Untouched Until Marriage (9 page)

Perhaps she should tell him the truth? Her steps slowed and she gnawed on her bottom lip. Wouldn't honesty be the best policy now that she and Raul were married? Surely he would understand why she had pretended to be Gino's mother if she explained her fears that he might be taken away from her?

But what if Raul
didn't
understand? What if he was so angry at her deception that he had their marriage annulled, claimed custody of Gino, and banished her from the Villa Giulietta? The gamble was too great, she decided. She was not prepared to risk losing Gino, and so her secret must remain. Tonight she must play the part of sensual seductress and convince Raul that she was sexually experienced.

She pushed open the bedroom door. The bedside lamps had been switched on and the crisp white sheets turned back, but the room was empty. Grateful for the reprieve, she stepped out onto the balcony and took a shaky breath of the scented night air. The velvet darkness pressed around her, with stars shimmering like diamonds in the inky sky and the moon casting its silver gleam across the black waters of the lake.

‘To me, this is the most beautiful view on earth.' Raul's deep voice broke the silence, and Libby stiffened when he came up behind her and slid his arms around
her waist, drawing her against his chest so that she was conscious of the warmth of his body and the steady thud of his heart.

‘The…the lake is especially lovely in the moonlight,' she agreed, her own heart thumping so hard that her voice emerged as a whisper of sound.

‘I was not referring to the lake,
cara
.'

Hot, pulsing need coiled in Raul's gut as he pushed Libby's fiery curls aside and pressed his mouth to her slender white neck. He had wanted her the moment he had set eyes on her, and even the shocking discovery that she had been Pietro's mistress had not lessened his desire. He refused to dwell on the image in his head of her and Pietro together. She was his wife now, and he would make her forget all her previous lovers, he vowed fiercely, feeling the tremor that ran through her when he slid the zip of her dress down her spine.

Libby could hear the blood pounding in her ears, and trepidation and a fierce excitement corkscrewed through her when Raul pushed her dress over her shoulders and drew it lower and lower, until he had bared her breasts. She swallowed when he cupped each soft mound in his palms, and could not restrain a little gasp as he took her nipples between his fingers and tugged gently, so that they swelled and hardened into tight, aching peaks.

‘Please…' The pleasure was indescribable. Arrows of sensation shot from her breasts to her pelvis and molten heat flooded between her legs, her arousal so swift and so shockingly intense that her nervousness was swept away by a tidal wave of need for him to touch her where she ached to be touched.

‘You are so responsive,
cara
, and your eagerness is such a turn on,' Raul said thickly as he spun her round
and lowered his head to capture her mouth in a hot, hungry kiss, sliding his tongue between her lips and exploring her with such erotic skill that Libby's legs buckled and she clung to his shoulders for support. ‘I will please you; do not doubt it. I have never wanted any woman the way I want you,' he admitted harshly. ‘The chemistry between us is too powerful to deny any longer.'

He swept her up into his arms and in a few strides had carried her from the balcony to the bed, scorching desire in his eyes as he dropped her onto the mattress and quickly removed her dress and shoes. His hand rested lightly on her stomach, and Libby caught her breath when he trailed his fingers down and hooked them in the waistband of her knickers. This was the first time any man had seen her naked, and she suddenly felt acutely vulnerable, her nervousness flooding back when she faced the fact that she was about to give her virginity to a man who believed she was sexually experienced. She had convinced herself that she could hide her innocence, but as he drew her knickers down her legs she instinctively tried to cover herself with her hands, her heart beating like a trapped bird in her chest.

Raul laughed softly. ‘I see your red hair is natural,' he murmured. ‘Don't hide yourself from me. Open your legs,
cara
. I want to look at you as I touch you. Do you enjoy oral sex?'

He watched her cheeks flood with colour, and was puzzled by the shocked expression in her eyes. She responded with such wild fervour when he kissed her that he had expected her to be impatient for sex. Instead she suddenly seemed shy and uncertain, and he was frustrated that she had made no attempt to touch
him
.

‘I…I don't know,' she stammered in a panicky voice.

‘Really? You've never…?' He couldn't hide his surprise—but nor could he deny a feeling of satisfaction that he would give her an experience she had never enjoyed with any of her previous lovers. ‘Oh,
cara mia
, we must do something about that.'

