by Henke, Shirl
He unfastened the drawstring of her blouse, easing it off her shoulders, then suckled her breasts while he worked the ties at the waist of her skirt. Her busy fingers pulled his shirt free and tugged it over his head, then began to unbutton his fly. When he kicked away the pants, she knelt before him on the soft pile of clothes and took his pulsing phallus in her mouth, teasing at it with her tongue until he growled and dug his fingers into her hair.
“Stop, before it's too late!”
She looked up at him with a wicked smile. “As if you cannot recover quickly enough under my ministrations.”
“At least let me bathe the salt away,” he said, picking her up and holding her over the rim of the big tub until she squealed.
“Derrick, don't you dare drop me!”
The splash was resounding. She came up from beneath the water sputtering as he stood leaning over the rim, doubled up with laughter. Until she wrapped her arms around him, toppling him into the tub. They splashed and laughed as they settled into the bath, but when their eyes met, their expressions turned serious.
He cupped her face with his hands, studying it. “You are a rare work of art, far better than any master could ever paint or sculpt.” As his fingers traced the contours of her cheekbones, eyebrows, lips and chin, she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, luxuriating in his soft caresses. She let her entire body go lax, leaning against the wall of the tub with her arms stretched out on the rim. She felt a faint ripple in the water when he moved. His fingertips glided down the slender column of her throat and over her breasts, holding the buoyant globes ever so slightly while he suckled them.
Then his hands slid over her waist and down to her hips, holding them firmly as his head vanished beneath the water. She felt his mouth, far hotter than the bathwater, pressing the most intimate caress on her. A gasp of ecstasy tore from her lips as he worked magic with his lips and tongue. Beth writhed with pleasure, then fiery need when his head broke the surface and he gulped a breath of air.
“I’ve discovered a more precious underwater treasure than pearls,” Derrick rasped wickedly. He then returned to pleasuring her, coming up to breathe several more times as she held on to the rim of the tub with white-knuckled little fists.
Feeling the ever-deepening frissons of delight radiate from the core of her body, she undulated beneath the water's gentle lapping—and his. When the contractions began, she stiffened and cried out his name. In an instant he rose up like Poseidon and thrust into her. Her sheath tightened around the steely hardness of his staff, enveloping it as she bucked and swayed in the water, holding on to the edge of the tub, letting him carry her away into another world of such bliss that it was oblivion.
As the sweetness gradually subsided, she reached out to him, unclasping her hips from his as she gently pushed him back to the other side of the tub. “My turn,” she whispered hoarsely, reaching beneath the water to grasp his still unsatiated phallus with one hand while cupping him with the other.
“Aaaah!” His strangled gasp of pleasure echoed in the afternoon stillness when her head dipped beneath the water. He held on to the rim, watching her hair float across the surface, glimmering like drowning flame. Drowning, just as he was, lost in the almost unbearable ecstasy. He had taught her to give and receive physical love this way, and Beth proved the most exquisitely skilled pupil he had ever tutored. He could never last long with her. When he felt his body swelling for that final release, he pulled her up into his arms and thrust inside her.
He refused to consider his need to be completely joined with her, to have her come with him as he climaxed. She trembled in his arms, brought to a second shattering completion as she felt him hold himself back, teetering on the brink until she could do nothing but helplessly go along. Afterward, they sat in the cool water, holding each other, saying nothing as the sun dipped low on the western horizon, bathing the room in a soft golden haze.
* * * *
That same warm sunset reflected off the bay at Naples to the north as the Lady Barbara sailed into the harbor bearing two passengers, both nervous but for very different reasons. Quintin Blackthorne was desperate to see if the corruption of the European nobility had done irreparable harm to his beloved only daughter. Beth simply must return home with him. He would allow nothing else. He would, in fact, drag her from that accursed villa and tie her to the masthead if necessary!
His companion, an old friend and long-time business associate of his foster brother Devon, had a far different agenda. While arranging Quint's passage, Dev had mentioned their mutual friend from Charleston, who happened to be a native of Naples. When Dev wrote to the Neapolitan, he had quickly volunteered to accompany Quint. Although born in Naples, he had moved as a youth to Savannah, where his cousin Solomon was engaged in a highly successful dry goods business.
Their family had been eager to expand up and down the coast of the new nation. When the newcomer had exhibited such industry and initiative that the store he managed in Charleston flourished, they brought him into full partnership. Within a decade he owned stores and warehouses stretching all the way to Baltimore. That was when he formed a partnership with the Blackthorne family and entered the shipping business as well. At the age of forty-six, Piero Torres was a rich man.
He had never married, although his striking good looks and smooth Neapolitan charm had won him many lovers over the years. The bright blue eyes of his Sephardic ancestry had combined with the deep olive skin and curly black hair from a mysterious Hungarian Gypsy rumored to be a ways back on the family tree. À succession of mistresses and ill-fated affairs had convinced him that he would never be able to forget the love of his youth.
Blackthorne had described the life his daughter was living and the remarkable woman who was acting as her sponsor in the art circles of the city. Vittoria di Remaldi. Piero did not recognize the surname and Vittoria was a common enough Christian name, but the description of Beth's mentor struck a chord. Could it be?
