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‘Y-yes,’ she stammered, weak with longing as the tingle of arousal darted straight down to the pulse already beating between her thighs.
He moulded his hand to one slight mound and she quivered, so innately responsive that she delighted him. He touched her delicate breasts, with the wonderfully lush and prominent nipples she had worked so hard to keep hidden from him, always turning away or covering up the instant she felt his eyes on her. He was as excited as a teenage boy let loose on a woman’s body for the first time. He dropped his dark head and let his mouth roam over that silky-soft skin, lingering on her protruding nipples with the skilled precision of a connoisseur.
Her mouth opened to provide a vent for her quickened breathing. To say that she liked what he was doing would have been an understatement. Her heartbeat was racing, and soon it became almost impossible to stop her hips from moving. She was wildly conscious of her body, and the heat and moisture gathering between her thighs. She arched up to him, aching unbearably for something more intense, while tiny involuntary cries fell from her lips. When he put his hand on the most sensitive part of her entire body she froze, but for once he ignored that fact. Through the barrier of her bikini pants he rubbed the tiny hidden bud at the heart of her, and she jerked in surprise before she began to squirm in delight.
He lifted his head to stare down at her, and told her simply and frankly what he wanted to do next. She went even pinker than she was already was, her eyes shifting from his, shock and sudden forbidden longing tearing her in two. Did he really want to…? Could he really want to do that? She recalled the intimacy she had already shared with him, and suddenly she was reaching down to help him skim off that last garment.
‘Just close your eyes, lie back and enjoy,’ Valente urged her thickly, parting her slender thighs.
She was trembling like a leaf, and he willed her to push another boundary back and trust him. He shimmied down the bed, pausing to dip his tongue into the shallow indentation of her tummy button. She giggled, and he tipped her back so that she lay open and naked before him.
Caroline was in shock at what she was allowing, breathing in little shallow pants, her aroused body quivering with an eagerness she could not suppress.
‘Stop thinking and shut your eyes,’ Valente commanded, settling confidently into the challenge of giving her more pleasure than she had ever dreamt he might give her.
Her sensitised nipples were wet and throbbing, but the heat between her legs was a torment. He teased her with the gentle caress of his fingers when, for the first time in her life, she wanted more force. But he toyed, he tugged, he licked and he suckled at her most private and tender flesh, until sensation consumed her in waves of frantic, writhing, exquisite pleasure. She heard herself whimper and cry out and she really couldn’t help it. She was out of control, out of her head at the surging flow of sensation which drove her hunger ever higher, and higher again-higher than she thought she could go. And then suddenly the fierce tension broke, and she reached a climax that rocked her world and made her scream before it splintered through her body like dynamite. After-quakes of sweet shocking pleasure came in ravishing ripples after that, and she lay there splayed like a beached starfish on the bed, in total shock at what had happened to her.
‘I never knew…I never dreamt that that’s what it would be like,’ she whispered dizzily.
‘You don’t know enough about your body, belleza mia.’ Valente laughed and pulled her into his arms. ‘It’s full of wonderful possibilities, and I shall enjoy teaching you about each and every one of them.’
The instant he drew her close she felt the strength of his erection. ‘My goodness, I’ve been so selfish,’ she muttered.
‘This…here…now…was all about you. I’ll take a cold shower. We’ll christen our bed in Venice tonight,’ Valente announced.
‘I’m going to Venice too?’ she gasped. ‘Tonight?’
‘Si, I have too much work to do to remain here, and why shouldn’t you join me? You can just as easily fly back to the UK from there tomorrow.’
‘It’s a great idea, ’Caroline pronounced with a smile, relieved that he was no longer happy to leave her behind.
Heartbreakingly handsome, his black hair riotously curly after its lengthy assault by her clutching fingers, and with a shadow of stubble roughening his jawline, Valente dealt her a mocking glance. ‘I thought so too. You will love Venice.’
Her chin tilted. ‘When are you planning to tell me about your past? You still haven’t explained how you went from a tiny rented apartment to living like a prince,’ she reminded him ruefully.
Valente frowned. ‘It’s not a pleasant story,’ he warned her. ‘My mother was a maid in a house owned by Count Ettore Barbieri. My father, Salvatore, was Ettore’s eldest son. He was a drunk and a waster. When my mother was seventeen, Salvatore pushed her down on a bed and raped her. I’m the result…’
Caroline stared at him with wide, horrified eyes.
Lean, strong face grim, Valente continued. ‘The housekeeper refused to believe my mother and she was dismissed. She went home to her family in Florence, but when they real
ised she was pregnant they threw her out. They didn’t believe her story either. She spent all the years of her youth and my childhood cleaning for a living in Venice. She didn’t tell me what had happened to her until I was eighteen, and by then she had cancer.’
Caroline’s heart twisted with sympathy, and she gripped his arm to say warmly, ‘Valente, I’m so sorry. You must have been devastated.’
‘I confronted my father outside one of the clubs he patronised, but he called my mother a whore and his friends beat me up. Salvatore threatened to take my mother to court for spreading lies about him. She was dying,’ Valente breathed in disgust. ‘But the Barbieri family were well-respected, and when rumours of my mother’s accusation spread I suffered a lot of abuse in different quarters. A few years afterwards Salvatore died in a car crash and the Count, my grandfather, asked me to participate in some very discreet DNA testing. For his own peace of mind he wanted to be sure that I wasn’t a Barbieri.’
‘You must have hated your father’s family so much!’ Caroline said feelingly.
‘I felt sorry for the old man. When my claim was proved, he offered me an allowance to keep quiet and I told him to keep his money. That made him respect me. I refused to be a leech, like the rest of his family. I was studying for a business degree part-time by then, and the Count promised me my first job when I graduated. But I am very independent and I had my own plans.’
‘Knowing you as I do, I expect you did.’ Understanding his fierce pride and tough individuality so much better now that he had told her about his divided background and essential aloneness, Caroline snuggled close to him in a silent offering of support and comfort.
‘I made my first million on my own. I’m a shark in business, and very good at spotting opportunities,’ Valente murmured, with the wolfish assurance that characterised his business approach.
Caroline was buoyant with happiness, relief, and a huge sense of achievement at the success of their growing sexual intimacy. Convinced that she would soon manage to cross the final boundary and consummate their marriage, she was engulfed in a surging flood of love and gratitude. ‘Good in bed as well,’ she whispered teasingly, wrapping both arms round him and kissing him. ‘I love you so much, Valente Lorenzatto!’
In the circle of her clinging arms, his lean, powerful body went rigid. Her declaration of love had felt so natural to her that it took her a moment or two to register that it had had a quite different effect on him. The silence that had fallen was heavy, nerve-racking. Slowly she lifted her pale blonde head to look up at his lean dark face. ‘I’m not expecting you to reciprocate,’ she told him awkwardly.
