‘I WANT TO have sex with you. Is that honest enough?’
Leah followed Marco into his bedroom and watched him shrug off his jacket and unfasten the top few buttons on his shirt.
‘Prove it.’
He sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard, folding his arms behind his head. His eyes gleamed as he raked them over her like a sultan inspecting his favourite concubine.
Once she might have turned tail and fled. But she wasn’t that person any more. She knew what she wanted and she was prepared to fight for it.
With sudden insight Leah understood that Marco needed to be sure she was coming to him willingly. Her heart contracted.
‘If you don’t make love to me tonight, I think I’ll go out of my mind,’ she said huskily.
‘I’ve spent the evening fantasising about you wearing those diamonds and nothing else,’ he growled.
His voice had roughened, and Leah felt a thrill of feminine triumph when she realised that he wasn’t as relaxed as he wanted her to think.
‘I’ll fulfil your fantasies if you promise to fulfil mine.’
His sexy smile set her pulse racing. ‘Be careful what you wish for, beauty.’
She ran her tongue over her dry lips. The time for talking was over.
Reaching behind her, she ran the zip of her dress down her spine. The green silk fell away from her breasts and slipped down her body to pool at her feet.
Marco sat upright and his breath hissed between his teeth.
Carefully she stepped away from the dress and kicked off her stilettos. The only remaining item of clothing was her black lace knickers. She hesitated for a second, and then hooked her fingers into the top and pulled them down.
Leah’s nerve faltered when she was finally naked in front of Marco and feeling self-conscious of her body’s imperfections.
‘Look at me,’ he commanded softly.
She obeyed, and her heart started to pound. Desire was stamped on his face and his eyes glittered beneath heavy lids. He stood up and came towards her, running his fingers over the diamonds nestling between her breasts.
‘Bellissima...’ he murmured, but she had an idea that he wasn’t referring to the necklace.
He took the rose from her hair and trailed it down her cheek. The flower’s heady perfume filled her senses and the petals felt like gossamer against her throat and breasts as he held the stem between his fingers and traced patterns on her body with the rose. He moved his hand lower, sweeping the flower over her stomach and thighs.
She did not know what to expect when he suddenly dropped to his knees and splayed his hands possessively over her hips.
‘Oh...’ Her breath hitched when his tongue licked along her inner thigh. ‘I don’t think...’
‘Much better not to think.’ He glanced up at her face and smiled wickedly. ‘Hold on to my shoulders.’
And then his dark head was at the junction between her legs as he put his mouth on her and drove every thought from her head. Shock ricocheted through her when he pressed forward and ran his tongue over her moist opening.
He couldn’t mean to...
But he did.
Heat swept through her veins as his intimate caresses grew bolder and the fire inside her became an inferno. It was too much and not enough. Pleasure bordering on something so needy and intense that it almost hurt. And the ache, the terrible yearning, built to a crescendo as Marco closed his lips around the tight nub of her core and sucked.
Leah cried out something incomprehensible as she climaxed against his mouth. Ripples contracted and released deep in her core.
Her legs buckled and he stood up and swept her into his arms. He strode over to the bed and laid her down on satin sheets that felt cool against her passion-flushed skin. She propped herself up on her elbows, wondering how she could feel so uninhibited at being naked, with her legs splayed open and the scent of her arousal in the air.
‘You have too many clothes on,’ she told Marco.
He shoved his thick hair off his brow with a hand that Leah fancied was a little unsteady.
‘Another of my fantasies is for you to undress me,’ he muttered.
Moving to kneel on the bed, she undid his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. His muscles rippled beneath her fingers as she explored his powerful biceps and then placed her hands on his chest and felt the uneven thud of his heart. Following the dark hair on his flat abdomen to the waistband of his trousers, she freed the button and hesitated for a fraction of a second before running the zip down.
Her knuckles brushed against the hard length of him, making him swear softly.
‘Witch... I’m enjoying this too much. And I don’t want to risk disgracing myself or disappointing you,’ he said gruffly as he pushed her hands away and finished undressing himself.
Her mouth dried and her eyes widened as he pulled off his boxers and his erection sprang free, proud and thick.
Marco gave a low laugh. ‘Keep staring at me like that, cara, and this will be over embarrassingly quickly.’
