Marcello & Grace (Royals of Valleria #2)

by Knightly, Marianne

  He began to slowly thrust into her, until he could feel the hot bite of orgasm brimming inside her again. He gently fisted his hand in her hair, forcing her to shift upright against his chest.

  He turned her head and took her mouth in a fierce, breathtaking kiss while his hand rubbed her nub below. His body started to thrust faster and faster, almost lifting her off the floor. Her hands reached back to grip his body for support. She groaned into the kiss, then screamed as her orgasm came harder that it had ever come before.

  Marcello latched an arm around her, keeping her upright while she bounced against him, wringing every last drop of pleasure he could muster for her.

  When her body stopped contracting around his cock, he slowly pulled out and turned her to face him. “Are you all right? Was that okay?”

  “Was that okay?” she said as she huffed a laugh. “I may never be able to walk again, but other than that, it was just dandy.”

  Marcello smiled. “You take my breath away, Grace Raynott-Nithercott.”

  Grace crinkled her nose. “You know, I don’t much care for that name.”

  Marcello’s heart started beating faster. “Would you prefer to be called Princess Grace di Valleria?”

  Her eyes widened. “Marcello.”

  “I’m sorry. That was a terrible proposal,” he said, suddenly feeling cold despite the scalding water cascading over them.

  “It’s not that.” She cupped his face. “Marcello, I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted forever with you. I’m just not ready to be married again. I am, however, ready for you.”

  “You’ll let me know when you are ready for all of it?”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  He growled and pulled her closer. “I’d better be the first one to know.”

  She laughed. “You will be, Marcello, my love. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Afterwards, they took time to wash each other, and Marcello grew hard again just washing her hair. He wasn’t sure why it turned him on so much, but he wasn’t about to question it.

  After they finished, he put on fresh bandages, and they bundled up in plush robes and staggered to his bed. He gathered her in his arms and fell asleep, hoping her warmth and the lingering scent of roses would keep the nightmares at bay.

  ***

  Grace loved watching Marcello sleep. She lightly brushed a finger over the dark circles under his eyes, and knew he needed the rest. He’d been through so much in the last few days. So had she.

  When his breathing was deep and steady, she began to shift out of the bed. When his arms tightened around her and he mumbled something incoherent, she thought he may have woken up. When it became apparent he hadn’t, she smiled; even in the deepest sleep he still wanted her.

  She pressed a light kiss to his lips. He sighed and loosened his hold around her. Hmmm, she thought, that’s a trick I’ll have to remember.

  She went out into the foyer and put her bags in a guest bedroom for now; she didn’t want to risk Marcello waking up as she rummaged through them. She used the suite’s phone to call for some dinner; she wasn’t sure when he would wake up and she was starving.

  She dressed and peeked in on Marcello, still clad in a white robe and hidden underneath a soft quilt. He had shifted and now lay on his back, his arms spread wide. The robe had opened across his chest, revealing the muscles and chest hair she loved, and the bullet bruises she hated. She closed the door quietly and went to wait for the food.

  After dinner arrived, she put aside Marcello’s portion in his kitchen, and ate on her own. She had plenty of her own work to keep her busy: houses that needed tending, employees to be seen to, and more. Just because she’d left to come here, didn’t mean she didn’t have a life in England.

  But where was her home?

  It was a question she wrestled with for the next several hours, while she was unable to sleep. She had missed Marcello fiercely and she did love him, but what did that mean for their future? She wanted him, and only him, but she wasn’t ready for marriage again.

  She looked down at the empty space on her finger, where a ring had once sat. Daniel’s ring. Funnily enough, she realized she hadn’t really thought about Daniel much at all since meeting Marcello. No, that wasn’t true. She hadn’t really thought about Daniel since falling in love with Marcello.

  What she had felt for Daniel had not been love, she realized. Nothing had ever, nor would ever compare to what she felt for Marcello, she was sure of that. She did not want to give that up.

  “Are you all right?”

  Grace, who had been ruminating in his sitting room near a roaring fire, looked up. Marcello was casually leaning on the doorjamb, his hands buried inside the pockets of the robe. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “It’s four in the morning, Grace,” he said as he walked over to her. He took the seat across from her and pulled her hands into his. “If you’re upset about something, I need you to tell me.”

  “I’m not upset, not really. I suppose I’m more wondering if you’re upset.”

  “Me?” he asked with wide eyes. “Why would I be upset?”

  “Because I won’t marry you.” His hands tightened on hers before he let go and sat back against the chair with a sigh.

  “It’s not that you won’t marry me. It’s that you can’t right now. I understand and respect that.”

