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Angel grinned wickedly down at her, black hair tousled by her fingers. He shifted his lean hips with expert precision, sending delicious feelings tumbling back through her again, answering the hunger controlling her with his own. Excitement laced her pleasure, her heart pounding, her body quivering with surging response. Need was a tight knot deep in her pelvis, pushing her ever on towards fulfilment. As he set a hard rhythm, pounding into her, sensation piled on sensation. Angel had incredible stamina and within minutes an explosive climax took hold of her. With pleasure roaring through every fibre of her body, she cried out and flopped back on the bed, weak in the aftermath.
Angel tugged her up into a sitting position and released her from the corset, rolling down the stockings with quiet efficiency. Then he removed the tiara and the rest of her jewellery and set it aside. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked her.
‘My goodness, no,’ she mumbled, smothering a yawn.
He pulled back the bedding and gently rolled her unresisting body below the sheet. ‘Get some sleep.’
‘It’s our wedding night,’ she reminded him guiltily.
‘And you’ve already surpassed my every expectation,’ he murmured softly, smoothing her tangled hair back from her brow. ‘I’m going for a shower and then I’m coming to bed too. It has been a very long week.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed drowsily. ‘I have to talk to you about Cassia soon.’
Unseen, Angel grimaced, although he could not say that declaration had been unexpected. Cassia had been hostile to Gabriella even at university and possibly it had been unreasonable of him to assume that Cassia’s cool assistance would be welcome to his bride. Sadly, there was nobody more efficient or informed on his staff, he reasoned wryly, but that was life. Unlike him, other people let personal feelings get involved and that always caused trouble.
Yet he couldn’t be sorry that he had married Gaby, instead of Cassia, who had once looked so perfect on paper. Now he recognised how Gaby’s warmth, both as a personality and as a parent, drew him, how stupendous their sexual connection was proving to be and how intriguing he found that lively outspoken independence of hers.
CHAPTER NINE
GABYWAKENEDWITHa sense of well-being that was rare for her. It took a minute or two for her to recognise the lovely sun-drenched bedroom and reorientate herself again after all the excitement of the wedding...andthe night that had just passed.
A dreamy smile curved her relaxed face, and she shook her head, thinking of that middle-of-the-night passionate encounter and suppressing a sigh. It was only sex, she reminded herself doggedly, and Angel had always excelled in that field. It didn’t mean anything either and she needed to remember that the same man had blackmailed her into marriage. It didn’t matter that he had had good intentions when he had utilised such pressure and intimidation.
Feeling a little less relaxed and forgiving, indeed annoyed that Angel could so easily make her forget what was truly important, Gaby sat up.
‘Oh, good, you’re awake,’ Angel remarked from the doorway, startling her.
‘What time is it?’
‘Half-ten...you’ve slept twelve hours...aside from the occasional waking moment,’ Angel rephrased with an utterly mesmerising sensual smile.
Staring at his lean, darkly handsome features just a heartbeat too long, Gaby turned her head away as she scolded herself for being such a pushover. But there he stood, her new husband, and he was strikingly, rivetingly spectacular, lounging there in the doorway without a care in the world, casually clad in a black open shirt and tailored chinos that accentuated every sculpted line of his lean, powerful physique. If she was a pushover in his radius now and again, she thought ruefully, at least she had some excuse.
‘Alexios?’ she queried anxiously. ‘Is he here yet?’
‘Marina’s bringing him this afternoon. Right now, all you have to worry about is coming downstairs to eat. Since we skipped dinner last night, Viola has made a banquet for breakfast,’ Angel explained. ‘And it will be served on the terrace behind the house.’
Gaby scrambled out of bed and streaked into the adjoining bathroom and then streaked out again, still naked, to grab a suitcase in search of clothes.
Angel swept it out of her hand and planted it down on the luggage rack by the wall. ‘Viola will unpack everything for you. We may not have a full staff here, but you don’t need to do everything.’
‘I’m used to doing everything,’ Gaby muttered, suddenly alarmingly aware of her nudity and wondering how she had contrived to forget that reality for even a minute. She rummaged through the case, located a sundress and vanished into the bathroom, taking in a deep breath only once she was alone again. Then she thought of that ‘P for prude’ crack and pulled a face at her own reflection. In time she would get more comfortable with that kind of intimacy, she reasoned ruefully.
When she emerged again, the bedroom was empty, and she went downstairs where Viola was waiting, her smile widening in delight when Gaby addressed her in Italian. The older woman showed her out through a door onto what Angel had referred to as a terrace, a misnomer if ever she had heard one, Gaby reflected in wonderment as she scanned her surroundings. Stone pillars ran along the rear of the house, marble stretched below her feet and fabulous classical frescoes adorned what had once been the back wall of the house. It was incredibly theatrical and unexpected and Gaby grinned.
‘I can see that, in spite of appearances at the front of the house, your grandparents brought the palace here with them,’ she remarked with a smile as Angel rose from a low wall to greet her arrival.
‘Viola told me that while my grandfather was in his library, my grandmother spent her time out here painting and working on garden projects.’
‘Viola’s worked here for a long time, then,’ Gaby commented. ‘Did you visit this house as a child?’
‘Marina brought me here to go fishing and run wild in a way that I couldn’t at the palace. Even when I was a kid, I was expected to behave like an adult there,’ Angel admitted, pulling out a chair for her at the table that was swiftly becoming laden with the variety of options Viola was wheeling out for their delectation.
‘Weren’t your parents here as well?’ she asked in surprise.
‘No, but I often brought schoolfriends here with me.’
As his lean, darkly handsome features tightened and shadowed, Gaby’s brows pleated. ‘And what was that like?’
