Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘It’s the middle of the day!’ Rosy gasped as Alessio urged her back upstairs by a narrow staircase she had not even realised acted as a shortcut.
‘No, symbolically speaking, it’s the first day of our marriage…as it should’ve been,’ Alessio countered levelly. ‘We didn’t have this understanding then but now we do.’
‘What understanding?’ she queried as she stumbled in the entrance to their bedroom and he swept her off her feet.
‘You are here for me and I am here for you. Not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve been waiting to hear that all my life,’ Alessio spelt out in a raw undertone as he dropped her down on the bed and then went to work on the zip of her shorts. ‘Someone who is with me and only me, even if she doesn’t always agree with me, even if she has doubts.’
‘That’s a pretty tall order, Alessio.’
‘But one that you’re more than able to meet,’ he told her, discarding her shorts on the floor and embarking on her top.
‘Even if I’m not quite up to burning the sheets off the bed?’ Rosy pressed a little desperately, her voice strangling in her dry throat at his haste.
Alessio looked down at her and laughed. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I haven’t had sex before,’ she admitted in a driven undertone. ‘And no, I don’t want to talk about it.’
Alessio dealt her a stunned appraisal that fully conveyed his astonishment and whipped his hands off her. ‘I appreciate you telling me beforehand,’ he breathed tautly. ‘I am so sorry that I didn’t even consider that possibility. I thought you were simply shy.’
Rosy sat up and hugged her knees in the centre of the bed. ‘It’s okay. Don’t make a big deal of it.’
Alessio vaulted off the bed. ‘I need a shower,’ he told her, disconcerting her because she knew he had showered before he even came downstairs.
‘A cold one,’ he specified, interpreting her look of bewilderment.
Rosy sat frozen on the bed and then regained her wits. She slid off the bed, removed her remaining garments and scrambled back in again. Alessio returned to her, hair still damp and tousled and, if anything, even more breathtakingly gorgeous. A line divided his ebony brows as he looked at her. ‘I forgot to kiss you,’ he husked, mounting the steps to the bed to come down beside her. ‘Stupid oversight. Write it off as an excess of enthusiasm.’
‘I will,’ she said breathlessly, his firm hard mouth ravishing hers with the kind of intensity she had only met before in him. As though nothing mattered but that particular moment, as though he would pour all of himself and everything he was into the endeavour. It unleashed a flock of butterflies in her tummy and made her heart race so fast it pounded at the base of her throat.
‘It’s like unwrapping a present,’ Alessio growled as he wrestled her free of the sheet and curved possessive hands over the pouting thrust of her breasts, his thumbs teasing at her swollen nipples.
Her spine arched, delight and anticipation snapping together in a wondrous connection. Glittering green eyes, luminous as jewels in sunlight, gazed down at her searchingly. ‘Are you quite sure about this? I can wait—’
‘I wouldn’t be in this bed if I wasn’t sure,’ Rosy declared.
And in the end the truth wasn’t what she had once assumed it would be in any way. It wasn’t because they were married. It wasn’t because she had some silly thought of ensuring that the marriage was fully consummated. No, her motivation was much more basic in nature. She wanted him , she wanted him more than she had ever believed she could want any man and she craved that closer physical bond.
He caught a ripe pink peak in his mouth and laved it with his tongue and her hips squirmed, red-hot reactions snapping through her lower body and bringing it alive. She felt the surge of damp between her thighs and instinctively rubbed against a hair-roughened thigh to ease the desire he was stoking. He settled her back against the pillows and worked his way down her slender length, kissing, nibbling, touching gently, exploring until all of her skin surface felt as sensitive as if she were perched on a knife edge of expectation. She could already feel the surge of quivering heat building in her pelvis and tightening every muscle.
He slid her thighs apart and concentrated on the most sensitive place of all. Her hips jerked up and her lips parted on a moan, pleasure darting through her in shocking waves. Her fingers speared into his black hair and lodged there, tugging as her hips exercised a rhythm of their own and the growing tightening inside her became almost unbearable. And when that sexual tension broke, her climax roared through her like fireworks shot off inside her. Her whole body jolted and she cried out as the blissful waves of release crashed across her and she slumped.
‘That was even better than the cave,’ she mumbled in a helpless compliment.
And Alessio lifted his head and gazed down at her with unholy amusement. ‘Are you planning to rate me now?’
‘Eleven out of ten. I’m impressed to death. You were worth waiting for,’ she told him shyly. ‘And I only waited because I was convinced that the right guy would eventually show up.’
