The Proud Wife (10 page)

Still he held her hand, his grip hard and warm, and she knew that she couldn't bring herself to tug her fingers away. It was more than her stinging senses would allow.

‘Pietro…' she managed on a very different note, her heart clenching as she heard the thread of encouragement and husky sensuality that ran through the sound.

Unable to stop herself, not knowing if it was safe, not
caring, she made the slight movement that was all that was needed and brushed her mouth along the fullness of his lower lip. Just the taste of him acted like the strongest alcoholic spirit, the most potent of aphrodisiacs, and in a rush of heated awareness she knew that one kiss, one taste, was not enough.

It was obvious that Pietro thought the same. Her name was a rough groan on his tongue before his mouth captured hers in a bruising, hungry kiss that knocked her head back, crushing her lips against her teeth. For the space of a couple of shaken heartbeats she feared she might lose her footing, but then his hands freed hers, long fingers coming up to spear into her hair, twisting in the silky strands as he cupped the bones of her skull, holding her just where he wanted so that he could deepen and prolong the kiss.

What little was left of rational thought in Marina's mind was pushed out by the heated swirl of dark sensuality that took over all her senses. She was lost in the taste of him, the feel of him, the strength of him. Her hands were on his arms, on his back, sliding over the clinging material of his tee-shirt to stroke down the long, straight spine, down to where the leather belt cinched his narrow waist. Against her lips she heard his murmur of approving response and felt him move close, crushing her up against the lean hardness of his frame. The swollen evidence of his erection told of his arousal, its heat and power pressed into the cradle of her hips, making her shift from one foot to another. The soft movement of her body against his brought a groan of hungry response from his lips.

Lifted onto her toes, she found herself half-walked, half-carried across the room until once again she had her back against the wall. The pressure of it at her spine, and the muscular power of the male body crushed along the front of her, kept her upright as Pietro kissed her with such
erotic thoroughness that her head was spinning in heated delight.

‘I don't damn well want your ring back,' he muttered, rough and thick against her lips, snatching hungry kisses between the words. His hands were tugging at the buttons on her top, his strong fingers in such a rush that they tore the fastenings open, sending a couple of the buttons spinning away to land on the wooden floor with a faint clatter a few feet away. ‘The only thing in the world I want is you, with me, in my bed, underneath me—opening to me.'

The only thing in the world I want is you…

Was she really hearing right? Marina asked herself as the words swung round inside her head, hitting hard against what little was left of her ability to think. Did he really mean that all he wanted was her back in his life? That he didn't give a damn about the divorce?

Was it possible that…?

But then those urgent hands wrenched away the last of the cotton that covered her aching breasts and the feel of his hot palms against her yearning flesh sent her spinning away into a world of pure sensation. A place where nothing else mattered but the feel of his caresses, the thunder of hunger in every nerve. It was like opening the floodgates on the rush of liquid need that swept through her, impossible to control, impossible to hold back. Her mouth was ravenous under his, taking his kisses and giving them back with greedy, snatching haste. Her hands were as urgent as his, seeking the strength of him beneath his clothes. They pulled up his shirt, finding the warm satin flesh, the hard power of muscle underneath it.

Her sigh of contentment when she felt the reality of him was caught in his mouth and given back to her with the next yearning caress, making him swear in rough, hard Italian as he could not control his own response.

‘Madre de D…'

She was swung off her feet, lifted and carried the short distance across the room to where the door to the bedroom stood ajar. Shouldering it open, Pietro carried her into the simply furnished room where wooden shutters closed the windows, making the bedroom cool and dark at the back of the house.

Just for one moment as he lowered her onto the bed, the sensation of the soft white cotton, the aroma of sunlight and lemon on the pillowcases, threw up a memory of the idyllic honeymoon they had once spent together in this place. But even as she fought against letting it take a grip Pietro had come down beside her, shrugging off his tee-shirt as he did so. The scent of his skin, touched from their time by the sea, the heat of it against her own exposed flesh, the taste of it under her mouth, was more than enough to drive away the lingering sadness and replace it with a fresh rush of need and excitement.

‘This is what brought us together,' Pietro muttered against her neck as he stripped what remained of her clothes from her with the ease and efficiency of familiarity. ‘And this is what will keep us close—not lawyers, not settlements, but the call of senses, the connection of man to woman, body to body…'

Naked now, he held her in his arms, letting her feel the heat of his body, the powerful pulse of his arousal nudging between her legs. Marina felt the moisture of need flood her, awakening the innermost core of her, preparing her for the intimate invasion that she knew was inevitable. She wanted it so much she felt she was dying by inches just having to wait. She was reaching for him clutching at him, pulling him closer, urging him on. He was hard and hot and full, just how she needed him to be with her, inside her, taking her. Driving her mindless with need and then
appeasing that need in the way only he had ever been able to do.

His mouth was at her breast now, teasing the stiffened peaks of her nipples, alternately suckling hard, even grazing the sensitive tips with his teeth, then laving them softly with a gentle swirl of his tongue, soothing the faintly stinging discomfort before it even had time to form. His actions kept her constantly on edge, moving restlessly against the pillows, her head flung back, eyes closed, the better to appreciate the exquisite sensations he was inflicting on her.

‘Pietro!'

His name was a choking gasp, the word breaking in the middle as she arched towards him, pressing her yearning body all along the powerful length of his. She heard her own name muttered just once more against her breast and then he was covering her, entering her in one forceful movement that made her moan in delighted response, forcing tears of ecstasy to seep from the corners of her eyes.

Pietro licked them away, sealing shut her closed lids with yet more kisses as he began to move slowly, steadily at first, each action so concentrated, so controlled, that she knew even from behind her concealing eyelids that he was taking this very carefully, very deliberately. And he was watching her face intently as he did so, wanting to see the effect he was having on her.

