Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection - Мишель Смарт, Kate Hardy - Страница 65

CHAPTER EIGHT

HAULING HOLLY UP into his arms, Vito carried her into the bedroom and settled her on the foot of the bed to remove her shoes.

‘I didn’t appreciate how dark it was in here,’ Vito admitted as he switched on the bedside lamps. ‘Or how hideous. My grandfather liked grand and theatrical.’ He sighed.

Holly scrambled back against the headboard and studied him with starry eyes. He stood half in shadow, half in light, and the hard, sculpted planes and hollows of his lean, strong face were beautiful. She marvelled at the fate that had brought two such different people together and rejoiced in it too. Liking, respect, attraction, she listed with resolution inside her head, buttoning down the stronger feelings battling to emerge, denying them.

‘Did your parents occupy separate bedrooms?’ she asked curiously.

‘It was always the norm in this household. I didn’t want it for us.’ Vito came down on the bed beside her. ‘If you only knew how much I’ve longed for this moment. I wanted you with me in London before the wedding.’

‘But it couldn’t be done. I had responsibilities I couldn’t turn my back on.’ Holly sighed.

‘I could’ve made arrangements to free you of those duties.’

‘Not when they’re dependent on friendship, loyalty, and consideration for other people,’ Holly disagreed gently, lifting a hand to follow the course of his jutting lower lip and note the stubborn angle of his strong jawline. ‘You can’t rearrange the world only to suit you.’

‘Sì...yes, I can,’ Vito declared without shame.

‘But that’s so selfish—’

‘I will not apologise for being selfish when it comes to your needs and Angelo’s.’ Vito marvelled at her inability to appreciate that he would always place their needs over the needs of others. What was wrong with that? It was true that it took a certain amount of ruthlessness and arrogance, but he had fought hard in life for every single achievement and saw nothing wrong with an approach that maximised the good things for his family and minimised the bad. The way he saw it, if you made enough effort happiness could be balanced as smoothly as a profit-and-loss column.

With his strong white teeth he nipped playfully at the reproving fingertip rapping his chin.

Holly startled and then giggled and sighed. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

‘Anything you want... I’m up for anything.’ Vito savoured her, his dark golden eyes holding hers with explicit need for a heartbeat. He pushed her back against the pillows and then his mouth claimed hers with hungry, delicious force.

Heat unfurled in her pelvis. Her heart raced and the tension went out of her only to be replaced by a new kind of tension that shimmied through her bloodstream like an aphrodisiac and made her heart race. Her breath came in quick, shallow gasps between kisses, each leading into the next until he rolled back and, having established that there was no helpful zip, he gathered the hem of her dress in his hands and tugged it up over her body and over her head to pitch it aside.

‘That’s better,’ he growled, pausing to admire the picture she made in her pretty bridal lace lingerie.

‘Except you’re still wearing far too many clothes,’ Holly objected, embarking on his shirt buttons.

Vito yanked off his shirt without ceremony, kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks, only to halt there, his long, lean frame trembling while Holly’s hands roamed over the hills and valleys of his hard, muscular abdomen. Her reverent fingers took a detour to follow the furrow of dark hair vanishing below the waistband of his jeans.

‘I missed you,’ she said truthfully. ‘I missed this...’

Unfreezing, lean dark features rigid with control, he unsnapped his jeans and vaulted off the bed to take them off. ‘It was the best night of my life, bellezza mia.’

And yet he still hadn’t made any mention of seeing her again that night or the following morning. That still stung and Holly said nothing. Had he really not seen her note? Could she believe that?

‘That note I left at the cottage for you—’ she began breathlessly.

‘I didn’t see it.’

‘Would you have phoned if you’d had my number?’ she prompted in a reckless rush.

‘I don’t know,’ Vito responded quietly. ‘Certainly I would’ve been tempted, but on another level I distrust anything that tempts me.’

His honesty cut through her. Even if he had found the note, he wouldn’t have phoned her, she decided painfully. He would have written off their night of passion as a once-in-a-lifetime experience and left it behind. That hurt, but there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to know who else had since shared his bed but it wasn’t a question to be asked on their wedding night even though her heart cried out for reassurance. It would be an unfair question when he had not owed her loyalty. Of course there had been other women in the months they had been apart. That was yet another pain she had to bear.