If so, Vittoria was twice widowed and lived in independent wealth, at last free of her scheming family. Free to rediscover the passions of youth? Piero feared to hope for too much. After all, their love affair had been so many years ago. She would be a woman in her prime now, no longer the innocent girl with whom he had first tasted love. Would she still desire him? His troubling yet hopeful ruminations were interrupted as Quint strode across the deck to where he stood alone, watching the city washed with the softness of twilight.
A tall commanding man with hawkish features and streaks of gray at the temples of his black hair, Blackthorne looked every inch the owner of a vast plantation, an American patrician who oversaw his agricultural empire and other business enterprises with meticulous care. The same way he safeguarded his family. Torres remembered his cousin Solomon's tales about Blackthorne's heroism during the American War of Independence. He had ridden with the legendary Swamp Fox, General Francis Marion, whose guerrilla campaign cost the British dearly in the southern theater of the war. Piero decided he would not want Quintin Blackthorne for an enemy.
“Has Naples changed since last you saw it?” Black-thorne asked.
Piero shrugged. “More ships in the harbor, here and there a new building along the outskirts, but no, the city remains the same. It is very ancient, you know, nothing like the growth and newness of America.”
Quint studied the man he now called friend. “You've become quite Americanized, yet Dev worries that you might decide to remain here in Naples. Do you still have family here?”
“No. They all died many years ago. As to whether I might remain here...that depends...on many things,” Piero replied with a faraway look in his eyes.
When they debarked, Quint oversaw the unloading of their luggage while Piero made arrangements with a driver to transport them to one of the city's finest inns, a place that a Jewish jeweler's son had never been allowed to enter. But that had changed now. He had become a wealthy American merchant. What had Vittoria become?
When they reached their lod
gings, Piero obtained directions to the villa of the Contessa di Remaldi. “Perhaps it might be best if I went first to speak with the contessa, to see how Beth will react to your coming to fetch her,” he suggested to Quint when they were at last alone in their spacious fourth-story apartment.
“I've not known a moment's peace since receiving Drummond's letter. No, my friend, I must see my daughter at once.”
“I was afraid you would say that,” Piero replied wryly. “I feel there is something I should tell you before you go storming off to the contessa’s villa.”
“You've been quite preoccupied ever since we came in sight of the city. What is it?” Blackthorne asked warily.
“I may know the contessa. I've told no one in America the reason I left Naples as a youth...” He outlined the story of young love thwarted by class and religious differences and the hope that the wealthy widow might indeed be his long-lost lady.
“Incredible,” Quint said when Piero finished his tale. “If she is who you think she is, will she attempt to stop me from taking Beth home?” The one matter that had worried Blackthorne was running afoul of the Neapolitan authorities if the contessa tried to stop her young protegee from leaving.
“If she is the same romantic she was then, she might see you as she did her own father.”
“And that would not be to my benefit at all, would it, hmmm?” Blackthorne replied, thoughtfully. “You would suggest I remain here while you scout out the enemy...if she is indeed the enemy, eh?”
And so, Piero Torres took a carriage to the elegant villa alone. It was full dark when he arrived, but he could see that it was a splendid home. She has done well for herself. But then, so had he, he reminded himself as he grew increasingly nervous. Ignoring the churning deep in his gut, he walked up the stairs of the entry and knocked.
He was greeted by a grim-faced servant who ushered him down a wide marble hallway into a large sitting room with glass-paned doors opening onto the portico that encircled three sides of the mansion. The contessa might or might not be available to a stranger at such a late hour, the sour old man had said. The name of Piero Torres had meant nothing to him. What would it mean to her?
Piero studied the room's decor, trying to see her hand in it, but the sophisticated furnishings, almost spartan with their clean lines and cool, pale colors, spoke nothing of the passionate girl who had loved bright pink and deep violet. Then he sensed her presence. Holding his breath, he turned and gazed into the fathomless dark eyes of his lover.
He could see a few silver strands in her lustrous raven hair,faint crinkles from laughter around her eyes and mouth. Her body, once girlishly slender and coltish, had fulfilled its early promise. Now it was voluptuous yet sleek as she stood frozen in the doorway, her figure outlined by the sheer mull of her gown, which was raspberry pink.
“You are even more lovely than I remembered.” He whispered, but the sound carried across the silence stretching between them, echoing in the big room.
“And you are an incredible flatterer,” she managed, although her voice was breathless. ”I cannot believe it. Piero.”
She inspected him as he did her, their eyes mutually devouring. He was still whipcord lean and sinewy, swarthy dark with those same unbelievably blue Torres eyes, eyes that had haunted her dreams for too many years to count. “I heard you went to America. It must be true that talent and industry are richly rewarded there.” She could see by the cut of his clothing, the gold watch chain suspended at his waist, the very way he carried himself, that he was a man of consequence now. Her knees felt weak and she was forced to clutch the doorframe to steady her trembling.
“America is a remarkable country. I'm accounted a success, yes.” He tore his eyes from her for a moment and looked around the room. “The same might be said of you. There was a second husband after Nicolo?”
