CHAPTER NINE
ARISTIDEWASVERY cold on the way home, so Francesca gave him space once more. A few days of careful, modest, hands-off wifing. She didn’t let herself think her plan was backfiring. If anything, it was working.
Just slower and with more fits and starts than she liked. But each time she reached out she got a little closer to the core of him.
He’d called her impressive and kissed her. She could live off that for a very long time. Here in this freedom she had now. She could reach out for and plan for whatever she wished.
Finally.
When they arrived in Nice, they didn’t head to a hotel, but to one of Aristide’s properties. He had another in London where they were headed in a few more weeks, but Francesca thought France was the perfect place to wage her own war, so to speak.
She gave him a day to settle in. To slowly warm back up to her again—because he always did. She supposed that was what kept her going. He was not uninterested. He did not actually dislike her or find her repugnant.
He simply had the wrong thoughts about what it would mean if they found a way to make this real. She would show him the truth, though. Because it would be...a disservice to herself not to seek all that she wished now that she had the freedom she worked so hard for.
She wasn’t afraid of hard work. In fact, she felt more settled with a goal, a plan.
So she would finally, finally seduce her husband.
The next afternoon, she invited him to sit out at the pool with her. For all the ways he kept her at arm’s length, she knew he liked to watch her swim. She liked to imagine him weaving great fantasies about them, that he then applauded himself for not acting on.
It sounded like something he would do. Because she was slowly understanding her husband. Not everything he kept locked, deep and secret, but the way he moved through the world. The way he kept his true self locked under a careful mask.
She, on the other hand, had begun to get acquainted with her true self. She’d made them dinner last night—and had only slightly overcooked the salmon. She still did her swims, and she was reading through her books with great gusto. And in between all that, she planned their events, their image. Aristide’s rehabilitation.
It was amazing to feel this free, this much herself. She wanted to offer the same to him.
So she would make it harder on him to hide away. To resist her. Because he wanted her.
She was sure of it.
And they both deserved the freedom to act on that.
So she did not dress in her swimsuit. Not even the very brief bikini she’d bought on a whim back in Milan. No. She simply put the swim cover over her completely naked body and walked out of her suite of rooms.
Her heart hammered. If this did not get through to him...
Well. It had to. And when it did, she would finally know what lay on the other side of all this...unrest. And then...
For a moment she was rendered motionless by the idea that once she repaired his reputation, once she convinced him to act on this attraction between them, there would be no other end goal.
She’d have her freedom. She’d have made her payment, so to speak, to Aristide. She’d know what it felt like to have her desire met.
Then what?
She shook away that thought. It hardly mattered. There were always challenges to meet. No doubt new ones would crop up. Why borrow trouble?
She marched on through the beautiful house, all open and airy with lots of color and light. She liked his taste. It wasn’t all ridiculous; he seemed to save most of that for the island and there was no secret why. Still, he did not choose a staid, uptight kind of dwelling, and it always brightened her mood. So many windows, and with the house tucked back into the hills, beautiful views always spread out in front of her.
She made her way to the backyard, where the pool stretched out toward the edge of their hill, so she could swim out and look out over the bay below.
She stepped out into the bright sunshiny afternoon, warm and summery still. She would have preferred a swim in the Baie des Anges, because she loved the waves and the surf, but the lack of privacy did not suit her goals. Nor did the name.
She was not anyone’s angel, even if she got a little secret thrill every time he called her that, but she did not need to remind Aristide of yet another reason he seemed so determined to keep his hands off her.
Aristide was already here, stationed under a bright blue umbrella as he typed away on his laptop.
She rarely saw him work. He liked to tuck it away like a secret. She was fascinated by the way he did that because she recognized it so easily. Keep yourself hidden from anyone who might be inclined to look too close. Carefully keep yourself safe.
She was going to prove to him he would be safe with her. Always.
“You know, I’m not even sure I really know what you do,” she said by way of greeting, meandering her way by his seat in the shade, making sure to keep herself and the very brief swim cover-up in the sunlight.
His eyes followed her, as they always did. “I hardly know myself.”
Which was a flat-out lie. One of these days she’d get the truth out of him. There. Another goal after she achieved this one.
Buoyed by this, she came to stand at the chair next to him. She could have drawn it out more. She could have talked herself out of it, but she had gotten through life by making calculated, determined choices, and never second-guessing herself.
Because hesitation, second-guessing, uncertainty...those so often ended in a blow. Literally. Better to be bold and true and certain.
So, without much fanfare, she lifted the cover-up off her body, just as she would have if she’d been wearing a swimsuit underneath. But she wasn’t. Instead, she had briskly revealed herself to him. Entirely naked.
Her throat threatened to close then and there, but she carefully placed the cover-up over the back of the empty chair, trying to pretend this wasn’t out of the ordinary. It was just doing one of those things she’d always wanted to do. Her heart hammered, and her nerves threatened to make her limbs shake, but she would not give in to it.
“I think you forgot something,” Aristide growled.
She shrugged, very cognizant of the way the move made her breasts lift and fall. The way his gaze followed the move. “I told you I always wanted to skinny-dip.”
“I believe you made certain to tell me you wished to do it alone.” She knew he was trying for censure, but his eyes drank her in like a dying man desperate for water as she walked away from him and toward the stairs into the pool.
