MARIETTA HAD EXPECTED Nico to lay her down on the cushions beneath the awning and take her right there on the beach—and she’d have been lying if she’d said a part of her hadn’t wanted him to. But he had muttered something about sandy blankets and comfort and now they were in his bedroom—a huge room characterised by clean lines and simple masculine decor—lying naked on soft cotton sheets in a bed so enormous it could have slept an entire family.
Her insides were still molten from the orgasm she’d had in the ocean. She had never climaxed like that before—so easily, so quickly. With Davide—and on the occasions when she’d experimented by herself—she’d needed a lot more stimulation. But Nico had brought her to her peak with such little effort it had been almost embarrassing.
She stared at him now, unashamedly, her gaze trailing the length of his powerful body as he lay on his side, stretched out beside her. His arousal was just as proud and fierce as it had been in the water, when she’d wanted so desperately to touch him, and it nudged her hip now, so thick and long she wondered a little nervously if she’d be able to accommodate him.
He drew a fingertip over her belly. ‘Comfortable?’
Frustration spiralled. She was comfortable, lying on her back, one arm thrown above her head, soft pillows plumped under her shoulders for support. But she didn’t want to feel comfortable. She didn’t want Nico to be solicitous—to treat her like a china doll that might break in two if he was too rough with her. She wanted to feel hot and sweaty and breathless. Wanted to feel his weight on top of her, crushing her into the bed as he drove into the hollow place inside her begging to be filled.
His fingertip traced around her belly button and then her nipples, trailing circles of fire over her skin.
‘Is there anything I should know?’ he said, his voice rough—as though he wasn’t quite as in control of himself as he appeared. ‘Anything I can do to make it better for you?’
Her thoughts veered towards the tiny niggle of nervous concern at the back of her mind. Heat surged into her face, and his eyes narrowed.
He gripped her chin. ‘What?’.
She swallowed. ‘I used to sometimes have issues with—’ she closed her eyes, her cheeks burning like hotplates ‘—with lubrication.’
Silence followed. She cracked her eyes open, expecting to see an awkward look—maybe even disappointment—on Nico’s face. Instead his blue eyes glittered with something like...determination. As if she had tossed down a gauntlet and he was accepting the challenge. Slowly he rose to his hands and knees.
‘Are you worried I won’t be able to make you wet for me, chérie?’
Her eyes widened. ‘No! It’s not that... It’s just—’
Her eyes grew rounder still as he straddled her, placed his large hands on her skinny thighs and spread them apart.
When he dropped to his stomach, his intent obvious, she babbled again. ‘It’s not you... It’s just that... My body—oh!’
Suddenly his mouth was on her—there—and the powerful jolt of sensation forced her head back onto the pillow. She caught her breath, clawed her fingers into the sheet beneath her. His mouth was so hot, and his tongue...
Santo cielo!
His tongue was running over and over the spot where her nerve-endings were still very much intact. And then his finger was gently seeking entry, stroking, massaging, sliding deep into...wetness. She felt the sweet burn within, the build-up of tension that teased with the promise of a shattering release. Moments later the pressure reached its zenith and she cried out, silence impossible as she split into shards of white light that beamed her skywards and kept her suspended there for a weightless, timeless moment before casting her back to earth.
The bed moved, and she forced open heavy eyelids. Nico was braced above her, his gaze hot. Satisfied.
‘It’s wet down there, ma petite sirène.’ He kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, letting her taste herself. ‘Very wet,’ he added, and reached over to the nightstand for a condom.
Soon he was sheathed, poised between her legs. He slid his mouth over hers, kissing her long and deep. He lifted his head, his expression as he stared down at her stark. Intense.
‘I can’t hold back,’ he warned, his voice ragged. ‘I can’t be gentle with you.’
She thrilled to those words. She didn’t want gentle—she wanted wild. Passionate. She scraped her fingernails down his back and dug them into his firm buttocks.
