The Legend of de Marco (6 page)

His hands gentled then, and Gracie stared up, dumbfounded. One hand came up to her chin and with his thumb and forefinger he tipped her face up higher, so she couldn’t escape his gaze.

‘I see you.
’

Emotions were roiling in Gracie’s belly. She felt hot all over. Confusion warred with the anger inside her, and she shook her head. ‘You don’t … You can’t. I’m nothing to you.’

Fiercely, he shook his head. ‘No. You are
not
nothing.’

Gracie was dimly aware that in their backward-forward dance they had now moved into a more dimly lit corner of the kitchen by the window seat. She could feel her hair unravelling. The entire world might have stopped turning in that moment and she wouldn’t have noticed. All she could see were the black depths of Rocco’s eyes and she was drowning. She had to fight the pull of the strongest tide she’d ever felt.

‘Rocco …’ Her voice was shaky. ‘What are you doing? Why are you here?’

Her lower arms were between them, as if she was still valiantly making the effort to pull free from Rocco’s hands. But his hands had gentled, and yet Gracie couldn’t move back or break free. Some fatal lethargy had invaded her bones and her blood. He pulled her in closer.

He didn’t speak for a long moment, and then it was as if the words were being pulled out from deep inside him. ‘I want you. I am here because I want
you.
This whole evening, this past week, ever since I met you … I’ve wanted you. Not her. She guessed how I felt. That’s why she was so cruel.’

Gracie shook her head even as molten heat seemed to bloom down low between her legs. She’d never felt so
hot
. And so out of her depth. She’d truly believed that her guilty little secret of obsessing about Rocco would never be noticed. Or reciprocated.

Gracie shook her head again, more forcefully this time. ‘No. You’re bored … or trying to make her jealous or something. I’m just convenient.’

Rocco grimaced then. ‘You’re definitely not convenient. And I am not bored. I don’t care if she
is
jealous, because it’s over and I’m never going to see her again.’

Gracie reeled. The full magnitude of what he was saying
started to sink in. He’d had a fight with his fiancée over
her
? And he’d chosen
her
?

‘But … you had a relationship. You were going to marry her.’

Rocco went still for a second as the enormity of her words sank in. He had just ended his relationship with Honora Winthrop, and in doing so his grand plans to marry her. He’d done it because he wanted to sleep with Gracie O’Brien more urgently than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. More than the social acceptance he’d hungered for for so long? He didn’t even want to answer that.

In some rational part of his brain that was still functioning Rocco knew very well that if he ran after Honora Winthrop and caught her just as she reached home he might salvage something.

And like a slow-dawning yet cataclysmic realisation he knew he didn’t want to. The feeling of claustrophobia that had been dogging him for weeks had lifted.

Rocco shook his head. ‘We didn’t have a relationship—not really. What we had was an understanding that a more permanent relationship would be mutually beneficial on many levels.’

‘But that’s … so cold.’

Rocco shrugged and said cynically, ‘That’s life. I hadn’t yet asked her to marry me, and I haven’t been sleeping with her.’

Gracie was trying to take it all in. She knew that Rocco wouldn’t feel he had to hand her platitudes to get her into bed. She believed that he hadn’t cared for that woman, and that he hadn’t slept with her. He was too powerful to care about lying. She knew he wouldn’t shy away from hurting her with the truth if he
had
slept with that woman.

Her head started to throb. She couldn’t take any more in. She didn’t want to hear anything else. Rocco pulled her
even closer. She felt as if she was on a train with only one destination and there was no way she could get off now. Unconsciously she’d gone up on tiptoe, her body knowing what it wanted even before she did.

His head lowered towards hers, that beautiful mouth came closer and closer, and Gracie’s eyelids fluttered closed just as darkness and heat swept over her mouth and settled there like a brand.

At first the kiss was like falling into a whirlpool. Instinctively Gracie reached out to hold onto Rocco’s shirt because she couldn’t feel her legs any more. And then an urgency gripped them both, as if the first taste was merely a civilised veneer. Rocco’s hands went to Gracie’s face. She was being backed against a wall, or some sort of solid surface, and Gracie leaned back and let it support her weight.

Rocco’s mouth was hard, and yet his lips were soft, pressing, tasting, coaxing. She felt the slide of his tongue against the closed seam of her lips and her hands clenched tighter as her mouth opened up to Rocco. The kiss deepened. His chest pressed hard against her, crushing her hands between them. But Gracie didn’t care. She revelled in Rocco’s big hands holding her face just so he could plunder her mouth.

