A Tainted Beauty

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she whispered.

‘Good,’ he said, unbuttoning his shirt with fingers which were shaking like a drunk’s.

Lily’s heart pounded as she watched him undress, carelessly tossing his jacket onto a nearby chair in a way she suspected was uncharacteristic. Because even in jeans, he somehow always managed to look immaculate. Maybe that was an Italian thing. ‘Shouldn’t you hang that up?’ she questioned nervously as his white shirt fluttered to the ground.

Pausing midway through easing his trouser zip down over his aching hardness, Ciro registered the sudden shyness in her voice and he gave a low laugh as he pulled his trousers off and wriggled out of his boxers.

‘If you think,’ he said as he joined her on the bed and pulled her warm and compliant body into his arms, ‘that I am capable of anything right now other than maybe this…’

This was a kiss. A kiss which seemed to go on for ever. Which made the world shift and blur, leaving Lily a helpless victim of her senses. He moved his lips away and began to touch her breasts, his fingers drifting in provocative circles over her aroused flesh. She felt his hand skate proprietorially over the flat of her stomach and her eyes flew open to find that he was watching her, his dark gaze fiercely intent. ‘Oh, Ciro,’ she breathed.

‘What is it, angelo mio?’ he murmured, moving his hand down and rubbing his fingers luxuriously against the soft bush of curls.

‘Oh, Ciro, I…” His thumb flicked across the engorged button of flesh which was concealed beneath the damp tangle and she gave a moan of pleasure because this was just bliss. She felt all the worries of the past recede. She saw nothing ahead but a bright and gloriously golden future. And Ciro was responsible. He was the one who had taken her fortunes and turned them around. The man who had picked her up when she was at her lowest ebb. Who had seen something in her. Something good. Something he liked enough to make him want her as his wife. He had scooped her up and made her feel safe and, now that the nerves of the wedding ceremony had passed, she could concentrate on all the glorious possibilities of the present. An overwhelming sense of gratitude washed over her and so did something else. Something which was bubbling up inside her and which felt too big and too important to hold back. Something she could give to him, with all her heart, if she dared to open the floodgates. ‘Ciro?’

‘What is it, dolcezza?’

‘I.I love you,’ she whispered.

There was a pause. ‘Of course you do,’ he murmured. And even though countless women had said it to him in the past, even though he had always dismissed the pat little sentence as meaningless—her declaration pleased him. Because she was his wife and she should love him. Just as he would love her in every way he could.

Lily’s lips were tracing heated little kisses across his throat and he realised that they hadn’t even discussed contraception—but that, for once, it really didn’t matter. She was his wife. If she got pregnant, so what? Wasn’t that what marriage was all about? He moved over her, touching his mouth to hers, feeling his erection pushing against her belly—and it was bigger and harder than he could ever remember feeling before. Dio—but this was so close to pleasure that it almost felt like pain. And not just in his body—for wasn’t there an unfamiliar ache deep in his heart as he looked at her?

‘I don’t want to wear protection,’ he said, his voice shaking as he made this unusually candid admission. ‘I want to feel you. Just you, Lily. My skin against your skin. My hardness against your softness. No barrier, mio angelo—no barrier at all.’

‘Then don’t,’ she said shakily, her arms wrapping around his broad back, her lips kissing his neck—inhaling the raw, citrusy smell of him, scarcely able to believe this was happening. ‘Don’t wear anything. Just… make love to me, Ciro. Please. Or else I think I’m going to die with the wanting.’

For a split second, something inside him jarred. Was it the sudden urgency of her words which surprised him—or just the assertive way she had expressed them? Yet Ciro knew he should rejoice in the fact she was relaxed—because wasn’t tension supposed to be the enemy of a virgin’s enjoyment? He splayed one hand luxuriously over her peaking breast while the other positioned himself to where she was wet and waiting. He could feel the powerful roar of his blood as it pounded senselessly around his veins and her wide blue eyes looked straight up into his.

‘Lily,’ he said, and entered her, his body taut with restraint as her velvet heat enclosed him.

‘Ciro,’ she breathed.

He saw her eyes close, saw her body shudder as he began to move, slowly at first, but gradually thrusting deeper and deeper—deeper than he’d thought he could ever go. Never had any woman ever felt so sweet nor so delicious—but then, never had he felt this aroused. ‘I’m not hurting you?’ he gasped.

The sweet rhythm had been consuming her, but now Lily’s eyes snapped open to see his eyes searching her face—as if wanting clues about how much pleasure he was giving her. Hurting her? Why, nothing could be further from the truth. She didn’t think that anything had ever given her so much pleasure as this intimacy of being joined with her husband. Her beloved husband. Instinctively, she gave a great bubbling sound of laughter as her arms looped around his neck, her bent legs lifting to entwine themselves around his broad back.

‘Hurting me?’ she murmured as she jutted her hips against him with practised ease. ‘God, no. It’s… it’s… oh, Ciro—it’s amazing.’

A hint of darkness momentarily clouded his overwhelming pleasure—but the writhing thrust of Lily’s hips against his swollen hardness was enough to suck him right back in there again. He groaned as he juggled pleasure with restraint. It was torture holding back like this but Ciro knew he must temper his hunger. Because didn’t they say it took virgins longer to achieve orgasm? And there was no way his new wife was going to miss out on that on her wedding night.

But suddenly she was clinging to him, her thighs digging into his sweat-sheened back as if she were riding a horse. Suddenly, her lips were torn away from his as she tipped her head back with an exultant moan—and he watched the telltale arching of her back as she started to come.

He waited only for her shuddering orgasm to fade and then Ciro let go completely. He heard the disbelieving cry which seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him. Felt the exquisite contractions which forced all the seed pumping from his body, straight into her wet and pulsing warmth.

Perhaps he might still not have guessed—at least, not then. He was so silken-deep in pleasure that he might simply have closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, had Lily not begun to wriggle her toes up and down the sides of his body with an erogenous agility which spoke volumes. The rapturous aftermath of his orgasm began to disintegrate, like the lick of the incoming tide against a sandcastle built on the edge of the sea. He spanned his hands over her hips and lifted her slightly away from him so that their eyes were on a collision course, but Ciro was careful not to accuse. Because he might simply be mistaken. Please God, may he be mistaken.

‘You liked that?’ he questioned softly.

‘You know I did,’ she whispered, wishing that he’d bring her back down on top of him so that she could carry on kissing him.

There was a heartbeat of a pause. ‘You know, for a minute back then I almost thought that you were… experienced.’

The word was used almost casually, but Lily wasn’t a fool. She could hear the faint brittleness which underpinned it, even if she hadn’t been able to see the sudden hard glitter of his eyes. She bit her lip, searching for the right words to say, but she couldn’t seem to find them anywhere.

‘Are you, Lily?’ he questioned softly. ‘Are you experienced?’

There was a pause. ‘Not very,’ she admitted.