Читать книгу The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Aimee Carson - Страница 100
ОглавлениеSANDRO SAT ACROSS from Liana on the royal jet and picked a strawberry dipped in chocolate from the silver platter between them. He held it out to her, a mischievous smile playing about his mouth. They were halfway across the Atlantic and he was determined to begin what he suspected would be the very enjoyable process of melting his wife.
It was already working; last night she’d lain in his arms and it had only taken her an hour to relax. He’d watched her face soften in sleep, those tightly pursed lips part on a sigh. Her lashes had fluttered and brushed against her porcelain-pale cheeks. He’d stroked her cheek, amazed at its softness, at the softness he felt in himself towards this woman he’d thought was so hard. So icy and cold.
Yet even as he’d held her and stroked her cheek, he’d wondered. Doubted, because God only knew his judgment had been off before. He’d thought the best of his parents, of the one woman he’d let into his heart. He’d insisted on it, even when everything said otherwise.
Was he doing the same now? Desperate, even now, to love and be loved? Because Liana might lie in his arms, but she didn’t always look as if she wanted to be there. One minute she was kissing him with a sudden, sweet passion that had taken him by surprise on the balcony and the next she was cool and remote, all chilly indifference.
Which was the real woman?
Now Liana eyed the chocolate strawberry askance. ‘You have a thing about messy food.’
‘They tend to be aphrodisiacal.’
‘Aphro— Oh.’ Her cheeks pinked, and he grinned.
‘Try one.’
‘I don’t—’
‘You don’t like strawberries? Or chocolate? I can’t believe it.’
‘I’ve never had one before.’
‘A strawberry?’
‘Not one dipped in chocolate.’ Her blush deepened and she looked away. ‘Sometimes I think I must seem ridiculous to you.’
Surprise made him falter. He dropped his hand, still holding the strawberry, the chocolate smearing his fingers. ‘Nothing about you is ridiculous, Liana.’
‘I know I haven’t experienced much of life.’
‘And why is that?’
She paused, pressed her lips together. ‘I don’t know.’
But he thought she did. She must at least have a good guess. No need to press her now, though. Instead he held out the strawberry once more. ‘Try it.’
She hesitated, her lips still pursed, everything in her resisting. Then he saw the moment when she made the decision to be different, and with a little shrug and a smile she reached for it. He drew back, his eyes glinting challenge. ‘Open your mouth.’
Her eyes widened and for a second he thought he’d pushed too far. Too hard. But she did as he said, parting her lips so he could hold the strawberry out to her. He felt his groin harden and ache as she touched the tip of her pink tongue to the chocolate and licked.
‘Mmm.’ She sounded so sweetly innocent and yet as seductive as a siren as she gazed at him with eyes as wide and clear as lakes. He could drown in them. He was drowning, lost in this moment as she licked the chocolate again. ‘I don’t think I knew what I’ve been missing,’ she said huskily, and he knew she wasn’t just talking about a single, simple strawberry.
‘Liana...’ His voice was a groan as she bit into the strawberry, juice trickling down her chin, chocolate smearing her lush lips.
She ate it in two bites, and then Sandro could hold back no longer. He reached for her, dragging his hands through her hair as he brought her face to his and kissed her strawberry-sweet lips.
She tasted better, sweeter than any strawberry. And he wanted her more than he’d wanted anything or anyone before in his life. He kissed her deeply, as if he was drawing the essence of her right out of her mouth and into himself. Wanting and needing to feel her closer than a kiss, with his hands spanning her waist he drew her onto his lap, fitted her legs around him so she pressed snugly against his arousal and he flexed his hips against hers, craving that exquisite friction.
‘Now, that’s better,’ he murmured and she let out a choked laugh.
‘Sandro—’ She broke off, her head buried in his neck, and Sandro stilled.
He was moving too fast. He’d forgotten, in the sweet spell of that kiss, that she was a virgin. Untouched. Inexperienced.
Sandro closed his eyes and willed the tide of his desire back. Even so it misted his mind with a red haze. Gently he eased her off his lap.
‘Sorry. Lost my head a bit there.’
‘It’s okay,’ she murmured, but her face was still buried in his neck.
Sandro leaned back against the sofa cushions and tried, without success, to will away the ache in his groin.
‘Sex doesn’t scare me, you know,’ she said suddenly, and he suppressed a smile.
‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
‘It’s just...’ She licked her lips, sending a shaft of lust burrowing deep into him. Painful. ‘Everything else does. About...being with someone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Intimacy. Like you said. Sharing things. Being—vulnerable.’
He smiled, tried to draw her into that smile, into something shared. ‘None of it is a walk in the park, is it?’
‘You mean it scares you too?’
‘Sometimes.’ He was the one to glance away now. ‘I’m not exactly an expert in all this myself, you know, Liana.’
‘But you’ve had loads of relationships, according to the media anyway.’
‘Don’t believe everything you read.’
Her eyebrows rose, two pale arcs. ‘It’s not true?’
He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable to impart so much, yet knowing he could only be honest with this woman. His wife. ‘I’ve had quite a few...sexual relationships, I admit. They didn’t mean anything to me.’
‘That’s more than I’ve had,’ she said with a soft laugh that wobbled at the end, a telling note.
He felt a sudden stab of surprising regret for all the pointless encounters he’d had, all attempts to stave off the loneliness and need he’d felt deep inside. The need that was, amazingly, starting to be met by this woman.
‘Have you ever...loved anyone?’ Liana asked softly. ‘I mean, a woman? A romantic... Well, you know.’
‘Yes.’ Sandro paused, pictured Teresa. What had drawn him to her originally? She’d been so different from everything about his former life, he supposed. A California girl, with sun-kissed hair and bright blue eyes, always ready to laugh, always up for a good time. It had taken him nearly a year to realise Teresa only wanted a good time. With his money. His status. She wasn’t interested in the man he really was, didn’t want to do the whole ‘for better or for worse’ thing. At least, not for worse.
‘Sandro?’ Liana’s soft voice interrupted the bleakness of his thoughts. ‘You must have loved her very much.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because your face is like a thundercloud.’
He shook his head. ‘I thought I loved her.’
‘Is there really a difference?’
He sighed. ‘Maybe not. Sometimes disillusionment is worse than heartbreak.’
‘How were you disillusioned?’
He shrugged, half amazed he was telling her all of this. ‘I thought she loved me for me. But I discovered she was really only interested in my money and status, and not so much me, or being faithful to me.’ He’d caught her in bed with the landscaping guy, of all people. She hadn’t even been sorry.
Liana pressed her lips together. ‘So that’s why you’re so suspicious.’
‘Suspicious?’
‘Of me.’
He hesitated then, because as much as he’d been enjoying their conversation and this new, startling intimacy, her words reminded him that she had agreed to marry him for exactly those reasons. Money. Power. A title.
Nothing had really changed, except maybe in his own sentimental mind.
He pushed the thought away; he wanted, for once, to enjoy the simple pleasure of being with a woman. With his wife. ‘Have another strawberry,’ he said, and held another one out to her parted lips.
* * *
Liana licked the last of the chocolate from her lips, every sense on impossible overload. She’d never felt so much—the sweetness of the strawberry, the seductive promise of his kiss, the alarming honesty of their conversation that left her feeling bare and yet bizarrely, beautifully light, as if she’d slipped the first tiny bit of a burden she’d been carrying so long she’d forgotten it was weighing her down. Crippling her.
This was why people fell in love, she supposed. This was what the magazines and romance novels hinted at—and yet she didn’t even love Sandro. How could she, when she barely knew him?
And yet he was her husband, and he’d held her all night long and kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough. She’d had more with him already than she’d ever had before, and if that made her pathetic, fine. She was pathetic. But for the first time in her life she could almost glimpse happiness.
But could he? Could they have something other than a marriage of convenience, even if they wanted it? Her own emotions and desires were a confused tangle, and she had no idea what Sandro’s were. What he thought. What he felt. She didn’t want to ask.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Sandro asked as he popped a strawberry into his own mouth.
‘Lots of things.’
‘You’re all sunlight and shadows, smiling one minute, frowning the next.’
‘Am I?’ She laughed a little, tried for some more of this hard honesty. ‘I guess I’m trying to figure out what I think. What I feel.’
‘Maybe,’ Sandro suggested softly, ‘you should stop thinking so much. Just run with it.’
She nodded. Yes, that seemed like a good idea. Stop analysing. Stop worrying. Just...feel.