“I changed my mind. You can feel free to join me.” She stepped onto the first stair. “The water is a bit cold, but it’ll warm.” And she didn’t hurry. Didn’t jump in. Even as her nerves hummed. She took each step slowly. One at a time. The cold water meeting the warmth of her skin like some kind of glorious torture.
And his gaze on her. Hot and heavy. She couldn’t hold his gaze and manage this, so she turned slightly away from him, moving out toward the edge of the pool that would allow her a view down into the bay.
Water closed over her hips, her navel, her breasts. She hissed in a breath as her nipples tightened against the cold. Going from air to water its own cool, shocking caress.
What would it feel like if he touched her in all these places the water skimmed over her?
No. Not if. When. When he touched her. When he stoked these fires she did not quite understand inside of herself.
Because he understood, that much was clear. And he wanted to. Once he got over whatever warped impulses held him back.
With that determined, she ignored him for a while. She focused on herself. The way the water felt against her body. The way desire seemed to twine inside her, deeper and deeper, so that every stroke, every sink to the bottom and resurfacing felt like someone touching her.
But there was only one touch she wanted. She arched out of the water, letting her hair drip back before she blinked her eyes open to find him.
But he had not made a move to join her. He remained in his seat, fully clothed. Though his hand was now closed in a fist. He watched her, all tension and fury.
She only wished she could understand that fury. Why it should make him mad to want her, when she considered it a lovely little surprise. A boon, really. Who wouldn’t want to want their spouse?
She blew out a bit of a frustrated breath. Him apparently. Because he still sat exactly where he was. Maybe he hadn’t left yet, but he hadn’t even made one little move.
She didn’t pout, mostly because the impulse was foreign to her. Why feel sorry for herself when there were things to be done about the situation? Like, for instance, not hiding in the water.
She swam the length of the pool, back to the stairs, then walked right back out. She tried not to shiver as wet skin met air. Without looking at him, she went over to one of the lounge chairs and arranged herself, heart beating, body throbbing, starting to worry she would have to come up with yet another plan to make him break. She lay on her back, eyes closed against the bright sun above. The air settled over her, warming her slowly. She waited.
He would break. He did want her.
Finally, she heard a shuffle. She opened her eyes to look at him. He stood slowly, carefully, almost as if it hurt to move. Then he walked over to her, looked down at her.
So close, but not close enough. Not touching. Even as her breath sawed in and out, even as her skin prickled as the air and his gaze colluded to feel like very universes brushed against her.
He settled himself on the lounge next to her. Seated, not prone, but out of reach.
“I will not touch you, angioletta,” he said darkly, and she wasn’t sure whether him calling her angel was an insult or a praise. She found she didn’t care because she liked it on his tongue either way.
“But you may touch yourself.”
Francesca was the most haunting thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. All burnished gold and determined vulnerability. Dark hair and dark desires in her dark eyes.
It took every last ounce of strength to keep his hands on his knees. To not reach out and haul her to him.
Particularly when her entire body jolted at his words, as if they landed in her like electricity. Her eyes wide, her fingers flexed once almost reflexively as a pretty little blush stained her cheeks.
And then spread lower.
A siren. A curse. She’d lead him to his death and would it even matter? What could matter beyond this? It wasn’t a crossed line. Not yet. A blurred one, perhaps, but he could blur it.
God, he had to blur it or he’d simply die.
“Go on, then,” he said with a nod. “Give yourself the pleasure you seek.”
Her eyelids fluttered a little, and she shifted once, with uncertainty. But she did not scoff, and she did not get up, and she did not tell him to go to hell.
There in the bright afternoon sunshine, she lifted her hand. Somehow he knew she’d be brave enough, that she wouldn’t back down. All spine and resolve, his wife. Her fingers brushed over her breast, her own tightened nipple.
He felt the touch echo within him even though he had nothing to do with it. And still he stayed seated where he was, even as he could imagine what it would feel like to put his mouth where her fingers trailed.
Down soft skin, across goose bumps and into the glorious space between her thighs. Her touch was timid. Halting now.
“Do not be afraid, Francesca. Be brave. If it were my mouth instead of your fingers, I would not hesitate to taste you. Long and deep.”
Her breath shuddered out and he felt that shudder within himself. His body was hot, impenetrable iron. All tension and nothing but the hard, painful beat of wanting her.
She stroked herself, her eyes going hazy, her movements becoming erratic. And still she didn’t close those eyes, look away from him, stop. She held him there, in her siren’s gaze, a party to this even though he didn’t touch her.
Wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
She began to writhe, there against her own hand, the most erotic, beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Aristide.” She said his name on a rasp, her gaze blurred with desire. The need to be the one who set her over that edge roared through him like a shrieking storm and still he held himself still and away.
“Let yourself go, angioletta. Now.”
She made a keening sound, low and shattering. His whole body shook in response as her climax spread over her body. She was gasping for air, pink all over, and still she didn’t look away. She didn’t seem any less desperate. “Aristide, let me touch you. Touch me.”
He would not. He could not.
But she pushed herself into a sitting position. “Please, Aristide.”
And it turned out, she had the key to undo him after all. Because her please upended him. Didn’t just blur every line he’d set for himself, but erased them all.
And when she said it again, eyes big and liquid, reaching out for him, he let her find purchase.