She shuddered under his ministering mouth, the taste of her growing sweeter with each explosion in her flesh. He didn’t stop, pushing her to one higher plateau of ecstasy after another.
Her breath was labored, but then so was his. He felt on the verge of exploding, but he couldn’t make himself stop. The sounds of her enjoyment were addictive. Each cry made him feel like the conquering male. Each moan of rapture made his own sex throb with pleasure and desire.
“Luciano, it’s too much. Please stop. Please…Please…Please…” She was sobbing with each breath, but still she pressed herself against his mouth.
Her lips said one thing, her body another.
Finally, she went completely limp, little whimpering noises interspersed with each breath and he pulled away, kissing her gently as he did so.
He knelt between her legs and surveyed the effect of the first level of their loving on her. Her small body was flushed with arousal all over, her purple eyes awash with tears, and her mouth parted on shallow pants. Hard, red berries, crested the swollen flesh of her breasts. He reached out and gently touched them.
A moan snaked from her throat.
Her nightgown was still bunched around her waist and he wanted her naked.
Disposing of the silk cloth was easy as she languidly allowed him to move her any way he wanted to. He pushed his own pajama bottoms down his hips, his body experiencing relief at the removal of the light restraint of the fabric.
He wanted to touch only one thing with his hardened shaft, the rich, swollen tissues of her inner woman.
“Are you ready for me, carina?”
“I want you to be part of me.” The words were a soft whisper, but very certain.
“Si.” He would hesitate no longer. He could hesitate no longer. He had to have her.
He covered her body with his in one movement, his hard flesh pressed to the most secret part of her. He had been this way once before, but tonight he would not stop. He would consummate their marriage and perhaps even give her their child. “Now, you become my wife.”
CHAPTER NINE
“YES.” It was a broken sound, a mere breath as she curled her fingers into the hair on his chest.
He pressed inward, but though he had brought her to completion many times, she was still tight. “You must relax for me, little one.”
“You’re so big.”
“I am just right for you. Trust me.” The urge to press forward without caution and bury himself in her wet heat was almost more than he could bear. “Give me yourself, mi moglie.”
“I don’t know how,” she whispered brokenly.
“Absorb me, sweetness. Open yourself to our joining.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Inside, the tight clasp on his body loosened and he slid forward a bit more. He started a rocking motion that made her breath hitch and his body break out in sweat as he went deeper into her.
He felt the barrier of her innocence and would have paused, but she arched up toward him crying his name and suddenly he was sheathed in her softness completely. He stilled immediately.
“Are you all right?”
Her eyes slid open, their pansy depths warm with emotion that caught the breath in his chest.
He made love to her then, forcing himself to go slow, to build the pleasure in her again until he felt the beginning tremors of her release.
“Now we share it,” he cried and gave in to the rapture exploding through him.
Her pleasure prolonged his own until he shook with exhaustion from his release. Unable to hold himself above her any longer, he collapsed on top of her. She made a muffled sound and with the last bit of his strength, he rolled them both so she was on top of him, but they were still connected.
“Now you belong to me.”
She rubbed her face against his chest, adjusting herself against his body with a movement that unbelievably teased his recently satisfied flesh. “And you belong to me.”
He did not deny it. The bitter pill had turned out sweeter than nectar and he reveled in his possession of a woman so sweet, so passionate and so completely lacking in artifice. She was everything her grandfather was not.
Everything women like Zia could never hope to be.
Tenderness he had never known toward a lover washed over him and he caressed her back, wanting to soothe her to sleep in his arms.
A soft butterfly kiss landed near his left nipple. “I love you, Luciano,” she whispered against his skin.
The words did strange things to his insides and he could almost thank Joshua Reynolds for giving him the gift of such a woman.
They spent their honeymoon in Naples. Luciano kept his promise to Hope and took her to Pompeii to visit the ruins of the ancient city. They did other touristy things together, Luciano never once growing impatient with her desire to see and experience new things. He made love to her every night, most mornings and frequently in the afternoon as well.