Her blood was boiling beneath her skin like liquid iron. She breathed out hungrily, the rasping sounds punctuating the silence of the room, and then she bit down on her lip as the sensations began to overflow, making her face blotchy with heat and sweat bead on her brow. She curled her fingers into his hair, holding him tight, and scrunched up her eyes.
The overload of feeling was something she hadn’t prepared for. Waves of arousal and satisfaction ebbed through her, rocking her to the core. She stayed perfectly still, letting them pound against her nerve-endings, and then she tilted her head back, resting it against the wall as her breathing slowed to normal.
He eased his finger out of her wet, pulsing core, and she made a small sound of surprise at the unwelcome abandonment. When she opened her eyes he was staring down at her, his cheeks slashed with dark colour, his eyes silently assessing.
The world stopped spinning.
Everything stopped except her breathing and her awakening.
She lifted a hand, curled her fingers into his shirt, needing him for support. She held him while she caught her breath—in and out, in and out—and he watched her the whole time.
Finally, after long moments of silent, stretching heat, he spoke.
‘You are far too sensual to have been uninterested in sex. Were you forbidden from dating?’
Her mind was still reeling from what had just happened. ‘I need a minute...’
She bit down on her lip but couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. She was beautiful at any time, really, but like this she was angelic.
‘What the hell was that?’
His frown showed confusion. ‘What?’
‘I... I just... Wow.’
His groan was somehow scathing. ‘Tell me you have at least touched yourself?’
Should she have? God, she supposed she should have had at least a passing curiosity in her own sexual development. Shame that she hadn’t ever explored this side of herself made her flush to the roots of her hair.
‘I...’
‘What the hell happened to you?’ he muttered. ‘How can you have ignored these feelings? This desire?’
She swallowed, but the insulting tone of his voice was making her defensive. ‘Not everyone sees sex as the be-all and end-all...’
‘Yes, they do,’ he disputed, a rough smile in his voice. ‘At least anyone who’s had really great sex does.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish I’d known this about you before agreeing to this damned marriage,’ he said angrily. ‘You need to have sex. And fast. But not with me.’
Her heart turned over in her chest. ‘Why not with you?’ she prompted.
His eyes flashed with rich frustration. ‘I told you. Educating virgins isn’t my thing. I’m not looking for the complications of that.’
‘Even with your wife?’ she responded archly.
‘Not a real wife, remember?’
She bit down on her lip and nodded. ‘So? What am I meant to do?’
‘Well, you’ve waited twenty-two years. I guess a few more won’t kill you.’
But it might kill him, Pietro thought as he turned his back on her. Walking away as though he was completely unaffected was damned near impossible with the raging hard-on between his legs.
A virgin. And yet so gorgeous and wanton and sensual. God, he wanted to take her to his bed. Despite what he’d said, the idea of teaching Emmeline Morelli just what her body was capable of stirred all kinds of animalistic masculine fantasies in his mind.
Being the first man to move inside her... Hell, the need to possess her was so savage it was beneath him.
He couldn’t do it.
He’d married her because he loved Col Bovington like a father, and he would resist the urge to sleep with Emmeline for that exact reason.
No matter how damned much he was tempted.
He was the adult. The experienced adult. He had to control this beast of desire that was burning between them or he’d never forgive himself.
* * *
‘I’ve always liked Rome.’
Col’s voice had a wistful note. Or maybe Pietro was imagining things, because, in the back of his mind—much as it must be in Col’s—was one single question: was this the last time Col would come to Italy? Was this the last time he’d look down on this ancient city?
‘It’s a city like no other.’ Pride pierced Pietro’s statement.
‘Si,’ Col agreed, a smile on his face. His eyes scanned the skyline, taking in the glistening lights of the city in the distance set against the inky black sky. ‘How is she?’
Guilt slashed through Col. A feeling that was as unwelcome as it was foreign.
‘Is she settling in? Happy? Adjusting?’
Pietro could close his eyes and remember the way her body had felt. The way her body had closed around his finger. The sounds she’d made as she’d come—hard.