Delucca's Marriage Contract Read online

  She was dimly aware of his hands moving to the straps of her bra and pulling them down—the scrap of material being tugged free from between them until her bare breasts brushed against his hot skin enticingly.

  And then they’d stopped kissing and Gianni moved back slightly to look at her, that dark gaze glittering in the dim light. She felt self-conscious and wanted to bring her hands up. He stopped her. ‘Dio, you are so beautiful.’

  He reached out and rubbed a thumb back and forth across one hard peak, making it harden even more, almost painfully. Stinging.

  ‘Gianni,’ she whispered, not even aware she was saying his name.

  ‘Hmm?’

  It was as if they were both drugged. Falling deeper and deeper into some sensual vortex.

  He sat down on the bed but kept his hands on her waist, bringing her with him so that she stood between his legs. She looked down to see his head come close and then his mouth closed over one tight peak, and she gasped at the intensely pleasurable sensation of his hot mouth and tongue suckling her, licking, biting gently.

  Her legs wobbled and his hands tightened on her as his mouth wreaked sensual havoc on her other breast. She wasn’t even aware of her hands on his head, fingers tangling in short silky hair, clasping him to her.

  When he took his mouth away, she felt dizzy. His hands came to her jeans, undoing the button, pulling down the zip, pulling them and her panties down. She helped him by kicking them off, any hint of self-consciousness gone now. She just wanted to be naked, no barriers between them.

  When he stood up, her hands went automatically to his trousers, to finish what she’d started. Pulling the zip down, feeling that provocative bulge of male flesh.

  His trousers dropped to the floor and he stepped out of them. Now he was confined only by snug jocks and they did little to hide his potent masculinity. Acting on blind feminine instinct, Keelin reached out to touch him, running her fingers along his shape and length under the material of his underwear. He jerked against her touch.

  Gianni hissed out a breath and she looked at him. His cheeks were flushed, the lines of his face stark with need, and she felt a flutter of trepidation, for a moment jarred back to the fact that she was an innocent. Then something eased inside her. He knew. He wouldn’t hurt her.

  Gianni was pushing down his briefs now, freeing his erection and then sinking down onto the bed and pulling her with him, so that she fell on top of him in a tangle of limbs. Six foot three of honed lean muscle was underneath her and around her and she couldn’t think.

  Her naked breasts were crushed against Gianni’s hard chest, and then he moved so that she lay on her back. His thigh was between hers and the ache between her legs made her increase the pressure against him subtly.

  He smiled. ‘Impatient gattino.’

  A hand smoothed over her breast, exploring its shape and firmness, cupping it so that her nipple was offered up to him like an enticement. Every nerve ending screamed for satisfaction as Gianni slowly lowered his dark head, not to her breast but to her mouth.

  That wicked mouth teased hers first and then lower, leaving a trail of hot blazing marks all over her skin before the hot wet slide of his tongue explored her nipples again with a sensual laziness that did nothing to help keep her from the brink. She moaned and moved against him, silently pleading for more.

  She couldn’t find purchase anywhere, hands slipping and sliding over his taut flesh as she tried to hang on to sanity.

  But Gianni was remorseless. His other hand explored down over her belly, fingers moving between her legs, making them part, before he cupped the heated moist center of her body and Keelin went still.

  He lifted his head from the torture of her breasts. She was flushed, hot, aroused, impatient—it had been a long time since she’d orgasmed, and when she had before, it had been because of ineffectual teenage explorations, not this far more adult and carnal experience.

  Gianni’s hand was moving against her now, finding her slick heat and releasing it. Fingers slipping and sliding against her. Exploring her body with a thoroughness that made her back arch in a silent plea. Without even knowing what she was doing, her legs parted to allow him more access and his fingers were sliding inside her, moving insistently, winding a tension so tight in her body that she bit her lip and tasted blood with the effort it took not to call out.

  ‘Come for me, cara, I want to see you lose yourself.’

  With two fingers thrusting in and out of her body, his thumb exerting subtle but expert pressure on her clitoris, Keelin hadn’t a hope. She came around his fingers, almost on cue, and was blinded by the dizzying sweeping rush of clenching pleasure as it tipped her over the edge and into his expert hands, her mouth blindly seeking his, arms wrapped around him as she sobbed it out against him, shaken to her core by what had just happened.

  * * *

  Gianni was engulfed in heat and lust so powerful that he shook with it. Keelin’s body was still spasming powerfully around his fingers; he could feel her teeth biting into his shoulder and welcomed the brief sharp pain.

  Her breasts were pressed against him. In truth he wasn’t sure how he’d held it together this long. Even that first sight of her naked body had almost tipped him over the edge. She was Venus incarnate, perfectly proportioned, with generous curves. All woman.

  The tension left her body, finally. She lay back, eyes slumberous, looking at him. Slightly dazed. For some reason Gianni’s chest tightened.

  ‘Okay, gattino?’

  Sounding deliciously sated, she said with a little slur, ‘What’s that mean?’

