered her, his body taut with restraint as her velvet heat enclosed him.
‘Ciro,’ she breathed.
He saw her eyes close, saw her body shudder as he began to move, slowly at first, but gradually thrusting deeper and deeper—deeper than he’d thought he could ever go. Never had any woman ever felt so sweet nor so delicious—but then, never had he felt this aroused. ‘I’m not hurting you?’ he gasped.
The sweet rhythm had been consuming her, but now Lily’s eyes snapped open to see his eyes searching her face—as if wanting clues about how much pleasure he was giving her. Hurting her? Why, nothing could be further from the truth. She didn’t think that anything had ever given her so much pleasure as this intimacy of being joined with her husband. Her beloved husband. Instinctively, she gave a great bubbling sound of laughter as her arms looped around his neck, her bent legs lifting to entwine themselves around his broad back.
‘Hurting me?’ she murmured as she jutted her hips against him with practised ease. ‘God, no. It’s… it’s… oh, Ciro—it’s amazing.’
A hint of darkness momentarily clouded his overwhelming pleasure—but the writhing thrust of Lily’s hips against his swollen hardness was enough to suck him right back in there again. He groaned as he juggled pleasure with restraint. It was torture holding back like this but Ciro knew he must temper his hunger. Because didn’t they say it took virgins longer to achieve orgasm? And there was no way his new wife was going to miss out on that on her wedding night.
But suddenly she was clinging to him, her thighs digging into his sweat-sheened back as if she were riding a horse. Suddenly, her lips were torn away from his as she tipped her head back with an exultant moan—and he watched the telltale arching of her back as she started to come.
He waited only for her shuddering orgasm to fade and then Ciro let go completely. He heard the disbelieving cry which seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him. Felt the exquisite contractions which forced all the seed pumping from his body, straight into her wet and pulsing warmth.
Perhaps he might still not have guessed—at least, not then. He was so silken-deep in pleasure that he might simply have closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, had Lily not begun to wriggle her toes up and down the sides of his body with an erogenous agility which spoke volumes. The rapturous aftermath of his orgasm began to disintegrate, like the lick of the incoming tide against a sandcastle built on the edge of the sea. He spanned his hands over her hips and lifted her slightly away from him so that their eyes were on a collision course, but Ciro was careful not to accuse. Because he might simply be mistaken. Please God, may he be mistaken.
‘You liked that?’ he questioned softly.
‘You know I did,’ she whispered, wishing that he’d bring her back down on top of him so that she could carry on kissing him.
There was a heartbeat of a pause. ‘You know, for a minute back then I almost thought that you were… experienced.’
The word was used almost casually, but Lily wasn’t a fool. She could hear the faint brittleness which underpinned it, even if she hadn’t been able to see the sudden hard glitter of his eyes. She bit her lip, searching for the right words to say, but she couldn’t seem to find them anywhere.
‘Are you, Lily?’ he questioned softly. ‘Are you experienced?’
There was a pause. ‘Not very,’ she admitted.
‘Not very?’ He stared at her, disbelief welling up inside him like a bitter tide. For a moment he thought that he might be mistaken. That it was something which was lost in translation between two people who spoke different languages. But the shrinking look in her eyes told a different story. Naked, without the prim clothes which made you think of wholesomeness and innocence—Ciro realised he was seeing the real Lily for the very first
time. The flesh which he’d only ever seen covered with retro clothes was as creamy and as delicious as he’d imagined. The hair which he’d found so alluring now spilled gloriously over the pillow, just like every fantasy he’d ever had. But now it seemed to mock him because the image she’d presented was nothing but an illusion and he felt the kick of pain in his heart as he registered just how wanton she looked.
Yet why should he be so surprised? Why had he ever thought she was different from all the others, when it turned out that she was exactly the same? He remembered his own mother—too wrapped up in her own desires to spare much time for the little boy who waited alone in the big, cold mansion. Remembered his nameless fears as he’d lain awake night after night and wondered if she would return home alone or not. He remembered Eugenia and the way she’d hinted that sexual straying was negotiable. Had he thought he’d found illusive innocence in the wholesome-looking Lily—only to discover that he had been duped all along?
