A Shadow of Guilt Page 12

  ‘Gio?’

  Gio moved his body so that he hovered over her now, pushing her legs apart with his hips. She could feel the heavy length of him brushing against her sex. He took himself in his hand and Valentina looked down to see that he’d sheathed himself with protection with no idea of when or where he’d had the wherewithal to do it.

  He was running the thick head of his penis along where she felt drenched with desire. So much that it embarrassed her. With that realisation she turned her head to the side, suddenly overwhelmed.

  She felt him still and a hand come to her chin, turning her back. His face was etched with desire but also something else that made her quiver: concern.

  ‘Valentina?’

  She took refuge from the tender feeling his concern aroused by focusing on the needs of her physical body. ‘I want you …’

  The concern faded from Gio’s face and a stark primality took over. She could feel him position himself, feel his fingers on himself and on her as he slowly fed himself into her, inch by thick inch. The initial sensation was overpowering. Valentina sucked in a breath at the intrusion. This was so much more devastating than his fingers. But even as she thought that, her body seemed to recognise something she didn’t, or trust something she didn’t, and she could feel her muscles opening, admitting entrance.

  With a guttural groan Gio took his hand away and rested on both hands over her body. With a hoarse calling out of her name, he thrust deep and hard and sheathed himself in her completely.

  Valentina’s eyes opened wide and her chest expanded with the breath she’d drawn in. Her hands were on his biceps where she could feel them quiver under her fingers. He was shaking, or she was shaking; she wasn’t sure which.

  She felt impossibly full and impaled, invaded. Gio was looking down at her, that concern edging back. ‘OK?’

  Valentina jerkily nodded her head. ‘Please … Gio …’

  Slowly he started to move, out … and then back in. His movements within her were so exquisite, bordering between pain and pleasure, that Valentina could only breathe in short gasps, struggling to hang on to whatever control she still had. She felt as if she was in danger of exploding into a million fragments with each long slide of Gio’s body back into hers. And with each stroke, the pain faded to be replaced and eclipsed by pleasure.

  Without even realising what she was doing, her feet were digging into the bed beside Gio’s hips; her own were moving restlessly. As if sensing her inner turmoil over all this newness, Gio bent and pressed a kiss to her mouth, tongue stroking along hers for a long moment, soothing but also inciting.

  ‘Wrap your legs around me,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘and I’ll help you to fly.’

  She could feel him find her leg and lift it up over one hip and blindly she lifted her other leg, wrapping both legs around those lean hips, ankles crossed just above his buttocks. He sank even deeper within her and their moans mingled. Valentina could feel his chest hairs scrape her sensitised breasts, making her arch upwards, seeking that contact again.

  Gio’s movements became more urgent. He was thrusting so hard and so deep now that Valentina saw stars. And then without any warning at all, her entire body clenched tight before exploding into a million pieces. Valentina gasped, head back, bucking uncontrollably against Gio as he pounded into her, his own release finally stilling that huge body just as he touched the very core of her.

  In the aftermath Valentina’s brain couldn’t wrap itself around the magnitude of what had just happened. The pain mixed with a pleasure more intense than she’d ever experienced. She was vaguely aware of Gio pulling free of her body and disappearing for a moment before returning. She was vaguely aware of him lifting her body so that her head touched a pillow. He drew a thin cover over her body. When he tucked himself around her, she found that she was instinctively twining her legs around his, holding him to her tightly.

  He lifted an arm and she felt his fingers smoothing damp strands of hair from her face. She opened sleepy eyes and caught a glimpse of a mark on the inside of his upper left arm. In the dim light she hadn’t noticed it before. Without thinking Valentina reached up to trace what looked like black marks etched into his skin. A tattoo of some sort. She frowned. ‘What’s this?’

  Gio’s fingers in her hair stilled and she felt him tense. After a long moment he drew his arm back from her questing fingers and just said, ‘It’s nothing. rest now.’

