Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) (34 page)

He led her up to the second floor and down to the end of the hallway, her dress swishing and rustling all the way. Then he opened the door to the master suite.

And then, feeling an old-fashioned romantic impulse, he swept her up and carried her through. Her elated laugh at that heated his blood.

The suite was furnished with a king-size, four-poster bed, dressed in luxurious linens, a linen-covered table laden with snacks and drinks, and a bathroom ready for bathing or anything else one could think of to do in a tub and a shower, both built for two.

“All the amenities of a fine hotel, but perfect privacy.”

He set her down and watched her take it all in, her mouth open, its corners turned up in pleasure. She spun in place, making her confection of a skirt puff up even more. “This is…this is so beautiful and perfect I don’t know what to say. It’s so romantic!”

He caught her hands. “I want you to feel the way you feel right now every day of your life.
Ti amo, Signora Pagano
.”

She shook his hands from hers and threw her arms around his neck. “I love you! I love you! I love you! Now get me out of this dress!”

Laughing, feeling content and complete, he did her bidding.

~oOo~

There were, indeed, a lot of buttons, long lines of them at her wrists and all the way down the length of her spine. Tiny satin buttons. But what was underneath was brilliant.

First, there was a full underskirt that seemed to be made of about a hundred layers of netting. It cinched at her waist with lacing. He untied it slowly and lifted her out of the mountain of fabric that was her dress and that skirt. He carried her to the bed and laid her down. She smiled sexily up at him and stretched, arching until her breasts came up out of her corset.

The corset was ornate lace, strapless and stopping just at her hips. Below, she wore a matching lace thong and a garter belt holding shimmery stockings on her beautiful legs. He trailed his hand down the center of the corset—it was tight and stiff, but there were no hooks. It laced up the back.

“Roll over.”

Her grin stretched to brilliance, and she rolled onto her belly. Nick stripped down to his tuxedo pants, kicking his shoes off, tossing his clothes carelessly away, and then climbed onto the high bed and straddled her.

He bent over and kissed her back, just above the line of stiff lace below her shoulder blades. When he licked the same spot lightly, she purred. Then he sat up and undid the bow at the bottom. Working slowly, making each movement languorous and sensual, he eased the narrow, satin lacing completely out and then tossed it to the floor at the side of the bed. Beverly had pillowed her head on her crossed arms, so the unbound corset fell open at her sides.

Her back was striped with dark red lines. “Oh,
bella
. It hurt you.” He brushed his fingers down one red mark, and she took a deep, sharp breath.

She lifted her head and looked at him over her shoulder, her smile bright. “Not hurt. Uncomfortable. I think Sky might have been feeling a little jealous when she tightened it. But I had
great
posture all day.”

He pulled the corset out from under her and added it to the discards on the bedroom floor. And then, feeling an urge even stronger than the urge to fuck her, he soothed her sore skin. Sitting astride her hips, holding his weight in his legs, he caressed and massaged her back until the red marks were gone. Every now and then, he’d lean forward and kiss a shoulder or nibble on her ear. By the time he was satisfied that the pain in her back was gone, she was moaning and writhing between his legs, and her hands had come out from under her head to clutch fistfuls of the down pillows.

He eased his body down her legs, leaving a line of kisses down her spine as he went, until he was standing at the foot of the bed. She was still wearing her dainty, shimmery shoes, and he slid each one slowly off its foot, letting his thumb trace her arch as the shoe came off. At the head of the bed, Beverly moaned.

“Nick…” she breathed.

“Shhh,
bella
. I’m taking my time tonight. I want to revel in you.” He dropped her second shoe and climbed back up to straddle her legs again. Now he slid his fingers under the garter strap down the center of each thigh and popped it open. She gasped. He did the same at the straps at her sides, then pushed his hands between her and the mattress and opened the last.

“Bend your knees up.” She did, and he slid the stockings off her beautiful legs. Before he tossed the silky wisps away, he pulled them through his hands. He would have loved to be able to bind her arms to this bed with her wedding stockings. Blindfold her and excite her to screaming. He had only begun to show her such delights when she’d been attacked. She had responded energetically.

She’d probably never be able to enjoy that again. He tossed the stockings away and shut those thoughts from his mind. This night was for bliss, not regret.

He pushed his fingers under the lace of her garter belt, catching the thong as well, and eased both over her hips and down her legs. Again, he stood at the foot of the bed. Now she was naked. This time, he shed the last of his clothes.