‘And you think I’m the right guy?’ Alessio asked.
Her blue eyes shimmered. ‘I hope so but you’re definitely the hottest contender. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I wanted you.’
‘Nobody would ever have suspected that on our actual wedding night when you called me a stranger,’ he reminded her.
‘I’ve got to know you since then and I’ve liked what I’ve learned about you. I’ve moved on…as have you,’ she pointed out as he pulled her close and planted a kiss on her lips that turned into a more explosive kiss than she had expected. She wrapped her arms round him as if he were the only stable place in a shifting world. And now, she finally felt free to touch him, to work her fingers through his luxuriant hair, run her hands across his wide muscular shoulders and his smooth back and feather down his lean sides.
As he quivered, she laughed. ‘Gosh, you’re ticklish!’
He rolled over, gripping her with a sexy growl that curled her toes, and ravaged her parted lips with a slow, erotic intensity, and that curl in her lower body spread wings and fluttered with renewed arousal. He was a fabulous kisser. But when Alessio pinned her under him and she felt his erection hard as an iron bar against her, it sent wild thrills of excitement through her. With other men that awareness of her partner’s arousal had turned her off because she had known that she had no plans to go further. With Alessio, however, it turned her on so hard and fast it made her head spin.
He spread her out like a starfish and teased and toyed with every sensitive inch of her squirming body and when the pleasure began to surge up again, only then did he move over her. As he eased into her with a care she could feel, she gasped, ‘I’m not breakable!’
‘Shush. I’m trying to make this as painless as possible for you,’ Alessio ground out thickly. ‘We can swing from the chandeliers next week.’
Even in the tense grip of more pleasure than she had ever dreamt of experiencing, Rosy grinned up at him, enchanted by that promise. He tipped her back and shifted his lithe hips, guiding himself into her slick opening. She felt him, strong, forceful, alien and the strange satisfaction of it, the feeling of rightness, made her close her eyes and seek to lose herself in that very private moment. He pushed and a sting of discomfort pulled a gasp from her and he stilled.
In frustration, Rosy angled her hips up to him and gravity sank him deeper until the feat of possession had been achieved and she smiled, revelling in that sense of fullness, of friction as he lifted and began to move. And then, the warm nucleus of liquid fire coiled up inside her started to heat up and the excitement grew and finally burst free. All of a sudden she couldn’t stop her own body from rearing up to join with his. The intensity of it all engulfed her and she discovered that it drove her on.
‘I want you so much. I’ve craved this from the moment I met you,’ Alessio groaned, thrusting into her welcoming body with lethal power, igniting little hotspots of response all over her, her body leaping and buzzing with renewed energy.
Response to his intensity bloomed with their every movement. Suddenly she was on a runaway train heading towards the ultimate objective, her body out of her control, flaming and burning with hunger. She was inflamed by the knowledge that Alessio had always hungered for her. That raised her way above the level of being a replacement bride and she loved that idea. He pushed her thighs back even further and rose over her like a conquering god intent on domination, and her excitement rose accordingly, her heart hammering, her pulses racing as she surged to the peak and another orgasm swept her off in its tight grip.
Alessio shuddered and growled his satisfaction above her.
‘You are so hot,’ he breathed jerkily in her ear while he flattened her with his weight.
Rosy was floating, quite unconcerned by such bodily necessities as having to breathe. ‘Only to you.’
‘Absolutely to me,’ Alessio growled, dropping a kiss on her brow, his arms tightening round her as he rolled over to release her from his weight. ‘My bride, my lover…when I first noticed you on your bike months ago and I realised you must work at the palace, I wouldn’t let myself find out who you were and what you did. All I had seen then was your incredible legs and behind and then, because of the accident, I saw your face and your hair and I was transfixed.’
‘But you were engaged,’ she reminded him doggedly. ‘You weren’t about to do anything about it.’
‘Do you judge me for that?’ Angry green eyes assailed her sleepy ones.
‘No, but it’s not something I can forget,’ she muttered drowsily.
Alessio climbed out of the bed once she was asleep. He wondered how he had fared. Rosy had been his first and, if he had anything to do with it, his only virgin. She had enjoyed herself, hadn’t she? But still it worried him that his wife was so inexperienced. At some stage, might she be likely to be curious about what sex would be like with someone else? He would talk to her about that, he decided. But would it be wise to put such an idea in her head? She wasn’t a cheater; she wasn’t disloyal. She had even listened to him partially excusing Graziana’s indefensible behaviour without striking him dead. Fortunately, his intelligence had kicked in. Rather belatedly, he had appreciated that his wife had first call on his allegiance and that Graziana was now pretty much the enemy, particularly if she intended to take any more shots in the direction of his wife.