He felt the violent slam of his heart against his ribcage but he asked the question anyway. Knowing that he was nothing but a crazy fool to cling onto a last shred of hope as he looked deep into her blue eyes. ‘So were you a virgin, Lily?’ he bit out painfully. ‘Or was your bridal innocence nothing but a sham?’
CHAPTER NINE
LILY’S heart sank as she met the dark accusation which blazed from Ciro’s eyes. His hands were digging into her hips; she wondered if he realised that—or whether her skin was just more sensitive than usual because of the amazing orgasm he’d just given her. It shouldn’t matter whether or not she was a virgin, she told herself fiercely, and yet hot on the heels of that thought came another. Stupid Lily for not having told him sooner. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And how best to tell him now, in these awful circumstances? When they were both stark naked and he was staring at her with an expression she’d never seen on his face before and would be quite happy never to see again.
‘No, I wasn’t a virgin. But then…’ she tried a smile which didn’t quite come off’… neither were you.’
A fierce pain shafted through his heart and his throat felt as if it had been dusted with gravel. ‘Ah, but I never pretended to be otherwise, did I? Unlike you.’
He pushed her away from him, positioning her against the rumpled bank of pillows before getting up off the bed—as if he wanted to put as much distance between them as possible.
‘I didn’t pretend!’ she protested, the cool air rushing over her bare skin and making her acutely aware of his physical absence.
‘Didn’t you?’ He flicked her a contemptuous look as he reached for his boxer shorts. ‘You certainly didn’t bother to correct my assumption that you were innocent, did you, Lily? Nor bother enlightening me that you’d had other lovers before me—other men who have been intimate with your body. You went along with it, didn’t you?’
Lily bit her lip as his words hit a nerve, knowing that he was speaking the truth. She had let herself go along with it for all kinds of reasons. She’d known that he respected her because she’d kept him at a distance. That women who didn’t fall into bed with him were something of a rarity in his life. And she hadn’t seemed able to stop herself from buying into his fantasy. She’d liked the way he made her feel. She’d liked it too much. He had made her feel cherished—as if there had been no man before him. He still did. Tom was like a shadow in comparison. Couldn’t she make him understand that?
‘I know I should have told you,’ she said carefully. ‘I know that now. But it was so easy to go along with the amazing time we were having and I didn’t want to spoil what we had.’
‘So you thought you’d wait until our wedding night to spring your little surprise on me, did you? Until you’d ridden me like a hooker? Forgive me if I don’t commend your sense of timing.’ He saw her flinch at his crude statement, but he didn’t care because the dull, blunting pain of betrayal was hurting his heart. ‘How many was it, Lily?’ He held up his hand, where his golden wedding ring seemed to catch the light and mock him. ‘Less than the fingers on one hand—or is that a conservative estimate? As many as fifty, maybe? No wonder you were so damned good!’
‘Not lovers in the plural!’ she cried, cringing beneath the contempt in his dark eyes as he started sliding the silken boxer shorts over the taut length of his thighs. ‘There’s been only one before you!’
‘And that’s supposed to make me happy?’
Looking at him, she couldn’t imagine that anything would make him happy right then. Unless some last-ditch attempt at logic might appeal to his wounded sense of pride. ‘You didn’t tell me about your previous lovers.’
‘Not in detail, no—but I certainly didn’t twist the truth to make myself into something I wasn’t.’
She sucked in a deep breath, knowing that she needed to confront what lay at the bottom of all this. ‘Was my supposed virginity so important to you, then, Ciro?’ she questioned quietly.
There was a moment’s silence as he met her bright blue gaze but he hardened his heart to it. ‘You know it was,’ he said coldly as a pulse began to flicker at his temple. He watched as her fingers grabbed at the rumpled sheet, bringing it up to cover the soft blur of curls at her thighs. And he realised that she was no different from any other woman—willing to stoop to any deception if she thought she was in with a chance of hooking a wealthy man.
