Not Juliet (10 page)

The approach to
his villa was through a set of metal gates and down a
well-maintained lane with tall cypresses either side. The gates
stayed unlocked, but a sensor beeped in the villa and a light shone
on a wall panel whenever the gate’s motion detector was activated.
It hadn’t been cheap, but he liked the arrangement; it gave him a
chance to become aware of company long before it reached his front
door, while still appearing to be open and approachable to the more
skittish members of his community.

He parked by
the main entrance, then turned to smile at Riella.

“This is it.
Welcome home.”

She smiled back
at him and moved in for the kiss. Hungry for her touch, Luca
responded, pulling her onto his lap. He got out of the car with her
in his arms, then skipped up the four front steps and through the
door, carrying her all the way.

Riella wriggled in his
arms until he set her down, but his arms were still wound tightly
around her middle; he obviously wasn’t going to allow an inch of
space to come between them. Through the thin fabric of her dress,
she could feel his hardness. Oh, yes, Luca was turned on, as much
as she was.

The frantic
beat of her heart matched his, and she could feel her core
quivering with anxiety mixed with anticipation. Not that she
regretted it, but she’d jumped into this marriage before she’d had
the chance to fully come to terms with what it may entail. All her
dreams featured looking for and finding her Romeo. She’d never
thought past that point before.

“Something
wrong?” Luca asked, searching her expression.

Riella shook
her head, but still didn’t seem to be able to catch her breath.

“You want a
tour, then?”

She nodded,
grateful for the delay.

Luca took her
hand and proceeded to tow her from room to room at high speed,
prattling all the way.

“This is the
study, but I rarely use it. Too many books. Claustrophobic. This, I
like.”

The living room
was enormous. The wall to the west was made entirely of glass and
the view was superb. In the distance, surrounded by surf, Riella
could distinguish more land – must be Elba and the other little
islands around it.

“Through here
is the dining room, which again I don’t use.” Luca pulled her
through at a fast marching pace. “And here is the kitchen. I guess
I make some use of it… mostly the microwave.”

Riella giggled
and opened a cupboard door at random. It was clean, but empty.
“It’s okay, I’ll teach you how to use the rest of it one day.”

Luca grinned at
her and took the stairs two at a time. Riella had to run to keep
up.

“Here are the
guest rooms, this way, all with en-suite bathrooms, and to date
completely unused.” He did a u-turn in the middle of the corridor.
“But we’re going to use this room, here.”

He pulled open
a double door to reveal the master bedroom. The room was larger
than any bedroom she’d been in, and decorated in a masculine style,
with plain blocks of color and dark accents, but Riella liked it.
It suited Luca’s temperament to a T. Then her eye alighted on the
massive four-poster mahogany bed. Her legs locked and she could not
bring herself to take another step closer. Her hands shot up to
cover her mouth.

Luca took one
look at her expression and pulled her in a tight embrace. “Hey. Are
you all right? It’s only a bed, not a torture device.”

She didn’t
answer. Her vocal chords must have frozen, too, along with her
legs. Slowly, Luca guided her to sit down on the bed, then knelt in
front of her.

“See? It
doesn’t bite.”

His words
brushed past her ears, but she still didn’t feel like smiling. Luca
pulled her hands to his lips, as he had so many times before, and
kissed each knuckle and each fingertip.

“Riella, please
look at me.” She did. Her eyes were still functioning, then. “I
don’t want you to be scared, my love. You trusted me enough to
marry me, and you trusted me with your safety. Remember?”

Suddenly, her
voice came back to her. “But, Luca, you don’t understand.”

“Shhh, I bet I
do.”

“I… I’ve
never…” Riella turned to look at the bed with a worried look on her
face. “I mean,” she turned back to him, “you’ll be my first ever
man.”

“I know.”

“What if I’m no
good? What if you hate being with me?”

Luca’s lips
crinkled in a smile. “We have time. I can teach you.”

“Wait a
minute.” Riella could feel her thoughts screech to a stop. He knew
she was a virgin? “What do you mean, you know? How do you
know?”