As he showered, he couldn’t get Rosy out of his thoughts. Her passion, her fearless honesty, her tenderness with that dog, her unquestioning loyalty and support. He had played a blinder exchanging Graziana’s cold-fish personality for a woman who burned with moral strength and attraction. And if he had anything to do with it, she would burn exclusively for him .
* * *
Late the following morning, after a lengthy breakfast, Alessio took Rosy outside to show her the extensive grounds. They strolled through shaded walks in the woods behind the ancient house, laid out in the eighteenth century to resemble the then fashionable English country garden. When they reached the waterfall, built to resemble a natural one in a giant stone-edged pond but somewhat undermined by the provision of a shell grotto and shrine nearby, Rosy kicked off her shoes and waded into the crystal-clear basin to cool her hot feet.
‘Oh, that’s blissful,’ she moaned, perching on the edge of a stone outcrop and dipping her toes back into the water.
Alessio copied her because for the first time in recent memory he too had chosen to dress down in shorts. He had become accustomed, he conceded, to the company of constantly groomed and polished women, who would not have yielded an inch in their formal dress code even in a hurricane. Once again, Rosy was a breath of fresh air and, taking in her playful smile, he pulled his phone out and keyed in an agreed code with their protection team. Now they had total privacy.
Shedding his sandals, he joined her in the shallow basin, moving forward to nudge her legs apart and step between them and bend down to claim her ripe, pink lips eagerly with his, prying them apart to delve deep into the moist interior of her mouth. And that fast, Rosy’s bones and muscles liquefied beneath the heated surge of molten honey rising in her pelvis. It was as if he had pushed a button and hunger gripped her instantaneously.
Her brain couldn’t quite handle that sudden change in her own behaviour. She panicked and all she could think about as he tugged off her shorts and knickers and tossed them onto the dry ground was that they would be seen and that he couldn’t be thinking of what he was doing and where they were. ‘Alessio…we could be seen. Gardeners…oh, my word, your protection team!’
‘All elsewhere. We are, in a very rare event, alone, totally alone,’ he stressed huskily as he whipped off her top and went for the catch on her bra. ‘It is our honeymoon, after all. Let’s be young and reckless just this one time.’
‘Having sex in daylight was a big enough stretch for me!’ Rosy protested but he was smiling that wickedly sexy smile down at her and his glorious green eyes were gleaming and vibrant. Her own body was already humming beneath the exploration of his skilled hands. She fell, abruptly, silent. ‘I just can’t say no to you right now,’ she whispered guiltily.
‘And shouldn’t we rejoice in that?’ Alessio chided as he stripped off in front of her, revealing his lithe, lean, bronzed length already primed for action.
Rosy poked his bare chest with a forefinger. ‘And you absolutely swear that nobody’s going to see us?’ she checked.
‘I wouldn’t take that risk with you.’ Alessio nibbled at that spot below her ear in that place that drove her temperature high while he employed his palms and his fingertips to stoke her desire until she was wriggling off her rocky perch in her need to get closer. Only then did he hoist her up into his arms and then slowly bring her down, jostling her into place until he stretched her slick sheath with his urgent fullness. The sensation was overwhelming.
Indeed, she was only starting to adjust to his effortlessly arousing movements when he stepped beneath the waterfall and she let out a startled shriek. ‘You—!’
His mouth clamped over hers for a split second, silencing her objections. Water streamed down over them but the sensations at her hot core drove them out of mind. Arms linked round his neck, she transformed into less the seduced and more of a partner, pushing down on him, moaning with raw excitement as the increasing pressure in her pelvis pushed her onward and upward. And then she was flying high and soaring in ecstasy and Alessio was stifling her cries with his lips on hers.
She sagged against him as they stepped out from below the water. ‘I’m never going to move again,’ she swore shakily.
‘You will. Jorge has a splendid lunch awaiting us at our next stop.’
In the act of gathering her clothes, Rosy fixed accusing blue eyes on him. ‘Did you plan this?’
Alessio laughed. ‘If I’d planned it, I would’ve had towels stashed in the grotto!’
And she acknowledged the truth of that admission as she clambered, damp, into her clothing again while also appreciating how much her own world view had changed within the space of twenty-four hours. As they walked on, she remarked on the fact that, on this occasion, Alessio had not employed extra contraception on their behalf.
