Chapter Ten #2
And yet, her palate had been formed around the Italian language, so the slide from vowels to consonants to more vowels was not hard, and her accent, according to Christiano, was excellent.
They covered only the basics, but Christiano suggested a daily lesson, for the first month or so, and Amelia readily agreed. Anything to fill her time, give her a sense of purpose, and have her life be less lonely.
He smiled brightly when he left, and Amelia walked around the apartment practising the verbs he’d taught her that day.
As she was getting ready for dinner, her phone began to ring—her grandmother’s name appeared on the screen.
‘I’m sorry for interrupting your honeymoon, my dear,’ she said, so something twisted inside Amelia.
It hadn’t even occurred to her that they might have had a honeymoon.
It would have been normal, if their wedding were real.
‘Can we have dinner next week?’
‘Would lunch suit?’ Amelia asked, blushing to the roots of her hair when she made the suggestion. Because dinners had become synonymous with Massimiliano, with his slow, determined seduction of her. Though it had been only two nights, she wasn’t ready to give away that time together, yet.
‘Of course, cara. Text me a time and place and we’ll be there. Ciao.’
‘Ciao,’ Amelia mirrored, before disconnecting the call, and staring at the clock for perhaps the tenth time that hour.
She groaned, because it was all so pathetic and nineteen fifties of her.
Somehow, in the space of less than a fortnight, she’d become a woman who obsessively waited for her husband to get home from the office. And he wasn’t even her real husband.
He took her to yet another exclusive restaurant with exquisite views and food.
Every time Massimiliano looked at her, she felt her pulse explode, and in the back of her mind she wondered if this would be the night.
If this would be the night he drew her into his arms and made love to her, so she knew the pleasure of his complete possession, finally.
She didn’t want to dull her senses, so she’d had only one glass of champagne at dinner, yet a new sort of courage fired through her when they walked into his penthouse that evening.
‘I want to see you,’ she said, dropping any preamble.
He turned to face her slowly, eyes glinting like black opals.
‘I beg your pardon?’
She hesitated for the briefest second. ‘I want to see you naked. It seems only fair.’
‘Next you’ll be asking to tie me up.’
‘Are you saying I couldn’t? Isn’t that a double standard?’
A smile quirked his lips. ‘Yes.’
‘Good thing I’m only talking about undressing you, then.’
His eyes bored into hers for a long beat and then he nodded, slowly. ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’
Her heart rate kicked up a gear as she strode across to him, her fingers slightly unsteady as she pressed against the lapel of his jacket and eased it down his warm, masculine body. She felt his gaze on her the whole time. Instead of unnerving her, it gave her strength and courage.
Her fingers found his button next, her gaze shifting to his quickly before returning to his chest, with a harsh intake of breath.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ she said, needlessly, as she unfastened one button, then another.
‘Undone a shirt?’
A smile twisted her lips.
‘Undressed a man. Or seen one naked, for that matter.’
She’d seen him without his shirt, in London, but this wasn’t the same, and they both knew it.
He made a sound that came from low down in his throat.
Sensual and warm, it breathed against her, so she fumbled a little on the last button.
But with concentration, she was able to do it.
Her hands pushed at the shirt, sliding it down his body, revealing his toned, tanned arms to her hungry gaze.
She brushed her palms over his skin, before moving to stand behind him, touching his back, admiring the warmth of him, making her wonder if he spent much time in the sun without a shirt.
Without anything. Impatiently, she moved back to the front, finding the belt, wondering if it was the same belt he’d used the night before, warmth spreading through her at the very thought.
She pulled it loose and glanced up at him. ‘Want to hold onto this for later?’ she asked, in the back of her mind shocked by how forward she was being.
‘An excellent idea.’ He dropped the belt to the ground beside them though.
Amelia moved her attention to his trousers, her nipples tingling almost painfully as she unfastened the button and then the zip, and began to ease them down.
He stepped as she pushed the trousers lower, freeing himself from them completely, so he was standing in a pair of black boxer briefs, and her pulse went completely erratic at the final hurdle.
‘I’m nervous,’ she said, honestly, glancing up at him.
‘It’s your first time.’
Her heart tripped.
‘Nerves are normal.’
She nodded, because he was right.
‘You never have to do anything you don’t want.’
‘I know that.’ And she really did. At no point had she ever felt strong-armed into the physical side of their relationship.
Where he’d been willing to pull whatever levers he could to arrange this marriage, his incentives and requirements had all been financial.
It was Amelia who had demanded this physical intimacy.
If anything, she was the one who’d pressured him.
She glanced up at him, a small doubt flickering in her belly. ‘The same goes for you, you know.’
He arched a brow, silently encouraging her to continue.
‘You don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to. I know I said it was a condition, but you can’t really obligate someone to sleep with you.’ Her lips pulled to the side as she heard herself let him off the hook. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’
He nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. ‘Cara, do you still want me to be your first?’
Her eyes flared to his as she nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
His hand moved though, wrapping around her wrist and drawing her lower, to the jut of his cock.
He wrapped her fingers around it, through the fabric of his briefs, so she gasped, because it was so big and so hard.
‘This is for you,’ he said, simply. ‘Believe me, you are not forcing me into anything I don’t want. ’
Her heart pounded against her ribs.
‘I want you,’ she said simply, so his eyes seemed to shift, showing a hint of hesitation, before he was reaching down and lifting her up, carrying her against his chest, towards her bedroom.
He knew he should go slowly. The whole point of this was awakening her, night by night, bit by bit.
But Lord knew, he’d already had the patience of a damned saint.
He’d taken two slow nights to stir her body, to show her that sex was so much more than the act itself.
But now, on the third night, with his wife’s pleas ringing in his ear, he could wait no longer.
He removed her clothes so much faster than she had his, regrettably tearing her dress in the process, as he brought his body over her and began to kiss her skin, aching to tie her wrists again. But for this, he needed to know she could touch him, touch herself, touch whatever the hell she wanted.
And she did. Her hands roamed his body, her nails digging into him, as he brought her so close to climax she was crying out. Only then did he sheathe himself and hitch his cock at her sex, aware that his size was a possible problem for them, being her first time.
‘Remember,’ he said, holding her legs wide, eyes lancing hers. ‘You tell me what you feel. What you need, what you don’t.’
She nodded, frantically. ‘Please, just please, don’t make me wait any longer.’
He’d meant to go slowly, to nudge into her, but her words were so desperate he felt his control slipping, so he buried half of himself in her before getting a grip of himself once more and pausing to check on her.
She nodded, cried his name, and then it was Amelia who moved her hips, drawing him deeper, until an unmistakable, invisible barrier met him, and he felt her stiffen, so he swept down and wrapped her in his arms, murmuring words of reassurance in Italian into her ear, gently easing himself out of her and then slowly back in, so she could get used to the feeling.
It didn’t take long before she was arching her back and crying his name again, and he no longer felt a need to go slowly.
In fact, with every desperate roll of her head and arch of her back, she was begging him to take her harder and faster, so in the end, he did just that, driving into her until they were both wild and thrashing on the bed, the pleasure engulfing them almost too much to bear.
And then, when she came, and her muscles squeezed him so tight he thought he might pass out, he was powerless to resist his own powerful orgasm. Or to ignore the unwelcome thought that formed in that moment: that he could happily do this every single night for the rest of his life.