‘You’re beautiful.’ She blurted the words out and blushed, mortified that she sounded so gauche.
But his body was incredible: a broad, bronzed chest, an impressive six-pack, a taut torso and lean hips. Her gaze was drawn inexorably to his arousal, and she felt a melting sensation between her legs as she tried to imagine what it would be like to have that thick length inside her.
She stretched out her hand and touched him, startled to feel solid steel beneath satin skin when she skimmed her fingertips over his shaft.
‘Dio...’ he growled. ‘You’re killing me.’
She watched him roll on a condom. A nerve flickered in his jaw and she sensed the restraint he was imposing on himself.
‘Are you sure, Leah?’
She was still kneeling on the bed, and instead of answering him she cupped his face in her hands and covered his mouth with hers.
At first he allowed her to control the kiss, but passion swiftly spiralled out of control and he eased her down so that she was lying on her back and he was positioned over her.
‘Bend your knees.’
His molten honey voice quelled the faint jangle of her nerves. She caught her breath as he feathered kisses over her breasts before he sucked on one nipple and then the other, until she was aware of nothing but fire and need and a powerful womanly urgency for him to possess her.
She brought her legs up so that her pelvis was flush against his. Marco pressed forward and she felt his swollen tip rub against her opening. His hand slipped between their bodies, so that he could guide himself into her slick heat. Slowly, surely, he eased inside her and paused, his brow resting against hers as she twisted her hips and her internal muscles stretched to accommodate him.
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No.’
There was no pain—just a delicious heaviness in her pelvis and a sense of completeness. She gave an experimental wriggle and heard Marco exhale a ragged breath.
‘It feels good,’ she whispered.
‘This is just the beginning, cara.’
He claimed her lips again, and there was an unexpected tenderness in his kiss that tied her heart in knots. And then he moved, effecting a deep thrust that drove the air from her lungs as he filled her. And then there was only him inside her, around her, his male scent intoxicating her, his breath mingling with hers.
He set a rhythm that was impossible to resist. Every thrust of his steely hardness created a wonderful friction in her molten core. Leah dug her fingers into his shoulders and hung on tight as the storm inside her built and grew ever stronger.
Marco slid his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her, angling her so that his relentless strokes, in and out, felt that much more intense. She looked at his face and wondered anew at the stark beauty of his features. The dull flush on his cheekbones and the silver gleam in his eyes told her that this was good for him too. Although ‘good’ did not come near to describing the exquisite sensations rolling through her, wave after wave, so that it was impossible to control her thundering heart.
It couldn’t last.
She arched her hips to meet the bold thrust of his and he held her there, poised on the edge of an unknown place that she was desperate to reach. So desperate. Her breath came in harsh pants, as if she’d run a marathon, and her body trembled and shook.
‘Now!’ he said thickly, before he covered her mouth with his.
Her sharp cry was lost in his kiss as something inside her snapped, and the drenching, sweet pleasure of her orgasm was so intense that she wondered how she could possibly survive it.
Impossibly, it wasn’t over.
Marco muttered something in Italian that might have been a curse or a prayer, increasing his pace with a new urgency that made her realise how much he’d had himself under control—until now. He thrust the deepest yet and threw his head back, his harsh groan reverberating through Leah as she climaxed again, swift and sharp this time, while he collapsed on top of her and pressed his lips to her neck.
For a long time afterwards he lay lax on top of her, and she relished his weight pressing her into the mattress. There was a sense of security in the arms holding her, in his fingers playing idly with her hair. She pressed her face against his shoulder and hoped he wasn’t aware of the tears that trickled from the corners of her eyes.
He had made her first time amazing. The physical experience of making love with Marco had been mind-blowing. But she hadn’t expected it to make such an impact on her heart. In those moments when they had soared together to the stratosphere it had seemed as though her soul and his were joined, just as their bodies were entwined.
But she would not get carried away with a romantic fantasy, Leah promised herself.
When she pushed against his chest he rolled off her and murmured something about dealing with the condom, before walking into the en suite bathroom.
Perhaps it was a cue for her to leave? She didn’t want to appear clingy.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she spied her expensive ball gown lying in a crumpled heap on the floor and, more damning still, the knickers that she’d discarded along with her inhibitions.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she scooped up her clothes and hurried over to the door.
