But always, in her heart, Emma had carried the memory of her mother, sure, quite, quite sure that her mother would have given anything to be there with her.
Only she hadn’t, because she’d left her.
And now, lying in bed, she felt as if she was falling.
Anger for all the things she had missed out on was seething inside her.
And she lay in a strange country in a strange bed, with a playboy who didn’t deal in emotions when hers were exquisitely raw.
She actually felt sorry for him.
His hand was still patting her in a sort of there, there motion, this slight note of horror in his voice as he felt her shiver at the prospect of the grief she must hold in for now. Yet it was leaking from her eyes, from her breath, this scream inside that was building, the tension in her muscles where she wanted to just run…to curl up, to howl and to weep.
He turned her over to face him.
‘Emma, stop this!’
‘I can’t!’ It was like a panic attack, as if she was choking, tears shuddering inside her.
She was this contrary bundle in his arms, tense then pliant, sobbing but distant. He felt her push him away and then he felt her head on his chest, felt the dampness of tears then her furious withdrawal as she wrestled away. And he let her go but she came back and so he comforted her in the only way he knew how—he kissed her.
It infuriated her that this was his answer, enraged her so she almost pushed him out of bed and then wriggled away, appalled. Except it had helped. His mouth, his tongue had flicked her thoughts from pain to pleasure and then he’d stopped.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
But Emma wasn’t—the room was suddenly too small, the bed too small when her emotions were so big, and she couldn’t think, she just couldn’t stand to think, so she kissed him back hard. Pressed her red, angry face to his and kissed his mouth fiercely, forcing his lips apart with her tongue, because if he was so good, if this was where it was leading, then better it was now, better this playboy, right?
‘Hey.’ He pulled down her hands, that were clamped behind his head, and moved his head back.
‘Worried you’re being used?’ Emma jeered.
‘I’m not worried about me…’ He held her hands and stared into her eyes, and at that second he recognised himself, those nights when he climbed into a woman rather than explore his thoughts—that need for escape, for release. He had just never expected to see it in her—but it was there, and you had to know it to recognise it. ‘I’m worried you don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘I want this, Luca.’ Oh, yes, she did, she wanted comfort, she wanted him!
‘I don’t want you regretting it…’
‘I won’t.’ She held his eyes and made her promise. ‘I won’t regret it, Luca. I want this.’
And she did.
She wanted comfort and hell, she was twenty-five! Some time in the future, some time never, when she’d got over him, she could step out into the world of men knowing what it was like to make love with someone.
She wanted to know that so much.
And she wanted him.
All of him.
There was a fuzzy logic in her mind—she was going to lose him anyway so she wanted all of him now. She just had to hold onto her heart, that was all.
‘I want this,’ she repeated. Of that she was certain. ‘I know it’s not going anywhere, I know that’s not what you want from me…’
Luca stared down at her flushed face and glittering eyes and suddenly he wanted this too.
‘One moment.’ He stood to go to the bathroom, his condoms deliberately still unpacked in his toiletry bag, but she caught his arm.
‘I’m on the Pill.’
He cursed in Italian. ‘Emma…’ Her naivety worried— him. ‘It’s not just for pregnancy. You have to make sure he…’ It made him wince to think that there would ever be someone else making love to Emma, that he was somehow breaking her in for others to enjoy.
‘Do you?’ Only she wasn’t being naïve, she was bold. ‘Always wear one?’
‘Always.’ Luca swallowed, understanding her meaning—he— knew he was healthy and he knew she was too. She was offering him the golden key, yet he hesitated, this rare intimacy alien to him.
It was a tentative kiss, both holding onto their hearts, both refusing for a moment to melt into the sheer, utter bliss of each other.
‘We can get rid of these.’ Awkward for the first time in the bedroom, he unbuttoned her pyjama top and slid it over her shoulders, removing his own underwear and then sliding off her pyjama bottoms.
The sight of him naked did nothing to still her nerves. She had nothing with which to compare it, except the sealed section of a magazine, but she knew he was pretty spectacular.
‘Should we put a towel down or something?’ Emma asked, and Luca felt as clinical as a surgeon setting up to operate.
‘I’m scared,’ Emma admitted. ‘Nice scared, but…’
‘Me too.’ Luca grinned, staring down at his unusually less than responsive manhood, and then he laughed, because it was strange to be talking about it, sex, something that usually just, um, happened, and he realised that this had to be better than good—for her sake.
He turned to face her with a strange weight of responsibility on his shoulders, because he wanted this to be right for her. That last kiss had been awkward so he ran his finger along her cheek and then down her arm, and then he stared at the full breasts that had always entranced him, naked now for him to kiss. His hand cupped her lovely bottom and she could feel the wet warmth of his mouth, the tender suckling on her nipples, which made her stomach tighten, and it was a curious warm feeling as his mouth took her breast deeper.And she touched him, too—in awe of his unfurling length against her thigh. Nervous, curious, but brave, she reached down and touched him and Luca closed his eyes at her tender ministrations.
‘Is this right?’
He couldn’t speak so he nodded and he still couldn’t speak so he kissed her instead, not awkwardly this time, and this not a kiss like any he had known—this a tender, slow kiss that led to much more. His hand slid around the front from her bottom, to her most intimate place, where she was moist and warm. He stroked her there until he could hear her slight involuntary whimpers, and then slipped his fingers inside, stretching her slowly, sliding in and out till she was moaning in his arms.
For Emma it was heaven, everything she’d hoped for and nothing like she’d read about—no pain, just bliss, his hand working magic, his mouth back on her nipples now, and she could feel the scratch of hair on his thighs as he moved closer between her legs…
Suddenly there was a need for more contact and he read her thoughts because he pushed her with his body onto her back and he kissed her, not just with his mouth but with his skin, all of him pinning her to the bed, and for a while just the delicious, solid weight of him had her in ecstasy. Then he moved up on his elbows, her legs parting to accommodate him, and he was there at her entrance. She wasn’t scared any more, just ready.
She had never been more ready for something in her life.
He was staring down at her with surprising tenderness in his eyes, a gentleness that she had never seen. And she felt as if they were starting something, as if they were going somewhere together. It wasn’t just her body she had never trusted to another, but her mind too—and in that moment she let him in, she could feel the first slow, shallow thrusts, feel the stretch of her body as it tried to accommodate him, and the barrier of resistance,