  Gianni smiled, aware that since the moment he’d laid eyes on this woman, even in her trashy incarnation, he’d had this vision somewhere in his head. He smoothed back some hair from her flushed face.

  ‘It means kitten.’

  She half smiled, shy, and it made his chest tighter. ‘I like it.’

  Gianni moved against Keelin now and her eyes widened when she felt his erection. As if answering a prayer he hadn’t even been aware of articulating, one small soft hand tentatively explored him but with such a light touch that it almost killed him.

  He gritted out, ‘I won’t break.’

  She bit her lower lip and her hand firmed around him, holding him in a snug embrace. Something about her shy hesitation made fresh anger surge to think of those animals and how terrified she must have been, how horrifically it might have ended. He forced the ugly image out, wanting to erase it from her head as well as his.

  He needed to be inside her now or he’d spill on the sheets and make a fool of himself. He reached for protection and gently pulled Keelin’s hand away so he could smooth it on. When he was sheathed, he moved so that he lay between her legs, the tip of his erection against where she was slick and hot. He touched her there with his thumb, rousing her again, until her breaths were coming shorter and sharper, muscles tensing with pre-pleasure.

  ‘I want you, mia bella.’

  She looked at him and her eyes were huge, and she said simply, ‘Yes.’

  Something crumbled apart inside him. He’d never experienced a moment like this with a woman before. But before he could allow that revelation to sink in, he drove into Keelin’s body and felt the most intense rush of carnal euphoria explode along every nerve end, until he realised that her face was pale with shock, and her muscles were clamping like a vice around him. There was also something else on her face—fear. And he had a sudden image of how he must look above her. Feral. Intimidating.

  He pulled free and fought not to wince.

  ‘No,’ she said fiercely, determination replacing the shock on her face. ‘Don’t stop.’

  Something in Gianni’s chest tightened to see her bravery, when clearly this had to be bringing back some memories.

  ‘It’s okay, I’m not stopping. We’re just going to do i
t a little differently.’ He came down on his back and encouraged Keelin to straddle him. When her legs were either side of his hips and he could feel that hot centre of her body slide against him he had to clench his jaw tight for a moment.

  She sounded incredibly vulnerable when she said, ‘What are you doing?’

  Her hands were on his chest and he put his on her waist. ‘I thought this might make it easier. Just now, you were scared for a second, weren’t you?’

  He could see her bite her lip, loath to admit it, but then she nodded. ‘A little, but it’s okay. I know you won’t hurt me.’

  Gianni shifted and felt his erection rise against her buttocks and bit back a groan. ‘This way you won’t feel so threatened...you can control the pace.’

  She looked deliciously tousled, hair tumbling around her shoulders. Subtly Gianni moved her up, so that his erection was between them. He could see when she felt it—when her cheeks flushed. The centre of her body was poised over him, pushing him to the very limits of his control.

  And then, with some kind of innate feminine understanding of her body and his, she slowly slid down and took him inside her. He could see her wince when her body clamped around his thick length again and he soothed her with words in Italian and English, hands moving her slowly up and down so that gradually she took more and more, until he was past the resistance and he was buried so deep he saw stars.

  They were both breathing heavily. And then slowly, Keelin started to move her hips in a sinuous exploratory rhythm. He could feel her body grow slicker, her eyes widen as pleasure registered, cancelling out everything else.

  He moved easier inside her and it made him even harder. He pulled her down over his chest and her hands went either side of his head, her breasts moving against him with the thrust of their bodies. Sweat slickened their skin. Gianni brought a hand down and caressed her bottom, squeezing the flesh as he gave in to the urge of his body to hold her still so that he could thrust up, harder and deeper.

  His mouth found Keelin’s nipple and tugged it deep, making her moan. ‘Gianni, I need—’

  He drew his mouth away and looked at her face. Her eyes were glazed, cheeks flushed. Their bodies were locked in a relentless dance.

  ‘What do you need?’ His voice was hoarse with restraint and longing.‘Oh, God, I need you.’ The half-coherent plea made him clasp her close, driving his body even deeper. Their mouths met and clung as they both finally tipped over the edge and fell crashing and burning to the ground.

  In the minutes that followed, arms wrapped tight around her, Keelin’s head tucked into his neck, and still buried deep inside her, Gianni had the rogue and very disturbing urge to never move again, loath to break the connection.

  * * *

  Keelin had never known such an intense feeling of satisfaction. Her whole body was throbbing lightly as her blood flow finally slowed down to normal, along with her heart rate.

  And she had also never known what it was like to truly connect with someone else—when he’d pushed past her resistance, she’d had the sensation that he’d pushed past something much more than the physical. And that moment when Gianni had recognised her momentary fear and had pulled her over him so that she was on top—it was all too huge to think about now.

  They were still connected and when he moved from underneath her she had to resist an urge to tighten her thighs around him so that he couldn’t pull free.

  When he lay beside her, she was too languorous to move, and too cowardly to open her eyes.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’

  She couldn’t not open her eyes now. How could he think that? It had been the most profound experience of her life. But somehow she knew he might not appreciate that. So she just shook her head and said huskily, ‘No, you didn’t hurt me.’

