‘Remember what I said the night you were talking to those two professors?’
He asked the question as he brought his mouth down to take a nipple between his teeth and roll it gently, as he moved his hand lower, brushing over her feminine core, before he transferred his mouth to her other breast.
‘No...’ she moaned, rolling her hips, inviting him in. Needing him again.
How was it always like this for them? Would it ever not be? She felt as if an explosion had caught her in its midst, powerful and fierce.
‘I will bring you to my bed every night, so that no other man ever, ever interests you.’
The passion in his words was wrapping around her, squeezing her, filling her with all the love in the world. ‘You already do that,’ she said huskily.
‘It never hurts to take precautions, though, does it?’
She laughed, but any hint of amusement died inside her as he dragged his lips lower, falling to his knees so that he could kiss her in her most sensitive, private place. His tongue ran along her seam and her knees quivered as sensations began to drown her, to make thought impossible.
‘I can’t believe there was a time when you were not mine,’ he said against her flesh, and she moaned, running her fingers through his hair as pleasure spiralled in her belly, driving through her, making her blood heat and her heart pound.
‘I need you!’ she cried out as an orgasm began to unfurl, spreading through her limbs, making them weak and aching.
‘I’m glad.’
He didn’t stop, though. His fingers dug into her hips and he held her where he needed her, his tongue dictating the speed of her release, and the intensity too. She cried out into the shower as the orgasm unfolded, her mind exploding, every conscious thought obliterated by the havoc he wreaked on her body.
He kissed her quivering flesh as he stood, but didn’t give her even a moment to recover. His hands spun her easily—she was weakened by the total meltdown of her bodily awareness—and he bent her at the hips. Holding her steady, he drove into her from behind and felt her tremble as his possession was complete—the ultimate coming together.
He throbbed inside her, his fingers massaging her wet, soapy breasts, his arousal rubbing against her sensitive nerve-endings, squeezed by her tight, wet muscles. He spoke in Italian—words that meant nothing and everything. He bent forward, kissing her back as he moved, stroking her, touching her, and finally, when her muscles squeezed him with all their need, he emptied himself into her, the feeling of ownership more complete than ever before. She owned him, and she was his.
Emmeline pressed her flushed face against the shower tiles, her mind reeling.
‘I am going to find it very hard to concentrate today,’ she said thickly, rolling her hips as he continued to pulse inside her, his length experiencing the aftershocks of the earthquake of their coming together.
‘That makes two of us.’
He ran a finger down her back before easing himself out of her, away from her, releasing them from the agony and ecstasy of what they had been. She stood and turned to face him, and her eyes were so vibrant and her smile so broad that a dull ache spread through his chest.
He’d been fooling himself in pretending the lie didn’t matter.
It did. Of course it did.
He ran a hand over her hair, wet and dark. ‘Emmeline...?’ he said softly, studying her cautiously.
‘Mmm?’ She wrapped her hands around his waist, holding him close to her body.
How could he tell her now? On her first day at university? It would derail her completely, and he’d already done his best to do that. No, he couldn’t do it today.
But Col Bovington was going downhill, and enough was enough.
Pietro had an obligation to his wife. Soon, when the time was right, he would tell her.
Having made the resolution, he felt a thousand times better. As if simply by deciding to do something he had in some way enacted a small step of the deed.
Absolution was close at hand.
* * *
Emmeline hummed as she moved about the kitchen. There was a pile of textbooks in the corner, opened to the page she had most recently been reading. She cast a gaze over the papas di pomodoro, smelling the piquant sweetness of the tomatoes and the undertones of basil and garlic, then shifted her focus to the quails that were roasting in the oven.
It was the first time she’d cooked dinner for Pietro’s family and she wanted everything to be perfect.
He’d laughed when she’d said as much. ‘I have a housekeeper, a chef and a valet. Why do you not leave the food to them? You have too much on your mind already,’ he had said, nodding towards the books that were littered around the house.
‘I’ve only been at uni a week; it’s still early days.’ She’d smiled back. ‘Besides, I want to. I like to cook and I think... I don’t know... It just feels like something nice to do.’