Valentino's Love-Child

“So, when does my sell-by date come into effect? Next week? Next month? Next year.”

He wanted to grab her and hold on tight, but he laid gentle hands on her shoulders instead. “You do not have a sell-by date. Our relationship is not cut-

and-dried like that.”

“I won’t be with you if you’re going to date other women,” she repeated stubbornly.

“I would not ask you to.”

“What does that mean, Tino?”

“It means you can trust me to be faithful while we are together. Just as I trust you.”

Her eyes glistened suspiciously, sending shards of pain spiking through his gut. He did not want to see her cry. He kissed her, just once, oh so carefully, trying to put the tenderness and commitment—as limited as it might be—that he felt into the caress.

“Let me make love to you.” He was pleading and he did not care.

They needed each other tonight, not empty beds where regrets and memories would haunt the hours that should be for sleep. Or making love.

“No more blind dates.”

“It wasn’t—”

But she shushed him with a finger to his lips. “It was. Or would have been. Don’t do it again.”

“You have my word.” Then, because he could not help himself; because he needed it more than breathing or thinking or anything else, he once again kissed her.

He poured his passion and his fear out in that kiss, molding their lips together in a primordial dance.

At first she did not respond. She did not try to push him away, but she did not pull him closer, either. It was the only time in their relationship she had not fallen headfirst into passion with him.

She was still thinking.

He would fix that. Increasing the intensity of their kiss, he stormed her mouth, refusing to allow their mutual desire to remain a prisoner to circumstances that would not…could not…change. Bit by bit her instincts took over.

And once her brain caught up to her body, she melted into him, ending her resistance and giving him access to the interior of her mouth at the same time. She tasted like the coffee laced heavily with rich cream and sweet sugar she had drunk after dinner. It was a flavor he had come to associate only with her.

He drank his own coffee black unless he wanted an erection tenting his slacks—something that was more than inconvenient during his business day, but could be downright embarrassing. This, what they had, was beyond good. It was fantastic, and she would not end it. He could not let her.

Tonight, he would remind her how well he knew her body, what he alone could do to it, how much pleasure he could give her. Her husband had not elicited those sensations in her, or she would not have acted so shocked by each new one when Tino and Faith had first begun their affair.

She had been almost virginal, many of her reactions belying the existence of previous lovers, much less a husband.

He refused to dwell on the sense of alarm he felt realizing the extent of his ignorance about her life. She’d been his son’s art teacher since before they met a year ago, and she had known his mother even longer. Yet Tino had been totally unaware of those facts. As unknowing as he had been about the reality of Faith’s widowhood.

How had her husband died? She’d loved him, thought he was a special man.

A primal need to erase memories of the other male from her drove Tino to deepen the kiss even further.

Faith made a soft sound against his lips. He loved kissing her. Had from the very first. She was more responsive to his lips claiming hers than any woman he had ever known. And she was far from shyly submissive. She gave as good as she got, with a passion that turned him inside out.

Damn. He wanted her.

But not out here where someone might see what should be entirely private between two people. The temptation to once again make her his, right here under the stars, was strong however. He fought it, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her inside.

He went directly to his room, no thought of taking Faith anywhere else even entering his mind. This was his bedroom. His bed. And for now at least, she was his woman.

The huge four-poster with wooden canopy had been used by his family for generations. Though the mattress and box springs were new—a pillow-top with extra coils imported from America on his younger brother’s recommendation. It had been a good piece of advice, for more than one reason.

Not only was it incredibly comfortable, but giving up the mattress and even the bed linens he had shared with his wife had been instrumental in Tino finally being able to sleep in his own suite once again.

Pulling back the coverlet, he then laid Faith onto the bed.

She looked around the room, her expression going from curious to surprised. “This is your room.”

He locked the door and returned to the bed, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. “Where else would I take you?”

“I don’t know.” She licked her lips, her focus on his chest as he peeled the shirt from his body. “You’re such an incredibly sexy man, you know?”

“You have mentioned believing so before.”

She laughed, the sound husky and warm. “I meant it then and I mean it now. I love looking at you.”