‘Leaving so soon, cara?’ Marco drawled.
Leah spun round to face him and her heart missed a beat at the oddly gentle tone in his voice.
‘I told you...we’ve only just begun.’
‘I haven’t done this before. I don’t know the protocol after having sex with a lover.’
Leah sounded defensive, and her green eyes were too bright. The faint tremor of her mouth smote Marco like an arrow in the centre of his chest and he rubbed his hand over the area above his breastbone.
‘We are not lovers. I am your husband and you are my wife,’ he said mildly. She was as edgy as a colt and he didn’t want to spook her.
It was odd how much he liked calling her his wife. He would have sworn he did not have a possessive bone in his body. He told himself that this proprietorial feeling was because Leah was the only virgin he’d ever taken to bed. But he could not dismiss his satisfaction that she was his.
‘I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next,’ she muttered.
‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’
He held out his hand and refused to question why his heart leapt when, after hesitating for a moment, she put her fingers in his. He led her into the bathroom, where he’d already started to fill the circular bath. The hotel had provided an array of toiletries, and he added a liberal amount of scented bubble bath to the water.
Leah was clutching her dress as if it was a security blanket. He placed in on a chair and wound her long hair up, using the diamante clip she’d worn for the evening to secure her curls on top of her head.
‘I’ve never shared a bath.’
Leah looked at him uncertainly when he climbed into the tub, scooped her off her feet and deposited her in the water. He turned on the jets and felt his heart clench when she let out a deep sigh as she slid down so that her shoulders were beneath the bubbles.
‘This is heavenly.’
‘It is a night of firsts, cara.’
Marco was fascinated yet again by the rosy colour that ran under her skin. She looked very young, with stray curls clinging to her flushed cheeks and her eyes enormous in her heart-shaped face. He felt fiercely protective and possessive and a host of other emotions he did not care to examine.
‘I hope you were not disappointed with your first sexual experience.’
Her mouth curved in a rueful smile. ‘You know I wasn’t. It was wonderful.’
Dio! Marco was shaken by this unexpected emotional response to Leah. He tore his gaze from her lovely face and lifted the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket.
‘Next time it will be easier for you.’
‘Is there going to be a next time?’
‘Would you like there to be?’ He found he was holding his breath as he waited for her reply.
‘Yes.’
He popped the cork and poured the champagne, handing her a glass. ‘I propose a toast, Signora De Valle. To a fresh start.’
Her smile became impish. ‘Mind where you put your foot, Signor De Valle.’
Marco put his glass down carefully on the side of the bath, not entirely surprised to find that his hand was shaking.
‘Come here.’
He read the excitement in her eyes as she set her glass down and shifted across to him. She gave a gasp when he lifted her onto his lap and his arousal pressed against her bottom. Her mouth met his, and he loved her eagerness as she returned kiss for kiss. He gave himself up to a passion that had never been as intense with other women as it was with Leah.
This fire could not last, he assured himself, perplexed by the pang he felt at the certainty that it would burn itself out. Nothing good lasted for ever.
He rose out of the bath, taking her with him, and wrapped her in a fluffy towel before briskly drying himself. When he carried her through to the bedroom and laid her on the bed she sat up and gave him a shy smile.
‘I have another fantasy...’
His breath hissed between his teeth as she moved down his body, her silky curls brushing over his abdomen and thighs as she put her mouth on his sex.
‘Madre di Dio!’
‘I’m sorry.’ She lifted her head and her uncertain expression undid him utterly. ‘Am I doing it wrong?’
‘It’s perfect,’ he said hoarsely, tangling his fingers in her hair as she bent her head once more and licked along his throbbing shaft. ‘You are perfect.’
The still functioning part of Marco’s brain acknowledged that he’d made a good decision to insist that their marriage contract was for a year. He’d done it because it would not look good to the company’s shareholders if he broke up with his bride too soon after the wedding. But as his body shook, and he fought for control when Leah closed her mouth around the swollen tip of his manhood, a year did not seem nearly long enough with a wife who was more fascinating with every new discovery he made about her.
