Finally she placed her lips over his. Soft, firm, warm. The fires they had lit between them were always glowing, ready to flare into life.
‘I love these lips.’ She kissed him so softly. ‘The pleasure they have given me …’
She felt something inside her contract as she spoke. Waves of emotion rolled and more words formed in her throat. She choked them back and used her mouth to show him how she felt. Softly pressing their mouths together, carefully sculpting and moulding and shaping. The familiar blaze was already taking hold, but this time something bigger, higher, sweeter sang out through the fire.
‘Oh, Rocco …’ she said as the waves began to break.
He stood up in one smooth movement. She held on as he began to walk, as he repositioned her, cradled her and carried her forward. She held on to the thick column of his neck and pulled herself close as he walked slowly back to the bedroom.
He opened the door and carried her in, walked right over to the bed and laid her down as if she were a silken cloth. He moved over her and stared down at her. She stared back. Up at his face, still intense—always intense—but softer now.
‘You sweet, sweet girl,’ he said as he slowly unbuttoned the shirt she’d thrown on.
She sat up, threaded her hands through his hair and pulled him down to her. She kissed him. Over and over. That was all. Just kissed him. Feeling those lips that she’d come to cherish for the pleasure they gave. Kissing and holding and adoring him. Nursing him with her body. And her heart.
Those words welled up in her throat again. But she swallowed them down.
He touched her as if she was treasure, moved her carefully on the bed, began to stoke their sexual love with his mouth and his hands. She climbed higher and higher, beginning to lose track of where she ended and he began.
‘Frankie, carina …’
He eased her legs open with his thighs and slid inside her. Huge and thick, he filled her completely, perfectly. Inches from her face she felt his warm breath. She ran her hands over the rough stubble of his jaw, felt the enveloping power of his body around her.
She knew the crescendo was coming, but each honeyed beat of the prelude was immense. So perfectly, precisely slowly he eased himself in and out of her. Rocco … her wounded soldier … her love. The words choked her as she kissed him and he kissed her back, murmuring sounds about how he treasured her until she knew she could hold on no longer.
Never, ever had she known the depths of such feeling for another human as their lovemaking throbbed to its final conclusion and she broke like a concerto of strings all around him and cried out the blissful joy from her heart.
He collapsed onto her, crushing her, winding her in the most perfect way possible. His hair-roughened limbs and stubbled jaw were her satin sheets. Their breath and sweat mingled. Light from the neglected hall doorway seeped into the room and soothed the night’s edges with silvery strokes.
And together they lay, weary, slipping into slumbers and dreams, knowing that they’d crossed some giant divide and there was no longer any way back.
A WHISKEY HEADACHE was about the last thing Rocco needed as he prowled through the house, drinking water and rewinding the events of the previous night.
What the hell had he been thinking? Did he have a body double? What had gotten into him?
The party. And for the first time he could remember wanting to leave the Turlington Club early. Hell, he’d even had to be persuaded to attend in the first place. It had all looked the same—the crowd had been the same, the sponsors had laid on the usual fantastic spread. The only thing that had been different was his head. And Frankie. And those two things were probably connected.
Carmel … Trying so hard to eclipse Frankie and having it backfire so spectacularly. If anything had made him realise how much of a sham his relationship with her had been it had been seeing her beside Frankie, seeing how much of a contrast they were.
Carmel was all about Carmel. She never gave a damn about anyone else. He’d was only ever been there because he’d given her social credit—not because she’d actually loved him … He should have seen through that right at the start instead of being captivated by her body. A body that left him completely cold now. Now his ‘type’ ran to a whole different set of vitals.
He took another glug of desperately needed water. Dehydrated on top of everything else.
Dante and the news that there was no news. How the hell all this had ended in another blind alley, he still couldn’t figure. As soon as Dante got here he’d go through the whole trail piece by piece.
He rubbed at his jaw, rasped his fingers through the stubble. He really needed to shave—he’d probably removed another layer of Frankie’s skin this morning.
Frankie. Most of all Frankie. Was he losing control? He was still furious with himself for taking her so fast and hard, hurting her in his selfish need to bury his anger. He’d known he was being rough. They did ‘rough’ really well. But he’d pushed the limits, and ‘rough’ definitely didn’t mean drawing blood.
And even after that she’d still come to find him. And he had stupidly told her all about Lodo. He felt like knocking his head off the wall to see if there were still any brains in there. When had he ever, ever opened up to anyone about his brother? It had taken his therapists five years to get him even to say his name, and he had blurted the whole thing out to her in one night!
What kind of crazy was going on with him just now? And how was he going to get back from where they’d ended up last night? Sex that had been tender, beautiful. The best tender and beautiful sex he’d ever had. The only tender and beautiful sex he’d ever had.
Dammit again. What was happening? He knew things had changed now. Not permanently—but she was a woman. She’d have expectations. Women always had expectations. And he’d paved the way for that.
Why was sex such a comfort in his life right now? Couldn’t he just rein in his emotions as he had every other time and use sport? Boxing had sorted him out in his early teens, and polo had been his salvation right up until she’d walked back into his life.
He really had to get some kind of normal back in place. This just wasn’t him. Using a woman to help him sift through all the debris in his head showed a lack of judgement.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her to keep the story about Lodo to himself—he did, of course he did. It was just that keeping things tight had worked so well up to now. The closed ranks of himself and Dante were perfect. There was no judging, no explaining. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it. Women were always talking about it.
He reached the TV room and saw the whiskey bottle. At least half of it gone. And it hadn’t even served its purpose, because he’d sunk it and still blabbed when she’d come in—when she’d wheedled it out of him.
He shook his head as he lifted the bottle and carried it back to join the others on the bar. It would be a long time before he’d touch it again.
He looked at the couch, saw the photo. Staring at it, he saw an image of them sitting together. She hadn’t wheedled it out of him. She’d been great. She’d done exactly what he would have done if he’d seen her sitting in a mood like that. Exactly what he had done when she’d gotten herself in such a state about the media.
He picked up Lodo’s picture. So he’d told her? He shook his head again. The only thing to do now was make the best of it.
He