The Italian's Token Wife

His mouth grazed hers, and she lifted her face to him like a flower, drinking in his nectar.

‘Will you come with me, cara, on that journey? Will you let me take you there?’ He was kissing her as he spoke, light, seductive kisses that she could no more resist than a snowflake melting on a warm cheek. There were only two people in the entire world—herself and Rafaello di Viscenti, the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His hands were framing her face, his fingers teasing, his mouth caressing hers with exquisite, feathered lightness. But beneath the lightness a hunger was growing. She could feel it, building in her veins, her head, making her mouth answer his, taste him as he was tasting her, dissolving the world around her into nothing more than exquisite, honeyed sensation.

She wanted it never to stop, but for all that it was not enough—it was feeding its own hunger, its own yearning.

Her body pressed itself against his, a slender wand against his lean hardness, her palms caught between her breasts and his chest.

She gave a little moan, deep in her throat, as he teased open her mouth, releasing yet more and more sensation, until she felt flame flickering throughout her body. She felt her breasts quicken, swelling against him, and the sensation was as wondrous as it was arousing.

Time slipped away, lost in sensation. There was nothing, nothing but this. Nothing but the touch of his fingers at her shoulders, slipping the tiny shoestring straps over the cusp of each arm, and gently, oh, so gently, his hands warm on her flanks, sliding the silky material of her dress down the slender column of her body. He was kissing her all the while, but as the dress pooled at her feet he let her go and stepped back.

She stood there, the dark material spread on the floor, her body bathed in the soft light from the low lamps. Her instinct was to cover her breasts, but instinct was fighting with another impulse, yet more powerful—to stand quite still and let Rafaello’s eyes drink in the sight of her as a thirsty man would drink purest spring water. So she stood, one slender silk-clad leg taking slightly more weight that the other, the tiny line of her wisp of panties around her narrow hips, her eyes huge and liquid as she displayed herself to him.

‘Bellissima…’ His voice was low, and husked. ‘Beautiful—so beautiful…’

Her heart soared. To hear such a word on his lips was a pleasure so sweet, so melting she could not believe it.

‘Am I?’ Her words were a whisper.

‘Do you doubt it?’ His hand reached out and slowly, with infinite delicacy, his fingers traced around the swelling aureole of her breast. It flowered beneath his touch, and a shiver of pleasure went through her, a trembling in all her limbs. His fingers moved to her other breast and performed the same office there.

‘Bellissima,’ he said again. Then his hand slipped to hers and, folding her fingers in his own, he led her towards the bed.

It was a dream, thought Magda—it had to be a dream. Reality this wondrous, this magical, could never exist. Yet how could it be a dream? The touch of Rafaello’s hands was upon her body, laying her down upon the cool sheets. Pausing only to swiftly shed his own clothes—making her first gaze in adoration at the lean, dark revelation of skin and sinew, muscle and smooth, smooth flesh, making her lashes wash blushingly down over her eyes as her gaze worked downwards from his torso—he came and half lay beside her, lowering his head to kiss, not her lips, but those swelling, aching orbs that yearned again for his arousing caress.

She felt her spine arch, lifting her breasts towards him, and her hands reached for him, her fingers stroking into his dark, silky hair. A sigh of bliss eased from her as his tongue and lips suckled her, laving her nipples, one after the other, again and again, until sweetness was flooding through her.

Yet for all the sweetness, all the bliss, she wanted more. Bliss was feeding bliss, arousing her yet more and more, and a strange, yearning aching was spreading through her body, through every vein, every nerve, making her strain towards him.

He lifted his head from her. His eyes were dark pools, pupils dilated.

‘You must take this journey slowly, cara mia, the first time. It cannot be hurried, this first flowering of your body. And the waiting…’ a slow, sensual smile played over his parted lips as he dropped his voice ‘…is part of the journey.’

As he spoke he moved his fingers to the soft underside of her breasts, grazing them. Then he let them trail downwards, across the flat planes of her abdomen, smoothing along her flanks before drifting inwards to tease at the central dip of her belly button. But even as his forefinger circled there the spread of his hand spanned the vee of her legs, and all at once, instantly, achingly, she became aware, for the very first time in her life, of the low, insistent throb that had started up.