Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary(44)

She wanted to know that so much.

And she wanted him.

All of him.

There was a fuzzy logic in her mind-she was going to lose him anyway so  she wanted all of him now. She just had to hold onto her heart, that was  all.

'I want this,' she repeated. Of that she was certain. 'I know it's not going anywhere, I know that's not what you want from me … '

Luca stared down at her flushed face and glittering eyes and suddenly he wanted this too.

'One moment.' He stood to go to the bathroom, his condoms deliberately  still unpacked in his toiletry bag, but she caught his arm.

'I'm on the Pill.'

He cursed in Italian. 'Emma … ' Her naivety worried him. 'It's not just  for pregnancy. You have to make sure he … ' It made him wince to think  that there would ever be someone else making love to Emma, that he was  somehow breaking her in for others to enjoy.

'Do you?' Only she wasn't being naïve, she was bold. 'Always wear one?'

'Always.' Luca swallowed, understanding her meaning-he knew he was  healthy and he knew she was too. She was offering him the golden key,  yet he hesitated, this rare intimacy alien to him.

It was a tentative kiss, both holding onto their hearts, both refusing  for a moment to melt into the sheer, utter bliss of each other.

'We can get rid of these.' Awkward for the first time in the bedroom, he  unbuttoned her pyjama top and slid it over her shoulders, removing his  own underwear and then sliding off her pyjama bottoms.

The sight of him naked did nothing to still her nerves. She had nothing  with which to compare it, except the sealed section of a magazine, but  she knew he was pretty spectacular.

'Should we put a towel down or something?' Emma asked, and Luca felt as clinical as a surgeon setting up to operate.

'I'm scared,' Emma admitted. 'Nice scared, but … '

'Me too.' Luca grinned, staring down at his unusually less than  responsive manhood, and then he laughed, because it was strange to be  talking about it, sex, something that usually just, um, happened, and he  realised that this had to be better than good-for her sake.

He turned to face her with a strange weight of responsibility on his  shoulders, because he wanted this to be right for her. That last kiss  had been awkward so he ran his finger along her cheek and then down her  arm, and then he stared at the full breasts that had always entranced  him, naked now for him to kiss. His hand cupped her lovely bottom and  she could feel the wet warmth of his mouth, the tender suckling on her  nipples, which made her stomach tighten, and it was a curious warm  feeling as his mouth took her breast deeper. And she touched him, too-in  awe of his unfurling length against her thigh. Nervous, curious, but  brave, she reached down and touched him and Luca closed his eyes at her  tender ministrations.                       
       
           



       

'Is this right?'

He couldn't speak so he nodded and he still couldn't speak so he kissed  her instead, not awkwardly this time, and this not a kiss like any he  had known-this a tender, slow kiss that led to much more. His hand slid  around the front from her bottom, to her most intimate place, where she  was moist and warm. He stroked her there until he could hear her slight  involuntary whimpers, and then slipped his fingers inside, stretching  her slowly, sliding in and out till she was moaning in his arms.

For Emma it was heaven, everything she'd hoped for and nothing like  she'd read about-no pain, just bliss, his hand working magic, his mouth  back on her nipples now, and she could feel the scratch of hair on his  thighs as he moved closer between her legs …

Suddenly there was a need for more contact and he read her thoughts  because he pushed her with his body onto her back and he kissed her, not  just with his mouth but with his skin, all of him pinning her to the  bed, and for a while just the delicious, solid weight of him had her in  ecstasy. Then he moved up on his elbows, her legs parting to accommodate  him, and he was there at her entrance. She wasn't scared any more, just  ready.

She had never been more ready for something in her life.

He was staring down at her with surprising tenderness in his eyes, a  gentleness that she had never seen. And she felt as if they were  starting something, as if they were going somewhere together. It wasn't  just her body she had never trusted to another, but her mind too-and in  that moment she let him in, she could feel the first slow, shallow  thrusts, feel the stretch of her body as it tried to accommodate him,  and the barrier of resistance, and she told herself over and over that  she had to remember not to love him.

It hurt, this searing, this moment, and then it was gone-and whatever it was she had just lost, she had found so much more.

The feel of him inside her, the wonders of her own body, rising to greet  him as he entered and then resisting each withdrawal-her hips moving to  meet his. There was this pull in her stomach, little licks of heat in  her thighs. She couldn't keep her eyes open, she was lost in the dark  with him and she felt as if she'd been found.

He was moving harder now, and yet she could feel him hold back, only he  didn't need to now. Her fingers ran down the length of his back, holding  his buttocks and pressing him into her, and Luca had never been closer  to anyone, had never been closer to himself, than he was at this moment.  She was crying and he was kissing her, demanding, seeking and taking  her all. He licked her tears and felt the coil of her legs tighten  around him as she gave her urgent consent. He drove in, feeling her in a  way he had never felt a woman, the delicious slippery grip of her, the  first flickers of her orgasm beating like the first heavy raindrops of a  gathering storm. He could feel her mouth on his chest, muffling the  pleasure she felt, and he felt her moans vibrate through his heart.  Suddenly she was climaxing and so now could he, spilling inside her as  she swelled in rhythmic spasms tighter and tighter, dragging him deeper  inside her.

He wanted them in this place for ever, could feel his body winding down  from the giddy rush, hear his own ragged breathing that heralded the  end. Then he did something else he never had before-sated, replete and  utterly spent, he looked down at where she lay beneath him and he  lowered his head and kissed her.





CHAPTER NINE


EMMA didn't know how she felt when she awoke alone in his bed early the next morning.

The house was already awake, she could hear several voices and the sound  of activity as the day before the wedding dawned. In a little while she  would join them, would shower and go down and play the part of Luca's  girlfriend and help with the preparations in any way that she could, but  not just yet.

Now she lay, naked under the sheet, her body tender from last night and  her mind surprisingly calm-remembering from a calm distance almost,  accepting now what she had always known.

That there could be no going back.

That having made love with Luca, the countdown to the end had started.

She had seen it so many times-with her father, with her brothers, and with Luca himself.

The thrill of the chase, the high on capture, the intense passion of a new relationship-and then, always then, the retreat.

She knew this, had accepted this, had factored it in coolly when she had  delivered her demands, but there was one thing she hadn't counted on.  As he walked into the bedroom, carrying a laden tray and smiling into  her eyes, there was an emotion almost like fear in the eyes that smiled  back at him, because she had never anticipated the full effect of  him-the dazzling beam of Luca when the full power of his smile, his  mind, his body was aimed in her direction.                       
       
           



       

He'd be hell to miss.

He was dressed in jeans and nothing else. Barefoot and bare chested, he  walked across the bedroom towards her, and it was a Luca she had never  seen.

Usually suited, clean shaven-even the times she had seen him dressed  rather more casually, still there had been a formal air to him. But it  was a different Luca in front of her now.

Unshaven, his hair damp from the shower, it flopped forward as he bent  over her. Then he took the coffee pot from the tray and put it on the  bedside table before placing a tray on her lap. He looked younger  somehow, less austere perhaps, and for Emma terribly, dangerously,  devastatingly beautiful.

'It is chaos out there.' His thumb gestured to the bedroom door. 'So we will hide in here for a couple of hours.'

'Shouldn't I be out there, helping?' Emma asked, reaching for the pot of coffee, but Luca got there first.

'I'll pour,' Luca said, then answered her question. 'No, as I just said to my mother, we would only get in the way.'

Only she wasn't really listening-instead, she stared at the cup he  filled. It had been a seemingly innocuous gesture, yet for Emma it was  huge.