Emily: Sex and Sensibility (15 page)

Need. Desire. Passion. For him. Only for him.

Marco, the master of control, knew he was close to tumbling her to the floor, parting her thighs and embedding himself deep within her. He would take her again and again until she was beyond thought, beyond reason, beyond anything but wanting him and his possession.

No.

He wanted to give her more.

Slowly, he told himself,
Dio,
do not be a boy, be a man.

His eyes never left hers as he shrugged off his jacket. Toed off his shoes and socks. His hands went to his tie, fumbled with it and somehow, he got it undone. The buttons of his shirt were more difficult. By the time he reached his cufflinks, he was lost. On a low growl, he gave up, ripped them free and tore off his shirt.

Emily’s gaze dropped to his chest.

He watched her eyes widen.

And felt his ego expand.

He was not a vain man.

He was muscled and toned, but he had started life as a man who’d built his body naturally through grueling physical work. Once that was behind him, he’d installed gyms in the homes he owned and put them to hard use.

For his health, he would have said had anyone asked, but now he knew, crazy as it sounded, it had been because he had waited his entire life for Emily’s eyes on him. For,
Cristo
, for that delicate swipe of her pink tongue over her rosebud lips as she looked at him.

Her eyes on him was a caress.

Slowly, very slowly because now that he was in control of himself he wanted to draw out every moment of what had become the perfect seduction of lovers for each other, he undid his belt. His trousers were unzipped from what had happened before but now he was contained within his boxers and when he kicked the trousers away, he knew that his erection tented the black silk fabric in a way that did nothing to hide his desire.

He watched her face.

He had been inside her.

But she hadn’t seen him.

He was big. He knew that. He’d never thought much about it although women had said things to him, appreciative things. But this was Emily. Would the size of him frighten her? Would it please her? Her response to him had been so passionate, and yet there was an innocence to her.

He waited.

Her gaze swept lower.

Color flooded her face.

Dio!
He could feel himself swelling though he would not have imagined such a thing possible. Any harder, any bigger and surely he would die.

“Emily.”

His voice was rough. Her head came up; her gaze flew to his. He reached for her hand, Brought it to him. She made a little humming sound as her palm curved over the fly of his boxers. Her tongue appeared again, a kitten’s tongue, and slicked across her bottom lip.

He shut his eyes. Concentrated on—on anything but this. Counted silently to five. To ten…

And almost went to his knees when her hand reached inside his fly and wrapped around his fevered flesh.

He groaned.

She sighed his name.

Her fingers moved against him in delicate exploration. His head fell back.

“Does this please you?” she whispered.

He gave a broken laugh. She started to pull back; his closed his fingers over hers and taught her to let her hand ride him as he would soon ride her.

He was going to come from this, only from this, from her touch but he didn’t want her to stop, didn’t want this to end…

A shudder went through him.

He clasped her hand and took it from him.

“No more,” he said gruffly, “or this will end too soon.”

He curved his hands around her hips. Bent his head, Kissed her breasts, teased the sweet pink nipples with his tongue, his teeth. She moaned. Her hands dug into his hair and she moaned again as he drew first one nipple and then the other into the wet heat of his mouth.

He raised his head.

“Do you like when I do that?” he said thickly. “Tell me what you feel.”

“Yes. Oh yes. Oh yes…”

“And this?”

His free hand slid between her thighs. A cry rose in her throat as his fingers parted her.

“Don’t. Oh, don’t. I can’t stand it when you—”

His thumb moved over her clitoris. Back and forth. Back and forth. He could feel the soft, delicate flesh swelling under his touch, could see Emily’s eyes blur with passion.

He dropped to his knees. Cupped her bottom. Found her with his mouth.

She sobbed his name as he sucked and licked, as took her up and up, into the night, into the star-shot night where she shattered into a million bright crystals.

Her legs buckled.

She would have fallen if Marco had not risen quickly to his feet and swept her into his arms. He kissed her. Deeply. Endlessly. She lifted her arms, wound them tightly around his neck, tasted their mingled passion on his tongue.