  He shifted his body so that Valentina was curled into his side, and with her cheek resting on his chest over where his heart beat steadily, she found herself slipping down into a dark dreamless place. She would think about those marks … later. She would think about it all.

  As the dawn light filtered into Valentina’s room, bathing everything in a pinky gold, Gio sat in a chair in the corner of her room. He’d pulled on his trousers, leaving them open, and just watched the woman who lay sleeping in the bed.

  She was on her front, the sheet provocatively resting just over her buttocks, revealing the long smooth curve of her back. One arm was curled up to her chest where he could just make out the swell of her breast. His body tightened predictably and Gio grimaced at the response.

  Her other arm was flung out by her head and her cheek rested on the pillow, long black lashes casting a shadow on flushed cheeks. Still flushed. He remembered how it had felt to sink into her velvet hot embrace, how tight she’d been at first…. His own body tightened even more and Gio gave up castigating himself for such a helpless response.

  It had been the hardest thing in the world to extricate himself from Valentina’s embrace but a part of him hadn’t relished the prospect of her expression when she woke to find herself curled around him so comprehensively. And another part of him had needed to get some space … to try and rationalise the sheer scale of what had just happened.

  Gio had never experienced sex like that … so intense and primal. His face grew stark—admittedly, many of his previous experiences were a blur from those two hellish years. But even before that … it had never been like this. He’d never lost control, lost himself so completely. Mario had used to tease him mercilessly: You won’t be able to cut yourself off forever, Gio. One day you’ll meet someone who won’t let you stay so aloof….

  The truth was, Gio had envied the ease with which Mario had fallen in and out of love. Gio just hadn’t had that capacity. Emotions for him were a dark and dangerous place to explore. Once, when he’d been tiny, he’d gone to his father with something he’d made, desperate to try and get his attention, acutely aware of how his older brothers seemed to effortlessly get and hold their father’s attention in a way he couldn’t.

  Gio had stood in front of his father holding out the model airplane he’d spent hours working on. He could remember that all he’d wanted to say was, I made this for you. But under his father’s arctic judgemental glare the words just wouldn’t come out.

  His father had snapped at him, irritated at this hesitance, and Gio could remember how his hands had trembled. The less he’d been able to speak, the more angry his father had become until he’d ripped the airplane out of Gio’s hands, thrown it to the ground and stamped on it.

  A lot of his father’s vile words from that day were forgotten, but not the acrid sense of betrayal and hurt. Or the way his mother had shrank into the shadows, unable to stand up for her youngest son, too scared of directing that wrath towards her when she was so desperately trying to get back into her husband’s favour.

  He’d learnt to draw inwards that day, to protect himself.

  A movement from the bed made Gio focus on Valentina again. He welcomed the distraction. She was uncurling her arm from her side and Gio could see the swell of her plump breast. With fire igniting in his veins again he stood up and went over, sitting beside her on the edge of the bed.

  Slowly she opened her eyes. He saw her try to focus, to assimilate the information her body was undoubtedly giving her. And then she saw him. Those amber feline eyes widened, the flush on her cheek
s deepened. Gio’s chest constricted when he could see the myriad questions about to come out of her mouth.

  Without thinking he put a finger to her lips, their softness making him ache. ‘Shh … don’t think … don’t say anything … just let it be ….’

  Gio watched her wary response, and then as if some inner turmoil had been resolved she nodded imperceptibly. He took his finger away and said throatily, ‘How do you feel? Are you sore?’

  Even as he watched he could see the glowing embers of desire in her eyes, and his arousal soared. Looking endearingly shy now, she just shook her head against the pillow.

  ‘Good,’ Gio said and bent down to press a kiss to her mouth. She turned onto her back, opening up her body to him again and Gio fell back into the glorious blaze once more.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  VALENTINA WAS IN deeply unchartered waters. She was standing in her shower with her eyes closed and Gio was massaging shampoo into her hair. She felt like purring. She also felt like turning around and pushing him up against the wall and kissing him all over. She could feel his erection brush against her buttocks and had to put her hands out to touch the tiles, afraid she’d fall down in a heap at his feet under the teeming hot spray.

