WIND blew the flowers and grass of the field around them, waving the branches of the olive grove as Maximo looked at her beneath the hot Sicilian sun.
And he knew she was his for the taking.
Her eyes were closed, her lashes dark against her creamy skin. Her head was tilted back to expose her trembling neck. Dark hair tumbled down her shoulders, against the white cotton that barely clung to her arms, against her magnificent breasts, high and full with nipples the color of pale April roses…
He shook his head in amazement. How could he have ever thought Lucy was plain? She was more than a beauty. She was a goddess. And she didn’t know. Her innocence of her own power intoxicated him.
She was fated to be his.
Maximo never wanted to let her go.
Find her a new husband? Dio santo. He must have been out of his mind to even suggest it. Introduce her to his friend in Rio? Maledizione. Joaquim would take one look at those long legs, full breasts and gorgeous smile and be only too happy to consider her as his potential bride.
And then Maximo would have to kill him.
With a low growl, he stood up from the blanket. He picked her up, her legs still wrapped around his waist. She clung to him in surprise, her eyelids fluttering in bewilderment.
“What—” she whispered. “Where—”
“I’m taking you home,” he said gruffly.
But the way her body felt against him as he carried her, even her slender weight was an unbearable burden. The path along the cliffs, which had been so pleasurable on their walk to the picnic, was now a long journey of unbearable agony. All he wanted to do was satiate his desire for her satin-smooth skin, her tart mouth, the full curve of her backside, the heaven of her breasts. To push her down amid the flowers, rip off her clothes, and push himself into her until they both exploded. To feel her body convulse around him.
But there was something more he wanted. Something he didn’t understand. It made every nerve in his body taut with the drive to possess her.
She belonged to him. It was fate. He would allow no other man to touch her—ever.
He barely made it back to the cottage. He went to the master bedroom, tossed her on the bed. He peeled off her snug jeans and panties. He could bear it no more. This taut desire for her was making him pazzo, demented. Spreading her legs apart, he buried his head between her thighs and tasted her.
She gasped, arching her back as she grabbed his shoulders.
“Please—” she panted. “Please.”
Was she begging him to relent or to continue? He wondered if she herself even knew.
“Don’t come, cara,” he whispered. “Stay still. Resist me. Do not explode with pleasure, and I will let you go.”
But it was a lie. He would never let her go now…
He touched her thighs, lightly caressing the hair between her legs. He stroked her with his finger, relishing her slick, satiny wetness. He wanted nothing more than to pull off his jeans and thrust himself inside her, but he forced himself to wait, to delay his own pleasure. Because this was about far more than his own ecstasy.
He wanted to possess her completely, body and soul.
He wanted to hear her admit that she was his.
She cried out as he caressed her with his tongue. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead from the exquisite pain of holding himself back as she twisted her hips beneath him.
He held her down. Stretching her wide, he lapped her with the full width of his tongue. With agonizing slowness, he pushed one finger inside her, then two. She was so taut, he thought. So ready. He groaned aloud, not sure how much longer he could withstand this torture.
Moving up, he kissed her dark hair, her belly, finally her breasts. He suckled her, squeezing the other breast with his fingers as his palm rubbed against her mound in an erotic circle.
He felt her tense and tremble beneath him…
Leaning forward, he whispered against her ear, “Don’t come, Lucy. Don’t.”
He slowly pushed two fingertips inside her, inch by inch, swirling the nub of her pleasure with his thumb. He heard her suck in her breath. And hold it. Then she started to gasp. He felt her tighten around his fingers. Her whole body shook as her gasp crescendoed into a loud, terrible cry of ecstasy.
For one perfect moment, joy went through him as he closed his eyes in triumph. She was his. He’d never had to try so hard for any woman as he had for his wife.
His wife. At that thought, Maximo, the playboy prince who’d had more women than he could count, nearly lost his self-control like an untried teenager.
Ripping off his jeans, he fell upon her, kissing her neck. Sliding a condom down his painfully hard shaft, he positioned himself between her legs. He could feel her hot wetness, her sweetness, and thought he would die if he didn’t—
“Maximo.”
He abruptly focused on her face. Tears were coursing down her cheeks.
Dio santo!
“Lucy,” he gasped. “You’re crying!”