Gracie was falling, slipping and sliding into another dimension. Rocco’s scent intoxicated her. His tongue stroked along hers in a wicked caress. Teeth nipped at her lower lip, only to soothe it in the same moment. It was tart and sweet all at once. It was all-consuming, like jumping right into the middle of a fire.

He took his mouth away and amidst the fiery excitement pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth—an incongruously gentle gesture. Gracie opened heavy eyelids. Her mouth felt bruised, swollen. She wouldn’t be surprised if
the world had moved on a couple of decades since they’d started kissing. She felt that altered.

She looked straight up into the dark molten pools of Rocco’s eyes. This close she could see flecks of gold. His cheeks were flushed.

Feeling bewildered, she asked shakily, ‘What is this?’

Rocco took down his hands from her face and caught some of her hair, wrapping it around a finger, looking at the fiery gold strands.

‘This …’ his gaze came back up ‘… is called chemistry—except I’ve never felt it like this before.’

Gracie shook her head. ‘I’ve never felt this before either.’

Rocco’s hand moved slowly up over Gracie’s hip to her waist, and then under one arm to rest where her breast curved out. With a lazy smile Rocco moved his hand so it cupped her breast, the thumb moving back and forth over the taut peak which tightened even more underneath the stiff material of her dress. Her breath hitched.

‘This,’ Rocco continued, ‘is what started between us the night we met.’

Gracie’s eyes searched Rocco’s for sincerity. So he’d felt it too. This extraordinary connection. Like a livewire coming to life the moment she’d looked at him. This had nothing to do with her brother. This had existed between them before they’d even known who the other was.

Suddenly a desperate urgency Gracie had never felt before rushed through her body. She needed to connect on a base level with this man right now. She lifted her hands from between them and caught his head, his hair soft and silky between her fingers. Inexorably she brought his head down to hers and pressed her mouth to his. He took her cue and both hands moved to grip her waist tightly as his mouth opened and his natural dominance took over.

Tongues met and clashed furiously. Gracie arched herself into the hard wall of his chest, crushing her breasts to him, desperately seeking to assuage the ache building throughout her whole body and between her legs. Their hips were tight together. Gracie could feel the long ridge of his arousal and instinctively opened her legs to increase the contact and friction.

She was barely aware of Rocco tugging the tiny apron free and moving his hands to the buttons of her dress, ripping them apart. Cool air touched her heated skin and she craved to be free of her constricting garments, nearly sobbing out loud when she felt Rocco’s big hands pull the top of the dress apart to bare her breasts to his gaze. She vaguely heard material rip.

He drew back from the kiss and looked down, breathing harshly. Gracie was dizzy, heart racing like an express train. She couldn’t get enough oxygen to her brain. Rocco’s eyes were feverish. As much as he could he pushed the shoulders of her dress down, baring even more of her breasts. The pale skin was framed by a black bra, not racy in the slightest. But Gracie was beyond caring. She needed this man’s touch, his mouth …

As if reading her mind, Rocco pulled down one cup, forcing her plump breast to spring free. As if hypnotised, Rocco cupped and caressed her breast, a thumb stroking the peak back and forth. Gracie bit her lip to stop herself from begging.

Excitement zinged through her veins when his dark head lowered and finally the wet sucking heat of his mouth surrounded that taut peak. His tongue rolled around it, sucking it into even more tightness. Gracie’s head fell back against the wall, the pain unnoticed in the haze of pleasure infusing her body. Her hips were squirming, undulating against Rocco’s, her legs had parted even more and
his erection was long and hard and thick against her sensitive sex.

Gracie wanted to see him unclothed and started searching for his shirt, clumsy hands fumbling with his buttons. He took his mouth away from her breast and stood up.

Rocco’s head was consumed by fire. A fire of lust and desire and need too great to deny. Gracie was half slumped against the wall behind her. His hips grinding into hers was probably the only thing still keeping her standing. Her mouth was dark pink and swollen. Eyes huge with pupils so dilated they looked black.

Her fast breaths made her pale breasts rise and fall enticingly. She had small tight pink nipples, surrounded by slightly darker areolae and freckles. Rocco felt a sense of inevitability sink into his bones. This woman was
his.