  “Do you?”

  “Have I ever given you cause to believe that I don’t trust or respect you?” At her pause, he said, “When?”

  “Will you tell me what happened on the mission?” She wasn’t sure why she needed to know, but she did.

  “It’s not important.”

  “You were almost killed. Of course, it’s important.”

  He stood up and began pacing. “What purpose would it serve? You’d just get upset.”

  “Then let me get upset,” she said as she stood up and faced him, her golden hair and blue eyes shimmering in the firelight. “I can handle it and I don’t want any secrets between us.”

  “I know you can handle it, but some of these are state secrets. I can’t just tell you.”

  “I’m not asking you to put yourself in a tenuous position. I would never do that. But there are things you can tell me, aren’t there?”

  He stopped pacing to run his hands through his dark blond hair. “Why?”

  “I haven’t had an honest relationship my entire life, Marcello. I’d like to start with you.”

  “Grace,” he said as he pulled her against him.

  “I’ve had to lie or have been lied to. I don’t ever want to go back to that. I won’t go back to that. Ever.”

  He rubbed his hands down her back and sighed. “Then you probably don’t want to stay with me, do you?”

  She stiffened in his arms. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a royal,” he said as he pushed back and began pacing again. “If you’re with me, you have to keep secrets. It’s not that we’re lying to the public, it’s that -.”

  “You’re protecting the royal family. Your family,” she finished for him.

  “Yes, but that’s not all. Some details of the mission, for example, will never be revealed. We keep secrets to protect our citizens, too.” He sagged and a wretched look of despair crossed his face. He staggered to a chair and sat down. “Why, Grace?” he asked as he buried his head in his hands. “Why did you come back only to leave me again?”

  She kneeled before him and pulled his hands away. There were tears in his red eyes. If she wasn’t in love with him already, the sight of him of now would have caused her to careen headfirst into it. “I’m not leaving you,” she said.

  He shook his head disbelievingly. “But you just said you couldn’t be with me.”

  “I didn’t say that,” she said and put her fingers over his mouth when he opened it to speak. “I understand what you mean about being royal. I would never divulge anything that harmed you, or Catharine, or anyone else. I just don’t want there to be secrets betwe
en us. I want a real relationship, Marcello. I’ve never had that and I’m desperate for it. Can you give me that?” She wasn’t sure what she’d do if he said he couldn’t.

  “Yes. God, yes, I can.” He pulled her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank God. Thank God. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me,” he said as he began to kiss her and tug at her clothes desperately.

  “Never,” she said as she pushed his robe off. “I couldn’t if I tried.”

  He halted her hands. “You could, Grace. If you wanted to leave me, you could.”

  Something small and dark vanished within her when she realized he was right. No, this relationship was nothing like the one she’d had with Daniel. “You’re right,” she said as she cupped his face. “I could leave you, but I won’t. I may not be ready to marry you but, here and now, I promise to be there for you for as long as you’ll have me.”

  “I’ll want you forever. Each and every day we have together, I’ll want you and need you.” He pulled them to the floor. “I need you.”

  “Yes,” she said, arching her back as sensation took over. God, what had she been missing all her life? Such pleasure, such love. She wept with the relief of finding it.

  Clothes were tossed away until naked bodies slid against each other, heated by their own desires and the fire nearby. Her hair was a blanket of gold underneath her, a goddess offering herself for the taking.

  He kissed the tears away even while he thrust inside her, giving her more and more until she exploded underneath him. He soon followed, and she relished the feeling of being filled by him, not only physically but emotionally as well.

  After their breathing returned to normal, they lay by the fire for hours. Their bodies remained blissfully naked while they talked and planned the future, ate bits of leftover dinner, and then nibbled on each other for dessert. He told her what he could about the mission, and about his life here in Valleria.

  “Do you think you could ever live here?” he asked her as the night brightened to day. “I know it’s a lot to ask. I know you’d have to give up a lot for loving me.”

  “Shhh,” she said, then silenced him with a kiss. “I only had to give up my heart to love you, and it’s a choice I don’t regret.”

  “Grace.”

  “I’m not done,” she said softly. “I’ve thought about this, too, Marcello. It would be hard for me to leave England, but only because there’s so much going on right now with the renovations and the attack. I may have to go back and testify.”

  He tightened his hold around her. “You won’t go back alone.”

  “I know I won’t. Putting all that aside, I’d want to keep my family’s lands. I don’t know that I could give those up.”

  “Why would you?”

  Her brows furrowed. “Weren’t you just asking me if I would?”

  “Our children need ties to their English roots. I wouldn’t let you sell your family’s lands, unless it was to me.”