She’d spent half a lifetime trying not to feel, and now that was all she wanted to do. She laughed aloud, the sound soft and trembling, and Sandro smiled.
‘Good idea?’ he asked and she nodded again.
‘Yes,’ she answered with a smile. ‘Good idea.’
* * *
They arrived in Los Angeles tired and jet-lagged, but Liana was still euphoric. This was a new place, a new day. A new life.
A limo was waiting for them at the airport, and Liana kept her nose nearly pressed on the glass as they drove through the city to Sandro’s beachside villa in Santa Monica.
‘I’ve never been to the US before, you know,’ she said as she took in the impressive elegance of Rodeo Drive, the iconic Hollywood sign high above them.
‘Consider yourself a tourist. I have some work to do, but we can do the sights.’
‘What are the sights?’
‘The usual museums and theme parks. The beach. I’d like to take you to a spa resort out in Palm Desert and pamper you to death.’
She let out a little laugh as a thrill ran through her. ‘That sounds like a pretty good way to go.’
‘I don’t think you’ve ever been pampered,’ Sandro said quietly. ‘Spoiled.’
‘Who would want to be spoiled?’
‘I mean...’ He shrugged, spread his hands. ‘Treated. Indulged. Given an experience just to enjoy and savour.’
No, she’d never had any of those things, not remotely. ‘Well, good thing I’m with you, then,’ she said lightly. ‘Pamper away.’
Sandro smiled and let it drop; she knew he knew there were things she wasn’t saying, things she was afraid to say. And would she ever tell him? She thought of his fingers stroking her back, her hip, softening her. Slowly, slowly.
The limo pulled up to Sandro’s gated mansion and they spent the next hour walking through it. He showed her the voice-controlled plasma-screen television, the shower stall big enough for two people that was activated by simply placing your palm on the wall.
‘This place is like something out of James Bond,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I had no idea you were a gadget guy.’
‘I worked in IT.’
‘And Leo does too, doesn’t he? I remember someone saying at our reception that he’s drafting an IT bill.’
‘He is.’ Sandro’s expression seemed to still, everything in him turn wary. ‘He’s worked hard in my absence.’
She heard the note of recrimination in his voice that she’d sensed before and she wanted to ask him about it. Wanted to know if he struggled with guilt the way she did. But the sun was so bright and they’d been having so much fun exploring his house that she didn’t want to weigh down the lightness of the moment.
And, she knew, she was a coward.
They had lunch out on the private beach in front of the house, although Liana’s body clock was insisting it was some impossible, other time. She stretched her legs out on the sun-warmed sand and gazed out at the Pacific, started to fall halfway asleep.
Or maybe it was all the way asleep, because she startled to wakefulness when Sandro scooped her up in his arms.
‘Time for bed, I think,’ he murmured, and carried her across the sand and into the house. She sank onto the silk sheets of his king-size bed and felt the mattress dip as Sandro lay next to her, his arm still around her.
He drew her against him so her head rested on his shoulder, the steady thud of his heart under her cheek. Liana let out a little breathy sigh of contentment. How had she gone without this all of her life?
She must have fallen asleep, because she awoke in the middle of the night, the room drenched in darkness save for a sliver of moonlight that bisected the floor. The space in the bed next to her yawned emptily.
Liana shook her hair out of her face and glanced around the bedroom, but Sandro was nowhere to be seen. On bare feet she padded through the upstairs looking for him, wondering where he’d gone—and why he’d left her in the middle of the night.
She finally found him downstairs in his study, dressed only in a pair of black silk pyjama bottoms, just as he had been on their wedding night. He had his laptop in front of him and papers were scattered across his desk. He worked so hard, she thought with a twist of guilty regret. She’d accused him of neglecting his royal duty, of being someone she couldn’t respect, but she was beginning to see just how far from the truth that accusation had been.
‘Can’t sleep?’ she asked softly and he glanced up, the frown that had settled between his brows smoothed away for a moment.
‘My body clock is completely out of sync. I thought I might as well get some work done.’
‘What are you working on?’
‘Just tying up some loose ends with DT.’
‘DT?’
‘Diomedi Technology.’
She came into the room, driven by a new and deeper curiosity to know this man. To understand him. ‘You founded it, didn’t you? When you...moved?’
The smile he gave her was twisted, a little bitter. ‘You mean when I abandoned my royal duty to pursue my own pleasures?’