“Emily.
Emilia
mia,
” he whispered. “I need to be inside you.”

“Yes,” she said, “yes.”

He said something rough, graphic and hot enough to make her bury her face against his throat as he carried her through the moonlit hall to the place she wanted to go, the place where he wanted her to be.

His bed.

Emily woke to soft early-morning sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows, turning the white silk walls the delicate pink of a Caribbean seashell.

Marco’s arm was around her, holding her close. Her head was on his shoulder; her hand was splayed over his heart.

His face was inches from hers. He was still sleeping, his breathing deep and steady. She could look at him as long as she liked.

He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

His dark hair was tousled. From her fingers, she knew, from her hands digging into those ebony strands as he’d made love to her. His lashes were midnight crescents against the high arc of his cheeks.

Somebody had to pass a law against men having lashes like that.

His nose was straight and strong… Wait. There was the tiniest bump just at the bridge. Her brother Caleb had broken his nose back in his high school days, playing football. The injury had left a bump much like this. Had her lover once broken his nose, too?

And wasn’t it amazing that an imperfection could make a perfect thing even more perfect?

Her gaze dropped to his mouth.

She loved his mouth.

Soft-looking in repose. Sometimes tender. Sometimes demanding. Warm. Silken. Passionate against her throat, her breasts, her thighs.

“What are you thinking, cara, to put such lovely color in your cheeks?”

Startled, Emily’s gaze darted to his. Those gorgeous lashes were lifted; she could see herself reflected in his pupils.

Caught, she thought, and her blush deepened.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“Mmm.” He rolled to his side, swept the hair back from her face with his free hand. “No. I am awake. Most assuredly awake.”

His laughter was soft and wicked. The feel of him was wicked, too, hard and aroused against her hip.

“You have a bump on your nose,” she said softly, touching his nose with the tip of her finger.

“
Si.
I was working on a stone wall. I used my hammer too hard. A piece of stone flew off. It and I had a disagreement.”

She laughed. “And the stone won.” She smiled. “I’m trying to picture Marco Santini working on a stone wall.”

He captured her finger, drew it into his mouth.

“I am a man of many parts,
cara
.”

“Mmm. I know.”

He smiled. “Did you sleep well?”

Such a polite question from a man whose hand was moving over her backside, delving lightly between her thighs, doing such wonderful things beneath the duvet.

They had slept hardly at all and he knew it. She’d come awake in his arms twice during the night, dreaming he was caressing her and finding she wasn’t dreaming at all.

“I slept very well, thank you.”

Her words were prim. Her breathing wasn’t. Neither were the little moans she couldn’t control as he touched her.

“No dreams?” he whispered, pushing down the duvet.

His eyes swept over her breasts. It was almost as if he were touching them; her nipples budded under his gaze.

“Because I dreamed,” he said. “I had some wonderful dreams.”

She gasped as he bent to her and closed his mouth around one nipple. The feel of his teeth and tongue was electric. Her body arched against his; her hand rose and cupped the back of his head.

His hand slid over her belly. Lower. Lower. His fingers danced over her labia. She gave a sharp little cry of surrender and her thighs fell open.

“I love the way your body melts under my hand.”

He shifted position. She was beneath him now. She loved lying beneath him. Loved the feel of his long, muscled body on hers.

His finger stroked into her.

She groaned.

He shifted position again. Just a little. Just enough for his erect penis to take the place of his finger and lightly kiss her flesh.

She cried out. Her hips lifted; she moved against him. He raised his head—he wanted to see her face as he made love to her—and she whispered “No” and used her hand to urge his mouth back to her breast.

He loved that about her. Her honesty.

He had been with enough women to sense when a moan was more about making the correct sound than about pleasure, when a touch was more about the performance than the emotion.

There was nothing false in Emily’s responses to him.

She was lost in his caresses. And he loved the way she gave herself over to him.

Only one difficulty. What she was doing right now, her cries, the shifting of her hips, the feel of her hands on him made him want to drive into her.

