Her mouth suddenly went dry. “You—”
“You have no idea how hard it’s been not to touch you.” Reaching out, he slowly stroked down her neck, then leaned forward and whispered, “I’ve yearned to have you in my bed. Every night. I’ve thought of nothing else—but you.”
Sparks flew up and down her body everywhere he touched.
“But I was trying to do the right thing for once in my damned life,” he ground out. “In sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer. I was trying to do the right thing for our son. But the truth is all I’ve been able to think about, every single night, is having you naked beneath me.”
Emma couldn’t breathe.
Cesare’s gaze dropped to her lips. “And this is my reward for my sacrifice. You mean nothing more to me now than the housekeeper you were. You think—”
His voice ended with a growl as he ripped her into his arms. Holding her against his chest in the moonlight, he lowered his head, then stopped, his mouth an inch from hers.
Emma trembled at the warmth of his breath. She could almost taste his lips. Electricity seared through her veins.
“Please,” she whispered, hardly knowing what she was asking for. She licked her lips, felt her tongue almost brush against his skin. She shuddered with blinding need, from her body to her heart. He doesn’t love me. His heart is buried with his wife. “Lust,” she breathed aloud, staring at his lips. “It’s just lust.”
She heard his harsh intake of breath. In sudden movement, he pushed her against the wall, and lowered his mouth to hers in a savage, hungry kiss.
Sparks sizzled down her skin as she felt his body, hard against hers. His hand roamed down her neck, ruthlessly reaching beneath the neckline of her blouse, to cup her breast beneath her bra. She gasped as she felt his hand brush her aching nipple. As her lips parted in the gasp, he deepened the kiss, twining and flicking his tongue against hers. He took her mouth roughly, in a way that left no doubt who was master.
A soft moan came unbidden from deep inside her. Her arms rose of their own accord to wrap around his shoulders. His tall, muscular body pressed against hers, hip to hip, and she felt lost in his passionate embrace. She clutched his back, feeling the steel of his muscles beneath his shirt. His hips swayed, grinding against her.
Cesare kissed her, his tongue twisting hot and hard in her mouth, tangling, giving and taking. And Emma knew that whatever her brain told her she should want, that in her body and heart she’d wanted this, only this, for the past year. For years before that.
The truth was that she’d waited for it all her life.
But this wasn’t just lust for her. No matter how she’d tried to convince him otherwise. The truth was trembling inside her. I love you. I never stopped loving you.
Her hands reached up, tangling in his short black hair. She pulled him closer, clutching his shoulders, lifting on her tiptoes to kiss him with all the anguished love in her heart. He gripped her hard against the rough stone wall.
They kissed on the balcony, with the moonswept lake at their feet, and if a cool October wind blew against Emma’s overheated skin, she no longer felt it. Cesare’s hands moved over her body, sliding down her thin blouse, up her arms. Her breasts were crushed against his hard chest, and every inch of her was on fire.
His kiss possessed her with an intensity and force she’d never felt before. It was as if she alone could save him from destruction, as if he were taking her very breath to live.
When he drew back, he looked down at her, his eyes wide. Tilting back her head, he gently ran his thumbs over her full, swollen lips.
“Tell me to stop,” he said with a shuddering breath. “For God’s sake. Tell me now...”
But she couldn’t. She could no more tell him to stop than she could tell herself to stop breathing, or the stars to stop shining. She loved him, and for one more night, the pathetic truth was that she was willing to do anything, pay any price.
With a low groan, he lifted her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all and carried her through the balcony door into his bedroom. He set her down gently on the enormous bed.
Still dressed, he covered her body with his own, pressing her back against the softness of the white pillows and thick white comforter as he kissed her. She felt the roughness of his chin against her skin, felt the heat and strength of his body. His hands trailed down her throat, to the hollow of her collarbone, then along the sides of her body, over her blouse. Her breasts felt full and heavy, her nipples tight.
She felt him unbuttoning her blouse. Never breaking their kiss, he slowly pulled it off her body, in a whisper of fabric skimming against her skin. Her hands trembled as she did the same with his black shirt, overwhelmed with desire to feel his heat. Her fingertips ran down the muscles of his back, and she tossed his shirt to the floor.
Looking up at him in the moonlight, she saw the stark shadows beneath the lines of his hard chest, the trail of dark hair down his taut belly. Her fingers traced down his velvety-smooth skin, over the powerful muscles of his body.
With a low growl, he kissed and stroked down her skin, nibbling her chin, down her neck to the valley between her breasts. Undoing the front clasp of the bra with a well-practiced movement, he cupped her full breasts with his large hands. She shivered at the sensation, but he continued down her body, flicking his tongue in her belly button, grasping her hips. Unbuttoning her jeans, he slowly pulled them down her legs, along with her panties, before tossing them to the floor.
She felt his shoulders between her bare legs, the heat of his breath on the sensitive, tender skin between her thighs. She gripped his shoulders in agonizing anticipation, then felt his tongue slide between her legs to her deepest, most secret place. He brushed his tongue against her, pushing two fingertips inside her—slowly, so slowly—until her body was so tight that she gripped his shoulders, holding her breath.
“Wait...” she gasped.
He refused to obey. He ruthlessly pushed her to the limit, and beyond, until with a soft scream she exploded beneath the unrelenting pleasure of his tongue between her legs. The moment she cried out, gripping her fingernails into his flesh, he ripped off the rest of his clothes. He shoved himself roughly inside her, ramming to the hilt in a single deep thrust.
The sensation of him filling her, just seconds after her ecstasy, caused a shocking new wave of pleasure to build inside her. He thrust again, and she gasped with the sensation of a new wave of desire, taking off from the level it had been a moment before, climbing higher and higher, tighter and tighter. She began to rock back and forth, trembling with almost unbearable pleasure.
He rode her harder, faster, panting for breath, as their sweaty bodies clung together in the dark, hot night. A cool breeze whipped in from the Italian lake, banging back the balcony doors. But neither of them noticed as he was deep, pounding inside her, splitting her apart. She gasped, clutching his taut backside, feeling his muscles grow hard as stone beneath her hands. With a shuddering intake of breath, he slammed inside her one last time, and they both let go, flying, falling, collapsing into thin air.
Cesare landed on top of her, then, as if he feared he would hurt her with his weight, immediately rolled on one side of her. He pulled her against him on the bed, nuzzling her forehead, both of them so close, so close. Both of them the same.
Emma closed her eyes. She suddenly felt like weeping.
A moment before, all she’d wanted was this, only this. But now, she’d barely had what she wanted and already wanted more. Not just sex. She was greedy beyond all imagining. She wanted his love.
In this moment of glory, heartache filled her. She pulled away from him, moving into the shadows of the bed.
“What is it, cara?” he asked in a low voice, as his hand gently stroked her bare