Before he got back onto the bed, he wrapped his hands around her feet and massaged gently, then began to move up her legs. Circling his thumbs over her skin, feeling the silky texture under his fingers, loving the way her muscles moved under his touch as she writhed and moaned, Nick had no impulse whatsoever to be forceful. He felt overrun with love and need, and yet his usual urge to roughness had given way to this.

“Nick, please.” Beverly lifted her hips as he reached the tops of her thighs. With a chuckle, he bent and kissed each round globe of her wonderful ass.

“Hush. Feel.” He kept on with his journey, easing his hands over her ass, up her sides, across her back, following the path with gentle kisses and light nips. He eased her arms down to her sides, linking their fingers when his hands arrived at hers.

Then he released her hands and took hold of her thighs, pushing both upward on the bed at the same time, spreading her wide.

She whimpered. “God, yes. Oh, God.”

Bringing one hand between her legs, he slid his fingers through her folds, drenched and ready. Her body heaved and thrummed at his touch. “Ah,
bella
. You ache for this, don’t you?” He eased the pad of one finger over her clit, and her body clenched. She was ready to come, right now. He knew if he made one more pass over that swollen nub, she’d go over.

Instead, he took his hand away. Kneeling between her legs, he pulled her hips up and sank into her, deeply but not quickly. She took a strained inhale, and her body released a flood of wet and began its clenching undulations. She tried to come up onto her elbows, but he pushed one hand between her shoulder blades and held her chest flat on the bed. And then he moved, but slowly. He wanted her to feel the full slide of their bodies together. He wanted to feel it for himself, too. And he wanted this climax she was riding to last forever.

He kept his pace slow, focusing on every twitch and clench of her body around his, every sweet sigh, earthy grunt, and pleading cry from her throat. In this position, she was wide open to him, and, fascinated, he watched his body slide in and out of her, watched her body accept him, saw her swell and pulse as her enduring climax rolled through her again and again.

By the time she was easing down, her skin was flushed red, and tendrils of her hair were plastered to her face. Her back heaved high with each gasping breath. But he wasn’t done. He pulled out, slowly, maximizing each sensation, and turned her to her back. Scooping her thighs up in his arms, he sank deep inside her again. He wanted to come with his eyes on hers.

He cupped her scarred breast, bending over to kiss the length of the mark. She only sighed, having grown used to his need to pay homage to her this way. Then he bit the nipple, drawing up on it until she responded, arching and gasping. He could feel the skin tightening against his lips. It was important to him to give her this sensation, to nullify this lingering numbness. With a light kiss, he let it go and brought his head up to look down at her lovely face.

She was dazed from her climax, her eyes nearly closed. “Look at me,
bella
.” She did, and she smiled, and he moved, sliding with slow purpose in and out of her eager body.

All his life, he’d thought of gentle sex as boring. Frigid, even. He’d wanted the rough vigor of a bestial rut, the sharp pleasurepain of a release torn from his body and from hers. He wanted the freedom from control that rough sex entailed. That had been passion to him.

He would always love rough sex. But it wasn’t passion, not in and of itself. It wasn’t until this night, this moment, his wife’s sated blue eyes staring up at him with adoration, that he understood. Passion wasn’t in the act. It was in the bond.

She came again, quietly but no less responsively, her body twined around his, her head lolled back, her chest heaving with her little grunts. When he came, he pressed his face tightly against her neck, as close as he could get to her, and groaned his throat sore.

~ 24 ~

Bev lay in bed the next morning, snuggled on her husband’s sleeping chest, feeling dazed with happiness and too restless for more sleep. Nick, though, was out. Even walking her fingers back and forth across his hard belly wasn’t stirring him, and that usually got at least one part going.

She slid carefully out of the bed and went into the bathroom. They’d never gotten around to playing in here last night. But during her first call of nature trip, she’d noticed a lingerie box on the counter. She hadn’t bothered to open it then, because she’d been in a hurry. Now, though, she opened it and found a gorgeous white silk set, a little spaghetti strap nightie with panties and a sheer robe to match. With a pleased little giggle, she took a minute to wash up and then put it on.

Gorgeous and perfect, as usual. Her man liked to spoil her, and she was getting used to it.

She caught her reflection in the mirror—ooh, her hair was a mess. So she took a few more minutes and made herself presentable for possible seduction endeavors.

But he was still sleeping like the dead. She must have worn him out. Feeling especially pleased about that, she decided to see what this house he was ready to buy was like.