If he’d hurt her—
She shook her head. “You’ve won.” Her voice trembled. “I’m yours forever.”
Forever? The word shocked him. It was too perilously close to his own traitorous thoughts. He quickly shook his head. “No, cara, no. You’ve always known that our marriage is just—”
She stopped him by putting a finger against his lips. “I know.”
Lucy, his forever? Ridiculous thought! He wanted to satiate himself with her, that was all. A three-month affair. Six months. A year or two at most. And while they were together, they could pretend to be in love. Pretend to be a family. He would have her every night. And if a condom broke, if he accidentally got her pregnant…
Pregnant.
The thought of Lucy pregnant with his child finally made him lose the last of his control.
Taking her finger into his mouth, he sucked it. He kissed up her bare arm to her neck. He lowered his body against hers and kissed her lips. She returned the kiss passionately, no longer trying to fight, and he entwined her tongue with his own. He stroked his hands down her body, caressing her belly, her backside and finally her hips. She swayed against him with a whimper.
“Sì, cara, sì,” he said hoarsely. Feeling like he was going to explode, he pressed himself between her legs, trying to go slow, trying to resist the urge to shove forward and impale her with a single deep thrust.
But she put her hands on his chest, holding him back. Her eyes pierced his.
“Maximo,” she whispered, “everyone I’ve ever loved has lied to me. If you’re keeping anything from me, tell me now. Before I lose myself completely…”
Stroking her hair, he looked deeply into her eyes and lied to her. “Proprio niente, cara. There’s nothing.”
She smiled back at him for a brief instant, and joy filled her soft brown eyes. Then she gasped, arching her back as he pushed into her. She moaned, turning her head from side to side as he gripped her hips in his hands, penetrating her inch by inch. He sucked in his breath at the force of his pleasure. He’d never felt anything remotely like this. Shocked, he drew back, then thrust into her again. And again. And again, with increasing roughness.
Growling aloud, he held her hips tight, riding her hard until their bodies were hot with sweat. Her body began to coil with new tension beneath his touch.
“Don’t…” she muttered, biting her tender pink lip. Her eyes were closed as she gave a shuddering intake of breath. “Don’t stop. Please…oh God, please…”
Her dark hair was twisted and tangled around her naked shoulders. Every time he thrust into her, her breasts bounced softly. Her slender white hands gripped his hips now, unknowingly controlling his rhythm. She finally screamed, bucking her hips, and he thrust into her with a final explosive shout. He nearly blacked out from the pleasure as he poured his seed into her.
He collapsed next to her on the bed with a hoarse, exhausted sigh. Lying next to her on the bed, he held her. He tenderly kissed his wife’s sweaty forehead. “Goddess,” he whispered. “Donna molto bella. You’re mine.”
But even as he murmured the words, he knew that if she ever found out the truth this would all come to a crashing end.
It was a new world.
Lucy had never known that sex could be like this.
This—this intoxicating drug was why people made such fools of themselves for the sake of desire. She understood it now.
Her husband’s skills exceeded even his Casanova legend. He was better than Heathcliff—better than Mr. Darcy. What he could do with his hands. What he could do with his tongue…
She blushed. Hours later, lying naked yet again in his arms, she ran her fingers along the edge of his strong, masculine hand, his dark-haired forearm. They’d made love three times today now. Twice before his aunt had returned with Chloe. They’d taken a brief break to have dinner—both of them had been starving, and he’d cooked for them as she played with her daughter—then they’d put Chloe to bed in her crib.
And Maximo had picked up Lucy in his arms and tossed her into the master bedroom next door.
She should have been exhausted. Spent. And yet she was strangely wired—too energized to even think of sleeping. She couldn’t stop looking at him. She pressed her head against his shoulder, looking up at the sharp edge of his cheekbone, his masculine beauty.
Moonlight pooled on the foot of the bed, lining her dark sleeping prince with silver.
Sex without love. Was it possible?
For him, perhaps. Not for her.
She knew it for certain now. Because with his every kiss, his every thrust, she’d felt herself falling deeper.
Disaster. But there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t pick and choose her feelings like Maximo could. She was falling in love with him. With a playboy prince who hated her grandfather, who’d married her only to get his revenge and who planned to casually divorce her, tossing her in the trash like stale bread.