Libby jerked as if she had been stung when Raul slipped his hand between her thighs. He frowned, and she forced herself to relax so that he would not guess that this was all new to her. Heart hammering, she spread her legs a little, and bit her lip when he pushed them further apart and ran his finger up and down the outer lips of her vagina in a butterfly caress that sent a quiver of pleasure through her. Heat unfurled inside her and built in intensity until she felt the wetness of her arousal flood between her legs. Nothing had prepared her for the exquisite delight of him gently parting her and sliding his finger a little way into her, and she moaned softly when he brushed his thumb pad lightly over the sensitive nub of her clitoris.

It was good—better than good—amazing. Her limbs felt heavy, and she put up no resistance when he pushed her legs wider apart. She sank deeper into the mattress and closed her eyes, so that she could focus on the new and wondrous sensations that Raul was creating with his deft fingers.

The feel of his warm breath fanning the tight cluster of curls at the junction of her thighs caused her lashes to fly open. Surely he wasn't really going to…?

She made a choked sound when he buried his head between her legs and replaced his finger with his tongue. ‘No!' Mortified by the shocking intimacy of what he
was doing, she caught hold of his hair and tried to pull his head up, but the sensual probing of his tongue was so amazingly good that her resistance melted away and she arched her hips, offering herself up to him and giving little yelps of incredulous pleasure.

A desperate yearning was building deep in herpelvis—a hot, achy feeling that she knew instinctively only Raul could assuage. Far from wanting him to stop, she was now frantic for him to continue his erotic caresses, and she muttered her protest when he moved and the heat of his mouth was replaced with cool air on her thighs.

‘I know; I'm as hungry as you,' Raul growled as he stood up and began to strip out of his clothes.

He would have liked Libby to undress him, but he was so turned-on that it was doubtful he could have withstood her stroking her hands over his body. His trousers joined his shirt on the floor, and he saw her stare at the burgeoning length of his arousal straining beneath his boxers. He did not know why she felt it necessary to maintain the act of
ingénue
after she had responded with such eager enthusiasm to his foreplay. It was likely she'd had dozens of lovers. But he was hardly a saint himself, and he did not want to bed a timid virgin.

It was time he showed her what he
did
want, he decided, amused at the way her eyes widened with apparent shock when he stepped out of his boxers. His massive erection was not surprising when he was about to turn the fantasy of making love to her into reality, but he was burning up with frustration, and this first time was not going to be a leisurely sex session, he already knew. Desire jack-knifed through him as he nudged her legs wider apart and positioned himself over her.

Libby had watched, dry-mouthed, as Raul had undressed, blown away by the masculine beauty of his muscular chest with its covering of fine dark hairs that arrowed down over his abdomen. But when he had stripped off his boxers admiration had turned to astonishment at the awesome size of his arousal. There was no way she was going to be able to take him inside her, she thought fearfully.

Her heart jerked painfully beneath her ribs when he came down on top of her. The feel of his hard body pressing into the softness of hers was alien and frankly terrifying, and a strong instinct for self-protection caused her to tense beneath him. Panic-stricken, she brought her hands up to his chest to push him off her, but he laughed softly as he caught hold of her wrists and forced them above her head.

‘I apologise if you find the missionary position boring,
cara
,' he muttered hoarsely, ‘but I'm so hungry for you that I'm in danger of coming right now. We have all night to experiment,' he promised.

His words sounded more like a threat to Libby, but as she twisted and squirmed urgently beneath him Raul lowered his head to her breast and drew her nipple into his mouth, sucking and tugging on the taut peak so that sharp arrows of pleasure shot down to her pelvis. ‘I love your impatience,' he groaned, mistaking the frantic bucking of her hips as an invitation.

Libby caught her breath when he moved his hand down and unerringly found the slick wetness of her womanhood. The feel of him touching her there, rubbing his thumb over her clitoris, drowned her fears in a swirling mass of sensations. He was driving her towards some magical place she could sense but could not reach,
and she felt excitement rather than fear when he withdrew his finger and rubbed the tip of his thick, swollen penis against her.

He eased slowly into her and she let out a shaky sigh of relief. It was all right. It didn't hurt. The feeling of being stretched was strange but not unpleasant, and she relaxed, reassured that he would never know it was her first time. He lifted his mouth from her breast and stared into her eyes, the sinews in his powerful shoulders standing out as he supported his weight and remained poised above her.