‘I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you,’ Vito told her thickly.

He flung a handful of condoms down by the bed and stripped naked without inhibition while she watched.

Pink washed Holly’s face because he was fully aroused and ready.

‘I couldn’t get enough of you that night and that unnerved me,’ he framed abruptly. ‘You were a very unexpected discovery.’

He reached for her again, deftly skimming off her bra and panties, twisting his hips away when she tried to touch him. ‘No... If you touch me, you’ll wreck me. I’m on a hair trigger after months of abstinence,’ he growled, lean brown hands roving over the full curves of her breasts, lingering over her pink pointed nipples to tug and tease until little sounds she couldn’t silence broke from between her lips.

Vito flung back the sheet and settled her beneath him to pay serious attention to her swollen mouth and the glorious swell of her breasts.

‘Months of abstinence?’ Holly encouraged helplessly, her breath tripping in her throat as he sucked on a protruding bud while long, skilled fingers stroked her thigh.

‘I’m not an easy lay,’ he told her. ‘I’m very, very fussy.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Holly framed in ragged reassurance, all the feeling in her body seemingly centred between her thighs where she was scarily desperate for him to touch her.

And then he did and she gasped and her eyes closed and the fire at the heart of her grew hotter still, hips shifting up and from side to side, the drumbeat of need awakened and throbbing and thrumming through every skin cell. Vito shifted down the bed and parted her thighs. He knew exactly what he was doing. She had discovered that the night Angelo was conceived.

He teased her with the tip of his tongue, slow and then quicker until she could no longer stay silent and whimpers and gasps were wrenched from her. A long sure finger stroked through her wet folds and she quivered, every nerve ending jumping to readiness as the excitement crept higher.

At the height of her climax she cried out his name, lost in the convulsive spasms of erotic pleasure. She was so lost in that pleasure that she struggled to remember what day it was and even where she was. Her lashes flickered when she heard him tear open a condom. As he returned to her she wrapped both arms round him possessively, her body temporarily sated.

He pushed her back and drove into her with a guttural groan of satisfaction. ‘Like wet satin,’ he bit out appreciatively.

Hunger sizzled through her as his bold shaft stretched her and sank deep. Suddenly she was sensually awake again, her body primed as he angled his lean hips to ensure that she received the maximum enjoyment. His hunger for her was unhidden, his strokes were hard and fast, tormentingly strong. The ache low in her body pinged and climbed in intensity. She wanted, oh, how she wanted, craved, needed and longed for that maddening pulse of yearning to be answered, overwhelmed. And then her spine was arching and her body jerking and the waves of hot, drenching pleasure were like a shooting star flaming through her and setting her on fire with the wondrous release from her own body.

‘Sexiest, most amazing woman ever...and mine,’ Vito husked in her ear, his weight heavy on her as he rolled over and pulled her down on top of him. ‘That’s the most important fact. You’re mine, gioia mia.’

‘Are you mine too?’ Holly whispered dizzily.

‘Sì...’

‘Is sex always this good?’

‘Not even half the time. We have our own unique variety of fireworks.’

Holly rested her cheek on a damp bronzed shoulder, her body replete. He smelled so good she drank him in like a drug. She liked being his. She liked that possessive note she heard edging his dark drawl because it made her feel less like Angelo’s mother and more like Vito’s wife, valued, needed and wanted on her own account. Long fingers traced the path of her spine as he shifted position.

‘I have an impossibly fast recovery time with you,’ Vito husked, sliding her back onto the sheet on her front, lingering on the soft full curves of her behind.

He reached for another condom. Holly didn’t even lift her head. She was still in that place somewhere between total satiation and awareness, shifting obediently as he eased a pillow below her hips, raising her, rearranging her to his satisfaction. And then she felt him rigid and full at her entrance where she was now tender and swollen. He drove in hard and she came suddenly fully awake, eyes wide, throat catching on a breath, heart hotwired back into pounding. He buried himself deep and it felt so good she moaned.

‘I like the little sounds you make.’ He ground into her with power and energy and a spontaneous combustion of heat surged at the apex of her body.