Gorgeous and perfect, as usual. Every room was amazing. Five bedrooms, two of which, including the master suite, had little sitting rooms as well as their own bathrooms. Three and a half other bathrooms. Living room, formal dining room, both huge. Gleaming hardwood floors. A stone fireplace in the living room, and another in the master bedroom. Study. Huge gourmet kitchen with a breakfast nook bumped out into a glass-enclosed bay. Finished cellar with a wet bar—though that would need a remodel before Nick was happy with it. The décor was aggressively Eighties.

She stood in the empty breakfast bay and looked out at the back yard. It was wide and fenced, with three big trees. And a pool—small, but enough. Plenty of room for a garden, too. The view from this window was mostly just blue sky. Thinking about the geographic orientation of the house, Bev knew that if she walked to the back gate and went through, she’d see a steep slope down to the beach below. She went to the back door now and opened it to hear the waves crashing rhythmically against the shore.

He’d found her the perfect house. No, he’d found
them
the perfect house—and he knew it. But still he’d shown her the respect not to buy it outright, to give her the chance to decide for herself.

She closed the door and hugged herself, feeling so full of love and happiness she thought she might break apart into all her individual molecules.

“What do you think?” Nick’s voice behind her was gruffer than usual, still thick with sleep.

She turned. He was standing across the room, wearing only his boxer briefs. God, he was amazing. And he was hers.

“I think I could be happy living in a cardboard box as long as you were in there with me. But this house is perfect. It’s
perfect
.”

He grinned at that, looking so pleased and relieved it caught her breath. “I’ll call and get the deal done before we leave. Speaking of which, we should get going. We have a lot to do before our flight tonight.”

She crossed the room and pushed him against the wall behind him. “Not yet.” She kissed his chest, then continued downward, nipping his taut skin as she went. By the time she had her hands in the waistband of his underwear, his cock was hard and huge. She pulled the fabric down slowly, enjoying the bounce and his sharp inhale as he sprang finally free.

“
Bella
…”

“Hush. Feel.” She grinned up at him, pleased at herself for turning his words of last night back on him. But he wasn’t smiling back. His look was dark and intent, and he brought his hands to her hand and tangled his fingers in her hair.

Kneeling before him, she wrapped her hands around his long, thick, beautiful cock and sucked him deep. She took her time, relishing the way his body began to tremble as he neared his release, the way his balls went hard and his tip swelled against her tongue. When he needed to move, she let him. He was always careful not to go so deep he hurt her. She relaxed her throat and let him thrust, his hands holding her head firmly, his fingers pulling her hair.

He came with a shout and filled her mouth. She swallowed. When he sank boneless to the floor, she turned and settled on his lap.

“I love you, Nick.”

He wrapped her up in his arms and held her like he never wanted to let her go.

~oOo~

Two weeks before Christmas, Bev was alone in their new home, trying to get everything unpacked so that she could decorate for the holidays. She had a house. At Christmas. Even though they weren’t spending the holiday at their house, she wanted to decorate. But she wasn’t going to make it. Besides the time she was spending at the shop, the unpacking at home seemed infinite. Nick kept taking her shopping. More stuff kept getting delivered. More things to arrange. Though they had no need yet of half the rooms in the house, he seemed to want to fill every one of them, and the furniture they’d had hadn’t taken them far in a house this size.

She’d practically had to throw herself bodily between him and the baby store. She’d gone off the Pill a couple of weeks before the wedding, and he’d been making a concerted effort to get her with child. He wanted to make a nursery. Cute as hell as that was, Bev felt like making a nursery before she was even pregnant would jinx something somewhere. That room was staying empty.

Now, she was sitting on the floor in the living room, trying to figure out a layout for family photos she wanted to arrange on the long wall across from the front windows. They were all Nick’s family. Bev didn’t have a family to speak of. Her mom, she guessed. But she hadn’t even come to the wedding. They hadn’t spoken in more than a year. She definitely didn’t want that dyspeptic sneer hanging in her living room.

Betty had given her a box full of photos of the Paganos, though. And she was including pictures from their wedding and honeymoon. She was adding some of hers. Not many. A few photos she had from her childhood, and some of her and Skylar. Some of her and Chris, too.

Someday, the wall would be full of photos of her own family. Hers and Nick’s. Their children. Their life. A happy life full of love.

The brass mail slot in the front door rattled, and a whoosh of letters came through. And then another. Usually, mail was ninety-five-percent junk, but since the wedding, there’d been a lot more, and it was a lot better. Even now, a month since the big day, best wishes cards were coming in. Nick knew a whole lot of people, and they all wanted to wish him well. Even belatedly.