It would be exactly the effect he wanted. She couldn't hold back, couldn't have managed it if she'd tried. This was what she had been missing for so long in a life that had seemed so cold, so empty without this heated passion, this physical sensation to brighten its days. As Pietro had said, this was what had brought them together, the glue that had bound them even when things had started to go wrong. Even when she had begun to suspect that Pietro felt nothing to match the love and adoration she had felt for him.

This was what had made each day worth living. What had driven away her darkest fears, leaving her blind to reality. It was what had kept her going, given her a reason to stay. A reason to get up in the morning. A reason—oh, dear heaven—a reason to go to bed at night. It was what they were together, it was why they were together.

He was with her now, with her and in her and surrounding her. It was all she had ever wanted. All she could ask for. And each movement he made took her higher, higher, reaching for the sun. Reaching for the fulfilment she knew was there, just out of her grasp.

Higher and higher until at last she came apart fully and completely in his arms, feeling like she had tumbled off the edge of the world. It was only his grip on her that kept her grounded. Only his strength that surrounded her and kept her from losing herself completely.

But even so she knew that she had dropped her hold on the world. That nothing was real, nothing else mattered but the feeling of Pietro on her and with her. The force of his body in hers, the sound of his breath in her ears. The sudden tensing of those powerful muscles, the groan of surrender and the total abandonment of himself to the ecstasy that had swept through him just moments after her. For so long—an age, it seemed—they stayed suspended, held in submission to the primitive, primal force that had taken control of them. And only after long, long moments did their breathing start again, their hearts kicking back into life as they sank exhausted back onto the bed. Pietro's long body lay spent, his dark head resting on her breast, the heat of his ragged breaths washing with raw power over her sensitised skin.

Sleep claimed them both fast after that. But not for long. Twice more they woke during the night; twice more they reached for each other. Twice more they succumbed to that
wild, hungry, blazing contact that obliterated thought, that drove away common sense and left them only at the mercy of sensation and need.

It was when the first light of dawn began to seep through the slats in the wooden shutters, easing the darkness in the room, that the cold, cruel hand of reality began to creep back into Marina's mind. The realisation of what had just happened finally began to seep into her consciousness and it pushed her into unwilling and unwanted wakefulness.

This time that welcome unconsciousness was not something she could find. The luxury of contented sleep evaded her even as she tried to surrender completely to it. Instead, with every second that she lay still and drained under Pietro's heavy frame, she felt the satisfaction seep away. Even as her heart slowed and stilled from its frantic racing of just moments before it seemed to kick back on a new and uncomfortably uneven pace.

What had she done? What had she just let happen?

How could she have lost sight of herself, of her safety—of her sanity—so completely as to let Pietro make…?

Oh no, no, no!

She couldn't even let the words ‘make love' into her thoughts. There had been nothing
loving
about what had just happened here. It had been driven by the most basic, most carnal of feelings—on both sides, she had to admit. It had been just sex, nothing more. And it had been Pietro finishing what he had started back in the lawyer's office earlier that day.

‘I want this. You want this,' he had said. ‘So let's stop wasting time.'

And as soon as he had got her alone he had given up all pretence at wasting time. But here there had been no one else to interrupt them. No one to distract her from the self-destructive path down which she had headed.

Slowly Marina forced herself to open her eyes and look around. A cold, cruel knife twisted in her heart as she took in her surroundings, the bedroom in which she had woken on the first morning of their honeymoon—but in such totally different circumstances. Nothing had changed—in the room, at least. It was still the simply furnished, coolly decorated, tiny cottage room where she had woken up on what she had believed to be the first day of the rest of her life. The first day of the happiest time of her life.

Nothing had changed physically but in her mind and in her heart everything had changed completely. Nothing could ever be the same again.

I want none of it! Absolutely nothing!

Her own words, flung into Pietro's stunned, unbelieving face only a few short hours before, now came back to haunt her, their certainty and open defiance ringing bitterly empty and hollow as they whirled inside her head.

She had come to Sicily to claim her freedom, to make a clean and complete break, to end her marriage and walk away without anything to hold her back.

Instead she had intrigued and provoked Pietro so much that he had seen everything she said as a confrontation, a challenge. He had said that he still wanted her and had set out to prove that she still wanted him. Instead of getting away quickly and easily, she had walked straight into the trap he had set for her. The one aimed at getting her right where he wanted her.

The only thing in the world I want is you, with me, in my bed, underneath me—opening to me.

She had been fool enough to let herself think that perhaps he had meant more than that.

A single, desolate tear stung at the back of her eye, formed at the corner and slid slowly down her cheek. Its slow, miserable progress seemed to Marina to symbolise
perfectly the destruction of all that she had come here thinking she could achieve. Instead she had made such a total mess of things that she couldn't even weep properly.

She couldn't stay here like this, not lying here on what had once been her marriage bed, naked and exposed, totally vulnerable. Pietro was still deeply asleep, his body limp and heavy over hers, his breathing slow, his bronzed skin still faintly sheened with the sweat his passion had created.

Biting her lip so as not to let the sob of distress forming in her throat escape her control, Marina tried the tiniest of moves, just a twitch of a hand on the arm that was trapped underneath Pietro's relaxed shoulder.

‘Oh, please…'

Marina had no idea if the words had actually been spoken out loud or if in fact she had just heard them whispered inside her head as she tried another move, a leg this time, shifting it and sliding it out from where it was trapped by Pietro's own heavy, hair-roughened limb.

‘Cara,'
he muttered, making her heart clench in panic. But he made no effort to lift his head or open his sealed lids, instead moving slightly to one side before sighing and settling down again, his face buried in the pillow.