“I thought it was men who were supposed to be the visual sex.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged, kicking her sandals off. “Maybe if all women had such yummy eye candy to look at, we’d be considered the visual sex, too.”

“So, I am eye candy?”

She licked her lips as if tasting something really sweet and nodded.

His sex jolted at memories of what it felt like to be partaken of by that delectable little tongue. “I think you are a minx.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

She gave him a saucy wink and stretched her body, putting her curves on sensual display.

He shook his head but knew he had no hope of clearing it. He’d been here before with this woman, so filled with desire that everything else was just a gray fog around them. He unzipped his slacks, hissing as the parting fabric made way for his steel-hard manhood.

This woman affected him like no other.

“I love it when you make that sound.”

“You are the only one who has ever heard it.” With his admission, he stripped off the remainder of his clothes—the need to deflect automatic.

“Really?” she asked, nevertheless.

“Yes.” He joined her on the bed, on all fours above her. “I want you naked.”

She brushed her hand down his flank. “I like naked.”

He could no more suppress the growl her touch evoked than he could the need to return it. He brought their mouths together again as he reached down and caressed her through the silk of her dress. All evening he had wanted to do this, to feel the curves he knew intimately through the thin fabric. Regardless of how surreal the night had been, his desire for her was as strong as always, building with each minute he was in her company.

She moaned into the kiss, arching into his touch, begging silently for more.

And more was what he was an expert at giving her. He would remind her of that. Show her that each time could be better than the last.

He continued the strokes along her breasts, the dip of her waist and bow of her hips. Over and over again, he touched the places on her body that he knew drove her wild.

Her hands were busy, too, skimming along his heated skin, kneading his chest, but best of all was when she grabbed him—her fingers digging into his shoulders with white-knuckle intensity. When she got to this point—where she could no longer concentrate on pleasuring him—he knew she was past thought. Past control.

Exactly where he wanted her to be.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS time to take her clothes off. He did, using the opportunity to tease and tantalize her further. But revealing her peaches-and-cream body was a double-edged sword. The light smattering of freckles over her shoulders and upper breasts were his downfall. She had none on her face, so the cinnamon dots felt secret—private—for him alone. A special knowledge shared just between them. He was tempted to count them—with kisses—every time he got her disrobed.

This time was no different.

The allure of her body for him neve

r diminished.

He traced the light dots on her skin. “You are so beautiful.”

“You’ve got an unnatural affection for my freckles.” It might be a full sentence, but the way she said it, breathless with pauses between words, told him that she was no more in possession of her faculties than she had been a moment before.

“You think?” he asked against her silken skin, tasting the brown sugar dots that his mind told him could not be sweet but his tongue told him they were. But then, everything about her was sweet.

Dangerously so.

Her only answer was a moan as his lips trailed the natural path to one pebbled nipple. She shuddered beneath him, her body translating her every feeling with sexy clarity. She loved nipple play and he loved tasting and touching the turgid buds.

He delicately licked the very tip, then circled the peak with his tongue, moving slowly to lave her aureole despite the need riding him hard enough to make him ache. He refused to rush this. He had something to prove to her.

He kept at it until even the act of huffing a warm breath over her sensitized skin made her tremble and whimper. Then he moved to minister in the same way to its twin.

“What are you doing? Tormenting me?” she cried out as he sucked her nipple gently into his mouth.

He lifted his head and met peacock blue eyes glazed with pleasure. “I am giving you more.”

“I don’t want more. I want you in me.” Then she bit her lip as if realizing what she’d said.

“Trust me, this—” he carefully slid two fingers into her superbly lubricated, swollen channel “—this is where I wish to be also, but only when I have given you more.” He thrust with his fingers, hitting that interior bundle of nerves some women referred to as their G-spot.

She cried out, the sound adding to his own arousal, making it harder to wait, but he would.

Tonight would be spectacular.

He continued to massage her as he leaned down and once again claimed her mouth as his. Her return kisses were desperate and filled with the feminine fire he found so irresistible.

Her walls clenched around his fingers as he moved them in and out, stimulating her G-spot with each slow stroke. She undulated, her body straining toward him and moving with those tiny, involuntary jerks that enhanced her pleasure.