The Devil to Pay (17 page)

“But for how long, Daniel?” Rianna spoke quietly and gently slid her hand away from his. “Assuming we can agree on an arrangement letting us be together, what about everyone else? We can’t just turn their worlds upside down and then later—who knows how soon—decide it’s over and we have to revert to ‘normal’? It would be cruel. And selfish.”

“I’m not going to decide it’s over.”

“You said you couldn’t promise forever. It’s the same thing.”

“I was wrong.”

“You were
what
?”

“I was
wrong
. No more ‘arrangements’ or ‘accommodations’ or half-measures as far as I’m concerned. But the next bit is up to you. Can you make a commitment to me? To us? It’s not just the children who are hurting here. You’ve made me one of your responsibilities, too.”

“I have? How could—”

“By stealing my heart.” He snatched back her hand and slid unsteadily to the floor to his knees. “Will you marry me, Rianna?”

“Marry you?” Rianna’s mind swirled with doubt. “This isn’t real. It can’t be. I want to say yes, but—”

“But?”

“Is this what you really want? Are you serious? If I’ve forced your hand—”

“For God’s sake, do I have to spell it out? I
love
you!” The crooked smile on his face wavered with uncertainty. “And besides, there’s no possible way you could force a Bracchi to do something they didn’t want to.”

Rianna couldn’t help but laugh nervously. “But what have I got to offer you? I think we need to calm down and think about what we’re saying here. Have a cooling off period—”

“This isn’t holiday insurance,
cara.
” With a flash of exasperation, he rose to his feet, pulling her up with him. He cupped her face in his hands and his eyes blazed into hers like arctic fire. “I love you, Rianna Peters, will you have me or not?”

Rianna could feel his fingers trembling against her cheeks and her defences crumbled, swept away on a thundering riptide of euphoria. “I love you too, Daniel. I love you and I do hope this isn’t all a dream. Yes, I will marry you!”

****

Daniel strode across the terrace, head held high and a huge smile spread across his face. He felt completely brilliant, he realised, as he balanced a silver tray on one hand and clenched the handle of a jug of iced lemonade with the other. He couldn’t remember a time he’d felt so happy, so positive about everything.

Villa Gabbiano had always been his refuge from the world and he loved it, but today? His fiancée’s presence intensified and sharpened its beauty. He couldn’t deny it. Rianna made his heart sing and his blood pulse more fiercely than he could ever remember. He felt like he could take on the world, run up a mountain, swim to the south of France... His brain soared with excitement and he like it. Liked it a lot.

Being right here, right now, skipping down the steps to the pool and toward Rianna was all he could focus on. It was more thrilling than all the champagne parties, supermodels, fast cars and casinos. Today was simple, natural, and comfortable and he felt totally alive and animated.

Daniel caught sight of the top of Rianna’s head as he took three steps at a time. She was lovely. Even Lucia, his housekeeper, had approved of her in their brief first meeting and
that
had never happened before! The most fastidious mother figure in the entire civilised world had given him a grudging nod and shooed him away to be with the new woman in his life. And Lucia had made no secret of her excitement at the prospect of little Bracchis scampering around the place. It had been a pleasure for Daniel to tell her the news first on the strict understanding it was their secret for a while, at least until he had spoken to his parents.

“
Ciao, Magnifica!
” Daniel shouted from the back of the pool terrace.

Rianna turned her head and smiled. “
Ciao
, back at you.”

“Look what I’ve got,” he said happily, setting it all down on a poolside table. “Lemonade, a few pastries. Lucia seems to think we need to keep our strength up for some reason.” Daniel stood and looked down as she sent up a shy grin and then turned to make circles with her feet in the pool water. He kicked off his shoes and slid down to join her before undoing the buttons on her blouse. “Let’s go for a swim.”

“I don’t have my swimming stuff with me.”

“You don’t need it,” he replied, sliding off her top.

“What if someone sees?”

“They’ve all gone home. I sent them packing five minutes ago when I was getting the lemonade.” He removed her bra and folded both garments very neatly and precisely. “The kitchen’s been left fully stocked, so it’s just you and me and all we could possibly need for the next fourteen hours.” Daniel stood and was naked in under thirty seconds. “Coming?”

