‘I’d better go,’ she said, aware her voice must sound shaky but no longer having any control of it.
Dante pressed her forward and gripped her hips.
‘I’ll call you back later. Love you, bye.’
Then she disconnected the call at the same moment Dante entered her.
His love-making was fast and furious, an elemental force that released something new, something primal, in her.
When it was over and she stood gripping the balustrade, weak-legged and throbbing from the carnal pleasure he had unleashed, he gently pulled her hair back again and twisted her head to kiss her.
‘What are you doing to me, dolcezza?’ he asked with a groan into her mouth.
She laughed weakly. ‘What are you doing to me, more like?’
His own laughter was shaky. ‘I have no idea how I’m going to get through this day without dragging you off somewhere to make love to you.’
He disappeared back into the room to add to the growing number of condoms in the bin. Aislin picked up her phone, dropped from her fingers without her
remembering, and wondered how the heck she was going to get through the rest of her life without making love to him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DANTE DROVE THE short route to the cathedral. Normally he loved to be behind the wheel. When it came to getting from A to B in his busy daily life, he preferred to be chauffeured. Time was a premium. Being driven meant he could get on with work.
As this was a weekend for pleasure he’d decided to drive himself but now regretted the decision. He had to concentrate hard, and fight his eyes from staring at Aislin beside him, ravishing in an off-the-shoulder figure-hugging navy blue dress.
His awareness for her had become a burning infection in him. It consumed him.
When they’d joined the other guests for breakfast, he’d had to remind himself that holding her hand was for show.
But that had been a lie to himself.
It had been such a natural thing for him to do that he hadn’t even realised he was holding it until they’d entered the banquet room and he’d been forced to let it go.
Once they’d finished breakfast, she’d gone up to their room, ordering him to give her an hour before joining her so she could get ready for the wedding in peace.
He’d known exactly what she meant. After their escapade on the patio, which his loins still burned to remember, they’d taken a shower together and got so carried away they’d come within a breath of not using a condom.
To while the time away, he’d played snooker in the games room with Alessio’s youngest brother, Guido, a grumpy fifteen-year-old. They’d made excellent company for each other: the morose teenager who wanted to be roaming the streets with his mates and the disgruntled thirty-four-year-old man who wanted to be getting naked with his Irish fox.
When the hour had passed he’d gone up to the room and, the moment he’d crossed the threshold, she’d hurried out of the bathroom, hair straighteners in hand and only a towel wrapped around her.
‘If you touch me, I swear I’ll kick your ankles.’ And then she’d hurried back in and locked the door.
Thirty minutes later she had opened the door a crack. ‘Get to the other side of the room,’ she’d ordered, and waited until he’d complied before stepping out.
She’d held her palms out in a warning. ‘I mean it, Moncada. Don’t touch me. It’s taken me an hour to get my hair right.’
She was fully dressed, her hair loose and in sleek waves around her bare shoulders.
She’d been right to warn him to keep his distance.
If she’d been within arm’s reach he would have had her in his hold quicker than she could blink. And they both knew what would have happened then.
He’d already ruined one of her outfits. The replacement dress for the evening reception was en route from Palermo. There was no time to get a replacement dress for the wedding itself.
He figured he had five, maybe six hours until he could make love to her again. There was a three-hour window between the wedding breakfast and the evening reception. That was plenty of time to make love again, maybe twice, and still have time to shower and change.