She winced. ‘Don’t, Sandro.’
‘It’s true, though.’
‘I’m not sure it is.’
‘And how do you figure that, Liana?’ His voice held a hard edge but she had a feeling for once it wasn’t for her. He was angry with himself for leaving, for somehow failing. She knew because she understood that feeling too well. The churning guilt and regret for doing the wrong thing or, in her case, nothing at all.
Briefly she closed her eyes, willed the memory of Chiara’s desperate gaze away, at least for this moment. Her sister’s face, she knew, would haunt her for the rest of her life.
‘I think there’s always more to the story than there first appears,’ she said quietly, coming to perch on the edge of his desk. ‘You told me leaving felt necessary at the time, but you didn’t tell me why.’
He glanced down at the papers on his desk. ‘I didn’t think we had that sort of relationship.’
Her breath hitched and she willed it to even out again. ‘We didn’t. But—but maybe we do now. Or at least, we’re trying to.’
He glanced up at her then, everything about him inscrutable. Fathomless. ‘Are we?’
Liana stared back at him, words on her lips and fear in her heart. This was the moment when she should show her hand, she knew. Her heart. Tell him that in the few days since they’d been married she’d started to change. He’d changed her, and now she wanted things she’d never let herself want. Affection. Friendship. Love.
The words were there and they trembled on her lips but then the fear of exposing so much want and need made her swallow them and offer a rather watery smile instead.
‘You tell me.’
Wrong answer, she knew. A coward’s answer. Sandro looked away. ‘I don’t know, Liana. I don’t know what secrets you’re hiding, or why you’ve, as you said yourself, experienced so little of life. It’s almost as if you’ve kept yourself from it, from enjoying or feeling anything, and I won’t know why or understand you until you tell me.’ He glanced back at her then, his expression settled into resolute lines. ‘But I’m not even sure you really want that. You told me you married me because of the opportunities being queen would give this charity of yours. Has that changed?’
She swallowed. ‘No, not exactly.’ Sandro’s expression tightened and he started shuffling his papers into piles. ‘But I’ve changed, Sandro, at least a little. I want to get to know you. And I hope you want to know me.’ And that, Liana thought with a weary wryness, was about as honest as she could make herself be right now.
Sandro gazed at her thoughtfully. ‘And how do you propose we do that?’
‘Get to know one another, you mean?’ She licked her lips, saw Sandro’s gaze drop to her mouth, and felt warmth curling low in her belly. ‘Well...as we have been doing. Talking. Spending time with one another.’
‘We can talk all you like, but until you tell me whatever it is you’re keeping from me, I don’t think much is going to change.’
‘But I told you I’ve already changed,’ she said quietly. ‘A little, at least. You’ve changed me.’
‘Have I?’ Sandro asked softly. He was still staring at her mouth and Liana felt a heavy languor begin to steal through her veins, making her feel almost drunk, reckless in a way she so rarely was. ‘I can think of another way we could get to know one another,’ she whispered.
He arched an eyebrow, heat flaring in his eyes, turning them to molten silver. ‘And what would that be?’
‘This.’ She leaned forward, her heart thudding hard, and brushed her lips across his.
His mouth was cool and soft, his lips only barely parted, and he didn’t respond as she’d expected him to, pulling her in his arms and taking control. No, he was waiting to see what she would do. How far she would go.
Emboldened, Liana touched her tongue to the corner of Sandro’s mouth, heard his groan, felt it in the soft rush of breath against her own lips. Desire bit deeper, and she brought her hands up to his shoulders, steadying herself on the edge of his desk as she kissed him again, slid her tongue into his mouth with a surge of pure sexual excitement she thrilled to feel.
‘Liana...’ Sandro’s hands tangled in her hair as he fastened his mouth more securely on hers, taking the kiss from her and making it his. Theirs.
And what a kiss it was. Liana could easily count the number of times she’d been kissed, half of them by Sandro, but this kiss was something else entirely. This kiss was shared, a giving and a taking and most of all an admission. A spilling of secrets, a confession of desire.
It felt like the most honest thing she’d ever done.
And then it was more than a kiss as Sandro swept all his papers aside and hauled her across the desk. She came willingly, sliding onto his lap, her legs on either side of him as she felt the hard, insistent press of his arousal against her and pleasure spiked deep inside.