****

Rianna took a deep breath and shivered at the sheer magnificence of his body, glistening a molten bronze in the evening sun. “But didn’t you say you never used the pool?”

“Everything’s changed,” he replied with a grin. “I’ve changed. For the better and it’s all down to you.” He flexed a bicep playfully. “Come on, stop fussing.” he shouted just before he dived like a porpoise into the silver-blue depths.

Rianna shrieked with delight as Daniel made quite a show of swimming as fast as he could, splashing her mercilessly in the process. The sight of his taut body cutting through the water was completely breathtaking. In the late afternoon sunshine, flashes of brown muscle and the smooth length of his flanks burned their images onto the back of Rianna’s eyes. She hungrily watched the curve of his buttocks as he dived playfully into the water and they rose momentarily into the air. Heat pooled between her legs as she remembered those very same muscles working their magic on top of her as she clung to him with steel-tipped longing.

Rianna slid carefully into the water, holding her breath as the water shocked her sun-warmed skin into life. Daniel suddenly appeared beneath her, surfacing a few inches from her face.

“Not swimming?” He breathed heavily, rivulets of water trickling down the smooth planes of his face.

“I’ll just float around, if you don’t mind,” Rianna replied, leaning her head back to bask in the warm rays and swishing her arms just beneath the water’s surface. “My breast stroke isn’t up to much.”

“Well, mine is,” Daniel replied as he reached out a hand to brush the tawny nipple peeking out of the water. He pulled her upright and slipped his arms tightly around her waist to hold her against him. He nudged his stiffening body close and his pool-wet lips hungrily took hers. As she wrapped her legs around his waist, he shivered with anticipation.

“I think it’s my turn to do some of the work, don’t you?” Rianna ran her tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “But I might need some of your expert guidance...”

“What did you have in mind?” Daniel muttered as she captured his erection between her thighs and squeezed provocatively.

Rianna jerked her head to the left. “That sun bed looks very nice from here.” She curved the small of her back and trembled for a second as her pelvis tilted suggestively into the hard muscles at the base of his stomach. She could hardly speak with excitement. “And we
do
need to dry off.”

“
Dio, Bella!
” Daniel groaned as he followed her out of the pool. “I fear this may be over very quickly!” He threw himself down onto the thick cream cushions of a large sun lounger, his arms raised above his head and his long, muscular thighs spread shamelessly. His limbs were so long, he comfortably rested his feet on the tiled floor, and Rianna marvelled at the perfection laid out before her.

Daniel grinned lazily and she followed his gaze as it scoured her appearance from foot to glistening toe. He beckoned her with a slow and deliberately suggestive finger. “Don’t keep me waiting much longer.” He slid a hand along the wet length of his abdomen toward his groin. “Or I will have to take matters into my own hands...”

Needing no further encouragement, Rianna let him pull her astride him, the heat of his erection enclosed in the damp sheath of their compressed bodies as he pulled her mouth roughly down onto his. Feeling a burning surge of confidence, she snatched up her head, gazed into the erotic smoky-blue of his eyes and lowered one sharply aroused nipple into his mouth. She moaned deeply as he sucked it hard, rolling it around his tongue until she cried out with the sweet agony of it.

He reached down between her thighs to find the pulsing heat of her clitoris with his finger, and she began losing control. “Did you bring anything?”

“We don’t need anything anymore.” His square fingertip slipped down between the hot lips of her sex and began to stroke her gently into delirious submission. “We’re in love and will be married soon. I want to make love to you as my wife now, properly. Unless you want to wait...” He eased her hips upwards as he slid beneath her entrance and poised himself against her heat.

“No,” she groaned and began to lower herself onto him. “Let me—”

“Slowly,
cara
, slowly,” he breathed as she pressed down. “You’re so tiny...” Carefully he eased her apart with the satin head of his girth, until she felt herself open like a flower to take him inside her, inch by hot silken inch. He softly rotated the pad of his thumb over her sensitive bud, sending electric shocks through her as it grew hot and hard beneath his touch. Her heart raced as she listened to his breath becoming harsher with every tiny movement she made and suddenly she could wait no longer.