‘We can afford to take that very slight risk now that I know you’re staying.’
‘I haven’t actually said that yet in a long-term sense,’ Rosy adjusted with care. ‘You take a lot for granted sometimes.’
His big hand tightened its hold on hers. ‘Losers rarely take all. I have confidence in us as a couple. I believe we’ll go the distance.’
‘I hope we do as well,’ she murmured quietly. ‘But I won’t be ready to have a child for a while. I’m only twenty-two.’
‘In comparison, I can’t wait,’ Alessio admitted candidly. ‘I want my own family. I love children. It’s important to me but I can accept that you’re not at that stage yet.’
She wondered if she was being selfish and scolded herself for the thought. They strolled through the peaceful canopied green lanes that criss-crossed the woods. By the time they arrived at a glade containing a very imposing but mossy statue of the Portuguese duke with one hand on a sword and the other on the head of a giant lion, Rosy was ready for a drink and something to eat. Food awaited them there in a cool box.
They settled down and ate at the circular stone table and benches in the shadow of the statue and her hair dried in the sunshine while they talked.
‘Have you ever been in love?’ she asked him.
Alessio looked both amused and thoughtful at that blunt question. ‘One and a half times.’
‘How can you be half in love?’
‘Because I was fifteen and it was a crush. It came to nothing when I realised that she preferred girls to boys,’ he told her lightly.
Rosy set down her wine glass. ‘And the other time?’ she prompted with greater curiosity.
His bright gaze hooded, the memory clearly not a good one. ‘I was twenty, still a student. She was the daughter of one of our leading Sedovian families. I brought her back to the palace to a party she was desperate to attend and…’ He hesitated, frowning.
‘And?’ she pressed uncomfortably, somehow feeling as though she was prying.
‘She slept with my father,’ Alessio told her very quietly. ‘And tried to deny it but he boasted about it. He was a vain man, used to choosing whichever woman he wanted, and bedding her reassured him that he was still irresistible.’
Rosy had paled, disgust now clouding her troubled gaze. ‘That’s horrible. How could she?’
‘Oh, that was easy. He was a king and, even though he was a married, much older man, that was all it took. Maybe she had a vision of him divorcing my mother and marrying her…who knows? Stop looking so tragic on my behalf, piccola volpe . It feels now like it happened a lifetime ago.’
‘But how could your father betray you like that?’ she muttered.
‘He had to share the public stage with his heir and he disliked anyone who took attention away from him. As I grew up, he began to see me as a rival.’
Rosy sighed. ‘And I thought I had it rough because my father barely noticed I was alive and had no interest in me.’
‘But don’t you see that your experience, like mine, will probably make us better parents when the time comes?’ Alessio countered calmly.
‘Perhaps, but this is the very first week of our marriage and we’re not talking about that as yet,’ she reminded him lightly. ‘I do understand though that you probably feel the pressure of having to try and provide an heir for the throne.’
‘No, it’s not that. I genuinely want a child, a little being to love and cherish and the stability of feeling part of a family. I know it’s not usual for a man to admit that but some of us do feel that way.’
‘And how courageous to admit it,’ she murmured, sidling along the bench to seek his tempting mouth again for herself.
After a couple of glasses of wine, she was getting sleepy when they returned to the house and she decided to take a nap before dinner in the hope that it would waken her up for the evening.
Alessio promised he would wake her later and went off to do some work. She recalled the light in his gaze when he confessed that he simply wanted a child and his unashamed honesty had touched her. He was like water steadily dripping on stone, she warned herself squarely. Except that he had buckets of charisma and was sexy as all get out. If she wasn’t careful, she would find herself agreeing to have a child just to please him. Their relationship needed time and space to develop before they made such a major decision. But her own emotions were getting so tangled up with him and she had been na?ve not to realise that that would happen.
The sex was amazing. Foolish of her not to appreciate that she could not get that close to Alessio without feelings becoming involved. Deeply involved, she acknowledged. She was falling head over heels in love with the man she had married. He was everything she had ever wanted in a man. Intelligent, loyal, kind, considerate, surprisingly sensitive. His troubled childhood might have damaged him but he had dealt with it, learned the lessons and moved on. Their marriage was no longer a fake. She was something more than a replacement bride now, she reflected with satisfaction before she fell asleep.
