A Shadow of Guilt

‘I think we can do better than kissing on a bike….’ His voice was dry.

Gio got off the bike in one lithe move. He bent down and scooped Valentina up into his arms before she knew what was happening. Her sandals were still dangling from her fingers and they trailed down Gio’s back now when her arms went around his neck and she clung on.

Gio shouldered the front door open and Valentina asked dryly, ‘No key?’

Gio muttered, ‘The security guards knew I was on my way.’

‘Oh …’ Valentina was stunned again at the sheer evidence of Gio’s wealth and reminded herself that he had extremely valuable bloodstock here, some of the most valuable in the world.

He walked them through the dark house. Valentina couldn’t make out much in the gloom, just that they seemed to pass through some cavernous empty rooms with big windows before Gio climbed an ornate staircase to the first floor.

He walked them into a room with the door wide open and Valentina could see a huge bed revealed in a shaft of moonlight. Instinctively her arms tightened around Gio’s neck. The thought of Gio sleeping in this bed, possibly naked, made her inner muscles clench hard.

Gio stopped by the bed and let Valentina drop to the floor. Her sandals dropped too, from nerveless fingers. His hands were on her bare shoulders and gruffly he said, ‘I didn’t tell you how beautiful you look.’

Valentina blushed in the gloom and she looked down. Gio tipped her chin back up. ‘I’m glad you didn’t send them back.’

Her throat felt very constricted but Valentina finally admitted, ‘Me too.’

Gio seemed to study her for an infinitesimal moment before he instructed, ‘Turn around.’

Silently, tingling all over, Valentina turned around. His hands kept contact with her skin. And then she felt him brush her hair over one shoulder before his fingers trailed from the back of her neck down her spine until they reached the top of the zip.

He pulled the zip down all the way, until she felt his knuckles graze just above her bare buttocks and she shivered. The dress fell open under its own weight and when Gio tugged it gently from her hips it fell to the floor. Gio then undid the clasp of her bra and that, too, was dispensed with.

Turning her back gently to face him, Valentina was glad of the dim light so she couldn’t fully make out the expression on his face, in his eyes. She could feel his gaze on her though, making her breasts feel heavy and her nipples spring hard and tight.

When he cupped her breasts in his hands and rubbed his thumbs back and forth over the puckered tips she had to hold on to his biceps to stay standing.

‘I want you so much….’

Valentina took a breath and reached her hands up to his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders and down his arms, dislodging his hands from their torturous touch for a moment. Then she made quick work of removing his shirt.

The languor of a few seconds ago was gone. Valentina heard the soft slick of leather as Gio removed his belt and then opened his trousers, pulling them down and off, taking his briefs with them. Desperation mounted. Inexperienced and shaky with the extreme desire rising within her, Valentina all but fell back onto the bed at the merest nudging from Gio. He came down beside her and stretched out so that they touched from thigh to thigh, hip to hip, chest to chest.

Valentina shifted so that she could put her head down on the soft mattress. She reached out a tentative hand to touch Gio’s jaw, suddenly suffused with shyness and said, ‘Take me …’

CHAPTER NINE

WHEN VALENTINA WOKE she could feel the sunlight caressing her bare skin and a warm breeze, the scent of grass and earth. Superstitiously she didn’t open her eyes yet. She was lying face down, on one cheek, and could feel the sheet just covering her bottom. Her legs were splayed with wanton abandon and she had the distinct impression of strong arms that had been around her not so long ago.

She remembered how Gio had tucked her into his body, arms wrapped tight around her, powerful legs cupping her back and bottom as she’d slid into a dreamless sleep with her body humming from the overload of recent pleasure.

She knew Gio wasn’t in the room any more. Her skin wasn’t tingling with that preternatural awareness. Reluctantly Valentina moved onto her back and winced when aching muscles protested. She blushed when she thought of how tightly she’d gripped Gio’s hips with her legs, the way she’d dug her heels into his buttocks, urging him to go harder, deeper. She blushed even more when she thought of how she’d dug her nails into his back … he might be marked. And then that thought caused a curiously satisfied glow within her.

Slowly she opened her eyes and took in the room which had been shrouded in darkness last night. It took a few seconds to adjust to the bright light and to realise that there were no curtains on the huge window nearby. Valentina came up on her elbows and looked around.

The room was starkly bare with only a minimum of furniture that looked old and used. A low table with a lamp nearby, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. The walls were stripped back as if in readiness to be painted. A chandelier light hung over the bed on an exposed wire. Old and unadorned floorboards were unvarnished and uncarpeted.

The feel was very much faded grandeur but not in the artful way that people paid through the nose for; this was the genuine thing. It was as if Gio hadn’t cared enough to do it up and something inside Valentina twisted.

Moving slowly, she got out of bed. Huge and equally faded French doors were half open and led out to a private terraced balcony. The view over the surrounding countryside was stunning. In the far distance Valentina could make out what she thought must be Syracuse with the sea behind it, a faint stain of blue.

Conscious of her nakedness, she looked around and saw her dress neatly folded on a chair near the chest of drawers along with her underwear and shoes. She blushed again to think of Gio handling them and then she spotted a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants laid out over the footboard at the bottom of the bed.

She quickly put them on; they were voluminous but Valentina rolled up the sweats and tied the string tightly around her waist. The T-shirt came to her mid-thighs. After exploring the en suite bathroom which was as undecorated as the bedroom and yet had beautiful antique pieces like a stunning chandelier and a gilt mirror, she went in search of Gio with a distinct prickle of apprehension.

She didn’t like to remind herself that they’d avoided this morning-after scenario the other day when she’d confronted him about the tattoo and had a minor meltdown. Outside the bedroom was a long corridor but Valentina could see stairs in the distance, the stairs that Gio had carried her up last night.