He would wait.

He wanted this to be all for her.

The problem was that each time they made love, he forgot that he was a man who watched and waited and never quite lost himself to the woman in his arms. A piece of him always stood outside, a cool observer of the action.

He seemed to have lost that ability.

The proof had come after they’d made love somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of the night.

After, he’d wrapped her in his arms. They’d fallen asleep with him still inside her. A minute, an hour, an eternity later, he’d jerked awake to a stunning reality.

He hadn’t used a condom. Not once. He hadn’t even thought of it.

He’d stared up at the ceiling, Emily warm in his embrace, telling himself he hadn’t just lost control, he’d lost his sanity.

She’d stirred against him.

“What’s the matter?” she’d said sleepily.

“I did not…” He’d cleared his throat. “Emily. I did not use a condom.”

“It’s all right. I should have told you. I’m on the pill.”

Relief had flooded through him, but he knew there was more to be said.

“Still, I should have thought—” He’d paused. “You need to know that I am free of disease,” he’d said, hating the way passion had succumbed to science.

“So am—”

Marco had stopped her with a kiss. Of course she was free of disease. She was Emily.

And if he had made her pregnant, he thought now, he would have done the right thing. Married her. Raised their child with her. It would have been the right thing. That would have been why he would have done it, the only reason, because marriage or children or even permanence in a relationship was not on the agenda…

Deep, deep within him, some emotion he could not quite identify fluttered its wings.

“What are you thinking?” Emily said softly.

Marco bent to her, captured her lips with his, drew her into a deep kiss that left her breathless and left him aching.

“I was thinking about my dream. Shall I tell you what it was?”

She smiled and put her palm against his jaw. The dark stubble was soft against her skin.

“Yes.”

“I dreamed of you,” he said in a low voice. “Just like this. All golden hair and creamy skin. I imagined you in my bed, wanting me as I wanted you.”

Her heart beat picked up, became a staccato beat at the dark edge in his words. When he cupped her breast and teased her nipple between his fingers, she could feel that edge of danger in his touch.

“You’re always so sure of yourself,” she heard herself whisper. “What if you were wrong about me wanting you?”

The look in his eyes sent a wave of honeyed excitement licking along her skin.

“Then I’d take you anyway. I’d ravish you until you begged for mercy.” He bent his head, tongued her nipples. “And if you begged, “he said in a rough growl, “I would ignore your plea because you are mine,
inamorata
, to do with as I wish.”

Dio,
what was he doing? Hell, he knew the answer. He was driving them both toward the edge of a cliff. He could feel every muscle in his body trembling and Emily was right there with him, trembling, making incoherent little sounds, lifting her hips so that his swollen penis brushed against her slick, hot skin.

“I was merciless,” he whispered.

“How?” she said, so softly that the word seemed to drift on the still air.

“I captured your hands,” he growled, curving his fingers around her wrists. “And raised them high over your head.”

Her body arched toward his as he drew her arms up.

She cried out.

Her lover’s sweat glittered on his wide shoulders and tight torso. His face was that of a conqueror.

She shuddered.

This was torment.

This was paradise.

It was too much.

It was not enough.

Her lashes fell to her cheeks. A rainbow of light shimmered against her closed eyelids.

Marco’s grip on her wrists tightened. He kissed her, his mouth hard and demanding on hers. She returned his kiss with the desperation of a woman who wants everything a lover can give.

When he drew back, she sobbed his name.

“Open your eyes,” he said roughly. “Look at me.”

Slowly, she did as he’d commanded. Her heart turned over.

She saw his beautiful face, hard-edged with passion; his eyes, opaque black pools that could carry her into an oblivion that would never end.

“Marco,” she whispered, and he drove deep into her.

She came instantly, her scream of rapture thin and high, and filled with wonder. She tried to free her hands. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, draw him into the abyss with her, but he wouldn’t let her.

“Whose woman are you?” he said, his face a mask of hard-fought control. “Tell me.”

