But it wasn’t over yet. She had barely floated down from the pinnacle when Vito was moving over her. Somehow he had divested himself of his clothes and he lifted her further up the bed, freeing her arms in the process.
He positioned himself above her, then without hesitation he plunged deep into her already quivering body.
A sound she didn’t recognise moaned from her lips, and she gave herself over once again to a miracle of extraordinary pleasure. She lifted her knees and tilted her hips, desperate to feel his hard flesh filling her to capacity. She clung onto him, his muscled shoulders bunching beneath her fingers as he rocked backwards and forwards.
Vito’s head dipped against her neck, and she could feel his breath coming in hot, harsh bursts in time with every powerful thrust. Her own breathing was also keeping time with his strong rhythm—high, panting moans that revealed just how lost she was on the rush of uninhibited passion that was storming her body.
Her inner muscles were clenching hard around him, sensation was bursting through her, and once again she felt herself tipping over the edge of utter, all-consuming pleasure.
‘Vito!’ She cried out his name, then she felt her breath catch in her throat and she was sobbing, saying his name over and over again.
Her head was th
rown back against the pillow and her eyes were squeezed shut, but tears were flowing freely down her face as her body trembled in the throes of another orgasm that seemed to go on for ever.
Then suddenly she heard a shout as Vito came to his climax. He reared up above her, his body stopping still for a long moment. Then he shuddered mightily as he reached his own release.
It took a long time for Lily to come back down to earth. She had never experienced anything so intense before, or responded so quickly and wildly to Vito’s love-making.
There’d been hardly any foreplay. She hadn’t needed it—or even wanted it. With just one touch she had been ready for him, bursting with desire, desperate for him to make her his again.
He was lying next to her quietly, and as she turned her head she saw he was looking at her. His blue eyes caught hers, and an instant shiver ran through her.
‘Was that too rough?’ he asked, rolling onto his side and placing his hand gently on her stomach.
Lily frowned, startled when she realised what he meant, and instinctively lifted herself up onto her elbows to look down at her own body. It was a surprise to see the ruin of her dress bunched up and crushed around her waist. It wasn’t doing anything to cover her and, in a strange sort of way, it made her naked breasts and the exposed apex at the top of her legs appear even more wanton.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Lily said. Her eyes were fixed on his large bronzed hand resting lightly on her small, neat bump. She couldn’t see his fingers properly as the crumpled dress was obscuring them, but she could feel the heat of his palm against her skin, and it was reawakening her sensual response to him.
‘Are you all right?’ Vito brought his gaze back up to her face, and he lifted his hand to brush her tear-stained cheek.
‘Yes,’ Lily said stiffly. She suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable in front of Vito. Of course he knew how powerfully she had responded to his love-making, and she was all too aware of how her body was already starting to sing again with renewed desire for him.
‘You never cried before,’ he said, smoothing her hair back from her damp face.
She stared at him with wide eyes, suddenly realising a momentous truth. She had tried to shut her heart to him—but her body had always remained true to her deeper feelings. It had opened to him, yearned to be one with him.
Because she loved him.
Despite everything, she had never stopped loving him. And if she didn’t do something to hide it from him Vito would soon realise the humiliating truth as well.
‘Maybe I missed sex,’ she quipped, trying to keep her voice as light as her words. ‘Or maybe it’s pregnancy. They say pregnancy makes you hot.’
Her flippant response was out of character, and she tensed up inside, waiting to see if Vito would challenge her. But how well could he really know her, if he still believed she had been unfaithful to him?
‘You were always hot.’ In a flash he was kneeling over her, taking hold of her crushed dress and pulling it down over her hips. ‘That’s better—this is how I like you best. Totally naked, apart from your glorious curly hair.’
‘I thought you liked it straightened.’ Lily forced herself to reply even though she was crying inside. All he saw was a naked woman to share his bed. All she saw was the man who would never return her love. ‘I always straightened it for you.’
‘Why?’ Vito asked. He rolled onto his back and lifted her astride him so that her long, loose hair tumbled down over her shoulders and pooled on his broad chest. ‘What made you think that?’
‘Something you said—a compliment you paid me,’ Lily replied, remembering one of their early dates when, despite his reluctance to behave like a tourist in his own city, he had taken her on a gondola. He had pulled her into his arms and run his hands through her hair, saying it was as smooth as spun gold and looked like a liquid sunrise reflected in the lagoon on a glorious winter dawn.
‘I don’t remember.’ Vito’s dismissive words cut into her like a knife. She had made a habit of straightening her hair based on cherished words of flattery he had spoken to her. But it had all been meaningless to him. ‘This is how I like it now,’ he continued. ‘Wild and wanton, like you.’
Lily looked down, letting her hair fall forward to shield her expression.
She’d just realised the most monumental fact—she loved Vito. And yet at every turn she saw again and again just how little she meant to him.