Читать книгу The Riccioni Pregnancy - Daphne Clair - Страница 10

HE DID, thrusting even deeper, taking her over, letting her consume him in turn, holding her safe and secure while she rode the waves of pleasure, his mouth on her shoulder, her throat, her breasts, sending her higher, higher, soaring into a familiar but intensely exciting world of darkness and dizziness and delight beyond belief, beyond imagination. Where he joined her, his own gutturally expressed pleasure bringing her to yet another pulsing, uninhibited peak while he kissed her mouth again and said against the gasping little sounds that forced themselves from her lips, ‘God, I love you!’

They stayed locked together for minutes, panting against each other. And then he handed her his pristine folded handkerchief and turned to retrieve her clothes, helped her dress and dropped a kiss at the top of her spine as he closed the zipper. She was still shaking, and he caught her against him and held her until she stopped, calling her darling and laughing a little anxiously but also with a hint of masculine triumph at her reaction.

They’d returned to the ballroom with her hand decorously tucked into the crook of his arm, and a glance had shown Roxane that Zito looked as well-groomed and self-possessed as always, but she headed straight for the ladies’ room and a mirror.

Although her hair, which she’d worn longer then, almost waist-length, because Zito liked it that way, had remarkably kept its casually elegant pinned-up style, her cheeks were hectically flushed, her eyes brilliant with huge glistening pupils, and her mouth moist and swollen and very red, although not a scrap of her carefully applied lipstick remained.

After repairing the damage as best she could, she’d emerged with her head high and for a decent hour or so had done her best to ignore the knowing glances and sly laughter she was sure were being directed at them, until Zito yielded to her urgent plea to take her home.

There, he’d laughed at her chagrined declaration that everyone had guessed what they’d been up to in the shrubbery, and told her it didn’t matter if they had.

‘I believe you’re proud of it!’ she accused him, and he laughed again, confirming her suspicion even as he denied the charge.

‘We’re married,’ he said. ‘We’re entitled to make love where and when we choose, provided we don’t frighten the horses. And it was fun, wasn’t it?’

More than fun, it had been awesome, amazing, but in retrospect she was slightly horrified that they’d been unable to wait until they got home.

‘I’m not going to boost your ego for you any further,’ she retorted, determined to wipe the lurking smile from his mouth. But he only laughed even more before carrying her to bed and making love to her all over again, this time in a sweet, languorous fashion that nevertheless ended in a shattering climax before she slept, exhausted, in his arms.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Zito put down his fork and pushed his empty plate aside.

Jolted back to the present, Roxane raised startled eyes and immediately lowered them again, afraid that he’d read remembered passion in them. ‘Nothing.’ She gulped more wine before digging her own fork again into her remaining pasta. With any luck he’d think it was the wine that was making her cheeks hot. ‘Do you want coffee?’

She hadn’t meant to offer him coffee or anything else. But it was the first distracting thing that came into her mind.

‘Not yet.’ Zito emptied the bottle into her glass, picked up his own half-full one and pushed his chair backward, hooking a hand into his belt and lifting one foot to rest it on the other knee. It was a pose he’d adopted often when they were alone at home. He found it relaxing…she found it very sexy. It was so outright male and so unconsciously demonstrative of how comfortable he was with his own body.

Averting her eyes, Roxane hurriedly scooped up the remains of her meal, trying to blank her mind, pausing only to help the spaghetti down with wine.

‘Shall I make it?’ he asked.

‘What?’ Fleetingly she glanced at him.

‘Shall I make the coffee?’ he repeated patiently. ‘You’re tired.’

Thank heaven if he thought that was all it was. ‘No, I’ll do it.’ Having offered, she could hardly retract now. Standing up, she stacked his plate on top of hers.

Zito got up too, taking them from her. ‘Okay, you do it while I deal with these.’ He walked to the sink. ‘You don’t have a dishwasher?’

‘I don’t need one.’ She made herself stop looking at the way his haunches moved inside the fabric of his trousers, and turned to the coffee-maker on a small trolley between the fridge and the stove. She couldn’t offer Zito instant, although she knew he’d accept it courteously and drink it with every appearance of pleasure.

Or would he? As a guest he would never dream of implying any fault in the hospitality he was offered, but as her ex-husband he might feel no such obligation.

She reached for the coffee grinder and the dark roasted beans in their airtight container.