Eugenia had made it clear that she would overlook anything, just as long as she was adequately rewarded—but at least she had been honest about her motives. She hadn’t pretended to be a sweet innocent, acting as if butter wouldn’t melt in that delicious mouth of hers. Cleverly buying into his ultimate fantasy of marrying a woman who was a virgin.
‘Ciro, come back to bed. Please.’
His mouth twisted. ‘What a fool I’ve been,’ he grated. ‘A fool to have been sucked in by your soft curves and homespun talents. By your supposed innocent primness.’ He picked up his discarded shirt and slid it on over his broad shoulders. ‘The first and only woman who didn’t allow me to seduce her. My ideal woman, or so I thought.’
Lily flinched, holding her hands out towards him in a gesture of supplication. ‘I should have told you,’ she said, watching as he pulled on his trousers. ‘But I didn’t, and you never actually asked me. And Tom wasn’t—’
‘Tom?’ he bit out.
‘He was the man I was going to marry.’
‘You were actually going to marry him?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But he called the wedding off when he met someone else.’
‘When?’
‘Two days before it was supposed to happen.’
Some deeply buried shred of compassion implored Ciro to offer her sympathy for having been jilted. Some small inner voice called to him and asked whether her experience might have affected the way she had subsequently behaved with him. But his sense of being wronged was so great that he did not heed it. The pain in his heart was far too strong to contemplate any easy forgiveness towards her. He had been brought up to suspect the motives of women and Lily Scott had just reinforced his judgement. ‘And did he thrill you?’ he questioned, walking towards the bed and towering over her as he finished buckling his belt.
Lily stared up at him, her heart beating with a mixture of fear and excitement—wanting more than anything that he would just take his trousers off again and get back into bed with her and… and…
‘Did he, Lily?’ he demanded, his heated question breaking into her shockingly erotic thoughts. ‘Did he thrill you? Did he make you come when he touched you?’
She knew that she should answer his outrageous question truthfully. That there could now be nothing but complete honesty between them, if there was to be any chance of salvaging this. Who was to say that something good couldn’t rise from the ashes of this terrible showdown they’d had? But not at any cost. Because there was no way she could answer something like that with any degree of dignity. And besides, she wasn’t able to give him the only answer he wanted to hear. ‘I don’t think you have an
y right to ask me something like that,’ she said quietly.
He turned away, sick with disgust at himself—and sick with jealousy, too—her refusal to answer telling him everything he needed to know. Because he had wanted her to blurt out that she had never known pleasure before him. That no other man had made her cry out in helpless rapture. But they had, hadn’t they? This man Tom. The man who had abandoned her. Who had taken the virginity which should have been his to take.
‘I should have listened to Giuseppe,’ he said bitterly.
Lily’s ears pricked up at the mention of the cousin who had looked at her so assessingly, his blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Why, what did he say?’
He shook his head. ‘That you sounded too good to be true. But I blocked my ears to it all.’ His laugh was bitter. ‘And I fell for your pretty play-acting. Your outraged behaviour when I pushed you up against the car when the reality was that you were gagging for it.’
Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘How dare you say that?’
‘Because it’s true!’ All true, he thought grimly. His pure and prim Lily had been nothing but an illusion—a woman he’d conjured up from the depths of some bizarre fantasy. He felt the cold clamp of a nameless emotion as it closed round his heart, sealing up cracks which had started to appear when he’d met her. Slipping on his socks and shoes, he picked up his jacket from where he’d flung it over the chair, then hunted around until he had located his car keys.
The jangling of metal brought Lily to her senses. ‘Where are you going?’ she questioned.
‘Out!’
‘Ciro—’
‘Before I say or do something I may later regret,’ he said, turning away from her distress and from those blue eyes which were now brimming with unshed tears. Wrenching open the door, he slammed his way out of the suite.
Lily’s heart was pounding so hard that she lay back weakly against the pillows, her eyes fixed on the closed door, praying for him to come back. To take her in his arms and to tell her that he was sorry he’d lost it. To tell her that he’d been unreasonable and could they please just forget it had ever happened and start over.
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