With a small cry of victory, Rianna felt her buttocks touch the crisp hair of his upper thighs. He was now buried deep inside her, to do with as she wished. She was stretched and full and although she was completely in charge, it felt like a sweet submission. He was so big, so dominant and so sexually irresistible. And there was nothing between them this time...

She shuddered as his large hands tightly gripped the curve of her hips as she moved, sliding up and along his length, loving the way her breasts swayed heavily just inches from his face. “Suck me again,” she whispered. His eyes darkened and he silently took her into the heat of his mouth, cupping her breast tightly.

Her mouth fell open, and she whispered his name repeatedly. Her eyes closed tightly as her fingers dug into the soft flesh of his shoulders and her hips thrashed faster frantic for release. She could smell the musk of her arousal, slicking him and increasing the dizzying sensation of having his length forced against the entrance to her womb. She would take him to heaven with her. Deep inside the dark secrets of her body, soft yet hard, yielding yet strong, she wanted to render him helpless. She wanted his seed inside her.

She uttered a feral moan as her teeth clenched and her body convulsed over and around him. Her head fell forward to cover his face with the wet tangle of her hair and as she gasped out his name, the rippling muscles deep inside her twitched and squeezed rhythmically as her orgasm spun out of control. She arched her back, taking in every pulsing millimetre of him, pushing him so deep into her heat, she feared she might hurt him. But all she could hear was him crying out her name too. Words of sexual ecstasy filled the air until he also hurtled toward oblivion, exploding into her with a force more powerful than she could ever have imagined possible.

Chapter Twelve

“I have good news and bad,” Daniel announced a month later as he poured their breakfast coffee on the terrace. “Which do you want first?”

Rianna searched his face for clues, but his expression gave nothing away. “Oh, God, the bad...”

Daniel smiled. “The bad news is I’ve spoken to Mamma this morning and she’s staying on in Barbados, won’t be back until next month. The good news, however, is that I’ve an appointment in Genoa today with an old lawyer friend of mine. He thinks he might be able to speed up the marriage licence formalities for us. Apparently it’s not legally possible for us to marry in under three weeks, but he has the paperwork in hand. I just need to sign a few things.”

“Oh, right, so did you say anything to your mum?”

“I want to tell both my parents together. You don’t mind, do you?

“Of course not, But I’d love to tell Gran before she and the children come over.”

“And spoil the surprise?”

It was time told she told him, she thought hastily. “I’m starting to get awkward questions, if you must know.”

Daniel laughed and squeezed her knee under the table. “It’s a good job they’re all on holiday again then, isn’t it? And Gran doesn’t like her new mobile phone much from what the nanny told me. Listen, don’t worry, it’ll all turn out for the best. You’ll see.”

“I suppose you’re right,’ she replied, annoyed with herself for almost giving in to the urge to pout. “I’d better get myself sorted, if we’re off soon—”

“Wouldn’t you rather stay here and go shopping,
cara
? I need to go into the office as well. It’ll be very dull for you.” He produced a credit card from the top pocket of his shirt. “And look what I have for you, a second card on my account. I thought you might not want me to know every detail of your outfit. You can still change your mind and have a church wedding if you like—”

“No! The more civil, the better.” She grinned. “I’m really looking forward to meeting your mum and seeing Tomos again. Do you think he’ll disapprove of you bringing home the hired help?”

“I don’t think so! I told him I had a gorgeous new girlfriend and that we’d met in a supermarket. He was delighted and just asked me if you were young and pretty, which goes without saying, you’re beautiful. He’ll be even more pleased when he realises who you really are. I can’t resist surprising him. And besides, he’s been nagging me for years to settle down. He’s desperate for the Bracchi name to continue and once there’s another heir, I think he feels he can go peacefully.”

“Oh, he’s got donkey’s years left in him! Fit as a fiddle the last time I saw him.” Rianna laughed and took a sip of coffee.