Читать книгу Twice Upon Time - Nina Beaumont - Страница 8

Prologue

Sarah Longford lay dreaming.

The sea, so calm, so azure that it seemed like a painting, stretched alongside the flat, sandy beach. The two riders emerged from the forest of umbrella pines at a wild gallop that sent a spray of pale sand up behind them.

Bianca, her unbound black curls streaming behind her like a banner, her scarlet dress a dazzling contrast to her mount’s white coat, turned slightly, a smile on her lips. A smile perfectly calculated to provoke, to arouse. Her gaze swept over Alessio with approval. His black clothing blended with the glossy black hide of his stallion so that the man and his mount looked like one fabulously pagan, virile animal.

Alessio, his face dark with annoyance and the promise of passion, spurred his horse forward.

Bianca saw Alessio’s mount move closer, and her hands tightened on the reins as she urged her mare onward. With a whinny, her horse reared up, and the reins slipped through her fingers. With a cry she tumbled off the saddle onto the sand.

Disoriented, she lay still for a moment, both arms flung outward. The black stallion thundered to a halt a few feet away. As Alessio, his face dark with rage, leapt off his mount, she struggled up. Stumbling to a nearby rocky outcrop, she turned to face him, bracing her palms against the rocks behind her.

Alessio’s hands were rough as they closed on her shoulders.

“What were you trying to do, damn you?” He shook her so violently that her teeth clacked together. “Break your neck?”

“No.” She was still breathless. “I just wanted to see how fast Sultana could go. And I was racing you,” she added with a taunting smile. “And I would have won, too, if you hadn’t startled me.”

“So it’s my fault, then?”

She met Alessio’s eyes. They were the same color as the sunlit sea, which stretched out behind him. The remains of his anger were there. And the desire she recognized because she had seen it often enough in other men’s eyes.

“Isn’t it always?”

“Damn you”

Bianca curved her lips upward in a mocking smile, then parted them as if in invitation. She felt his hands tighten and a low laugh rose in her throat. “Now I suggest you let me go, Messere Alessio. Or do you wish to mark my skin?”

“By God, if you keep playing your role of Circe, I will do more than mark your skin.” But even as he said the words, his hands eased and began to stroke where they had gripped before.

The linen of her shirt, the velvet of her gown lay between Alessio’s hands and her skin, and yet Bianca could feel his touch as if she were naked beneath it.

The heat his hands generated spread over her skin and spiraled down to her belly. Her young, ripe body grew hungry. So hungry that she could imagine giving in to its demands. Now. Here. Her body swayed toward him, until she could feel his hard body against hers.

“Strega. You are a witch, Bianca.” His hands slid up from her shoulders and into her hair. As they fisted in the wind-tossed strands to hold her, he lowered his mouth to hers.

“No.” She turned her face aside, as much to hide the satisfaction she knew would be in her eyes as to toy with him.

Alessio stared down at her. Impatience and anger melded with desire and his hands tightened in her hair.

“No, let me go.” Her temper rose and she began to fight him.

“Why so coy today, madonna?” he demanded. “There have been days when you were more than eager to feel my mouth on yours.”

Bianca’s eyes narrowed. “Let me go, Alessio, I command you.” His grip on her hair was just short of painful—and yet she found that it aroused her. Aroused her so much that she needed distance from him and needed it quickly. With no compunctions she fired off her most powerful weapon. “Do you forget that I belong to your brother?”

“No.” His eyes flashed with blue flames. “You are betrothed to my brother. But you belong to me.”

Alessio felt his fury, which she seemed to provoke so effortlessly, rise another notch. There was no love lost between Ugo and himself, but did a man dishonor his own flesh and blood for a woman?

“You know as well as I do that you belonged to me long before I touched you for the first time. Do you remember?”

Her mouth sullen, Bianca remained silent. Because her pride demanded it, she kept her gaze steady on his.

Her silence goaded him, and Alessio’s grip tightened and remained so, even when her barely perceptible wince told him that he was hurting her.

“Do you remember how you looked down from the tribunal as I was awarded the victor’s wreath after the tournament?” His body sprang to life at the memory. “You looked at me and we both knew that you were mine, as if you had already spread your legs for my body.”

