by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker
‘Then…’
As he had only moments before, she drew in a long, calming breath. But when she looked deep into his eyes again she was suddenly totally sure, totally strong. There was no trace of hesitation in her voice when she spoke again.
‘I want you, Vincenzo. I want you to make love to me. I want it more than anything else in the world.”
‘Amy…’ Her name was a sigh of pure delight. ‘Then come to me. Come to me, moglie mia, and let me kiss you.’
That bit was easy. All she had to do was to lean forwards, helped by the pull of his hands on hers, until she was half kneeling, half lying in his arms, with her head against his chest, hearing the heavy pounding beat of his heart. At last he released his grip on her fingers and one strong hand slid under her chin, lifting her face to his.
His kiss was slow and sure and infinitely tender, rousing a heat in her blood that had nothing to do with the fire at her back. Her head was swimming, her thoughts incoherent, drunk on something that was far more potent than the strongest, heady spirit. But deep inside there was one thing that she knew with absolute clarity, no room for any trace of doubt.
This was the man for her. The only man. He always had been, and he always would be. She had loved him from the moment she had first seen him and she would love him that way for the rest of her life.
And that knowledge softened her mouth under his, letting his tongue taste her fully. It relaxed her body so that he could easily take her with him down onto the rug, warmed by the firelight on one side, by the gleam of the candles at the other.
But the real heat was deep down, a molten pool of need between her thighs, one that had her stirring restlessly, a faint moan of impatience escaping her.
‘Hush, carissima,’ Vincenzo whispered softly. ‘Let’s take this easy. We have all the time in the world.’
And his hands were as gentle as his words as they unbuttoned the velvet top and slid it from her, smoothing and caressing the delicate skin he exposed in a way that made her arch and purr like a contented cat. Lying bathed in golden light, she submitted to the trail of kisses down her throat with a sense of such awe-filled delight that it brought a rush of tears to her eyes, seeping out from under her closed lids.
Vincenzo kissed them away so softly that she thought her heart would break at his touch.
‘No tears, innamorata,’ he murmured against her skin. ‘This is not the time for them.’
‘It’s just…’
She couldn’t complete the sentence but she had the feeling that Vincenzo didn’t need her to. That he understood completely all that was in her mind and her heart, and that tears were the only way she could express it.
The rest of her clothes were eased from her so softly that she barely felt them go, only becoming aware of the fact that Vincenzo too had tossed aside his clothing when he came down beside her and she felt the heated brush of skin against skin. Hungrily she reached for him, wanting that intimate contact, needing to feel his body covering hers, her legs parting automatically, to allow him to lie between them.
‘It has been so long—too long…’
Passionate desire thickened Vincenzo’s accent, making it sound so much richer, more exotic than ever before, need putting a raw edge on the husky tones. His dark eyes searched her face with a laser-like intensity, watching every tiny flicker of emotion, every shift of mood, so that she knew she could hide nothing from him.
‘But I have forgotten nothing. I remember every moment of the past and I still recall what you like.’
A tiny, wicked smile curled the corners of his sensually softened mouth.
‘So I know that if I do this…’
His strong hands curved over her breasts, long fingers stroking softly, tracing out delicately enticing circles of sensation.
‘You will close your eyes. And if I do this…’
He moved his thumbs to rest against her nipples, teasing, tormenting, making them harden into yearning peaks of hunger.
‘You will make those soft little moaning sounds that drive me wild. But if I do this…’
His dark head bent and she felt the heat of his mouth at her breast, no longer gentle but hard and demanding, driving her into a fury of longing so that her hands closed over the powerful shoulders, fingers digging into the taut muscles of his back.
‘Cenzo! Oh, Cenzo!’ she sighed and felt against her breast the curve of his smile that told her he had anticipated just such a reaction all along.
And in that moment it all came rushing back to her too, driving away any last traces of doubt or restraint. This was her husband, and although she had only spent that one night in his bed, she had learned a little of how to please him, too.
And so she let her fingers wander where they would, stroking, kneading, tantalising. She pressed her mouth to his shoulders, to his chest, to the flat nubs of his male nipples that hardened delightfully under the caress of her tongue. She relished the taste of him in her mouth, the feel of his hot satin skin under her wandering fingertips, the clench of tight muscles in a response he was incapable of hiding.
But in the moment that one long, muscular thigh pushed between hers to allow him access to the very heart of her femininity, she knew there was one last thing she had to say so that there could be no misunderstanding between them.
‘Cenzo,’ she whispered, her voice ragged with the effort it took to control herself enough to speak. ‘There’s something you have to know—I—I never slept with David. There’s been no one…’
The admission broke off on a wild cry of response as his hand slid to the aching centre of her need, touching her lightly, making her writhe beneath him.
‘I know.’ His response was hoarse, shaken, betraying how close he was to losing control himself. ‘I have eyes. I can see. And it’s been the same for me, too. I have hungered for you, dreamed of you for four long years, and now I can’t wait any longer.’