Excitement crowned with her every cry and snatched breath. She couldn’t breathe against the onslaught of raw, surging excitement. With every savage thrust he owned her in a way she had never thought to be owned and she gave herself up to the rise of the hot, pulsing pleasure. The excitement crested with white-hot energy and the sweet waves of deep, quivering pleasure consumed her. Winded, she slumped back down into the pillows.

‘Shower time,’ Vito told her, lifting her out of bed. ‘You’re not allowed to go to sleep yet.’

‘You and your son have a lot in common.’

‘We’re both very attached to you?’ Vito urged her into the shower.

‘You don’t sleep at night,’ she contradicted. ‘Although I have to admit that you’re more fun than he is in the middle of the night. Angelo gets grouchy when he’s teething.’

‘I won’t get grouchy with you in my bed,’ Vito assured her, leaning back against the tiled wall, lean, bronzed and muscular, a study in male perfection.

Holly was like an energy drink, releasing his tension, refreshing him, leaving him feeling amazingly relaxed. Vito had never done relaxed and wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. It was a great deal easier simply to concentrate on working off that surplus energy in bed.

Even with the honeyed ache of sex and satiation Holly wanted to put her hands all over him and explore him with the freedom she had restrained on their first night together. She was so comfortable with him, so indescribably comfortable it almost spooked her. ‘I can sleep standing up,’ she warned him, resting her damp head down on a strong brown shoulder.

‘I have to work tomorrow, bellezza mia. Make the most of now,’ Vito murmured huskily, gathering her close.

Her eyes opened very wide on the tiled wall. He had to work the day after their wedding? Was there some crisis on?

‘No. I just like to work,’ Vito confided lazily, as if there were nothing the slightest bit strange about his desire to act as though the day after their wedding were just like any other day.

‘Are you taking any time off?’ It was a loaded question but she tried to make it sound casual and unconcerned and then held her breath.

‘I’ll be home every night...you can bet on that,’ Vito growled, nipping at the sensitive flesh below her ear until she shivered helplessly against him and his big hands rose to cup and massage her breasts. ‘I’ll be keeping you very much occupied.’

Sex, she thought dully. Nothing wrong with his enthusiasm in that department but was that really all he was interested in, all he had ever been interested in? Or simply all she had to offer? Her teeth gritted. What did she have to offer in the intellect category? No, she was never going to be his equal there. Were they going to be one of those couples who never interacted except when their child was around? Would she chatter on relentlessly about Angelo and only ever really get Vito’s attention in bed? It sounded a sad and desperate role to her but what was she going to do about it? She couldn’t make him want more or force him to see her in a different light, could she?

A sham marriage? That overheard phone call returned to haunt her. How hard could it be for Vito to fake being genuinely married when all he intended to do was have sex with her? A chill trickled through her tummy and made her tense. Suddenly fears that she had earlier dismissed were becoming a source of genuine concern. Why had she so easily believed that Apollo was talking nonsense about Vito’s intentions? Apollo Metraxis had known Vito since childhood. Apollo probably knew Vito a great deal better than she did and if he suspected that Vito had only married her to gain custody of his son, shouldn’t she be sincerely scared?

When she wakened it was still dark, with only the faintest glimmer of light showing behind the curtains. She was deliciously comfortable. Vito had both arms wrapped round her and she was snuggled up to him, secure in the warmth and the wonderfully familiar scent of his skin. He was stroking her hip bone and she stretched in a helpless little movement.

‘I want you, tesoro mia.’

Her eyes flew wide as he shifted against her back, letting her feel the hard swell of him. ‘Again?’

His sensual mouth pressed into the sensitive skin of her throat. ‘Don’t move. I’ll do all the work.’

And he did, repositioning her, gently rousing her from her drowsiness and then sinking into her with exquisite precision. She heard herself gasp and then moan and the sweet swell of pleasure surged up and overpowered all her anxious thoughts. Excitement took hold and she trembled with need as his smooth thrusts rocked her sensitised body. She couldn’t fight her responses or the uncontrollable wave of ecstatic sensation that swept her to an explosive climax.

‘What a wonderful way to wake up,’ Vito groaned into her tumbled hair. ‘I never dreamt that having a wife could be so much fun. Are you joining me for breakfast?’

