Moving with his thighs brushing her legs, between them, around them, he guided her backward until her hips were against the edge of his desk. Without releasing her lips, he swept the top clear of papers, books, his calendar, even his cell phone. Before the clatter had died away, he lifted her to the desk. Before she could do more than gasp in disbelief, he pushed the skirt of her dress up and stepped between her spread thighs.
She was so soft, so warm against him. Only the thinnest of barriers separated them. He rubbed against it, mindless with such closeness, while he captured a breast in his hand. Clasping, squeezing in slow rhythm, he allowed himself to be enticed by the rounded neck of her dress. He trailed kisses down the curve of her neck, tasted her pulse with his tongue, delved into the hollow at the base of her throat. He inhaled her fragrance of flowers, linen and warm woman and felt it mount to his head like the most delicate of wine bouquets.
Delirious, half-crazed with need, he searched for and found the zip of her dress, sliding it down, tugging her bodice forward and down her arms to expose her breasts. The bra she wore was a masterpiece of lace and sensual purpose, made expressly to entice. It was the work of a moment to lower its straps until it became a seductive sling for their lovely pink-crested perfection. Bending his head, he blew upon them, watched the nipples become small sweet candies for his delectation, and took one into his mouth.
Her moan was soft music that urged him to greater effort. He drove himself to earn more of it, and yet more, suckling her while smoothing his hand over her thigh, easing between them to cup her, part her delicate folds. He pressed into the moist and silken depths of her while his body protested its deprivation. Exerting more control than he dreamed he possessed, he ignored the violent pleasure that gripped him as she ran her hands over his body, found and captured his flat nipple with her fingers. Matching her movements in instinctive unison, he stroked into her again and again, then found and rolled the delicate bud of her femininity between thumb and forefinger like testing the most fragile of raspberries.
She cried out, a high-pitched sound he caught in his mouth as he felt its approach. And he held her while she trembled with the force of her release, her body straining against his while she pulsed against his fingers. Then, only then, he lowered his zipper and freed his strutted flesh. A brief pause to sheath himself in brand-new protection, then he wrenched her forward to the very edge of the desk and sank into her wet heat.
She crooned, twining her legs around his, pressing her forehead to his breastbone. It was all he needed. Easing her backward, supporting her until she lay upon his desk, he pumped into her in aching need while his heart threatened to burst inside and his pulse almost drowned out the praise and the most sacred of promises that he whispered in the language of his fathers. Telling her how hot arguing with her made him, how proud he was of how she stood up to him, he held her gaze while he took her, and even as she coalesced around him again, drawing him into the surging power of her heartbeat, her ultimate pleasure.
He joined her in it, exploding in supreme and ruthless enjoyment, knowing it had never been like this before and might never be again, knowing he possessed her in that moment if in no other.
He knew, too, even as he shuddered in glorious, unending surcease, that she had still not agreed to be his wife.
12
Carita and Jonathan arrived at the villa with a police escort racing ahead of their matching ambulances and another bringing up the rear. The undulating twin notes of the siren drew everyone to the front entrance. There they waited in a double line, Amanda, Nico and his Nonna on one side, and Aunt Filomena, Carisa and Yolanda on the other. Jonathan was helped up the steps on his crutches by the medical technicians, while Carita was brought in on a stretcher. Both were smiling, almost laughing with the ridiculous display they made and their pleasure in it.
Amanda took over as Jonathan’s escort, walking slowly beside him into the downstairs ladies sitting room that had been turned into a bedroom for him. Carisa walked beside Carita’s stretcher, holding to its side and chattering every step of the way, as she was installed in the invalid’s room next door that had apparently been so designated from time immemorial.
The arrangements had been Amanda’s idea, though Nico had backed her up in it against his grandmother’s protests. She’d had visions of her brother tumbling down the marble stairs in his attempts to visit his fiancée, or Carita doing the same as she sought to spend time with Jonathan.
