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‘I’m…I’m not sure.’
‘This?’ He leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers and they tasted cool and sweet.
Mutely, she nodded, her grip on him growing tighter as she was swept away by the sheer beauty of that kiss. They stood like that for an age, their mouths exploring like first-time lovers and the poignancy of that did not escape her.
Feeling her shiver, he moved away, looking down at her closed eyes, which fluttered open to look at him. He began to take the clips from her hair. Five clips in all he removed, until every strand of it had tumbled free—mahogany and shining. Next, he slid down the long zip of her dress, slipped it down over her pale shoulders until it pooled to the ground in a silken whisper. And then he stepped back to look at her, narrowing his eyes like a connoisseur.
‘Ah, that is better!’ he breathed appreciatively. ‘A vast improvement, mia bella.’
She knew what he meant. He was comparing her to the woman she had been before and acknowledging that this silk-satin underwear came nowhere close to a baggy old grey T-shirt. And yet, back then, she had surely felt more true to herself than the pampered creature who stood before him now.
Her breasts were encased in apricot silk-satin, edged in finest lace—the kind of bra which you sometimes saw sleek Hollywood blondes wearing in those ultraglossy magazines which sat on the top shelf of newsagents. High-cut panties matched the bra and made her already long legs seem endless. Yet the feel of such butter-soft silk against her skin made her feel decadent—and she guessed that was no bad way for a woman to feel on her honeymoon. She glanced at him from between slitted and heavy lashes—and the darkening of his eyes told her loud and clear just how much he wanted her.
‘Casimiro,’ she whispered.
Reading the blatant hunger in that slanted glance she sent him made him wonder briefly what it might be like to take her there, on the balcony. For their mingling skin to be washed by the warmth of the moonlit night as they came together. But he thought of her soft cries echoing in the silent night and the flash of her diamond ring which might attract the attention of a long-range camera, or guard…
‘Come here,’ he said throatily, pulling her into his arms, and he picked her up and carried her into their bedroom. She seemed all coltish arms and legs as he laid her down on the bed and she reached up for him, her dark hair spilling back against the pillow.
‘Kiss me,’ she whispered. ‘Kiss me again.’
It was a curiously intimate little command and as Casimiro lowered his head to hers once more he felt himself poised on the brink of some brand-new discovery. The sensation that a kiss could somehow take on a million different guises and that he had just discovered a brand-new variation.
But something in its subtle magic made him instinctively wary and, freeing himself from its disconcerting spell, he got up and moved away from the bed—gesturing to his shirt and trousers with a rueful expression. ‘There is little point, mia bella, in you wearing very little and me wearing all this…now, is there?’
‘No,’ she said dully, watching him as he removed his clothes. Watching—as she knew she was supposed to watch and savour—this highly privileged striptease. The sight of his powerful body gradually becoming naked was more than a little intimidating. As was the formidable power of his arousal as it sprang free. And studying him amid the opulence of this magnificent suite, she couldn’t help thinking back to when they’d first been lovers. Of Casimiro in her teeny little bedsit—with the row of terraced houses opposite and the cramped bed in which they’d lain, all tangled and sleepy.
Yet as he stepped out of silken boxer shorts and her eyes were drawn to the definition of his powerful thighs, she thought that, beneath all the splendour, surely he was essentially the same man? Even if he had hidden that oh-so-human side to him this time around. Was that because he was still angry that she had trapped him into a life he had already chosen to reject? And would he ever be able to let that go—to let her close to him as once he had?
Well, she would not help matters by imagining the worst or by clamming up. He had told her in no uncertain terms that it was inappropriate to show her emotions—but surely that didn’t apply when they were in bed together?
‘Come here,’ she said softly, and opened her arms to him.
Her sweetness affected him more than he had bargained for. Casimiro didn’t know what he had expected on their wedding night. Coyness or shyness perhaps. Maybe triumph—or even anger.
Instead, he got passion. Pure and unequivocal. Unrestrained gasps of pleasure as he thrust deep into her. The tight slick as he moved inside her with gathering pace and felt her orgasm swelling up until it could no longer be contained.
‘Casimiro,’ she breathed, clutching onto his shoulders and clinging to him as if he were her only rock in a wild and thrashing sea. ‘Oh. Oh. Oh!’
He felt her buck beneath him and then he too was lost in the mindless bliss of sexual fulfilment—taken by the tide, like a surfer riding the biggest wave of all. For a while afterwards he just lay there, his mind blissfully free of thought or timetable, idly stroking back damp strands of hair from her sweat-sheened brow.
‘So how was it?’ he questioned eventually as he felt the ecstatic trembling of her body quieten at last.
It took a moment before she had the composure to answer him.
‘It?’
‘The day. The wedding. The crowds and the cameras. You seemed…’ his voice grew thoughtful as he considered her reaction to what must have been a bizarre experience ‘…remarkably composed.’
Melissa thought about it. ‘It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,’ she admitted. ‘To be honest, I was so busy worrying that I’d be able to make my vows without stumbling and that Ben wouldn’t have a paddy in the church or that the crown wouldn’t topple from my head—that there wasn’t really time to be self-conscious.’
‘Eccellente,’ he murmured, his hand smoothing down over her bare bottom. ‘If a queen is self-conscious it does her country no favours. If, for example, she becomes obsessed with her image and her appearance instead of her country’s needs, then her role as consort is compromised.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, wondering if that was supposed to be a compliment or a warning.
The pressure of his fingers over one buttock increased by a fraction to become a warm squeeze ‘And how was this?’ he questioned softly.
She knew exactly what he meant this time but was curious to know how he would phrase it. ‘This?’ she echoed. ‘Perhaps you could be a little bit more specific.’