  She felt him turn her around and kept her eyes closed, too scared to look and see that gorgeous physique up close. That physique that had taken her to heaven and back more times than she could remember during the previous night and then again that morning. She’d never known the human body was capable of such pleasure, of such base carnal desires. Or that those desires could be felt, and met.

  But more than all of that, she was too scared to open her eyes and look into Gio’s. To see the same expression she’d seen in them this morning when she’d woken to find him looking at her so intently, as if he could see all the way into her soul, where she hid her deepest secrets.

  But she couldn’t avoid it. Not when Gio pronounced her clean and tipped her chin up with a finger. With the utmost reluctance she opened her eyes and looked up. Gio had stopped the water but they were still surrounded by steamy warm air, like a sensual cocoon. Lazily he put his arm out, hand touching the wall behind her. It was then that Valentina noticed the marks again, on his arm. The tattoo.

  He saw where her gaze had gone and in an instant the atmosphere went from hot and sultry to cool as ice. He quickly took down his arm again, reaching out for towels. So fast that her head span, Gio had manoeuvred her out of the shower and was wrapping her in a huge soft towel and hitching one around his own hips.

  Curiosity well and truly stoked now, Valentina followed Gio into the bedroom. He’d lifted the towel off his hips and was roughly rubbing his hair before running it over the rest of his body in a very perfunctory manner, clearly doing his utmost to get out of her room quickly. Valentina tried desperately not to let his naked back and those firmly sculpted buttocks distract her. Just looking at his powerfully muscled thighs made her think of how potently masculine he’d felt between her legs.

  She hitched her own towel under her arms sarongstyle and ignored the fact that she was dripping water all over the floor. She went over and stood in front of a very naked and damp Gio. She crossed her arms against the betraying rush of heat to her groin.

  ‘What are those marks?’

  Gio scowled and for a second looked endearingly young. Oozing reluctance he wrapped his towel around his hips and crossed his own arms, effectively hiding the tattoo in question.

  Growing exasperated now Valentina reached out and pulled at his arms, making him loosen them, and then she held his left arm up, so that she could see the tattoo clearly. ‘Why on earth don’t you want to talk about this? It’s just a tattoo….’

  Saying something finally, Gio bit out, ‘Exactly, it’s nothing.’

  He tried to pull his arm back but Valentina held on tenaciously, inspecting the uniform black ink marks. Out loud she said, ‘They look like roman numerals … some kind of a date? Four … five …’

  She could read the first part, but the last piece eluded her—her knowledge of roman numerals only went up to about ten but this was clearly a much larger number, and as she realised this, she also realised the significance of four and five. Mario had died on the fourth of May….

  Valentina dropped Gio’s arm and looked up at him. She could feel the blood draining southwards. Gio cursed under his breath and guided her to the bed to sit down on the edge. He stood in front of her and admitted with stark reluctance, ‘It’s the date Mario died.’

  Valentina’s belly clenched hard. Every line of Gio’s body was screaming at her to stay out of this.

  ‘But …’ She tried to formulate words, to understand. ‘Why?’

  Gio cursed again and turned away, pacing impatiently to the window, presenting her with his rigid back. Without turning around he said bleakly, ‘I needed to mark the date … when Mario’s life ended, and mine.’

  Before, Valentina knew she would have jumped down his throat and reminded him that his life hadn’t ended. But after what he’d told her of his experiences she had to concede that it had ended on some level.

  After the intimacies of the previous night it was very hard to call up the rage she’d clung to for so long. This is what she’d been afraid of.

  The thought of him asking some stranger to carve an indelible mark into his skin made her feel unaccountably emotional. Before she knew what she was doing she’d stood up and went over to Gio. She inserted herself between him and the window, his jaw was as rigid as the rest of him and he looked at her warily.