‘I don’t want you to,’ Amy whispered against his ear, her head arching back, her whole body opening up to him, mutely inviting the heated invasion she so longed for.
‘Carissima!’
It was a choked cry of delight, of triumph, of release all blended into one as he eased himself deep inside her, the glaze of passion sheening his eyes and a flare of wild colour highlighting his cheekbones as he watched her writhe in response beneath him.
‘This is how it should have been, that night in Venice,’ he told her, still fighting for control, his breathing ragged and rough. ‘That night, I wanted you so much, I ached with hunger. This is what you owe me, moglie mia, what should have been mine all along…’
But Amy wasn’t listening. She didn’t want him to speak; she wanted him to love her. And so she moved again, circling her hips, bringing her legs up to encircle his lean hips, taking tiny, teasing little bites at his skin until, with a raw cry of surrender he gave himself up to the passion that possessed him.
And Amy too could no longer think but only feel. She was aware of nothing beyond the pulsing strength of him inside her, the soaring response he was drawing from her. Wildly, fiercely, the rhythm built, stronger and stronger, taking them both out of reality and into a place where there was no time or space, only the white heat of the final conflagration as it took them over, burning them up completely.
Afterwards, she curled up in his arms, unable to speak, incapable even of thought. And when he reached for her again, impossibly soon, she found that her responses were even quicker this time, her hunger hotter, her need greater, so that in the moment of climax she actually felt that she would shatter, splinter into fragments of delight.
At some point during the long night, when the fire had burned down low in the grate, and the candles were guttering in their holders, Vincenzo extinguished them, then lifted her and carried her to his bed. The shock of the cool sheets against her skin woke her so that she turned to him, seeking him blindly. This time their lovemaking was slower, each long drawn out second such intense delight that it brought back the t
ears she had known earlier.
And those tears still lingered in the exhausted aftermath, trickling down her cheeks as she lay with her head pillowed on Vincenzo’s chest. They must have fallen onto his skin too because she felt him stir and look down at her.
‘Tears, carissima?’ he questioned softly. ‘Why…’
Because I know how much I love you was the honest answer, but her nerve failed her, stilling the words on her tongue. But she had to say something.
‘Because I could never marry anyone after this,’ she managed, meaning to take it further, explain…
But heavy drugging waves of sleep washed over her before she could finish and, too worn out to fight, she gave herself up to them, knowing it didn’t matter.
Vincenzo had said they had all the time in the world. Tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow they could talk. Their marriage could begin again, and this time there would be nothing to intrude on their idyll, twisting things, destroying things. That sort of malign lightning couldn’t strike twice. Fate couldn’t possibly be so cruel.
Chapter Fourteen
AMY’S certainty that Fate had finally decided to be on her side was shaken slightly when she woke next morning to a scene that was frighteningly reminiscent of the first day of her married life.
Stirring dreamily in the bed, she was stunned to find that the space beside her was empty. More than that, the sheets were cold, revealing that Vincenzo had been up and out of the room for quite some time. There was no sign of him in the bedroom, which seemed unnaturally tidy, all traces of his occupation vanished from view, and the silence in the cottage was disturbing.
Dressing hastily in the jeans and white cotton shirt she found laid out at the end of the bed, she hurried downstairs, almost stumbling in her haste, to discover the reason for the silence explained by the fact that Vincenzo was outside, dark and sombre in black jeans and a black polo shirt. But the fact that brought a cry of shock to her throat was the realisation that he had opened the car and was loading his bag—and hers—into it.
‘Cenzo?’ she managed uncertainly. ‘What’s happening? What are you doing?’
‘Packing.’
It was succinct to the point of rudeness and instead of the warmth, the welcome she expected to see in his eyes, the smile she had dreamed of all night, her anxious gaze rebounded off sheer black ice, deep-frozen, set against her.
‘But why?’
This was all going wrong. She had thought she would wake in his arms, or, failing that, that she would go straight into his embrace in the first moment of seeing him again.
That she would enjoy all over again the deep, drugging kisses that had tugged at her soul on the previous night, the loving greeting turning inevitably to burning passion, until they ended up in bed once more. But one glance at Vincenzo’s cold, shuttered face told her only too plainly that passion was the last thing on his mind.
‘What’s happening? Where are—’
‘We’re going back.’ Vincenzo didn’t even let her finish the sentence. ‘I’ve packed your things. All you have to do is to get in the car.’
‘But why?’ It was a cry of pain. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I have things I have to do.’ He was clearly struggling to rein in the temper that was just on the edge of breaking. ‘And I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain. Now, are you coming or not?’
The way he got into the driving seat of the car and began revving the engine left her in little doubt that if she hesitated any longer, he was perfectly capable of driving off and leaving without her. As it was, he waited only long enough for her to lock the cottage door and dash back into the car before he put it into gear, heading away down the drive while she was still fastening her seatbelt.
It took Amy some time to gather her thoughts, try to adjust to the abrupt transition from the slow, sensual awakening she had anticipated to this crazy, incomprehensible situation where the man she loved had never seemed more like a stranger to her. Just what had happened in the few short hours between falling asleep in Vincenzo’s arms last night and waking up to find he couldn’t get away from the cottage quick enough?