Nico’s suggestion had been to put in an elevator, something his grandmother might require eventually. Nonna had been scandalized. This was what the invalid’s room was for, she declared, though it would be many years before she was reduced to such straits. She would not have the villa cut up for a modern contraption that would be used a few weeks at the most.
Nonna had a point, Amanda thought, as she was reluctant herself to see permanent damage done to the wonderful old place. With the two of them against him, Nico had thrown up his hands and let them have their way.
It was the only thing he had given in on, however. He had announced Amanda’s engagement to him in print without the least regard for her refusal of his proposal. Spending most of every day at the villa, he had been the most attentive of fiancés. He sat beside her at meals, took her walking in the garden, escorted her on a tour of the villages of the Cinque Terre and swam with her from the beach that was hidden from the villa by the lay of the land. And he made love to her with the tenderness of dedication, taking her in a hidden cove, in a boat floating on its own reflection in liquid aquamarine-blue water, on a dew-damp garden bench while a life-size statue of Pan looked on, laughing slyly as he played his pipes.
When she tried to protest, she was kissed into silence. Any attempt at serious discussion was thwarted as he traced her nipple through the fine knit of one of the shirts he had bought her or tucked his fingers under the edge of the her shorts in search of more erogenous areas than he had located already. She was soon lost in a haze of such drugging desire that she could not think, must less argue with him.
He didn’t come to her in her room at night. It was, she supposed, some mental compromise for him, as if leaving her to sleep alone soothed his overactive conscience.
So she existed in a sensual daze, living from one day to the next, allowing Nico to plan what they would do and where they would go. To be so constantly in his company satisfied some need she had not known she had. His kisses, his touch enthralled her; she could not resist him in an amorous mood, now, any more than she could in the beginning.
It could not go on. She had to take a stand, must force him to listen to her. This marriage was all wrong. She would regret it if she went through with it. She did not want to be like her mother, so desperately in love with her husband and drawn to his sensual allure that she had no life of her own. She did not want to be dependent on his presence to the point that she’d rather die than live without him.
She was in love with Nico. To admit it was painful, but could no longer be denied. She waited for him to appear at breakfast, ached to be alone with him, thought constantly of what it would be like to be his wife. She could not imagine going back to Atlanta and her gray existence there. Yet she must. It was the only way.
Nico had said he wanted her, and she believed him; he had shown her that much in a thousand ways. When desire was gone, however, what would be left? To love a man to distraction who felt the same was frightening enough, but to love one who cared little for her beyond the desire of the moment would be painful beyond imagining.
On a morning when Carita and Jonathan had been at the villa over a week, Amanda sat on the terrace with Carisa and Carita, their aunt and grandmother. Jonathan was with the physical therapist that came every morning to put him through a series of mild exercises for his leg and shoulder. Nico was working in his study.
It was pleasantly warm under the grape arbor where they sat with a soft breeze rustling the leaves above them. The pages of a notepad that lay on the table fluttered as well. They were supposed to be making notes about Carita’s wedding, for a wedding planner would come for an appointment with her and Jonathan in the afternoon. It was to be a small affair, ostensibly due to the accident, but would make up in elegance what it lacked in size.
Nico’s wedding would be far grander, or so Amanda had been given to understand. He was the Conte de Frenza, after all, with connections in every corner of the globe. The wedding planner would speak to him and Amanda when she had finished with Carita’s arrangements.
The thought of it appalled her. She felt such a fraud. As for making decisions about a wedding resembling something for royals, the idea made her feel more than a little sick.
She sat to one side, her head resting on the back of a wrought iron chair, the skirt of her peach linen dress lifting lazily in the fitful breeze. Not far away, Carita lay on a lounge with a raised back. Carisa’s chair was pulled close on her other side so she could look at the book of wedding invitation examples which lay on her twin’s lap.
Nico’s grandmother and her aunt were having an aperitif while they discussed the guest list, debating who should and should not be invited. The low murmur of their voices had a drowsy sound that almost put Amanda to sleep. She had slept very little the night before, or for some nights before that, as she tried to make up her mind about her future.