Behind her hair, Holly rolled her eyes. She was married to one of those horrid people who came alive around dawn and acted as though it were late morning. Either she stayed in bed and saw very little of him or she changed herself to fit. She lay listening to the shower running and watched him emerge swathed in a towel, the long, lean length of his unspeakably beautiful body mostly exposed. Her mouth ran dry as he disappeared into the dressing room and opened another door. Closet doors were rammed back, drawers opened and closed. She scrambled out of bed and ran for the shower before she could be tempted to backtrack and fall back asleep. Dabbing on minimal make-up, she brushed her hair and extracted some of her new clothes to wear because a pair of jeans and a washed-out cotton top didn’t seem quite sufficient for the grandeur of the Castello Zaffari.

Clad in beautifully tailored chinos and a filmy blouse in autumn shades, she slotted her feet into canvas shoes and went out to join Vito. He looked as he had the day she had confronted him at the Zaffari Bank: cool, sophisticated, remote, very much the banker. And at the same time he contrived to look amazing whether he was slotting cufflinks into his cuffs or brushing his cropped black hair.

‘Who wears cufflinks these days?’ Holly prompted.

Vito shrugged. ‘We all use them at the bank.’

‘Not at the cutting edge of fashion, then,’ she mocked, although his dark suit was incredibly well tailored to lovingly shape wide shoulders, a broad chest, narrow hips and long, powerful legs. Just looking at him, she wanted to touch him.

‘Breakfast,’ he reminded her, heading for the door.

The castello was silent until they reached the ground floor where vague signs of industry could be heard somewhere in the distance. Silvestro entered the hall and looked taken aback to see them. He burst into Italian and Vito responded with quiet amusement.

‘Why does everybody think I should be staying home today?’ he quipped, leading the way into a sunlit dining room.

‘Maybe...because you should be?’ Holly dared. ‘Just married and all that...’

Silvestro fussed round the table making unnecessary adjustments while Vito translated all the many options Holly could choose for breakfast. As the older man sped off Vito lifted one of the financial newspapers piled at his end of the table and began to read it and Holly wondered whether she should have stayed in bed. She wanted to go and see if Angelo was awake but she didn’t want to leave Vito lest he leave for the bank while she was gone.

She had already decided to confront Vito about that phone call she had overheard Apollo making but she had intended to pick and choose the right moment, which might well have been while they were still wrapped round each other in bed. But something about the way Vito lifted that newspaper after dragging her downstairs awakened her temper.

‘I overheard Apollo talking on the phone to someone at our reception yesterday.’

Vito lowered the newspaper and frowned at her. ‘Overheard?’ he questioned.

Below the onslaught of his dark glittering gaze, Holly went pink. ‘Well, eavesdropped... I suppose.’

‘Are you in the habit of listening in on other people’s phone calls?’

‘That’s not really relevant here,’ Holly fudged in desperation, feeling like a child being called to account for misbehaviour. ‘Apollo was so obviously talking about us...about our marriage. He was saying that you hadn’t had a DNA test with Angelo and that there had been no pre-nup—’

‘You’re trying to shock me with facts?’

Holly scrambled out of her seat and squared her small shoulders. ‘Apollo was sneering about his belief that you trust me.’

‘Obviously I won’t be trusting you in the vicinity of confidential phone calls,’ Vito pronounced, deadpan.

Somehow the confrontation was not proceeding in any expected direction and Holly was stung into anger. ‘Apollo thinks our marriage is a sham!’

Vito elevated an ebony brow. ‘I think the only two people who can comment on that probability are the two of us.’

‘Apollo seemed to believe that you had only married me to get me to move to Italy. He thinks you’re planning to go to court and try to claim full custody of our son.’

‘I’m not sure whether to be more offended by my friend’s low take on my morals or by my wife’s,’ Vito imparted very softly, marvelling that she could have placed credence in such an unrealistic plot, which smacked very much of Apollo’s sensational outlook on life. ‘Do you think I would do that to you and Angelo?’

‘That’s not the point,’ Holly protested.

‘It is exactly the point,’ Vito incised with ruthless bite. ‘Why else are you challenging me with this nonsense?’

As Silvestro reappeared with a tray Holly sank back down into her seat. She was angry and mortified at the same time but clung to the comforting fact that Vito had called her concerns ‘nonsense’. While food was being laid on the table, Holly studied her pale pink nails and suspected that one day she might possibly throw a coffee pot at Vito for his sarcastic cool.