‘It has to be now,' he said harshly, and gripped her hips to hold her still as he drove into her with a powerful thrust.

His groan of pleasure was cut short when she gave a sharp cry of pain.

Raul stilled, paralysed with shock.
Dio!
It was impossible! He must have imagined the sensation of pushing through a fragile barrier. But she felt so tight around him. Heart pumping as if he had run a marathon, he drew back a fraction, stunned and uncomprehending when he saw that Libby was holding her knuckles against her mouth. Her eyes were dilated with shock. But she could
not
be a virgin, his brain pointed out, the idea was inconceivable.

He moved to withdraw from her, but her vaginal muscles gripped him in a velvet embrace. His blood was pounding through his veins, hot and insistent, and his desire was a pagan, primitive urge that was beyond his power to control. He gritted his teeth, the cords on his neck standing out with the effort of trying to fight it. But he could not hold back—could not prevent himself from sinking deeper into her hot, tight embrace. He
let out a savage groan as the tidal wave overwhelmed him and he pumped his seed into her in a spectacular release that racked his body with exquisite aftershocks of pleasure.

L
IBBY
lay beneath Raul, frozen with shock. Her limbs trembled uncontrollably as reaction set in and she felt horribly sick. She pushed frantically against his chest, desperate for him to release her so that she could escape to the bathroom. His body was heavy on hers, his breathing fast and ragged. He rolled off her and snatched oxygen into his lungs. She could sense his stunned disbelief, and when he turned his head his eyes were as dark and fathomless as the lake on a moonless night.

‘What the hell—?' He swore savagely in his native tongue.

Libby could not understand the words, but his meaning was clear. Undoubtedly he wanted an explanation, but she was in no fit state for a post-mortem, and as he reached out to capture her wrist she dived off the bed.

There was blood on the sheet. He stared at the small betraying patch, and then speared her with a savage glance. With a gasp Libby raced into the
en suite
bathroom, flung the door shut and locked it before she staggered over to the toilet and threw up.

Oh, God, what had she done? Even if she hadn't cried out like that when Raul had surged into her, the bloodstained sheet was tangible evidence that she had never given birth to a child.

She hadn't expected it to hurt so much. But, more than that, she thought numbly, she hadn't expected that giving her virginity to Raul would be such an intensely emotional experience. Libby sank weakly against the wall and buried her face in her hands. At the moment when Raul had joined their bodies as one it had hit her with the force of a lightning bolt that she wanted him to love her—as she loved him.

The words went round and round in her head.
She had fallen in love with him.
She couldn't say when exactly it had happened, but she had been drawn to him from the very start, she acknowledged wearily.

Oh, she'd fought him and stood up to him, and told herself she hated his arrogance and didn't care that he despised her for being, as he thought, his father's gold-digger mistress. But beneath her bravado, and despite the huge differences in their upbringing and lifestyles, she had been unable to dismiss the feeling that he was her soul-mate, and that they were somehow linked together by a higher force.

It had not only been his obvious affection for Gino that had prompted her to accept his marriage proposal. Yes, she had wanted him to adopt Gino, so that the little boy would have a father, but the truth was she had hoped that, in the tradition of the best fairytales, Raul would suddenly realise that she was the love of his life.

But when he had thrust into her so forcefully the pain in her heart had been a thousand times worse than the burning sensation caused when he had ripped the
delicate membrane of her virginity. She had longed for him to whisper tender words of reassurance, but of course he hadn't. For Raul it had just been sex—and now, thanks to her stupid, melodramatic behaviour, he knew that she wasn't Gino's mother.

She flinched at the sound of hammering on the door and remained sitting on the cold marble floor, hugging her knees to her chest in an instinctively protective gesture. ‘
Libby!
Open this damn door before I break it down.'

When she made no response Raul pounded on the door again until it rattled in its frame. She did not only have to worry about him smashing through the wood, but waking the whole house up. And she could not stay locked in the bathroom for ever. Taking a shaky breath, she forced herself to her feet and wrapped a towel around her shivering body. Her nipples looked starkly pink against her white breasts. They felt ultra-sensitive after Raul had lashed them with his tongue, and she was still conscious of a faint stinging sensation down below, but neither was as painful as the uneven thud of her heart as she unlocked the door.

