“Jack.”
He lifted his head to gaze down at her, his pupils dilated with his own need. “If you can guess my next move right, I’ll give you a special prize.”
Her brain felt fuzzy now, her limbs heavy with desire. Somehow she managed to reply, “I like prizes.” Her hands trembled as, feeling naughtier than ever, she slid them beneath her br**sts and cupped them. “You’re thinking of using more than your tongue now, but it’s driving you crazy trying to decide where to taste first.”
“You really must have ESP,” he murmured as he covered her hands with his. And then his tongue was laving an incredibly sensual figure eight around her ni**les, coming closer to them with each seductive trip. When he blew lightly over the tightly puckered, damp skin, she couldn’t remember ever feeling this aroused before.
When his lips closed over her ni**les. Mary barely remembered in time to tamp down on her moan of pleasure as he used the pads of his thumbs to caress the soft flesh in his hands at the same time.
Teetering on the edge of release already, she gasped, “Is that my prize?”
“No,” he said as he moved down her body to lay one kiss after another onto her overheated skin. “This is.”
His mouth was warm and hungry as he lowered himself between her legs. At the same time that the sensuality of what they were doing together rocked through her, he found her hands with his and slid their fingers together.
If she’d been close to coming apart before, it was the love that he gave her even during the naughtiest sex that sent her hurtling over the edge. Her lungs burned as she tried to gasp in air; her skin was slick with sweat, and her heart was racing as if she’d just sprinted from one end of town to the other.
The intensity of the final San Francisco photo shoot with Jack, combined with the anguish of her father’s phone call, the long red-eye flight to Italy, and then the emotional reunion with her mother and her trip into town, should have left her limp and exhausted. But instead of her climax using up the last of her energy, Mary suddenly felt stronger than she’d ever been.
Tugging on Jack’s hands, she pulled him back up her body, then rolled them over so that he was the one beneath her. Mirroring the kisses he’d given her, she started at his mouth, then moved from his face to his chest, then down lower still, mirroring the way he’d been loving her minutes earlier.
“Angel.”
She ran her tongue over him and his fingers clenched hers as she took, tasted, gave. She loved knowing how close she brought him to the edge, that she could make him lose control with every press of her lips against his hard heat.
But as he effortlessly dragged her back up to spin them again so that his heavy weight was over her once more, she knew the time for teasing, for ratcheting up anticipation to even higher heights, was long past.
She gasped as he slid into her, then lost her breath entirely as she arched to take him deeper. Her name was on his lips, a caressing whisper across her overheated skin in the moonlight that was streaming in through the window.
Her climax spiraled into his, and feeling safe and comforted and cherished with Jack’s hands in hers and his loving eyes dark and intense as he gazed down at her, Mary drank in the perfect beauty of knowing she’d finally come home.
Not just to Rosciano and to her family…but to the most wonderful man in the world.
The first times they’d made love, he’d been her secret lover, then boyfriend. Now, he was her fiancé. In just a few days, she thought in wonder as she put his hands over her heart, he’d be her husband.
She’d been Mary Ferrer for thirty-two years.
She couldn’t wait to be Mary Sullivan for all the rest.
A long while later, just as the first rays of morning light were starting to sneak in through the bedroom window, she slid from beneath Jack’s strong arms, tied her robe on and tiptoed back down the hall to her bedroom. A naughty—and well-pleasured—smile remained on her face all morning as she dived headfirst into putting on the Christmas wedding her mother had always dreamed of.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mary’s first memories were of sitting on the floor at her mother’s feet, surrounded by what seemed like acres of lace and silk as Lucia transformed them into dreams come true. Her friends had always fantasized about the day Mary’s brilliant seamstress mother would make them their wedding dresses, and before Mary had left Italy, she’d had the pleasure of watching her closest girlfriends walk down the aisle in the beautiful gowns her mother had so lovingly made for them by hand.
At long last, it was her turn.
With her arm around her mother’s waist to keep her steady, Mary walked slowly into the bride’s dressing room in the back corner of the church. Her father had brought over the beautiful wedding dress earlier and had hung it from a strong hook in the middle of the stone wall.
“Sit, Mama.” Mary helped settle her mother into the most comfortable chair, still concerned that she was too weak from her illness to be expending so much energy.
Lucia should have spent the days before the wedding resting, but despite how many times Mary tried to pry the needle and thread from her fingers, she’d never succeeded at getting her to stop. Mary didn’t have her mother’s incredible skill, but she was proficient enough to work on the gown’s lining which no one would see. Together, the two of them had sat by a blazing fire in the living room and worked on her wedding dress, made from combined pieces of her mother’s wedding dress and new fabric to create a style that would be Mary’s alone.