‘To clarify matters,’ Vito mused as Silvestro retreated, ‘Apollo was most probably talking to a mutual friend called Jeremy, who happens to be a lawyer trained in family law. Although it is ridiculously unnecessary, Apollo tries to protect me from the gold-diggers of this world. If it is any consolation he was no keener on Marzia. He would never marry without a pre-nuptial agreement in place. I deemed it unnecessary because I would not marry a woman I couldn’t trust. You’re being naive and insecure.’

Holly bridled at that blunt speech. ‘I don’t see how.’

With precise movements that set her teeth on edge, Vito poured a cup of black coffee. ‘I would not deprive my son of his mother. I was sent to boarding school abroad at the age of seven, Holly. I was incredibly homesick and unhappy. Do you honestly think I would subject Angelo to anything similar?’

Holly studied her cup of tea with wooden resolve. Her face was so hot she could feel her ears heating up in concert. No, she could not see him planning to do anything that would damage their son. Boarding school abroad at the tender age of seven? That was brutal, she thought helplessly.

‘I love my son. I will try hard never to hurt him and I know how much he needs his mother,’ Vito framed with measured cool. ‘I am also an honourable man. I am not deceitful in personal relationships. I married you in good faith. If eavesdropping on Apollo can rouse your suspicions to this level, what are our prospects for the future? Trust has to work both ways to be effective.’

Holly swallowed hard. Vito was annoyed with her for doubting him and for paying heed to a stupid phone call she shouldn’t have been listening to in the first place. She wasn’t sure she could blame him for that. On the other hand his determination to head to the bank the day after their wedding was hardly likely to boost her confidence in his attitude towards either her or their marriage.

How much did Vito value her? Just how unimportant was she in his desire for a marriage that would not interfere in his inflexible daily schedule? To thrive, all relationships needed compromise, commitment and the luxury of time spent together. Didn’t he appreciate that? And if he didn’t, was she clever enough to teach him that she could offer him something more worthwhile than sex? That was a tall order.

Vito rose from his chair and studied her in brooding silence. ‘By the way, we’re dining out this evening with friends.’

Holly looked up in surprise. ‘What friends?’

‘Apollo and his girlfriend and Jeremy Morris and his wife. They’re currently staying on Apollo’s yacht with him.’

The prospect of spending an evening in Apollo Metraxis’s radius appealed about as much to Holly as a public whipping. She frowned, studying Vito with incredulous eyes. ‘Knowing how I feel about Apollo, why would you arrange something like that?’

Vito compressed his stubborn mouth. ‘He’s a close friend. He made a mistake. You need to get over it.’

Temper threw colour into Holly’s cheeks. ‘Do I, indeed?’

Vito gazed expectantly back at her. ‘I want it all smoothed over and forgotten...’

‘Right, so that’s me got my orders, then.’ Holly lifted her chin.

‘It’s not an order, Holly, it’s advice. I’m not dropping a lifelong friend because you don’t like him.’

‘And isn’t there some excuse for that dislike?’

‘Apollo didn’t tell any lies about how we met. Remember that,’ Vito retorted with succinct bite.

A painful flush illuminated Holly’s face.

‘Why shouldn’t we have a night out?’ Vito fired at her in exasperation. ‘I thought you would enjoy getting dressed up and socialising—most women do.’

‘That’s not my world,’ Holly breathed in taut objection.

‘It is now,’ Vito pointed out without hesitation, his impatience unconcealed. ‘You need to make an effort to fit in. Why do you think I bought you all those clothes? I want you to have the expensive trappings and to enjoy having them.’

As Vito strode out Holly held her breath, feeling a little like someone trying to fight off a panic attack. He had voiced truths she didn’t really want to face. This was his world and, in marrying him, she had become part of that world. He saw no reason why his life shouldn’t continue the way it always had and he was making no allowances for Holly’s insecurities. No, it was her job to swallow her ire with Apollo and be nice. Well, that certainly put her in her place, didn’t it? Vito’s long-standing friendship with the Greek billionaire meant more to him than his wife’s loss of face at her own wedding. Just as work still meant more to him than settling into marriage and fatherhood. Vito, she recognised painfully, was highly resistant to change of any kind...