He knew he couldn’t rationalise that assertion now. He could only act on the singularly strongest driving force of his life: to have her and make her his.

With impatience making his usually graceful movements jerky, Rocco opened his shirt, buttons popping off around them. He looked at Gracie’s half-open dress. It had to come off over her head. He brought his hands to the thin material and ripped it all the way to the hem. His blood was pumping now. Her dress gaped open down to her thighs, giving a glimpse of black panties.

He felt feral. He felt wild. He’d never felt like this with another woman.

He looked at Gracie and forced himself to grind out, ‘We’re doing this right here, right now. Unless you say no. You have about ten seconds to decide.’

G
RACIE
looked up at Rocco, towering above her, making her feel impossibly small and delicate. The sheer stark hunger stamped onto his features was awesome and almost frightening. But she wasn’t frightened. She hadn’t even blinked when he’d ripped her dress open like some kind of animal. It had excited her.

She shook her head and reached out a hand to his belt. ‘Don’t stop.’

He seemed to wait for an infinitesimal moment, as if testing her resolve, and then with a guttural sound he took off his shirt and started to push Gracie’s dress down her arms until it was off completely. Her bra came off too, so now she was naked except for her knickers. She felt vulnerable for a moment, until Rocco started undoing his belt and trousers. And then heat took over again.

She greedily took in his amazing physique. Taut muscles and gleaming skin. Springy dark hair on his chest that arrowed down into that tantalising line which was revealed as his trousers slid down over powerful thighs. He wore snug fitting briefs that were tented over his erection. Gracie’s eyes went wide.

But then Rocco reached for her and she looked up, her gaze clashing with his. It was as if they were in the eye of the storm. Suddenly everything took on a languorous
feel. His hands tangled in her hair, tumbling it from its bun completely. His mouth found hers, kissing her, rediscovering her taste with his tongue. And then it moved down, over her shoulder and to her breasts, which felt full and aching. Both hands cupped her breasts and he fed one hard peak and then the other into his mouth, teeth nipping gently, making Gracie cry out.

The urgency didn’t take long to build again. Gracie was straining against Rocco, her back arched, hips moving impatiently. One of his hands moved around her rib cage and down her back, under her knickers to cup the cheek of her bottom, squeezing it harshly, making her nerve-points tighten and tingle.

His mouth moved back up to find hers, and he pulled her close making his chest hairs scrape against moist, sensitised nipples. Gracie was clutching at his shoulders, incapable of doing anything but succumbing to this onslaught on her senses. His hand moved from her bottom, tugging her panties down slightly, and around to the apex of her legs, between their bodies.

Gracie held her breath as his long fingers explored the damp curls surrounding her sex. Her hands gripped his wide shoulders as a finger delved deeper into the secret folds where she ached. He found the most intimate part of her and rubbed back and forth. Gracie started to shake.

Rocco’s finger thrust deep inside, the invasion all at once shocking and cataclysmic. Gracie came in a rush, her body convulsing around Rocco’s hand. The sudden tide of pleasure was so intense that tears leaked from her eyes, her whole body held taut for a long moment.

When it was over Rocco slowly withdrew his hand. Gracie felt shell-shocked, numb, with little fires of sensation racing over her skin. She’d never experienced anything like that. All she could remember of her few sexual
experiences was how she’d never found any kind of satisfaction. She’d thought sex was overrated. She couldn’t believe she’d just—

Suddenly she was being lifted. Rocco said roughly, ‘Put your legs around my waist.’

Dumbly, she did so, wrapping them around him, feet locked together over his buttocks, arms around his neck. He walked them over to the huge table where they usually ate breakfast. Holding her securely with one strong arm, he used his other one to sweep the detritus on the table to the floor. Cookery books landed with dull thuds and a cup fell and smashed. Rocco laid her on her back, the apex of her thighs tight against his waist. She could feel his erection nudging her bottom and her sated body started to hum again.

Rocco gently disengaged her legs, all the time staring down at her if mesmerised by her. He hooked his hands into his briefs and with a quick downward movement tugged them off. Gracie looked down to see the full extent of his erection. It had felt big. But it looked massive. Shivers of fear at his size mixed with excitement went through her like electric rivers of shock.