“Two things.
Well, three, really.” Riella stared, waiting for him to elaborate.
“First, you are so refreshingly pure and innocent. A beautiful
woman, dedicated daughter…”

“Not buying it.
Next?”

“Your heritage.
You must still be following Romanipen…”

“But I’ve
chosen not to live among my kind, so that’s not conclusive
evidence.”

“Okay. You
won’t be able to contest this one. I saw your hymen last night,
when I was bringing you to orgasm on Orazio’s sofa.”

The breath
rushed out of Riella’s lungs and she let out a squeak of
horror.

She was terrified. Luca
could see that. There were two sides to the innocence coin. He
needed to make her comfortable, help her relax, though not as much
as she had the previous night, if he could help it. No alcohol…
yet.

Without another
word, he slid his hand around the back of her neck, under her hair,
and closed his lips over hers. Her breathing was ragged and
shallow, and for the wrong reasons, damn it!

He’d better do
something about that, and fast.

Luca dipped and
locked his lips onto Riella’s, roughly pushing hers open. His
tongue plunged into her mouth, wildly seeking hers. Without a
second’s delay, he began to swirl, caress, nibble and coax, until
she moaned and her shoulders loosened.

He settled on
the edge of the bed and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping her legs
around his hips. Face to face, and touching in the most intimate
way, despite the clothes barrier, he pulled away from her lips and
began to place tiny fluttering kisses all over her face, her
eyelids, her ears, her neck, whispering ‘I love you’ again and
again between the kisses.

Riella smiled,
and he knew he’d managed to avert a crisis. She wound her arms
around his neck and twisted her fingers in his hair. Her forehead
dropped to touch his and she chewed on her lips as if uncertain of
what to do next. The electricity flowing between them was so
intense, it could have been enough to power the whole of Italy on
Carnival Day. She was hot, and he was hot, and someone had better
do something about it before they burst into flames.

Once again, he
took control. His hands slipped beneath her skirt and wrapped
around her thighs. Her breathing hitched.

A hair’s
breadth away from her lips, Luca whispered, “Listen to your
breathing, Riella. Allow yourself to feel. What do you feel? Tell
me.”

She panted for
a few seconds, as Luca placed gentle kissed to the corners of her
mouth while moving his hands up her thighs, toward her hips.

“Hot… So hot,”
she said, breathless.

“Um-hmm.
Anything else?” He jerked up his hips, holding her down, pressing
his hardness closer to her mound. “Here?” He thrust upward
again.

Riella moaned.
“You drive me crazy. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Luca twisted
sideways, throwing her back on the bed, barely breaking contact in
the process. He pressed himself to her, using his hands to slip her
dress higher, bunching it around her middle and exposing another
pair of sweet lacy panties – hot pink, this time.

“You’re messing
up my dress,” she said, not an ounce of sorrow in her
complaint.

“Hmm. You’re
right,” Luca agreed. “Let’s take it off.”

Without waiting
for her agreement, he loosened the tie around her waist and slipped
the fabric up and over her head. Riella’s hands tugged at his
t-shirt and slid across his tight muscles, but he wasn’t going to
let her lead. Yet. He grabbed hold of her hands and held them
loosely above her head. Riella squirmed beneath him.

“Christ, you
are so beautiful.”

From the mass
of caramel curls spread all over his pillow to the arch of her hips
pinned beneath him, she was the most erotic being he’d ever seen.
Luca growled and crushed his mouth to hers with double the passion
he’d felt mere moments earlier.

Her lips felt
hot under his, and she tasted sweeter than honey.

Luca let go of
her hands and pushed himself up until they were only connected at
hip level. He thrust into her groin and she responded by pushing
back and arching her back off the bed.

“Sweet
Jesus!”

She was so
responsive, she had surrendered completely to her feelings. She
squirmed and whimpered, bucking beneath him, seeking the completion
he was holding from her. Oh, hell! How could he make her wait, when
she was asking for it with such abandon? Luca slid his hands under
her buttocks and brought her hips up, rubbing against her heat.

“Please,”
Riella panted.