It had been a night such as he’d never experienced before, and Marco had made sure that Leah was as sated as he by the time they fell into an exhausted sleep.
He woke first the next morning, and propped himself up on his elbow while he watched her sleep. She was more beautiful that anything he’d ever seen, with her riotous hair spread over the pillows and her creamy breasts bearing faint red marks from his beard.
Marco pushed to the back of his mind the thought that he was behaving like a man who, if not lovesick, was dangerously close to it.
Leah opened her eyes and gave him the sweetest smile, and he assured himself that the tangled knot in his gut was simply desire. He had wanted her for a long time and now, finally, she was beneath him, her legs spread wide and her hips lifting to meet his. He tested her with his finger and found her wet and ready for him.
He reminded himself that this was all new to her and silently cursed his thoughtlessness. ‘Do you feel sore?’
‘No. I want you.’
She urged him down onto her, and with a groan he sank between her thighs and drove his shaft deep into her welcoming heat.
They finally made it out of bed late in the morning, and enjoyed a leisurely brunch in a charming café at the top of the Spanish Steps, with wonderful views over the city.
Rome in the middle of summer was thronged with tourists. ‘We’ll come back and I’ll take you sightseeing,’ Marco promised, when Leah told him that this was her first trip to the city.
He knew she was as keen as him to return to Capri to be with Nicky.
The days following their return to Villa Rosa stretched into weeks, but Marco barely noticed. His relationship with his son continued to flourish as Nicky’s self-confidence grew and the trauma of the accident gradually faded for both of them.
Marco slipped into a routine in which he left early in the helicopter for his office in Naples most days, but returned to the villa by mid-afternoon. Leah taught Nicky in the morning, and the three of them spent the rest of the day swimming in the pool or at the beach, or strolling around the winding, narrow streets of Capri.
Nicky loved to ride in the chair lift to the top of Monte Solaro, the highest point on the island, but Leah preferred the less hair-raising charm of La Piazzeta, the lively square in the centre of Capri which was a wonderful place to enjoy a slice of torta caprese, the island’s famous chocolate and almond cake.
‘This is heavenly,’ she said as she and Marco sat in a café one lazy afternoon.
They were spending the afternoon without Nicky as he’d gone with Silvana the nanny to a birthday party for Silvana’s niece’s young son.
Leah popped the last forkful of cake into her mouth. ‘I’ll have to watch my figure if I carry on eating so much of this wonderful food.’
‘You have a gorgeous body,’ Marco assured her. He leaned across the table and wiped a smear of chocolate off her lip with his thumb. ‘It’s a novelty to be with a woman who enjoys food. Eating is a sensual pleasure...like making love.’
He held Leah’s gaze as he lifted his thumb to his mouth and licked the chocolate from it.
Her eyes widened and rosy colour stained her cheeks. ‘Marco! Someone might hear you.’
He laughed huskily. ‘How can you still blush like a virgin after what we did last night?’
His arousal was instantly rock-hard as he pictured Leah, bent over the side of the bath while his hands had roamed over her as he’d taken her.
She gave him an innocent look. ‘Maybe we should go back to the villa so that you can remind me of what we did?’
Stifling a groan, he paid the bill and slid his arm around her waist, urging her to walk faster across the piazza.
‘Something tells me you’re in a hurry,’ she murmured, her eyes alight with teasing laughter and an excitement that made Marco’s heart race.
‘I am very hungry, cara mia.’
It occurred to him that if anyone had told him a few months ago that he’d happily delegate work so that he could leave the office early and rush home to be with his teasing minx of a wife he would not have believed it. The company had dominated his life for more than a decade, but now he had discovered that the simple enjoyment of kicking a football around the garden with Nicky or spending a long night in bed with his wife meant more to him than pulling off a brilliant business deal.
As for Leah—her passionate and sensual nature had been a revelation. But it was more than just great sex, Marco acknowledged. He liked being with her. She had been reserved when he’d first met her, but trust had grown between them and she’d lowered her guard and let him see that she was witty, with a dry sense of humour and a kindness that he would miss when the storm she evoked in him finally blew itself out.
But his desire for her showed no sign of abating yet, and he’d decided to stop wondering when it would happen and instead enjoy the lingering days of summer with her before winter and cold reality arrived.