‘Don’t be,’ she said boldly.
And then he pushed inside her and her mouth slackened on a gasp of pleasure. In one long, powerful thrust he filled her up, and when he started to move, sliding out and thrusting in, again and again, she had no trouble feeling him.
She knew a moment’s regret because she couldn’t wrap her legs around him, couldn’t flex her hips to meet his powerful thrusts. But Nico didn’t seem to care; when she looked at him she saw only lust and fierce pleasure carved into his stark features.
He went taut above her, and a second later he shuddered and groaned, signalling his release, and then he was collapsing onto her, pressing his face into her neck.
Marietta wrapped her arms around him and smiled to herself. The weight of his body crushing her into the mattress was, she decided, the most delicious feeling in the world.
* * *
Nico awoke from an unusually dreamless sleep, and as he hovered in that place between oblivion and wakefulness he was aware of an unfamiliar sense of...contentment.
He turned onto his side and blinked.
Sunlight streamed through the massive bedroom window and he guessed from the angle that it was late morning—long past the time he would normally rise. He wouldn’t normally leave the blinds up either, but last night Marietta had wanted to lie in bed and watch the sunset and he’d indulged her, spooning against her as he’d listened to her ooh and aah over the fiery sky until his body had stirred and he’d given her something much more impressive to ooh and aah about.
When the sky had finally turned a deep navy blue and the stars had begun to wink he had turned her onto her back and taken her again, watching her moonlit face as she climaxed before giving in to his own mind-shattering release.
He watched her now, asleep beside him, the sheet rumpled around her waist and her breasts bare. Her ebony eyelashes were dark against her skin, her long mahogany hair fanned out in thick waves across his pillow. The night had been warm and humid, but she’d tucked the sheet around her lower half, conscious of her legs even after everything they’d done together—all the ways he’d explored her—over the last twenty hours.
He didn’t understand her insecurity. Marietta was a beautiful, sensual woman and he didn’t give a damn about her legs.
He curled a thick strand of dark lustrous hair around his fingers. He’d known his attraction to her was strong, but he hadn’t predicted just how fiercely and completely his hunger for her would consume him. He had the feeling she had been seared into his memory for life—and yet he knew the danger of collecting memories. Knew how treacherous they could be. How they could lurk in your soul, lying in wait for the moment when you finally thought you were strong and then raising their insidious heads just so they could remind you of what you’d once had—what you’d lost.
Marietta’s eyelids fluttered open and she turned her head, blinked sleepy, liquid brown eyes at him.
Nico shook off his maudlin thoughts, curved his mouth into a smile. ‘Morning, ma petite sirène.’
She stretched her arms above her head. ‘What does that mean?’
‘My little mermaid.’
She blinked, took a moment to process that, then turned her face towards the window. An adorable scowl formed on her face. ‘It can’t be morning.’
‘It is,’ he assured her. ‘Late morning, in fact.’ He circled a fingertip around her left nipple and the nub of caramel flesh puckered and hardened. ‘Time to wake up.’
She stretched again, shamelessly thrusting those perfect breasts towards him. ‘Coffee...’ she mumbled. ‘Mermaids need coffee to wake up.’
He took her hand and guided it to his groin. ‘I have something better than coffee to wake you up.’
Her eyes flared, her lips parted—and suddenly his little mermaid didn’t look sleepy any more.
* * *
Over the next forty-eight hours time slowed and blurred and the outside world ceased to exist—or at least that was how it felt to Marietta. They made love at regular intervals and in between they ate and swam, either at the beach or in the pool. When Nico disappeared to his study every so often to work she would paint, parking herself in front of her canvas and the easel which he’d erected for her in a sunlit corner of the living room.
In no time at all she started feeling as though she were living in one of those protective bubbles, the thought of which she’d scoffed at only nights before. Which was dangerous, she knew. Bubbles were pretty, but they were temporary. Sooner or later they burst—and hers was about to burst very soon. Because it was Thursday afternoon, and that meant that tomorrow she would return to Rome.
