Even if he was not going to be in her life…
“Hey.”
Raffaele’s voice was soft. He was standing beside the bed, holding a small basin and a towel.
“Sweetheart. Why are you crying?”
“I am not crying. I am just—I am weepy. Did no one ever tell you that women get weepy when they are happy?” She sniffed back her tears and hurried to change the subject. “Thank you for the basin of water but—”
“But you’re going to take care of things yourself.”
“Sμ. As I should. As I—Raffaele, that is not for you to do.”
But he was already sitting beside her, the washcloth in his hand.
“Yes,” he said softly, “it is for me to do.” He brought the warm, wet cloth to her thighs, nudged them gently apart and began laving her with it. “I took your virginity.”
She smiled a little. “Yes,” she whispered. “You did.”
Rafe rinsed the cloth in the basin, wrung it out again and carefully used it on her once more.
There were tiny drops of blood on her thighs and on the cloth. The sight of her blood, the knowledge that his lovemaking had been the reason she had shed it, was almost overwhelming.
He put the cloth aside, gently dried her with the soft towel, got into the bed and gathered her in his arms.
“Shut your eyes, sweetheart. You’ve had a long couple of days.”
“Mmm.”
“Just…just let me kiss you first…”
His lips closed over hers. She sighed with pleasure. His mouth moved lower. Along her throat.
She sighed again. His mouth found her breasts and her sighs became moans.
“Raffaele,” she said, as he drew a nipple deep into his mouth. “Raffaele…”
“It’s too soon,” he said thickly, but she slipped a hand between them, touched him, caressed him, and he groaned and moved over her. “Are you sure?”
Her answer came not in words but in the stroke of her fingers, the arch of her spine, the mingling of her breath with his.
He drew away, took something from the nightstand drawer. Chiara knew what it was.
A condom.
He had not used one the first time. It was her safe time of month—Miss Ellis had taught her the basics of biology—but she thought she would not have cared if he had made her pregnant. This was her Raffaele.
Her husband.
She watched as he tore open the little pack and rolled the condom on. She wanted to do it for him. To touch him. To explore his hard flesh with her hands, her mouth…
She reached for him as he came back to her, and he entered her slowly, eased into her with such care that his muscles trembled until, at last, he was deep, deep inside her.
Could a woman die of pleasure? If she did, it would be worth what she felt now.
The rhythm he set was hard and urgent but she stayed with him, thrust for thrust. She cried out, arched from the bed and, seconds later, cried out again as her Raffaele took her with him into that place where the sun blazed forever.
“Chiara,” he whispered. “My beautiful, beautiful bride.”
Tears again rose in her eyes. She blinked them back and returned his tender kisses as he drew her close in his arms. Moments later his breathing was deep and even, but she lay awake for a very long time, torn between incredible joy and heartbreaking despair.
Raffaele was her husband.
Except, he was not. Not really.
And this, all of this, could not last.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WAS there a specific protocol for a woman’s behavior when she woke in a man’s arms?
Did you lie motionless until he was awake? Slip free of his embrace, gather up your clothes and tiptoe from the room? What if all that shifting around woke him?
What did people say to each other after they’d spent the night making love?
They’d made love again and again, Chiara thought with a little shudder of pleasure. And each time had been different and even better than the last.
How could her mother have been so wrong? This was not pain or submission or humiliation.
This was pure joy, a heart-stopping, breathless climb to the very top of a mountain and then a long, dizzying flight to the stars.
At least, it was when Raffaele Orsini was your lover.
During the night she’d awakened to his kisses. She’d shot from sleep with her heart pounding, struggling against the alien, male touch.
“No,” she’d said sharply, and he’d framed her face with his hands.
“Chiara. Sweetheart, it’s me.”
Slowly she’d became aware of the familiarity of the hard body poised just over hers. His scent. His features. His skin, smooth and warm over taut muscle.
“Raffaele,” she’d whispered.
“I’m sorry, Chiara. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”