As they hurried through the front door of Villa Rosa Marco paused to pick a white rose, which he tucked into Leah’s hair.
‘I can walk,’ she protested when he scooped her into his arms and carried her up the stairs.
‘Not fast enough,’ he growled, shouldering open the door to the master bedroom, which they now shared.
He rid them both of their clothes before they fell onto the bed, mouths fused together, his hands curving possessively over her breasts.
‘See what you do to me?’
He lay on his back beside her and his gaze met hers in the mirror above the bed. Their reflection showed Leah’s slim yet curvaceous body, her pale skin an erotic contrast against the black silk sheets, her nipples red where he’d sucked them. His erection was thick and hard, and he groaned when she ran her fingers over the sensitive tip.
‘I prefer action to looking,’ she said, with one of those smiles of hers that did strange things to his insides.
And then she rose up and straddled his hips, leaning forward so that her nipples brushed across his chest while he guided his shaft between her soft thighs. She took him deep inside her and he watched their reflection as she rode him, her red hair spilling around her shoulders. She tipped her head back and her eyes were as dark as a stormy sea when they reached the plateau simultaneously and tumbled together into the abyss.
Much later, Marco padded out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel over his wet hair after his shower, and found Leah sitting on the bed wearing his shirt.
How did she look so goddamned sexy in a shirt that was much too big for her? he wondered, admiring her toned thighs where the edge of the shirt finished. It was safe to say that she wouldn’t be wearing it for long.
He forced himself to concentrate when she spoke.
‘Silvana called to say that Nicky is having a great time at the birthday party. It’s good for him to spend time with children of his own age. Your Aunt Benedetta will see a big change in him when she brings her grandchildren to stay, and Nicky will love playing with Dario, Aria and Giovani.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘Nicky is doing so well—I think he’ll be ready to start school when the new term begins. He won’t need me to give him lessons any more, and I’ve been thinking I should start to look for a teaching job in England.’
Marco felt the unpleasant sensation of his stomach dropping like a stone.
‘I did not bring you to Capri only as Nicky’s teacher,’ he said. ‘You signed a contract stating that you will be my wife for a year. If we were to divorce earlier it would give an impression of instability in my personal life—which, as CEO of the company, I want to avoid.’
She looked away from him. ‘Is that the only reason you want our marriage to continue?’
He shrugged. ‘For Nicky’s sake too. The psychotherapist says it’s important to maintain a sense of continuity so that he feels secure.’
‘I wouldn’t drop out of his life. I’d come back to Capri to visit him. But I have a career. My inheritance money won’t last long, and I need to work.’
Marco raked a hand through his hair. ‘With regard to the divorce... As the contract stands you will not receive a settlement, but I am going to instruct my lawyer to alter it so that you will be awarded one million pounds at the end of our marriage.’
Leah stared at him. ‘A million pounds?’
‘It will allow you to buy a house in London and pay for your mother to continue her treatment.’
‘What exactly are you paying me a million pounds for?’ she asked, in a sharp voice with an underlying note that Marco could not decipher. ‘Sex? Do I earn a certain amount per night?’
‘Don’t forget the days,’ he growled. ‘You are always eager for sex first thing in the morning.’
His jaw hardened as colour flooded her face. He was stunned that she seemed to be throwing his offer back in his face.
‘I thought you’d be pleased that you won’t have to worry about money in the future.’
‘Oh, I’m thrilled that you think I’m a prostitute.’
‘Dio—I don’t think that. I made the offer as a sign that I...’
‘That you what?’ Her eyes flashed dangerously.
Marco unconsciously rubbed his hand over the ache in his chest. He didn’t know what to say. He cared about what happened to her and he wanted to make her life easier—frankly, it did not sound like a bed of roses. But he sensed that Leah wanted a different answer from him.
‘I made the offer as a token of my respect for you.’
She scrambled off the bed and marched over to the connecting door between her room and his.
‘You know where you can put your million pounds! I don’t want your money, and you have a funny way of showing your respect!’
She stepped into the other bedroom and Marco heard a tremor in her voice when she spoke again.
‘I’ll stay for as long as Nicky needs me, but then I demand you set me free.’
The slam of the door had a ring of finality to it.