A good thing too, she told herself, slotting tubes of paint into their storage container. This thing with Nico couldn’t last. A few days of indulgence—that was all it was meant to be. He’d been up-front about that, and so had she.
She had a life to return to. An excellent, satisfying life where there was no room, no need, for unrealistic expectations.
Plus she had little Ricci’s party in two days’ time. That would cheer her up. Help her get rid of this silly ache which had settled in her chest this morning and so far had refused to budge.
Nico appeared in the doorway of the living room. He’d been working in his study for no more than an hour and still her breath hitched as if she were seeing him for the first time in days.
She smiled, forced herself to sound brighter than she felt. ‘I thought I’d get a head start on packing up my things. I assume we’ll leave early in the morning?’
‘We’re not,’ he said.
She paused in the process of wrapping her brushes in a cloth. ‘Oh...? What time will we leave, then?’
‘We’re not leaving.’
She blinked at him, and for a fraction of a second her heart soared. Because if they weren’t leaving then she wouldn’t have to say goodbye to him just yet. She wouldn’t sleep with him tonight knowing it was the last time they would ever make love. The last time she would ever feel him inside her, filling her. Making her feel beautiful and desirable and wanton and whole.
And then her brain reasserted itself. ‘What do you mean, we’re not leaving?’
‘Exactly that.’ He came into the room. ‘You’re not going back to Rome tomorrow.’
His tone left no room for misinterpretation. He wasn’t giving her a choice. He was telling her.
For the first time in days, her temper flared. She put her brushes down. ‘One week, Nico. I agreed to come here for one week.’
He crossed his arms over his chest. The gesture reminded her of the way he and Leo had confronted her six days ago. How they had bulldozed her into coming here. She’d been angry, hating the loss of her independence, the sense of having control of her life stripped away. Which was why she’d laid down her own rules—rules Nico was now completely ignoring.
‘Until your stalker is caught, this is the safest place for you to be.’
She folded her arms, mirroring his pose with an equally resolute one of her own. ‘And when will you catch him?’ she demanded to know. ‘Next week? Next month?’
Something glittered in his eyes. ‘Is that an appalling idea, chérie? Spending an entire month with me?’
She pressed her lips together before she could blurt out the word no. The idea didn’t appal her. Not in the slightest. In fact it made her feel light-headed. Euphoric. And that was wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She wasn’t meant to want more of him.
‘This is hardly a joking matter,’ she said. ‘I have a job to get back to. A life. And it’s my nephew’s first birthday party on Saturday—I told Leo and Helena I wouldn’t miss it.’
‘I’ve spoken with Leo and he agrees you should stay.’
Her anger bloomed, swift and bright and vivid like a bloodstain on cotton. How dared they? ‘That’s not Leo’s decision to make—nor, might I add, is it yours!’
She seized the wheels of her chair and propelled herself towards the doorway.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To call my sister-in-law,’ she snapped.
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s got more sense than you and my brother put together!’
And maybe Helena could change her husband’s mind. If Marietta had Leo on her side Nico would have to let her go—a thought that only sharpened the ache in her chest.
And that made her angrier still.
* * *
Sisterhood, it turned out, was overrated.
Helena had sided with the men. Marietta had wanted to express her anger over the phone but found she couldn’t. Her sister-in-law’s stance came from a place of caring and concern, and Marietta wasn’t angry with Helena. She was angry at the situation—and with Nico for his high-handedness. He hadn’t even consulted her first. He’d simply made the decision.
She managed a smile for the young waitress who had arrived at the table with her dessert and then realised the courtesy was a wasted effort. The girl was more interested in casting pretty smiles at Nico, even though she looked as if she was barely out of her teens and he was surely too old for her.