She got up and scooped the pile off the floor, then walked to the kitchen with it. She had a file box on the little kitchen desk for cards and gifts tags, keeping track of thank you notes that needed to be sent.

Flipping through the stack, separating it into piles of junk mail and real mail, Bev paused at an envelope with no return address. She recognized the handwriting. It had been sent to her condo; there was a yellow forwarding address sticker on the bottom.

Speak of the devil. She’d been thinking about her mother more on this afternoon, framing and arranging family photos, than she had in months. And here was a greeting card from her.

She sat down at the desk chair and pushed her finger under the flap, tearing the envelope open across the top.

The card was generic, a watercolor of two bells tied with glittery ribbon.
Best Wishes on Your Wedding
, it read. When she opened it, a slip of paper slid out. Bev caught it before it fell, but she tucked it behind the card and read that first.

On the inside was an innocuous little rhyming poem about happiness and true love. Bev glanced at it but didn’t read it. On the blank left side, her mother had written:
Thanks for the invite. Sorry I couldn’t make it. It made the Boston papers, though. Looks like you’ve done well for yourself. Congratulations.

She’d signed it
Jane
. Not
Mom
, or even
Mother
. Her name.

Bev pulled the slip of paper forward. It was a check. For five dollars. There was no address on the top of the check, either. Just her mother’s name.

Staring at this last bit of venom from her mother’s fangs, and hating the way it made her head buzz, Bev picked up her phone and called Nick.

He answered right away. “Hi,
bella
.”

“When will you be home today?” Asking her husband when he’d be home settled her down a little.

“A couple hours. Why?”

“My mom sent us a card.” Her voice cracked on the last word. Why was she so upset? They’d barely had any relationship at all since she was eighteen. Since her father’s death, she’d seen her mother twice and spoken to her maybe four times. Total.

“I’m coming home now. Fifteen minutes. I love you, Beverly.”

~oOo~

“If you want to confront her, I can find her.”

They were curled together on the sofa, Nick’s arms snug around her. Since he’d been home, she’d tried to call her mother, but the number she had was disconnected. She had cut her out completely.

“No. I don’t even know why I’m so upset. It’s not like this is going to change my life at all. We’ve never been close.” She sighed and blinked back tears. It pissed her off more than anything that she kept trying to cry over this. “What she did was just so
mean
. I don’t know why she had to be mean.”

“
I
want to confront her.” There was menace in his voice.

She sat up and turned to face him. “No. It’s better if she doesn’t know I reacted at all. Let her think I don’t care. I shouldn’t care. I don’t know why I do.”

“She’s your mother. She’s supposed to love you.”

“She never forgave me for scandalizing the neighborhood by trying to kill myself. With the divorce, and then that, I think the Maddoxes were the talk of the book club for a while. Appearances are important to her. She hated that I was fat, too. Which only made me fatter. And more suicidal.” Getting buried in memory, Bev shook off the weight of it with a sigh. “You’re lucky. You have an awesome mom. Your whole family is wonderful.”

He kissed her head, and she leaned into it. “They love you. Every one of them. I think they love
me
more because of you. You’ve made me more a part of my own family. They’re your family, too,
bella
.”

“Then I’m lucky, too.”

“Yes. You traded up. But if I ever meet Jane Maddox, she won’t soon forget it.”

~oOo~

“Hey, Bev.”

“Donnie!” Bev was sitting on the floor in what Chris had called his ‘transition’ stacks and she and Katrynn were turning into the poetry section. Donnie held out his hand and helped her up, and they hugged—the tight, sincere hug of good friends. “I thought I was meeting you there.”

He shrugged. “Don’t call me a pussy, but I didn’t want to walk in on my own.” His voice was different now because his mouth didn’t move the way it once had. He was about halfway through a long, arduous surgical journey as doctors tried to give him back something like a normal face. Right now, the skin on the right side of his face was so tight and smooth and featureless it seemed synthetic. His right ear was still mostly gone. That would be the last thing they fixed.

He had been a baby-faced guy, his features so symmetrical he’d been almost beautiful rather than handsome. From the left profile, he still was. But he would never be classically handsome again, no matter what the doctors did.

He’d retained his goofy good humor, though—or he’d gotten it back, just as Bev had found her true self again, too. Most of her scars were on the inside. Today was a test, she thought, to know how healed she really was on the inside. Donnie, too.