At the Count's Bidding(46)
Because that was what this was. Paige didn’t pretend otherwise. The only music was his breath and hers, the only audience the primeval explosion of stars above them. She hadn’t danced in years. Ten years, in fact. But she could feel him in her feet, in her hips. In the glorious stretch of her arms over her head. Her pulse and her breath. She could feel him everywhere, better than any sound track with her own hopeful heartbeat like the kick of drums, and she danced.
She poured herself into each undulation of her hips, each exultant reach of her hands. She’d kicked off her shoes when she’d stood and she curled her toes down hard into the smooth stones beneath her, feeling what was left of the day’s heat against her soles and that wildfire that only arced higher between the two of them as she moved. She tried her best to catch the sensation in the movement of her hips, her legs, her torso. She took her time peeling off her trousers, managing to kick them aside with a flourish, and then she moved closer to him as she rid herself of her shirt, as if his intent expression beckoned her to him.
She took her time with her bra, offering her breasts to him when she finally dropped it at her side, and she smiled at the way he moved in his chair, his gaze a wild touch on her skin, so fierce it made her nipples pull taut. And she wasn’t done. She kept up the dance, the ecstatic dance, and she made it her apology, her regret. She told him all about her love and her silly, shattered hopes with every move she made, and when she stepped out of her panties she didn’t know which one of them was breathing more heavily.
Paige only knew that he was standing, too. And that she was naked before him and she still wasn’t done.
Naked in the Tuscan night, she danced for all those dreams she’d let carry her away as a girl. For the dream she’d destroyed with a single phone call and a cashed check ten years ago, and none of it worth the sacrifice, in the end. It was like skinny-dipping, warm and cool at once, the summer air a sensual caress against her flesh. She danced for the joy she’d only ever felt in this man’s presence, the laughter she still missed, the love she’d squandered for good reasons that seemed nothing but sad in retrospect.
She danced and she danced, and she might have danced all night, but Giancarlo swept her into his arms instead, high against his chest, and that was like a much better dance. Hotter and more intense, and then his mouth came down on hers, claiming her and destroying her that easily.
He came down hard on top of her and she loved it. That lean, hard body of his crushing her with his delicious weight, his narrow hips keeping her legs apart, and it took her a moment to realize that he’d moved them over to one of the sun chaises that sat around the gleaming, sleek pool that jutted out from the loggia toward the vineyards. And that he’d lost his jacket in the move.
And he looked as gorgeously undone as she felt, and very nearly as wild.
“Giancarlo,” she whispered, the dance still running madly in her veins, almost as addictive as he was. “Don’t stop.”
“I give the orders, not you,” he growled, but his lips were curved when they took hers all over again.
And then everything slowed down. Turned to honey, thick and sweet.
Giancarlo feasted on her as if she were the gourmet meal his chefs had prepared for him, and beneath his talented mouth she felt almost that cherished, that perfect. She wanted his naked skin pressed to hers more than she could remember wanting anything else, ever, but he kept her too busy to peel his shirt back from his strong shoulders.
He kissed her until her head spun, and then he followed the line of her neck, tasting her and muttering dark things in Italian that she told herself she was happy she didn’t understand.
Even if they moved in her like music, dark and compelling, sex and magic and Giancarlo, at long last.