It wasn’t Alessio who wakened her, it was some internal alarm of her own because she opened her eyes, checked the time in dismay and surged straight into the bathroom to freshen up before dinner. They had skipped dinner the night before and rifled the fridges at long after midnight to feed themselves. This evening, she would do the whole formal thing, she decided, yanking out a long blue dress. Act like a princess for once, she thought ruefully, but, with Alessio around and his penchant for al fresco encounters, that was likely to be a challenge.
She smiled to herself then because his passionate streak of unpredictability thrilled her just as much as his sheer intensity. She reckoned there would be plenty of times they had to act as if they were much older and staider than they were, so it was probably good for both of them to go a little wild occasionally. Although she suspected that making love outdoors in a waterfall did not seem as shocking or daring to Alessio as it had seemed to her.
Dressing, she heard someone giggling and realised that either a member of staff was having fun or Alessio was entertaining, because the room he used as an office was directly below their bedroom. From the landing, she peered down at the gallery below but it was too awkward an angle to show her much. She caught a flash of scarlet just out of view and the sound of Alessio laughing. Returning to the bedroom, she dashed on some lipstick and mascara before cramming her feet into high heels, keen not to look like a wife who might embarrass him. Ready, she started down the staff staircase that acted as a shortcut to the gallery.
Emerging onto the gallery, she caught the merest flash of a gorgeous brunette in a scarlet dress walking into Alessio’s office, talking volubly in what sounded like Spanish. A mane of long silky black hair worn loose, a figure-hugging dress with a low neck and towering heels—she was unlikely to be a business connection, she reasoned, stopping in the open doorway to look into the office. Alessio’s back was turned to her as the brunette flipped through images on the laptop in front of him while she talked very fast. She was so close to Alessio that her swishy hair was brushing his shoulders and as she bent over, her hands rested on his shoulders for balance. Annoyance flashed through Rosy like a match thrown on a hay bale and her blue eyes blazed.
‘Sorry if I’m late…you were supposed to wake me,’ she reminded Alessio.
At the sound of her voice, he swung round and stood up, dislodging the brunette, who backed off with a flirtatious smile and purred in Italian, ‘And who is this, Your Highness?’
Her familiarity with Alessio turned Rosy’s tummy over with a sick lurch. His smile in Rosy’s direction was distinctly tense.
‘Rosy…allow me to introduce you to Lucia Garcia Perez, the tourist board’s manager for this area. El Palacio is to be the focus of a new advertising campaign in the spring. Lucia, allow me to introduce you to my wife, Rosalia.’
‘Your wife ?’ Lucia gasped, all wide dark eyes and parted lips. ‘You’ve got married? I had no idea.’
Tempted to ask what rock she had been hiding beneath to avoid the blanket European media coverage of Graziana’s defection and Rosy’s last-minute substitution as the bride, Rosy forced her lips into a polite smile. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘I’ve fallen in love with this place. Tell me about the campaign.’
‘There’s no reason for you to get involved in this,’ Alessio sliced in, having raised a staying hand as Rosy made to move towards the laptop he had been studying with the brunette. ‘Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be done.’
‘I’ll ask Jorge to send in some refreshments,’ Rosy murmured coolly, returning to the doorway.
‘Thank you but there’s no need, Your Highness,’ Lucia interposed brightly, her dark eyes snapping with enjoyment as if she could sense Rosy’s concealed vexation. ‘Alessio will look after me. We’re old friends.’
With a non-committal nod of acceptance, Rosy departed, her spine stiffening as she heard the door close in her wake. She didn’t think he should be in that office alone with so forward a woman. Old friends indeed! She’d heard that expression before in an old sitcom and it should’ve been left there. Lucia had been touching him, all over him like a rash, fixing his cufflink, for goodness’ sake!
Quietly seething, Rosy went into the drawing room, where Jorge served her with a drink. It took almost half an hour for Alessio to join her. By then, he had changed into a dinner jacket and classy narrow black trousers to match her appearance and he looked arrestingly handsome. His strong jawline was slightly clenched, however, his lean dark face a little taut.
‘I didn’t hear your visitor leave,’ Rosy heard herself quip, even though she had not intended to make any reference to the gorgeous Spanish lady.
‘She’s always used the side entrance into the library,’ Alessio countered.
‘Old friends indeed.’
‘Don’t be passive aggressive about it. Just say what you’re dying to say.’
Rosy felt the heat of the colour flushing her face at his intonation. ‘I thought that she was far too familiar with you and that you should’ve told her to back off,’ she said quietly.
‘Madonna mia!’ Alessio bit out impatiently. ‘If it only takes the appearance of an old lover to make you throw a jealous fit, how will you ever cope with my misspent past?’