In counterpoint to his crude words, his hands released her hair and cupped her head, his fingers rubbing her scalp lightly, as if to soothe the discomfort that he himself had caused. He lowered his head.

“Open your mouth for me now, Bianca,” he murmured. “Open for me and let me kiss you.”

His hands were gentle where they had been rough before. His lips coaxed where they had demanded. Drawing in a deep breath, she inhaled his scent with it — horseflesh and leather and aroused male. Her senses began to swim. Before she lost herself to the moment, she took control and filled Alessio’s mouth with her tongue.

Alessio felt her warm, wet tongue slip into his mouth, and for a moment he remained as motionless as if he had been struck by lightning.

She watched him as she moved her tongue against his in erotic invitation. Then she retreated and, in a final siren’s call, brushed her open mouth against his. When she let her head fall back in ostensible surrender, triumph was in her eyes.

Slowly Alessio lowered his mouth to hers, half inch by half inch. His lips hovered over hers, then descended until they were separated by no more than a breath.

Her mouth, as sweet and lush as a ripe peach, beckoned. And still he did not take. Instead he touched his mouth to her full lower lip. Then, his eyes on hers, he drew it into his mouth.

For a moment Bianca stopped breathing with the sheer pleasure of it. Because she could not speak, she moaned.

Alessio stilled. Then, knowing that now they were both the vanquished, both the victors, he plunged into her mouth.

They feasted on each other until they were full of each other’s taste. They drank from each other until they were drunk with pleasure.

Their nerves humming, their breathing ragged, they pulled apart.

“And you dare to say that you do not belong to me?”

His breath was hot on her face, and Bianca leaned back. The rocks bit into her back and she was glad of the pain that helped her control the need to reach for Alessio again. And to take. To take everything.

“Answer me, damn you.”

Bianca pulled herself back from the sensual whirlwird where he had flung her. She wanted him so badly that her body ached with the wanting. But she wanted the wealth and power this marriage was offering her even more.

“No.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “I can never belong to you. And you and I both know it.”

“You dare to deny it?”

“What would you have me do? Break a betrothal signed and sealed?”

“Why did you agree to this accursed betrothal in the first place?” His voice carried both anger and pain. “You knew that we belonged together.” He gripped her shoulders and pulled her against him. “You knew.”

“I had no choice but to agree, and well you know it.”

Alessio looked into her eyes for a long time before he spoke. “And you would have agreed to this marriage even if you had had a choice, wouldn’t you?”

Bianca stared back at him in silence.

The rage took him as he recognized the truth. “Wouldn’t you?” he shouted.

And still, Bianca remained silent.

“So.” His beautiful mouth curled in contempt. “For wealth and power you are willing to let yourself be ridden by a man deformed in body and spirit?”

“You speak so of your brother?”

“I speak the truth whether I speak of my brother or a stranger.” His eyes turned dull as they rested on her. “And you will marry him.”

“Yes, I will marry him.”

Alessio’s gaze slid away from her face.

“Alessio.” She reached up and, cupping his chin in her hand, moved his head until their eyes met. “The first night will be his, but then—” She stretched upward to brush her mouth over his.

“Damn you! Do you think I will be satisfied with my brother’s leavings?” He shoved her away, disgusted with her. Disgusted with himself—with the desire that still heated his blood. “Come, Madonna, I will take you back.”

Bianca lowered her eyes as they returned to their mounts. But not because she felt shame. She had seen the heat in his eyes and she knew that he would be back. He would be hers.

Sarah sat up with a cry. As she covered her face with her hands, she felt the wetness of tears. She’d dreamt this dream so many times. This dream and all the others. But tonight it had touched her so deeply that she felt a physical ache in her chest.

These dreams had been part of her life for so long—no, she corrected, they had been her life. She had always wanted to know why they came to her—these wonderful, terrible, erotic dreams that were everything that her life was not. The desire to know had grown and grown until now it had become a need.

The cold in the dingy little room had her shivering, and she lay down again and pulled the covers up to her chin.

Tomorrow, she reminded herself. Tomorrow she would begin her journey. Tomorrow she would be on the way to Florence. Perhaps she would find an answer there.

Closing her eyes against the drabness around her, Sarah willed herself back to sleep, hoping that another dream awaited her.