He had that powerful effect on women. She imagined he always would. He’d carry those rugged good looks and that dark sex appeal into his later years and become one of those sexy, distinguished-looking older men to whom women of all ages flocked.
The thought didn’t improve Marietta’s mood.
And if Nico had hoped a nice meal and the buoyant atmosphere of the Bouchards’ seaside restaurant would, he was in for disappointment. She picked up her spoon and cracked the hard caramelised top of her crème brûlée with a sharp jab.
‘You’re still angry.’
She glanced across the table at him. He was clean-shaven for the first time in two days and the skin over his hard jaw looked bronzed and taut in the golden candlelight which flickered from the glass holder on the table.
‘Of course,’ she said, opting for honesty, because no matter how hard she strove for the kind of composure she’d often admired in her sister-in-law she’d never been very good at hiding her emotions. ‘I’m missing an important family event by staying here, Nico.’
His long fingers toyed with his espresso cup. ‘You would put a child’s birthday party above your own safety?’
‘It’s not just any child’s party,’ she retorted. ‘It’s my nephew’s very first birthday and a milestone I won’t get to share with him now.’
Nico regarded her. ‘It means that much to you?’
‘Si.’
She laid down the spoon. Crème brûlée was her favourite dessert, but she didn’t really have the stomach for its rich creaminess right now. The only reason she’d ordered it was to delay the end of their meal and their return to the house. If their post-dinner entertainment followed the trend of the last two evenings they would very quickly end up naked—and she didn’t want that to happen. Not yet. She wanted to nurse her anger awhile longer and she knew that as soon as he touched her, the second he was deep inside her, she’d forget she was supposed to be angry with him.
‘They’re my family,’ she added, sitting back in her wheelchair. ‘The only family I’ll ever have.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
She shrugged, but inwardly she cringed. That statement had been too honest. Too revealing. ‘Exactly that,’ she said, tossing his words from that afternoon back at him.
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘Can you not have children, Marietta?’ he asked quietly, and the intimacy of the question—from a man who routinely avoided conversations of a personal nature—threw her.
She hesitated. ‘There’s no medical reason I can’t have children,’ she admitted, pushing her dessert plate away. ‘It’s possible...physically.’
His gaze narrowed further. ‘So there’s nothing stopping you from having a family of your own?’
Her chest tightened. He made it sound so natural. So easy. As if having a broken back didn’t make her different. ‘It’s not that simple,’ she said, her voice stilted.
‘Why?’
She frowned at him. Around them the restaurant was busy, with the clink of tableware, the buzz of conversation and frequent bouts of laughter lending the place a lively air. Josephine had seated them at a private table, however, set in a quiet corner by a large window overlooking the harbour.
Marietta glanced around, assuring herself that their conversation wasn’t being overheard. ‘Generally speaking, a woman needs a husband before she has children,’ she said.
He lifted an eyebrow. ‘And you object to marriage?’
Her frown deepened. Why was he asking her these questions? Why was he interested?
Why should he care?
Her breath caught in her throat.
Did he care?
Hastily she crushed the thought. He was making conversation, showing a polite interest in the woman he was temporarily sleeping with.
She cleared her throat. ‘Marriage is fine,’ she said. ‘It’s just not for me.’
‘Because of Davide?’
‘Partly.’ She lifted her shoulder. ‘When push comes to shove, few men want to tie themselves to a cripple for life.’
Nico’s brows slammed down, his face darkening. ‘Don’t call yourself that,’ he said tersely.
‘What? A cripple?’ She affected an air of indifference. ‘Why not? That’s how most people see me.’
Which wasn’t strictly true. She was fortunate; she had people in her life who saw the woman first and foremost and not the disability. But equally there were those who never saw beyond the wheelchair. Never saw her.
Blue eyes blazed at her from across the table. ‘That’s not how I see you.’
Her heart lurched. She believed him, but how did he see her? As a woman who needed protecting? A perk of the job? She’d already guessed she was one of a long string of short-term lovers he’d taken in the years since his wife’s death. She’d told herself it didn’t matter to her, ignored the taunting voice that had cried liar.