She bit his shoulder, tasted salt and sweat and man.

“Yours,” she said brokenly.

“Only mine.” he said, the words rough with command.

He drove into her again and, God, she shattered, wept as she spasmed around him, bucked against him as the world spun away.

He let go of her wrists. She wound her arms around his neck. He slid his hands under her bottom and lifted her to him.

Together, mouths and bodies fused, they flew into the fiery heart of the sun.

******

After a long, shared shower they dressed casually in jeans, T-shirts and sneakers, and had breakfast on the bedroom terrace.

Tiny strawberries flown in from Africa. Café au lait. Chocolate croissants.

Emily bit into one and reached into her lap for her napkin but Marco leaned across the glass-topped table, caught her hand with his and kissed the tiny smear of chocolate from her lips.

“Just trying to be helpful,” he said solemnly.

She smiled. “Such a Boy Scout.”

“Trust me,
cara
. I was never a Boy Scout.”

“No Scouts in Italy? That’s where you grew up, isn’t it?”

“
Si.
I was born in Sicily.” He lifted his coffee cup to his mouth. “And I suppose there must be Scout troops there but not where I lived.”

“Where was that?”

She’d meant, in what town or city, but his answer was more specific.

“I grew up in what you would call public housing. In Palermo.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.”

“What I meant was… “

“I know what you meant.” He shrugged. “And yes, it is a long journey from a slum to this.”

There was an edge to his voice. Not defiance, exactly, but something close to it.

“I bet it was an interesting journey,” she said softly.

“I am a very private man,
Emilia mia
. I have been asked to tell the story of my life at least a hundred times but it is a story that is no one’s business but my own.”

She could almost see the wall go up around him. It hurt. She wasn’t sure why it should, because he was right—his life was his private affair. Still, after the intimacy of the long night…

“I understand.”

A muscle knotted in his jaw. Then he put down his cup, reached for her hand and brought it to his lips.

“No. You do not understand. It has never been anyone’s business—until now. I want you to know about me.”

“Marco. You don’t have to—”

“Italy is different from America. It is all very modern, but under the surface many of the old ways still survive. There is what remains of centuries-old aristocracy. There are those with new money. There is a middle class. Small, but there is one.” The muscle in his jaw knotted again. “And then there is what Italians call the
popolino.
”

“The people,” she said.
“
Si.
The people. What they really are is the underclass. The poor. The uneducated. I was born to a teenage mother. Her family disowned her when she became pregnant with me.”

Emily wanted to take him in her arms but she knew better. Instead, she nodded.

“It must have been a hard life for her. And for you.”

He shrugged. “She died when I was small. I don’t remember her very well.”

“And what happened to you?”

“I lived with her mother and father for a while.”

He’d called them her mother and father. Not his grandparents. There was a world of meaning in the way he’d phrased that.

“The state put me there but—but it did not work out. So the state put me into a home for kids like me.” His mouth thinned. “That didn’t work out, either.”

“And after that?” Emily said, while her heart broke for a little dark-eyed boy, all alone in the world.

“I ran away when I was sixteen. Worked odd jobs. I was strong. Big for my age. I saved and saved. Then I landed a job as laborer with a crew building a vacation home for a rich American.”

“The stone wall,” Emily said.

He nodded.
“Si.
I learned a great deal that summer, not just about walls but about America. The American told me he had worked hard at my age, too. He said America was a land of opportunity. He said a man could come from nothing in America and if he worked hard enough, he could become somebody.” Another eloquent shrug. “So I saved my money and came to this country. End of story.”

“Why do I think there’s more to that story than you’re telling me?”

“Ah,
cara,
don’t look at me that way. This is not the sad tale of a boy who led a difficult life; it is the tale of one who saw the chance to change what fate had planned for him and took it.” He brought her hand to his lips again. “I tell you all of this because I want you to know me. Not the Marco Santini the world knows. The real one. The one who still lives inside me. He is a street kid who knows he has to fight for what he wants. And sometimes—sometimes, he is hard on those around him.”