Suddenly she was being lifted and they were moving. He stopped when she was against the cold metal wall of the vault. The fact that she could feel the chill on the backs of her thighs only registered in her periphery. He’d pulled her skirt up and left her bottom half exposed to his wandering hands, but she didn’t care.
AII she wanted was to feel his skin against hers. She scrabbled for the buttons on his shirt, undoing them with more haste than finesse. Her dress came off and they were flesh to flesh with her breasts nestled into the fine curls of hair on his chest.
‘I want you cfolcezza.”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t-his lips were pressed against hers with passionate intensity-but she wanted him too.
Then he was kissing her neck. ‘so sweet… ” And for no reason she could fathom those words words he had spoken so many times when they had made love before, woke other memories. Pain she had thought anesthetized for this brief span of time sliced through her annihilating her ardor and leaving her trembling with dark emotions not desire.
Her head fell back against the wall, her hands immobile against him.
‘l’m so sweet you thought I tried to land you with another man’s child.”
‘Do not think of this now.” He sounded desperate.
No doubt he was. Salvatore was more than a little oversexed and there was no denying he wanted her. Not with the bulge of his erection pressing so hard against her stomach.
‘I can’t stop thinking of it,” she whispered, her own despair trimming her voice to almost nothing.
His groan was primal man deprived of his mate.
‘Not now, Elisa. Let us speak of this later.”
‘We don’t have a later.”
He went completely still. The silence screamed between them. He stepped back letting her stand on her own and dropped his hands away from her.
‘you are wrong about this. We have a past. We have a present.” He emphasized each point with one hand slicing down toward the other. ‘And the future will see us together as weII.”
‘I won’t have another affair with you.” Even he had to have more sensitivity than that.
‘I want you for my wife.”
One year ago those words would have thrilled her to bits. Now they were more like backhanded blows than the declaration she had once longed for.
‘so only marriage will assuage your Sicilian guilt.” She shook her head hard enough to make her dizzy.
‘Forget it.”
He would have to find his personal absolution someplace else. It would not happen in marriage to her.
‘you wanted to marry me once.”
‘I didn’t-” His hand covered her mouth, the touch gentle despite the tension vibrating off of him.
‘Do not lie.
You wanted this, or you would not have told me about the baby, no?” A man deserves to know when he is going to become a father.”
‘And what did you expect?” His hand slid down to cup her neck. you expected me to do the honorable thing, to offer marriage. Why not? We were already lovers. Our families are close. What could be more natural?” Having him repeat all the beliefs that had once gone through her head added another subtle element to the mixture of sorrow inside of her.
‘That was then. This is now.”
He sighed and stooped down to retrieve her shift dress from the floor. ‘please, put this on.” His eyes went over her like two hands.
‘lf you do not we will b0th probably regret the consequences.”
She took the pile of rust-brown fabric with a trembling hand and then slipped it over her head.