He had pulled on his trousers but his chest was bare, and Libby felt a ridiculous urge to press her cheek against the whorls of dark hair that covered his gleaming golden skin, and listen to the steady thud of his heart.

Raul was glaring at her as if he would like to throttle her. ‘Who is Gino's mother?' he thundered.

She bit her lip and tasted blood. ‘Elizabeth Maynard.'

‘Don't lie to me!' He fired the words at her like bullets from a gun, his eyes blazing. ‘I saw your passport.
You
are Elizabeth Maynard—a very virginal Elizabeth Maynard. Or at least you were until five minutes ago,' he growled harshly. ‘You stupid little fool. Why didn't you tell me it was your first time? I would have—' He broke off and raked his hand through his hair, still barely able to comprehend what he had discovered far too late.

In his mind he heard again the thin animal cry of pain she had emitted when he had taken her, and guilt surged through him that he hadn't stopped. His body had betrayed him, he acknowledged bitterly. So greedy for the satisfaction it craved that instead of withdrawing from her he had thrust deeper and to his astonishment come instantly. It had never happened to him before. He prided himself on being a generous lover, and he had never before taken his pleasure with such selfish disregard for his partner. But then he did not make a habit of deflowering virgins, he thought grimly. He felt ashamed and somehow unmanned, and he buried both emotions beneath a torrent of anger.

‘I would have taken more care,' he gritted as he stared at her chalk-white face which contrasted so starkly with her golden freckles.

Her eyes seemed too big for her face, and the betraying quiver of her lower lip evoked a curious pain in his chest—like a hand squeezing his heart. His jaw tightened and he dismissed the urge to pull her into his arms. ‘Who
are
you?' he demanded savagely. ‘I
am
Elizabeth Maynard.' Libby took a deep breath. ‘And so was my mother. Mum met your father on the cruise ship and they had an affair. Gino is my half-brother,' she revealed quietly.

‘
Your mother
was Pietro's mistress!' Raul swore again, unable to control the emotions storming through him. ‘Then where the hell
is
she? Why did you go through the charade of pretending that Gino is your son?'

Libby's grief was still raw, and now it pierced her like an arrow through the heart. ‘She's dead,' she said thickly, forcing the words past the constriction in her throat.

Raul stared sharply at Libby's white face, and despite his fury something stirred inside him when he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. ‘I'm sorry,' he said tightly. ‘Were the two of you close?'

‘We were more like sisters,' she whispered. ‘I miss her every day. For my whole childhood it was just me and Mum, you see. I have no idea who my father is because she didn't like to talk about him. All I know is that he broke her heart. He was married, but Mum hadn't known about his wife. When she told him she was pregnant with me he offered to pay for an abortion.'

She let out a shaky breath. ‘Mum couldn't believe it when she found out she was pregnant with Pietro's baby, and when it seemed that he wanted nothing to do with her she felt that history was repeating itself and she had been abandoned by a lover again. But she adored Gino, and she was determined to give him the best childhood she could. That's why she decided to move to Cornwall; she thought it would be a better environment for him than the rough area of London where we lived.

‘Then Mum collapsed suddenly and died from a blood clot on her lung,' Libby explained huskily. ‘She hadn't made a will, and because she hadn't stipulated that I should have custody of Gino I was scared Social
Services would take him.' She darted a glance at Raul's face, but his expression was unreadable. She continued in a rush. ‘So I pretended that he was my baby. I love him,' she whispered brokenly. ‘He's all I've got—my only link with Mum—and he belongs with me. I know I should have told you the truth…'

‘
Per Dio!
You say that now,' Raul flung at her bitterly. ‘You lied to me and deceived me…'

‘I had to.'
Libby stared at him desperately, willing him to understand. ‘Pietro stated in his will that he wished for Gino and his mother to live here at the Villa Giulietta. I was afraid that if you knew I wasn't his mother you would fight for custody of him and take him from me—and I couldn't bear that.' Her voice trembled and she forced back the tears that burned her throat, wishing that Raul would stop looking at her with such bitter fury in his eyes. ‘You said that Gino needs both of us,' she reminded him huskily. ‘That's still true. Liz—my mum—died when he was only a few months old, and I am the only mother he has ever known.'