  Dropping her gaze to his arms, she once again undid them from where they were crossed so tightly. She took his marked arm and held it out again, turned up so she could see the tattoo. With her finger she traced the lines, feeling the indentation in his skin, marked for ever with this brand of the date her brother had died.

  His guilt reached out to envelop her in that moment and it was so suffocating that she stepped back, letting his arm drop heavily. Panic prickled in her belly. For one awful second she’d wanted to place her mouth over that tattoo, to kiss Gio there, to assuage his pain … and that was a revelation she wasn’t ready for.

  Feeling rigid all over, the previous night all but forgotten in her bid to put some space between herself and his man, Valentina stepped back and said, ‘I should get ready for work.’

  She went into the bathroom and turned the lock in the door. And then she rested her back against the door. She half expected to hear Gio demand autocratically that she open up and remembered his own reluctance to admit what the tattoo was. But nothing happened.

  It was only when she heard her main apartment door open and close and she knew that Gio had left that she allowed herself to sink to the floor and silent tears leaked from her eyes.

  She wasn’t even sure what she was crying for … but for once it wasn’t grief for Mario; it was for something much deeper and more ambiguous. Allowing herself that glimpse of Gio’s pain and guilt had shaken her to her very core. And deep down, in that dark and secret place within her, the shameful truth she’d harboured for seven years was rising back to the surface.

  Valentina was aware that if she were to acknowledge it now, it would blast apart everything that had been holding her together since Mario had died … and if she didn’t have that, who was she?

  As Gio walked away from Valentina’s accommodation his gut churned. The tattoo. Of course she’d noticed the tattoo. He’d been drunk when he’d got it, full of bile and self-recrimination. Guilt. A perverse part of him had liked the thought of being marked for ever, so he could never forget. As if that were possible.

  For a crazy second back there, he’d almost fancied that Valentina had been moved enough by the tattoo that she’d. She’d what? a voice mocked him bitterly. That she’d understood something of his experience? That she possibly didn’t hate him as much as he thought she did?

  His mouth firmed. She would never forgive him. And she certainly wasn’t interested in absolving him.

&nb
sp; Gio resolutely pushed tender emotional roots back down into the murky darkness of his damaged soul and vowed that if the physical was all he was going to get with Valentina, then he would take it. And let her walk away when she’d had enough. Even though the thought of that made him want to smash his fist through the nearest solid object.

  ‘Mini doughnuts to go with mini coffees for dessert … and the sweet fig starter … truly inspired …’

  Valentina smiled weakly and cursed herself inwardly. This was what she’d been waiting for, an opportunity to showcase her skills in front of the very people who could take her forward with her career and yet she couldn’t concentrate. She was too keyed up, her whole body quivering because she knew Gio was just feet away in the crowded throng. Guests were finishing lunch in the VIP marquee and moving back outside for the biggest race of the three days.

  Valentina gave up trying to focus on what the guests were saying to her and murmured her thanks and excuses, cursing herself again that she was so distracted. She turned to head back out to the main tent to make sure that everything was set up for the inevitable celebrations after the race and ran straight into a wall of steel.

  Gio.

  She looked up. His hands were on her arms and her legs felt like jelly. His gaze raked her up and down and dimly she realised that he’d shaved since the morning. He looked … edible. Her insides melted. She thought of the tattoo and her heart clenched.

  ‘OK?’

  It took a second for his question to register. She was too caught up in her reaction to him. Jerkily she nodded her head and then she realised that he was standing with another couple. The man was tall, as tall as Gio. There was a startling resemblance even though Valentina knew it wasn’t one of his brothers. A woman stood beside the man, his hand in a proprietorial hold on her arm, much the same way Gio now held Valentina’s arm. It was only then that she became aware of the crackling tension between the men.

  In that instance some flicker of affinity passed between the women, even though Valentina had never seen her before. She was beautiful, with long straight brown hair and stunning blue eyes.