She laughed at his compliment, not believing it for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nobody has ever told me that before.”
“Then your previous lovers were all fools.”
She sobered at that. “I’ve only had sex once before,” she said, and wanted to bite her tongue off for admitting that much.
He shifted to look at her, and she averted her eyes, preferring to stare at the dark whorls of hair on his muscled chest. “Once?”
She nodded, not daring to look up.
“Not a memorable experience?”
“Not one I care to bring to mind,” she said, hating that memories of that night threatened to rush back to life, to taint the pleasure she’d just experienced.
She shook her head, willing the dark past to retreat into the recesses of her mind. But the voices remained, a low nagging whisper of pleas and cries and threats, a living reminder of that night, that man’s total domination over her, and the ugly violation she’d lived with for years.
A woman never forgot being raped. She’d become an expert at keeping people at arm’s length until Luciano came back into her life.
He grasped her chin and forced her to face him, blue eyes intent on hers. “You will tell me someday, yes?”
That was the last thing she would do, now or ever. But admitting that would only prompt him to pester her for details she never wanted to reveal.
“Someday,” she lied.
She’d told no one she’d been raped by Luciano’s friend, afraid to challenge the threat her attacker had issued, wanting the whole thing buried. Forgotten. She intended to keep it that way.
And she had to believe that man had done the same. She’d certainly never heard any rumors connecting them, and Luciano seemed ignorant of the entire thing. Of all people, she would think he would have known and was so glad he didn’t.
For her, it would always be the black day in her life, over and done with but she would never forget. After seven years, nothing would be served by telling anyone, especially Luciano. She’d moved on. Hopefully she would never cross paths with that horrible man again.
“I have given you one good memory, but that isn’t enough, bella.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead, her cheeks, his lips hovering over hers. “Let’s make more for both of us.”
“Yes,” she breathed before his lips captured hers in a long, lazy kiss that sparked fire in the desire banked inside her, making her feel wanted, needed.
“Yes,” she whispered again between breaths, locking the door on the past and opening wide the portal to the present. She welcomed Luciano into her arms, her heart, as they plunged into the warm surf of passion, wanting to remember it when the darkness and fears intruded.
He was a drug in her veins and her blood fizzed, her control spiraling downward into a tide pool of passion. For one split second she nearly pulled back into her protective shell. But another searing kiss, coupled with the hot possessive glide of his hands up and down her back, banished the urge, making her want more of his touch, his kiss, his possession.
Her hands sought and found the hard, pulsing length of him. He groaned, rocking into her palm, as if begging her fingers to explore him. She did, stroking the silk-over-steel erection that grew in her palm. Her heartbeat quickened, the core of her wet and throbbing with want.