Sandro deepened the kiss, his hands moving over her, cupping her breasts, the thin cotton of her sundress already too much between them. In that moment she wasn’t afraid of her own feelings, the strength of her own desire—and his. She just wanted more.
Recklessly Liana pulled the dress over her head and tossed it to the floor. Sandro’s gaze darkened with heat and then she unclasped her bra and sent it flying too. She was wearing only her panties, and even that felt like too much clothing.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered huskily as his hands roved over her. ‘Your skin is like marble.’
A small smile twitched her lips. ‘Like a statue?’
He glanced up at her, his hands now cupping her breasts, his thumbs brushing over their taut peaks. ‘Like Venus de Milo.’ And then he put his mouth to her breasts and if she were a statue she came alive under him, writhing and gasping as he teased her with his tongue and lips.
She tangled her hands in his hair, arching her back and pressing against him, gasping aloud when he flexed his hips upwards and she felt the promise of what was to come, of what it would feel like to have him inside her, to be part of him. She wanted it now.
Sandro let out a shaky groan. ‘Not here, Liana. Let me take you to bed—’
‘Why do we need a bed?’ she murmured and she slid his hands up his bare chest, fingers spreading across hot skin and hard muscle.
‘Your first time—’
‘Are there rules about a woman’s first time? Does it have to be on a bed, with roses and violins?’
He let out a shaky laugh. ‘I don’t have any roses at the moment—’
‘I don’t actually like roses.’ She pressed against him, muscles she hadn’t known she had tightening, quivering. ‘Or violins.’
‘Even so—’
‘I want this.’ She might not be able to be honest about everything yet, but she could be honest about this. About this real, rushing desire she felt. ‘I want you. And I want you here, now, just like this.’
He eased away from her, but only to hold her face in his palms and search her expression. She stared back, firm in her purpose, clear-headed even in the midst of the haze of sexual desire. ‘You want me,’ he said slowly, almost wonderingly, and she leaned forward so her breasts brushed his chest and her lips touched his.
‘I want you,’ she whispered against his mouth, and then she kissed him again, another honest kiss, deeper this time, drawing everything from him even as she gave it back.
She’d never grow tired of this, she thought hazily as Sandro kissed his way down her body and her head fell back. She’d never have enough of this, of him. Her breath came out in short gasps as his fingers skimmed the waistband of her panties and then with one swift tug tore the thin cotton and tossed them aside, along with his own pyjama bottoms.
The sudden feel of his fingers against her most sensitive flesh made her let out a surprised cry, and all her muscles clenched as Sandro slid his fingers inside her.
She dropped her head on his shoulder, her fingernails biting into his back as he moved his hand with such delicious certainty and a wave of pleasure so intense and fierce it almost hurt crashed over her.
‘Sandro.’ Her breath came out in a shudder. ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’
‘Because you didn’t let yourself,’ he murmured, and as his hand kept moving her hips moved of their own accord, her body falling into a rhythm as natural as breathing.
‘I—I want you,’ she gasped, each word coming out on a pant. ‘I want you inside me.’
‘It could hurt a little, your first—’
‘Shut up about my first time,’ she cut him off on a gasp, angling her hips so she was poised over him. She met his hot gaze as she sank slowly onto him, her eyes widening as she felt herself open and stretch. Her hands gripped his shoulders, and his hands were fastened to her hips, their bodies joined in every way. ‘Nothing about this hurts.’
That wasn’t quite true. Nothing hurt, but the feel of him inside her was certainly eye-opening. Intense. And wonderful. Intimate in a way she’d always been afraid to be. To feel.
She never wanted to go back to numbness again.
Sandro’s gaze stayed on hers as he began to move, his hands on her hips guiding her to match his rhythm.
‘Okay?’ he murmured and she laughed, throwing her head back as pleasure began shooting sparks deep inside her, jolts of sensation that made speech almost impossible.
‘More than okay,’ she answered when she trusted her voice. ‘Wonderful.’
And then words failed her as sensation took over, and Sandro’s body moved so deeply inside hers she felt as if he touched her soul.
Maybe he did, because when the feelings finally took over, swamping her completely so her voice split the still air with one jagged cry of pleasure, she knew she’d never felt as close to a human being before, or ever.
And it felt more than wonderful. It felt as if he’d brought her back to life.