His hands were on her panties, tugging them down. Gracie lifted her hips silently. Their eyes met. She saw Rocco’s gaze go to the golden-red curls between her legs. His chest expanded and his eyes grew even darker. And then he was pushing her legs apart with those big hands and his head was going down …

Her heart stopped. He wasn’t—no one had ever before—

And then she felt his breath cool against her hot skin, and her hands clenched into fists when she felt the first sweep of his tongue down her moist cleft. A shudder of pure ecstasy went through her as his tongue dipped and
swirled and teased her. She could feel herself tensing again, the imminent onset of pleasure very obvious, and suddenly she couldn’t bear for him to see how easily he could make her orgasm and lose control as she already had.

She tried to bring her thighs together, hands searching for his head, pulling on his hair before it was too late. She could already feel her muscles clenching and unclenching in preparation.

‘No …
stop
… it’s too much.’

Rocco finally seemed to hear her and came up over her like some kind of avenging dark angel. His body was tall and lean, and so powerful he took her breath away, making her forget everything else.

She was vaguely aware of him donning a protective sheath, and then with his hand between them and an intense look on his face she could feel the wide blunt head of him seek entrance at her moist core.

The intrusion made her suck her breath in. She looked down at their bodies to see the pale skin of her thighs tight against his hips. He was slowly and inexorably sinking into her, pushing and stretching her body. The full feeling was almost excruciating, and she put a hand out as if to stop him, but it came into contact with his tight abdomen muscles, damp with sweat, and fresh heat flooded her, easing his passage into her body.

After an infinitesimal moment, he was in all the way. She could feel his body snug against hers. She felt impossibly impaled, but even as she thought that awareness sank in and tiny tremors of pleasure pulsed through her. Almost slowly, Rocco started to move out again, and those pleasurable tremors increased, making Gracie arch her back towards him.

He bent his head and took one rosy nipple into his mouth, suckling fiercely as he began the inexorable ride
back into her body. This time the ease of movement was markedly different. Gracie’s muscles clenched around him, as if loath to let him go.

Any hint of restraint was a thin veneer, hiding their increasing urgency. Gracie locked her legs around Rocco’s hips, forcing him even closer. His strokes became more urgent, harder and deeper. Gracie could feel the rush of pleasure coming towards her. As she began to lose herself in the flooding warmth of her second orgasm in the space of minutes she could see the intensity of Rocco’s expression. He was holding back until she came. An extraordinary tenderness overwhelmed her just as the most powerful euphoric bliss broke her in two. What she’d felt before had been a mere precursor to this ecstasy.

Rocco pounded into her body. Her muscles clenched around his thick shaft as he too finally gave in and allowed his body to succumb to his own climax.

Finally a brief calm seemed to descend, and the only sound that could be heard was their ragged breathing. Gracie became aware of her legs locked around Rocco’s waist, his damp chest crushing her pleasurably to the cool hard surface of the table.

Registering that was like a cold douche of water.

She tensed all over. She was naked, on her back with her legs clamped around Rocco’s hips, in the harsh glow of the kitchen lights. And Rocco de Marco was between her legs, her body still holding his in an intimate embrace.

Before that reality could intrude too much Rocco raised himself off her and looked down, his hair flopping sexily over his forehead. Gracie could feel him inside her, and unbelievably he was still slightly hard.

As if reading the direction of her thoughts he smiled tightly. ‘If we don’t move, I think there’s going to be a repeat performance very soon.’

He drew back and disengaged from her body. Immediately Gracie felt bereft and very naked. Until Rocco scooped her up into his arms and walked out of the kitchen, carefully avoiding the destruction they’d left on the floor, and through the silent apartment to his bedroom. He deposited her on the bed as gently as if she were made of china and went into the bathroom. She heard the sound of a shower running.

Rocco came back out and scooped her up again, as if she weighed no more than a bag of sugar, and within seconds she was gasping on wobbly legs under a powerfully warm spray. Rocco was soaping his hands and running them all over her body, washing her, and Gracie gave up trying to rationalise this and stood silently while Rocco thoroughly soaped her whole body.

When his hand slipped between her legs she widened slumberous eyes and her breath hitched. He was so virile and gorgeous, hair plastered to his skull, water running in rivulets down his face and over hard chest muscles. And those wicked long fingers were stroking between her legs, making her moan softly.

With a rueful smile Rocco took his hand away and shook his head. ‘I think you need a break before we indulge again.’

Again.
Gracie grew hot just thinking of all that passionate intensity
again.
She didn’t know if she could cope.