Away from the cottage and away from her? The fear that that might be the case was so intense that it clawed at her soul, driving her to turn in her seat and study Vincenzo’s dark, rigid profile where it was etched against the window.
‘Are you going to explain any of this?’ she demanded, putting as much force as she could into her tone to hide the panic inside.
No, aggression was quite the wrong approach. He simply ignored her all the more; concentrating on driving with an intensity that was quite unnecessary in the still, warm aftermath of the ferocious storm.
‘Cenzo, please…Can you tell me what’s going on?’
She reached out a hesitant hand to touch him, only to have the gentle touch repulsed by a violent movement of his arm.
‘I told you. We’re going back. The holiday’s over; it’s as simple as that. It should never have happened. None of this should ever have happened.’
‘None? But I thought…’
‘You thought what?’ Vincenzo snapped, negotiating a difficult bend with controlled skill.
‘That we—we made love together!’
His harsh bark of laughter froze her blood in her veins, making her shiver in distress.
‘I told you before, carissima, you don’t need love for that. All you need are two willing partners and you were willing—oh, so willing!’
‘I…’ Amy began but then sheer horror seemed to fasten round her throat like a brutal hand, choking off the words unspoken. From a dark, shadowed corner of her mind Vincenzo’s words, spoken in the heat of passion the night before, came back to haunt her.
‘This is how it should have been that night in Venice…This is what you owe me, moglie mia, what should have been mine all along…’
Oh, dear God, no! Had she truly been so completely deceived yet again? Had she let her love for him show, only to have him use it against her so cruelly, taking his revenge for the frustration of that night in Venice?
Sex and possession. Those were the words she had always associated with Vincenzo, and yet it seemed that she had needed to have her face rubbed right in it before she fully accepted just how powerful a driving force they were. He believed she was his, that she belonged to him completely, and as such he could do with her as he pleased.
‘Nothing to say, bella mia?’ Vincenzo enquired cynically. ‘No comeback at all? That’s not like you.’
‘What is there to say when you’ve obviously got it all thought out and finalised in your mind?’ Amy flung at him. And then, because she knew her grip on her own control was weakening and because she was determined to salvage some small degree of pride from this appalling situation, she subsided into determined silence, not saying a single word until the car pulled up outside her flat.
‘Now what?’ she began, only to find that she was speaking to empty air. Vincenzo had leapt from the car, opening the door and hurrying inside without even sparing her a single glance.
Did he really want to get away from her so very much? The cold that had chilled her blood seemed to have reached her heart, encasing it in a block of ice until she felt numb, dead, unable to think.
Drearily she got out of the car and followed Vincenzo into the house. He was already in his room upstairs, pulling open drawers and gathering up the contents, dumping them in a case that lay open on the bed.
‘I’m going back to Venice,’ he declared without preamble as soon as he saw her appear in the doorway. ‘My business here is finished—except for one thing.’
‘And that is?’
She no longer cared if the quaver in her voice gave her away. Business, was that all it had been to him? All she had been to him?
‘Those papers you wanted signing. The divorce papers,’ he added with savage emphasis when she could only stare in blank incomprehension, her brain too bruised and numbed to think. ‘Get them and I’ll deal with
it now.’
‘The divorce papers? But you said…Oh…’
Dazedly she shook her head, trying to bring her emotions back under control.
‘Oh, I see it now!’ she flung at him in a voice from which pure agony had drained all the emotion, leaving it dull and flat and lifeless. ‘You got what you want from me and now you’re off. You can’t wait to get away—be rid of me. You—’
The ring of the bell downstairs broke into her speech, cutting her off. Left to herself, Amy would have ignored it, but to her surprise Vincenzo responded at once, moving past her swiftly and hurrying down the stairs to wrench the front door open.
‘Well, Ravenelli, I’m here. So now are you going to tell me what all this is about?’
David. The last person on earth she wanted to see, particularly now.
But he was already inside the hall, and had caught sight of her hovering uncertainly at the top of the stairs.
‘Amy, have you any idea what all this is about?’
‘I rang David and asked him to come.’ Vincenzo was cool and businesslike, totally without emotion. ‘I thought you might need someone to be with you when I’d gone.’
Need someone? Couldn’t he see that the only person she needed was him? That without him her life would be empty, dead?
But there was something about the way the Vincenzo spoke that caught her on the raw, pulling her up sharply. If all he wanted was to be rid of her, why would he be so concerned that she should not be left alone? And of course he had no idea how things really were between her and David or he would never have called the other man like this.
‘You’re leaving?’ It was David who asked. ‘But I thought you were both supposed to be in the Lake District until tomorrow.’
‘We cut it short.’
‘David, about the trip…’
Amy and Vincenzo’s voices clashed, sounding as one so that David frowned his confusion. But Amy was determined to continue. A suspicion had planted itself in her thoughts and she wanted to test it out.