  At the mention of children, her gut twisted but she knew she had to be honest. “Marcello, I don’t know that I can have children. After I lost the baby, the doctor said it might not be possible.”

  After a moment, he spoke. “Well, ‘might’ doesn’t mean ‘never’,” he said as he stroked her hair. “Besides, who says there’s only one way to have children?” he said with a shrug. “We can adopt, use a surrogate, whatever you want to do. I just want to have children with you; I don’t care how we do it.”

  “Really? It wouldn’t be a problem with you being a royal and all?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “It’s one the benefits of being currently fourth in line to the throne, fair Grace. No, it doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean ‘currently’?”

  “Once Alex and Rebecca get married and start having children, we all get bumped down a peg with each child. So, if you were angling to be a queen one day, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”

  “I wasn’t,” she said immediately and noticed his joking smile. “I’m perfectly content with your position in the royal hierarchy.” She toyed with chest hair a moment. “You’re sure you don’t mind about the children?”

  “Absolutely and unequivocally. Do you want to have children?”

  “Yes. I didn’t think I would, but I want everything with you. Everything seems possible with you.”

  “That’s how I feel about you.” He stared intently at her for a moment before he said, “If you wanted to live in England full-time, I would support you.”

  “What do you mean? The two of us living apart?”

  “No. I mean if I resign my post.”

  “Oh, Marcello.”

  He sighed and laid back on floor. As he stared at the ceiling, he said, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. This last mission was one of the toughest I’ve been in.”

  “You were hurt,” she said as propped herself up on her elbow to see his face.

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t that. I’ve told you that I’ve been hurt worse. No, it was the time away from you.”

  “Marcello.”

  “Let me finish. Grace, I would die for my country. I would die for my family. I would die for you. Quite frankly, I’m feeling selfish; I don’t want lose any time with you, not when I’ve just found you.”

  “I’ll support you with whatever you decide. But, please know that I don’t want you to give up anything for me. Your family wouldn’t either. Being a soldier, that’s so much of who you are, but it’s not all you are.”

  She brushed the bruise on his cheek with the back of her hand. “You once told me that I was so much more than my scars. Don’t you think the same is true of you?”

  “And you wouldn’t mind living in Valleria?”

  “Not if you don’t mind trips back to England.”

  He smiled. “How could I? It’s where we fell in love.”

  “That it is,” she said as she kissed his bare chest and saw his cock twitch. “I have an idea,” she said as she shifted on top of him.

  “Oh?” he said with a gleam in his eye. “What’s that?”

  “Why don’t we stop talking for a while?”

  “An excellent idea,” he said and groaned when she started to take him inside her tight body. “Excellent,” he rasped.

  Chapter 20

  Marcello walked quickly down the meandering hallways with Grace’s hand tucked securely in his. They had talked and made love for hours, and he had never felt so intimate with a woman before in his whole life.

  When they walked into the dining room for breakfast, it was to find everyone already there.

  “Look who finally decided to join us. By the looks of things, they don’t look like they got any sleep last night,” Lorenzo said as he wagged his eyebrows.

  Carolina smacked Lorenzo on his head and he feigned an injury. “Don’t be a jerk.”

  “I think you’re confusing me with another brother. Clearly, all those paint fumes are getting to you.”

  She smacked Lorenzo again, just for good measure, and stood up to greet them.

  “I think they both could use some more rest,” Cat said with a wink. “You’re both positively glowing,” she whispered to them when they greeted her.

  After greeting his parents, Alex, Rebecca, and Arianna, Marcello took a seat next to Arianna, with Grace on his other side.

  “How are you feeling, my son?” Gabriel asked. “You do look as though you could use some more rest,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “We’ve got the debriefing today with the Royal Council.”

  “It can wait,” Alex said with a smile. “You should take all the time you need to heal.”

  Marcello wanted to slap him, really all of them, but held back. He knew their teasing was another way of showing they approved of Grace. “I’d rather get the briefing over with, just the same. How did the national address go last night?”

  “Very well,” Gabriel said. “We’ll discuss more at the Council meeting toda
y. However, I do not foresee any problems.”

  “What about Vlad? Byelorus, Litva, and Estoria?”

  “Vlad has been usurped of power, and we’re now afraid civil war might break out within Gardar Rus. It was an unintended consequence, of course, but we’re mobilizing the international community to step in and help. This could bring about great change to the country, or terrible change. Let’s hope it’s the former.”

  Gabriel took a sip of his fine Vallerian Roast coffee and said, “As for Estoria, they have corroborated our statements. The press are digging for more. Let’s see if they find it.”