Rocco was pouring shampoo into his hand and turning her around so that he could wash her hair. She was glad not to be the focus of that black gaze for a moment.

After a few seconds she heard him say behind her, ‘You weren’t a virgin?’

Gracie grew tense. She shook her head and said huskily, ‘No. I’ve had sex before …’

Familiar pain gripped her when she thought of the boy
she’d trusted enough to sleep with her at her last foster home. She’d been just eighteen, so young and vulnerable. Steven had been in jail and she’d been desperately lonely. But as soon as he’d slept with her he’d dumped her, telling her that no one wanted to go out with a slag.

He’d spread the word among their peers and Gracie had been branded an easy lay, which had been so far from the truth that she hadn’t trusted anyone since then. She’d escaped to college soon after, and had kept herself to herself.

Yet within days of meeting Rocco de Marco she was allowing him to seduce her on a kitchen table as if she’d done it all her life.

‘But it’s been a while?’

His voice cut off her tumultuous thoughts. Gracie was mortified. Had it been that obvious? She nodded her head quickly. Rocco stepped up close behind her then, and she went properly weak at the knees feeling that powerfully muscular body along the length of hers, his recovered erection between them. She fought not to move her hips against him as wantonly as she wanted to, awfully conscious of her vulnerability.

His arms came under her arms and his hands cupped her soapy breasts, trapping her nipples. His head came down and he said softly, ‘You were so tight around me. I liked it.’

Gracie’s feeling of vulnerability dissolved when she remembered how he’d felt when he’d thrust into her that first moment. She turned in his arms and looked up shyly. ‘I liked it too …’

He just looked at her for a long moment, while the water beat down around them, and then he moved her so that she stood under the spray, to rinse all the shampoo and soap from her hair and body. His touch was no longer seductive, it was brisk.

Then he flipped off the shower and grabbed two towels, enveloping her in one. He handed her out of the shower first, and then stepped out too. It was as if a cold wind had sprung up between them and Gracie felt on edge. Had she said something wrong? Been too easy? How could she explain to him that it felt as if on some level she’d known him for ever—as if her body knew exactly how to be with him? How to pleasure him? That she wasn’t like this normally?

She’d had no idea desire could consume her like a forest fire raging through dry wood. She watched as he turned away from her to rub himself dry roughly. Even now her eyes couldn’t help devouring him, lingering on the way his muscles bunched and stretched.

Hesitantly she forced herself to ask, ‘Are you … is everything okay?’

His hands stopped in their movement. And then he said gruffly, without looking at her, ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

He sounded so remote and harsh that Gracie took a step back, clutching the towel to her. ‘If you regret what just happened—’

He whirled around fast and snaked the towel around his hips. He glared at her. ‘Why on earth would I regret it? It’s the best sex I’ve ever had.’

Gracie blanched and then felt hot. His use of the word
sex
scored at her insides like a knife. ‘Well, you don’t have to sound so angry about it. It doesn’t have to happen again.’

If anything that made him look even fiercer. He stepped close to her, jaw tight. ‘That was not a one-off. It will be happening again, and it’ll keep happening until we burn ourselves free of this insanity.’

Familiar fire rose within Gracie at his temper and his autocratic tone. She straightened her shoulders. ‘Well, for your information, I think I’ve had enough. I don’t need to burn myself free of
anything.
This was a really bad idea.’

Gracie grabbed the towel around her and went to step around Rocco to leave the bathroom, but he halted her progress with his hands on her shoulders. She glared at him as fiercely as he was glaring at her. The air crackled around them.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

Gracie tossed her head, ‘Oh, so now I’m a prisoner of this room? Not just your apartment?’

‘Damn it, woman,’ Rocco growled, and hauled her close. Before she knew what was happening he was kissing her, forcing her head back, mouth crushing hers. Defiant to the end she kept her mouth closed and stayed stiff. Until she started to feel dizzy and had to breathe in.

Rocco seized his moment and his tongue invaded her mouth with shockingly hot intimacy. He pulled her hips into his at the same time and she could feel the resurgence of his desire. Suddenly she was back in that mad vortex, with need clawing through her worse than before. Because now she’d tasted Rocco, felt the full force of him … and of course she couldn’t turn her back on this any more than he could. Her bones turned to liquid and her tongue duelled with his, their mouths tight together as if in danger of being ripped apart at any moment.