‘But you are
not
his mother,' Raul bit out savagely. Anger burned in his gut. He could not bear to look at Libby now that he knew she was a calculating liar—just as Dana had been.

He jerked away from her and strode across the bedroom and out onto the balcony. He did not know what to say, what to think. Learning that his adoptive father had had a child had been the biggest shock of his life, or so he had thought. But the discovery that the woman he had believed was Gino's mother was a virgin was so astounding that he was still struggling to accept the truth.

One thought stood out from the mass of emotions swirling in his head, and black rage choked him. It had not been necessary for him to marry her. Libby was not Gino's mother, which meant she had never been entitled to control the fifty percent share of Carducci Cosmetics that Pietro had left in trust for his baby son. If it had been known that Gino's mother was dead, control of the baby's shares would automatically have passed to
him
, Raul thought furiously, and he would not have needed to make Libby his wife in order to take full control of the company.

He sensed her behind him, and jerked his head round to find that she had joined him on the balcony. She had exchanged the towel for her robe. Not the elegant grey silk robe he had bought her, he noted, but the pink fluffy dressing gown she had brought with her from England that make her resemble a marshmallow. Her fiery curls tumbled around her shoulders and Raul thought how young she looked, and how innocent. But she was not quite so innocent now, he brooded grimly, remembering again her cry of pain when he had taken her virginity. For a moment his anger was overshadowed by guilt at the brutal way he had made love to her.

‘You should have told me the truth,' he said tautly.

‘If I had, you would have taken Gino from me. Wouldn't you?' Libby accused him shakily.

‘Of course I damn well would.' He could not deny it. He would have claimed custody of his father's son and become sole chairman of CC until Gino was eighteen without the need for this farcical marriage. ‘The hovel you lived in was no place to bring up a child. And what sort of upbringing would he have had with a lap-dancer?'

‘I was
not
a lap-dancer—that was my mother,' Libby admitted in a low tone. She saw the look of disdain in Raul's eyes and her temper flared. ‘Before you say another word, let me tell you something about Liz. It's true she worked in a grotty men's club, but she had no one to help her or support her, and she refused to live on benefits. I may not have had a conventional upbringing, but I never doubted that she loved me. She was heartbroken when Pietro didn't get in touch after the cruise. Not because she was after his money—she didn't even know he was head of Carducci Cosmetics when she met him—but because she really loved him, and he told her that he had fallen in love with her.'

Libby paused, her throat aching with tears. ‘The truth is your father abandoned my mother. But despite that she adored Gino. She would have devoted her life to him, but her life was cut cruelly short…and so I took her place,' she said thickly.

Raul glared at her in frustration. She sounded so damned plausible, but he refused to be taken in by her now he knew how she had deceived him.

‘Pietro suffered a stroke two days after he returned home from the cruise,' he said flatly. ‘It was the first indication that he had a brain tumour, and it left him paralysed down one side of his body and affected his ability to speak. He was the most honourable,
honest
man I have ever known, and if he told your mother that he loved her then I am certain it was true. But perhaps he felt that she would be better off without him,' he said quietly. ‘He did not know then that she was carrying his child, and he was ill and disabled. I'm sure he believed
it was fairer to allow your mother to keep her memories of the happy time they had spent together rather than see him as a sick and dying man.'

Libby gripped the balcony rail and willed the tears that blurred her vision not to fall. She did not want to break down in front of Raul. ‘It's a terrible tragedy that Gino lost both his parents without ever knowing them. Mum loved your father, and I know she would have cared for him during his illness,' she said thickly. ‘She was a very caring person.'

The raw emotion in her voice caused a curious ache in Raul's chest, but he hardened his heart against her. She had proved that he could not trust her, and he reminded himself that her motives for pretending to be Gino's mother were questionable.

‘What about you, Libby? Are you also a
caring person
?' he queried sardonically. ‘Is that really the only reason you kept up the charade that Gino was your child?'

‘Of course it is.' She stared at him in confusion. ‘What other reason could there have been?'

Raul shrugged. His face looked as though it had been carved from marble: so beautiful, but so cold and hard. She wondered what had happened to the man who had smiled at her with such warmth when they had made their wedding vows, and whether he had been a figment of her imagination.

‘I think you decided to fool me into believing you were Gino's mother because you knew you would be able to live a life of luxury at the Villa Giulietta. You used Gino as your meal-ticket.'