  He smoothed some damp hair off her cheek. He smiled but she could sense a tension in his smile. ‘Good.’ He drew her close then and the soporific effects of lovemaking made it easy for her to shut out all the scary revelations of what this now meant for their relationship. Or wonder what the tension behind his smile meant.

  And then he just said, ‘Go to sleep, Keelin.’

  And almost before he’d finished saying it, her body had grown slack against him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  GIANNI CAREFULLY UNWRAPPED his arms from around Keelin’s sleeping form. Climbing out of the bed, he went to the bathroom, and after dealing with the protection, he washed his hands and risked a look at himself in the mirror. He almost expected to look somehow different, because he felt slightly altered.

  But he didn’t. It was as if someone had turned the world upside down, shaken it about and then put it upright again. Everything looked the same, but it was all subtly different.

  Not wanting to analyse why, beyond the fact that it had been the most amazing sex he’d ever experienced, he went back out to the room and dragged some sweatpants from a drawer, pulling them on.

  As if drawn inexorably, he went back to stand beside the bed and looked down at the prone figure of Keelin for a long moment. Already he itched to touch her again, taste her, feel her body climax around him. Dio. Next time he might even be able to wait until she came first.

  He was still reeling a little from the fact that she really had been a virgin and what she’d told him about her traumatic experience. It had roused the kind of protectiveness he’d only ever felt for one other person—his mother.

  One cheek was down on the bed, red hair tumbled and wild across the pillow. Her lashes created a dark shadow on her cheek and her mouth was in a little moue, as if pouting for something in her sleep. His body tightened to think of her pouting for him.

  Resisting the urge to slide back in beside her, he left the room silently and went to his office. He made straight for the drinks cabinet, pouring himself some whisky, and took an indelicate gulp, hoping that the alcohol might burn away some of the after-effects of that strange feeling of not being in his own skin any more.

  He’d been shocked to return from Rome and find her so upset. At first he’d thought it was just feminine pique that he’d left her alone—which he lambasted himself for now—but it hadn’t been. It had been rooted in a far deeper and more traumatic place.

  He’d known that there was little love lost between her and her parents but had had no idea it stemmed from such wilful neglect. Even now Gianni could feel an ominous tightening in his chest. And anger at her parents.

  This whole relationship was veering way out of control. He’d imagined something far more clinical and less complicated. A wife who would be content with his wealth and status. A wife who would enhance his public reputation. A wife who would be happy to be getting on with her own concerns, leaving him to get on with his.

  A wife who wouldn’t ever provoke hot emotions and an even hotter lust. Or uncharacteristic behaviour—like when he’d taken off to Rome, feeling the need to get away from her constant provocation.

  Gianni didn’t do high drama or hot, out of control passion. He’d vowed not to let his life be at the mercy of such vagaries after his experiences growing up, and yet here he was, brimming over with the kind of wayward feelings he thought he’d locked away after his father had died.

  This marriage was a business transaction. And he had to remember that, and make sure Keelin remembered it too. She’d been a virgin, and the last thing he needed was to become the object of some romantic ideal because he’d been her first. He could never fulfil her in that way, physically yes, but not romantically.

  * * *

  When Keelin woke she frowned. She felt different somehow. Muscles ached. She was naked. Between her legs was tender. And then she remembered what had happened and a wave of heat washed over her. She opened her eyes. The arms that had been around her were gone.

  Gianni.

  The bed was empty. She felt a mixture of relief
and something else she didn’t want to identify, telling herself it wasn’t disappointment. The faintest streaks of dawn lit the sky outside. She came up on her elbows, wincing slightly when her body protested.

  She went to the en suite and looked at her face in the mirror. Her eyes were huge and a little bit dazed. Her mouth looked swollen. Her jaw was slightly red from Gianni’s stubble. And that brought back the memory of him thrusting up, deep inside her. So deep that she hadn’t been able to catch her breath for a moment.

  She’d never known that sex could be so amazing.

  She pulled on a voluminous robe from the back of the bathroom door and went back out to the bedroom and sat on the bed. Everything was coming back in perfect recall now. It hadn’t been some torrid dream. She’d slept with Gianni. She’d told him she wanted him.

  What also came back was that funny smile he’d given her. The tension behind it. And a wave of hot mortification washed up through her. She’d been a virgin. Totally gauche and inexperienced. She’d thought it was amazing. But to Gianni, it must have been the most boring lovemaking experience of his life.

  It was even worse when she recalled his entreaties, the way he’d so patiently pushed her over the edge, and all the while he must have been regretting the moment he’d ever agreed to this marriage.

  The fact that he’d been so tender only made it worse now. Keelin wanted to cringe but also wanted to see him immediately, and somehow make him believe that last night hadn’t been as earth-shattering as it really had.

  He wasn’t in any of the other bedrooms and she hated that she immediately feared that he’d left her alone again. Then she went down the stairs and saw a sliver of light coming from under his office door, and something in her chest eased. She pushed it open and saw him, bare-chested, hair tousled, scowling at something on his computer.