The breath
caught in her beautiful, arched throat, and a delicious shade of
pink covered the smooth skin on her chest, and neck, and face. Her
eyes had rolled back and tiny beads of sweat dewed around her
temples.

Luca’s fingers
slipped around the sides of her panties and, before he knew it,
this pair lay in shreds between her thighs, like the previous
one.

“Dammit!” He’d
planned to take her out to dinner, and while he’d arranged for her
suitcase to be packed and forwarded to his address, it probably
wouldn’t get there until morning. How would she react to going out
sans underwear?

As if he needed
an additional erotic picture of Riella in his mind to fire up his
imagination!

He removed her
bra more gently, and then his hands were everywhere, caressing,
molding, kneading, while his lips followed in his fingers’ tracks,
placing kisses and little nips and nibbles along the way.

Moisture pooled
between her thighs, dampening the comforter beneath them. Luca
circled her folds with the tip of one finger, slowly, tentatively,
and Riella tensed, a slight quiver to her body. She must be so
close…

A mischievous
idea put a grin on Luca’s face. He shifted off his perch and lay
alongside her, withdrawing every touch.

Riella panted
in the same position for a moment, the absence of his body heat
making goosebumps break over her skin and her dark rose nipples
pucker up and point even higher, then she turned her head,
searching for him. Her expression relaxed when her eyes alighted on
his face and she saw he was grinning.

“Mmmm, I need
you, Luca,” she whispered on a sigh.

“I can see
that,” he said, allowing his gaze to sweep up and down her body,
and then staring pointedly at the junction of her thighs.

“Why have you
stopped?”

Her expression
was half-anxious, half-confused. Luca leaned over to place a slow
kiss to her lips, then drew back again.

“Are you still
worried now?”

It took a
minute for Riella to figure out what he was referring to. When she
did, she smiled and shook her head.

“I trust you,
Luca.”

Riella reached
one hand to twist the curls behind his ear in her fingers, then
pulled herself closer, until she could press her lips to his. Luca
helped her straddle him and forced her hips down onto the ridge in
his slacks. She gasped, and he took advantage of her parted lips.
He thrust his tongue in and out of her mouth in time with the push
of his hips.

When her
breathing became labored and erratic, he kissed slowly down her
neck and latched his lips onto one nipple, laving, sucking and
biting down on the pebbled tip. He kept one hand on her hip, though
she no longer needed his encouragement to ride him hard, and
brought his other hand up to torment her other nipple. Every couple
of minutes, he swapped to the other nipple, keeping them both damp
and erect.

Riella’s thighs
gripped him harder, and he could tell she was getting close. He let
go of her nipples, allowing the cool air to caress the moistened
tips as they swayed above him, and with one quick movement, he
grabbed her hips and brought her up above his mouth.

Before she
could grasp what had happened, he latched onto her clit and sucked
hard, once – and she began to quiver – twice – and she shook harder
while a high keening sound broke free from her lips – three times,
four, five… he lost count, and he didn’t relent until he’d drawn
out every ripple of her release, and she lay, panting, alongside
him.

“Hungry?” Luca asked,
stroking her hair.

Was she?
Riella’s senses were overloaded. Every minute, she discovered
something new about her husband. Right now, for example, she
thought he must be a sex god.

The day before,
he’d shown his playful side. Their afternoon in Florence had been
exciting and full of fun. He’d shown his kindness and consideration
over dinner at Orazio’s and then caring for her when a lesser man
would have run away and left her in the bathroom to cope by
herself.

In the morning,
she’d been moved by his love and thoughtfulness. Then, an hour
later, he’d transformed into this knight in shining armor, marching
fearlessly through enemy territory to save her. She sighed when she
realized quite how fortunate she’d been to have Luca on hand that
morning, watching over her.

Then, during
the drive over, he’d shown so much compassion. His ability to
empathize was amazing. He’d been perceptive and loving, and not at
all judgmental. She could see, now, how hard he’d worked at making
her comfortable, despite her stubbornness. The man was a saint and
definitely deserved a place in heaven for the way he’d handled her
dithering.