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“Exactly what you said I should be doing,” he growled as he got out of the Massif. “I’m going to take a walk and ask you a lot of dumb questions.”
“Questions are never dumb,” she said in a small, girlish voice, and he knew then that whatever he’d intended to happen this afternoon was not going to happen.
She knew everything about grapes and wine.
She knew as much about them as he knew about investments and stocks.
What it came down to was that she knew a lot. And the more she talked, the more animated she grew. Her face took on color, her voice gained strength, even her eyes brightened.
Would another princess get down on her knees in the dirt with such enthusiasm, to brush away leaf litter and exclaim over the presence of a bud so small he had to get down on his knees with her to see it? Would another princess get a smear of dirt on her cheek and not give a damn? Would she t
alk with excitement and enthusiasm about cover crops, fall plantings of clover and peas, to minimize soil erosion during the winter?
Hell, Nick thought, watching her as she gently moved a bug aside, forget about princesses, would another woman do these things?
His sister, Izzy, maybe, because Iz was into plants and flowers and organic stuff, but a woman he dated?
No way.
He thought about the Sunday he’d taken the redhead he’d been seeing last summer to Central Park, after he’d grown weary of hearing her insist she wanted to watch him play football in the same kind of pick-up game he and his brothers had been part of for years.
What a disaster that had been.
Eeww, Nick, there are ants under this tree! Eeww, Nick, something just bit me! Eeww, Nick, there’s a big thing with long legs crawling through the grass….
“She doesn’t shut up, that big thing’s gonna be me,” Falco had growled.
The next Friday night, when they got together for beer and burgers at The Bar in Soho, Dante had exchanged glances with Rafe and Falco.
“So, how’s the ‘eeww’ lady?” he’d said with a look of complete innocence.
“Eewt of the picture,” Nick had replied, and Rafe had rewarded him with an ungentlemanly snort of beer.
Nobody would laugh, watching Alessia. She poked and prodded, sifted through decaying plant litter and when she was in the middle of earnestly explaining how, come spring, the cover crops would be plowed under and would help fertilize the earth, Nick told himself, the hell with it, and he reached for her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She never so much as hesitated. Her arms went around his neck and she pulled him down to her.
She tasted of sun and soil, of the grapes and the seasons. She tasted of herself, warm and sweet, and of an impossible innocence.
Nick rolled her beneath him, cradled her face in his hands, kissed her again and again, each kiss deeper than the last. He could hear his blood roaring in his ears, could feel his heart pounding against hers.
“Nicolo,” she whispered, all a woman could ever ask of a man in that one, softly spoken word, and he groaned and gathered her closer still, his hands in her hair, his body in the V of her legs, everything forgotten but this woman, this moment, this need.
His mouth was at her throat, his lips measuring the race of her pulse in its hollow, savoring the salty sweetness of her sun-warmed skin. Every muscle in his body had hardened; he could feel his erection swelling, swelling, swelling until it was almost painful.
His lips angled over hers. Tasting. Teasing. Her lips parted, letting him in. The taste of her made him groan. She was making little sounds, moans, whispers, and now she was arching against him, fingers digging into the hard muscles of his shoulders as her legs rose and closed around his hips. She rocked against him, her pelvis grinding against his swollen flesh, and he practically tore open her jacket, pushed up her T-shirt, found her braless, her breasts waiting for his lips, his teeth, and she gave a sharp cry, flung her head back, and his heart swelled with pleasure when he realized that she had come from that, just that, his mouth on her nipples.
“Nicolo.” Her voice broke. She reached for him, cupped her hand over the denim that covered his straining flesh. Nick closed his eyes, let the feel of her touch send a shock wave through him and then, with his last bit of sanity, he took her hand from him, caught her other hand and held both between them, against his chest.
“No,” she said in a fierce whisper, “no, don’t stop! Nicolo, per favore, io voglio—io voglio—”
He kissed her. Swallowed her cries when what she wanted was what he had wanted all along, to bury himself deep, deep inside her.
But not here.
He wanted to be with her in a high-ceilinged room. To undress her as slowly as he could manage and still survive. To carry her to a bed covered in ivory linen, lay her down on it, see her golden hair loose against the pillow.
He wanted to watch her face as he touched her, explored her, all of her with his lips, his tongue, his hands.
