She smiled, intensely pleased, and kept her lips pressed to where his heart slammed inside his chest while he made a gratified noise and caressed her arms and back and shoulders with shaking hands.
“I can’t believe you took me apart like that,” he scolded on a whisper that lilted with disbelief. He rolled away to twist his shorts down and off, using them to swipe the wetness from his belly and her hand before he tossed the garment from the bed.
Then he rolled so he hovered over her, not crushing, but close enough to be a heavy, damp, human quilt.
“I didn’t know how I was going to sleep against you, but I did not expect that, you erotic little witch. I meant to behave like a gentleman.” He kissed her, once briefly, then again, this time passionately and hungrily, as if they were only getting started.
Arousal spiked through her, stinging between her legs.
“Sandro, don’t,” she moaned, breaking away and wriggling beneath him with conflicted desire, wanting to make love, but saying, “I can’t.” It was just over a month and the doctor had said six weeks.
“Can’t take me inside you, but I can touch you the way you just have me.” In a well-practiced move, he crooked his knee to push her legs apart, then set the proprietary weight of his hand on her mound.
His hand closed into a fist, drawing the silk of her nightgown upward, bunching it to her waist. She sucked in a breath as tingles of anticipation burned, teased by the movement of his hand and the stroke of silk climbing her skin, baring her thighs.
“I didn’t mean to do that to you. It just happened,” she protested, shifting and trying to decide if she really wanted to fight him. He traced one fingertip along the edge of her undies, then in a delicate line down her center. She gasped and held her breath, pulsing, aching, literally throbbing for him to touch and satisfy her.
“Do you think I don’t know that when you’re that aggressive, you’re so aroused you barely need more than a kiss? Here. Just like you did to me, bella,” he coaxed with sultry command, sidling one fingertip beneath the narrow lace at her hip, pulling her panties askew just enough to expose her to his caress.
She held her breath as he took his time petting, parting, one fingertip gathering moisture and circling...
“Oh,” she breathed.
“Let go,” he whispered, covering her mouth with a tender kiss as he explored more intently.
She sobbed with pleasure, not realizing how aroused she was until she found release under the lightest of caresses, losing control in an abrupt shiver of pure ecstasy. Oh, she had missed this. So much, so much.
Their kiss continued with both of them making satisfied noises in their throats as he continued to caress her, soothing and bringing her down from the heights.
“Now sleep, before I eat you alive,” he insisted, replacing her undies and drawing her body tight against his. He was aroused again—still?—but only tucked her head under his chin. “You’re delicious, my adorable wife. I’d make love to you the rest of the night, if I could.”
She wanted to keep making love. By the end of their honeymoon, they’d been insatiable, sometimes spending all day in bed pleasuring each other to exhaustion.
Had she really believed she could leave him and never know this again?
For the first time in months, her heart felt full and her ache of scorn dissipated. Her lashes dampened with relief at being held this closely against him while the tingles of climax left her floating. She fell asleep feeling treasured and safe.
Then rose to feed Lorenzo early in the morning, coming back to their room to find Alessandro showered, shaved and dressed in a suit and tie.
Leaving.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“YOU’RE LEAVING?” SHE SNAPPED out of her sleepy state, forgetting about crawling back into their warm bed and rekindling that close feeling from last night, so angry, so betrayed, she could only stand there hugging her arms across this stupid, flimsy nightgown she’d let him lift last night.
“If you hold off reacting until—”
“Don’t tell me not to react! Failing to tell you how I felt left me stuck in London with the wrong baby! No, Sandro. Not fair,” she railed. “You’re treating me like a woman you picked up for the night, tearing out of here without even a promise to call.”
“I’m going downstairs,” he said through his teeth. “For breakfast. You don’t trust me at all, do you?” He was affronted, glaring as though he really expected better of her.
So maybe she was going zero to sixty and should slow down. “You’re not going into the city?”
His gaze shuttered and he tugged the cuff of his suit coat. “Not until later.”