She’d lost their war. Lost it completely. She would have only three months with him before she lost him forever. Before she lost the perfect husband and perfect father who had only one flaw—that he wanted to be neither a husband nor a father.
And of course there was that additional problem of him insisting that her grandfather die miserable and alone.
Her hand involuntarily clenched against his chest. Giuseppe Ferrazzi was a stranger to her, but he was still her family. She couldn’t allow him to suffer. Not when she could do something about it.
She had to end the feud between the two men.
Not just for her grandfather’s sake—but for Maximo’s. She had to find out what demons haunted him. She had to find out what her grandfather had done. Only then could she end the feud and save them both…
Maximo covered her hand with his larger one. “Do you want more already, cara?” His voice was sleepy. Eyes still closed, he turned toward her, pulling her to nestle closer to his naked body. “I can see you’re going to keep me very busy.”
She took a deep breath. “Maximo? What did my grandfather do to your family?”
The lines of his face hardened and he started to roll away. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”
“No. Stop.” She grabbed his bare shoulder. “We’re going back to Aquillina tomorrow. If you don’t tell me the story, I will hear it from him.”
“No!”
“He’s my grandfather, Maximo! Contract or no contract, you can’t expect me to just leave him to die alone. Not without good reason!”
He stared at her, his eyes alight and terrible. Moonlight traced the whites of his eyes.
“Bene, cara. I’ll tell you.” His voice was low and dangerous. “The day you were born, there was a blizzard in Aquillina, the worst ever seen. My mother and sister became sick with pneumonia. We were living far from the village, in my aunt’s old pensione. My father phoned Ferrazzi, asking him to send the only doctor from his villa.”
“Go on,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Ferrazzi refused to even give him the message. My father snapped on some old skis and set out for Aquillina to get him.” His hand tightened around her. “But he never returned. He froze to death in the snow. And without the antibiotics my mother and sister needed, they died two days later.”
She sucked in her breath. “Oh, Maximo.”
“I promised my father I’d stay with my mother and sister. That I’d take care of them. But all I could do was watch them die.”
“Maximo, I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do to take the pain away. I…I…”
She wanted to say I love you, but the words stuck in her throat. How could she say them when he’d warned her against ever loving him? What if he responded with anger, or worse—pity?
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“You and your mother were both healthy and strong after the birth. It was only selfishness that made Ferrazzi keep the doctor at his villa—selfishness and spite. He’d already ruined us, but it wasn’t enough for him. The day I buried my family, I knew I would get my revenge. I would take everything from him. Everything.”
She wrapped her arms around Maximo, trying desperately to offer comfort. He was her husband, and she loved him. All she wanted to do was comfort him.
He took a deep breath.
“In three days, we’ll have a wedding. He will hear about it across the village—across the world. And he will realize the enormity of what he’s lost. His company. His fortune. His place in society. And his granddaughter.”
Maximo’s voice was grim and cold. Troubled, she drew away. How had she fallen in love with a man like this—a man who was not only incapable of love, but who could be so vengeful and cruel?
“Go to sleep,” he said, rolling over on his side. “We leave very early for Aquillina.”
She stared at his dark figure in the shadows.
He’s not incapable of love, she thought. She’d seen too much good in him to believe that. His anger and guilt over his family’s loss had just festered in him like a sore, eating away at his soul.
Lucy thought of the old man sobbing in the street. Surely her grandfather had never meant to hurt Maximo’s family. He’d only been trying to protect his own, by keeping the doctor for his daughter-in-law and newborn granddaughter…
Lucy had to end the feud between them.
If she could heal Maximo’s pain, perhaps he could open up his heart. He would see how much Lucy and Chloe both needed him. He might be able to love them. He might decide to make their family a real one…
You’re dreaming, she told herself harshly. The playboy prince would never settle down. He would never love her.
But.
She could still love him.
Instead of saying those three little words aloud, she could show her love—by taking the pain out of his heart. Then even after he divorced her and forgot her very existence, she would at least know she’d done something to make his life better. To make him happy.
She listened to her husband’s breathing slip into the evenness of sleep. Putting her hands behind her head, she stared at the ceiling. How could she make the men talk to each other? Where? She sucked in her breath.
The wedding. A joyous celebration, families united by love. What better time or place?
“For you, Maximo,” she whispered without sound, speaking the words like a silent prayer in the darkness. “Because I love you.”