She shuddered, remembering the vile old man her family had forced her to wed. “Nicolo died within a year of the marriage, but I was still underage. My brother Luciano made the arrangement with the Conde di Remaldi, a boon companion of his university days.”
“And you did not love him either.” It was not quite a question, more like a secret wish that he could not keep from voicing aloud any more than he could keep from moving slowly across the room to where she stood in the doorway.
Vittoria realized that they could not continue this very private conversation with servants eavesdropping. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “No, I did not love him. He was not a depraved brute like Nicolo, but neither was he what one might exactly call a devoted husband. He went his way and I was allowed to go mine.”
“And then he died, leaving you a wealthy widow.” You do not mourn him. Did you mourn me?
When he reached out and took her hands, she knew he must be able to feel her pulse racing madly. “He gave a good account of himself trying to bankrupt my estates as well as his own, but fortunately his profligacy caused his death before we became destitute. Since I was of age by then, I learned to manage my own affairs.”
“And what of your parents, your brothers, the rest of your family?” As he spoke, he continued to hold her hands, massaging the fine bones of her wrists with the pads of his thumbs.
“My parents are dead...the rest are dead to me.” But never you, Piero. You have always lived in the deepest part of my soul. “I have told you much of my life. What of yours? I knew your parents were gone, but surely in America you have married, had children.”
His eyes met and locked with hers as he brought her hands up to his mouth. “No, my beloved, I have never wed,” he said as he pressed his lips to her sensitive open palms, then to her wrists, where he could feel the blood beat. “You see, I have never found a woman to match you,” he murmured, raising his head once again.
The look in his eyes took her breath away. “Piero, my darling,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she melted against him, feeling the hardness of his body, inhaling the scent of him, still the same and yet not the same. The boy had become a man. All thoughts were swept aside as his mouth covered hers and she opened to him, cupping his face between her hands to meet the onslaught of his hungry kiss.
When he swept her into his arms and demanded, “Which way to your bedchamber?” she did not hesitate.
“Up the stairs and to the right,the first door,” she replied between kisses.
Chapter Fifteen
They lay in her big soft bed, entwined, satiated. Piero's body had not felt so at peace since the last time he had been with Vittoria. They had been little more than children then, she even younger than he, although both had been virgins. “Amazing, that after all this time we should be brought together once more,” he whispered, stroking her cheek as he leaned over her.
She reached up and placed one palm against the hairy wall of his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “After so many years...why did you return? Why did you wait so long?”
He took her hand and pressed kisses on the sensitive pads of her fingertips. “Fate brought us together, I suppose...no, that is not an honest answer. I was afraid—afraid to find you still wed and surrounded by children, or worse, dead. I was a coward, wanting to hold my memories of you inviolate.”
She smiled sadly, yet a bit of mischief lit her dark eyes. “Perhaps it was a fear that you would find me fat and wrinkled and shrewish, not at all the smiling slim girl of your dreams.”
“You will always be the girl of my dreams.”
“But you built a life, made a fortune, became an American. That must have taken a great deal of time and energy.” When he did not deny it, she felt her heart go cold. He was no longer Neapolitan. His life was in the New World now. Where did that leave them?
Piero was too preoccupied to sense her disquiet. How could he tell her about Quintin Blackthorne? He had not intended to seduce her this way, for them to move so quickly to their old intimacy, but once he had seen her standing in that doorway, there had been no
way to stop. Now he realized that it might have been a mistake.
Gently, he withdrew from her embrace, kissing her hands. Then he sat up and said, “You asked why I came back after so many years and I replied fate. In a strange way, fate did force my hand. My business partner in the shipping trade is Devon Blackthorne.”
Vittoria felt as if icy water had splashed over her. “Beth's uncle,” she said flatly.
“Yes. Quintin came to him with a letter that accused an earl's son of dishonoring Beth.”
“And you were sent to investigate?” She willed herself to remain calm, sensing his anguish as he searched for the words with which to explain.
“No. When Dev sent for me, I was asked to accompany her father to Naples as an interpreter. Then they told me Beth was being chaperoned by a countess named Vittoria who was a widow...I could not be certain it was you, but I dared to hope.”
“And what does Quintin Blackthorne intend to do about his daughter?” she asked with growing dread.
“He is intent on taking her home, but I'm not sure that is the best course,” he said carefully. “We were torn apart by our families. Perhaps the wiser course would be to follow the advice of the author of the letter and see that they are wed.”
She swallowed the tears. “Oh, Piero, if only that could be.”
“You mean the cad would refuse—or that Beth herself would not wish to marry him?”
“I mean that Beth is not here to wed anyone. She was captured by Algerine corsairs two months ago. All the other captives from the ship on which she was sailing have been ransomed, but she has vanished. The rumors are that she was taken to the dey's seraglio.” She blinked back useless tears. She had wept and prayed and spent a small fortune sending redemptionists to Algiers.
Piero took her in his arms and she drew strength from him, telling him of the hellish nights and days since word of the Sea Sprite's capture reached Naples, of everything she had done to find Beth and the guilt she felt for agreeing to the trip, then being unable to accompany her young charge.
