The Sicilian's Marriage Arrangement

She’d never known anything so intimate in her life.

She tried to put some distance between them, but she had no leverage with her feet completely off the floor. His hold was too firm to wiggle out of his arms and her efforts in that direction only increased the strange sensations arcing through her from the friction at the juncture of her thighs.

He wrapped his arm around the small of her back and pressed her firmly against him while increasing the intimacy of their kiss. And she melted. Just like she’d done before. Unlike before, however, there was no voice to interrupt and Luciano did not pull away. The urgency in his kiss grew along with the rising passion in her.

She became aware of his hand on her thigh, under her dress. How had it gotten there? She should protest, but that would mean breaking the kiss. Besides, his hand on her bare skin felt good. Too good to fight. Knowing fingers burned a trail of erotic caresses up the unprotected skin of her leg until they reached her bottom. He cupped her there and his mouth swallowed the sound of her shock.

Feelings so intense they frightened her coursed through her every nerve ending.

She ached to touch him. She ached for more of his touch. She lost all sense of self-preservation in the face of such overwhelming pleasure and ran her hands over his face, his shoulders, his neck, everywhere she could reach from her position locked against him.

He groaned and moved.

She realized he’d backed up to lean against the vanity when one of her feet bumped the cabinet. He pressed her legs apart and over his thighs, pushing the hard ridge of his arousal into impossibly intimate contact with her body. She didn’t have time to contemplate this because suddenly his hand was inside the silk of her panties, touching the naked flesh of her bottom. Goose bumps flashed over her flesh, accompanied by involuntary shivers that had nothing to do with being cold.

In fact, she’d never been so hot in all her life.

That devastating hand went lower to the underside of her bottom. Sliding centimeters to the left, fingers stealthily found her most intimate flesh from an unexpected direction and this time even his mouth covering hers could not stifle the shriek of shock at contact.

The feel of a man’s finger pressing into flesh that had never known anyone’s touch before was so alien that it shocked her out of the sensual reverie she’d sunk into with his kiss. She squirmed, trying to get away from that intimate touch, but that caused an amazing friction between Luciano’s excited male flesh and her sweetest spot.

His big body shuddered.

She tore her mouth from his. “Luciano. Please!”

He said something in Italian and started kissing her neck, using his tongue and teeth in a form of erotic teasing that made her squirm even more, but with pleasure this time, not shock.

His head lifted and dark eyes burned her with their sensual force. “You belong to me, bella mia. Admit it.”

She couldn’t deny a truth she’d known somewhere in her heart since she was eighteen years old. “Yes, Luciano, yes.” When had she not?

“Cara!” His mouth rocked back over hers in another soul-shaking kiss.

It went on and on and she lost all touch with reality. She could feel only his body beneath hers. She could taste only his mouth. She could smell only his scent. She could hear nothing but their joined heartbeats and a ringing in her ears.

He groaned, breaking his mouth away from hers. It was the sound of a man facing Purdah when Heaven had been within his grasp.

Her head was too heavy for her neck and it dropped forward into the hollow of his neck.

A moment later a discreet cough sounded from the doorway to the guest room. “Signor di Valerio.”

“Si?” Luciano’s voice sounded strained.

“É la vostra madre.”

It is your mother. The simple Italian phrase penetrated her brain through the fog of arousal still blunting her thinking process.

He said something that sounded suspiciously like a swearword. “I must take the call, piccola mia.”

She made a halfhearted attempt at a nod, still too enervated to speak.

He slowly withdrew his hand from intimate contact with her body as if it pained him to do so. She buried her face against him until he gently set her away from him. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor. How could she have made the same mistake twice? She hadn’t just let him kiss her, she’d responded with all the wantonness of a woman who routinely shared her body with men. She didn’t even know she was capable of that level of abandon to the physical.

It both scared and shamed her.

“Look at me, Hope.”

She shook her head. The memory of the way she had allowed him to touch her and where she had let him touch her was sending arrows of mortification into her conscience with bull’s-eye accuracy.