‘I know,’ she said quietly.
Nico’s gaze stayed pinned on her. ‘Davide was an idiot,’ he said. ‘But he’s one man. Why write off your dreams because of one bad experience?’
Her shoulders stiffened. ‘Because I’m a realist—and some things simply aren’t destined to be.’ She sniffed. ‘Anyway, you have no idea what my dreams are. Not every woman longs for the white picket fence, you know.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘So you don’t want children?’
‘No.’ But that was a lie. A lie she had repeated in her head so often she’d almost believed it. Her stomach knotted.
‘But family is important to you?’
‘So are other things,’ she said, hating the defensive note in her voice. ‘My job—my career as an artist...’
She trailed off. Her words had sounded hollow and they shouldn’t have. She was utterly passionate about her art. Determined to make a full-time living from it eventually. In the meantime she had a job she loved, her apartment, her studio for hire... It was enough. Of course it was enough.
So why had Nico’s questions got her all tied up in knots?
She took the white napkin off her lap, folded it carefully and placed it on the table. ‘Thank you for dinner,’ she said, avoiding his eye. ‘I’m ready to go when you are.’
The Bouchards came out to farewell them, dropping kisses onto Marietta’s cheeks, and she wondered what assumptions they’d made about her and Nico’s relationship.
Not that it mattered. Sooner or later she’d be gone from Île de Lavande and she’d have no reason to return—a thought she found inordinately depressing as Nico drove them home on the winding mountain road. When they arrived, he parked in the courtyard by the house, went to open the front door, then returned and lifted her out of the Jeep. He carried her towards the house.
‘Nico!’ she cried. ‘My chair!’
He kicked the front door closed, barely breaking stride. ‘You won’t be needing it for a while.’
Outrage and something else she didn’t want to acknowledge sent a lick of heat through her veins.
Her voice rose on a high note of fury. ‘I’m not sleeping with you tonight!’
He reached his bedroom and dropped her unceremoniously onto his bed, so that she sprawled inelegantly on the grey silk coverlet.
He shot her a dark, blistering look and started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘I don’t plan on doing much sleeping.’
She pushed onto her elbows, glared up at him. ‘I’m still angry with you!’ she flung at him.
He shrugged off his shirt and threw it to the floor. The moonlight illuminating the room washed over his powerful torso, making him look like a statue of some demigod cast in pewter.
Marietta’s mouth dried.
‘Bien,’ he said in a low, rough voice, simultaneously toeing off his shoes and unbuckling his belt. ‘I like that fiery temper.’
He shoved the rest of his clothes off and when he straightened the full extent of his arousal was plain to see. He curled his hand around himself and the sight of him doing so was deeply erotic. Utterly mesmerising.
‘It turns me on,’ he said, quite unnecessarily, and then he was climbing onto the bed.
She shook herself, shot her arm out and slapped her palm against his chest. ‘Stop!’
‘You don’t mean that,’ he said, and his lips curved into a smile of such utter carnality that her belly flooded with hot, liquid need. Then he pushed up her top, freed her left breast from its lacy confines and sucked her nipple into his mouth.
Marietta gasped, her traitorous body arching in response to the exquisite sensations he inflicted so effortlessly. She lifted her hands, intending to beat them down upon his bare shoulders, but somehow her fingers ended up buried in his thick hair.
His head lifted, his blue eyes glittering with triumph. ‘Do you still want me to stop?’
She gave him a mutinous glare, then dragged his head down and kissed him, sinking her teeth into his lower lip for a second before pushing his head back up.
‘This won’t make me forget that I’m angry with you,’ she warned him.
That wicked smile returned, making her insides quiver.
‘Chérie,’ he said, lowering himself on top of her, his hard body crushing her into the mattress, ‘by the time I’m done with you, you won’t remember your name.’