CHAPTER TWELVE
‘HOWDID I DO?’ Clara asked nervously as she slipped her shoes off in the entrance hall of their quarters.
Marcelo removed his jacket and bow tie, taking in the flush of colour heightening her cheeks and the glow suffusing her. But there was uncertainty mingled in the happy glow.
He thought of her dancing with Alessia. The joy on her face as she’d flapped her arms and kicked her knees back and did that chicken thing with her neck, and encouraged Alessia to join in. How the whole dance floor had ended up joining in this spontaneous mad dance, the laughter on the dancers’ and watchers’ faces alike...with the exception of Amadeo. His brother had tried to hide it but he’d been angry at this lapse in decorum when there was a press corps in attendance.
He remembered too the flash of cold anger on his brother’s face when Clara blithely brought up her expulsion.
Clara had seen that flash too. He was certain of it. He’d seen the way her features had crumpled in consternation before she’d picked herself back up again, but only to hold herself even more rigidly.
Knowing it would devastate her to think she might have caused embarrassment when she’d been so determined to be on her best behaviour for them, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her to him. ‘To me, you’re perfect.’
It might not be an answer to the question she’d asked but it was a truth. And it was a truth that smoothed away the uncertainty and made her chest rise sharply. A dreamy smile lit her beautiful face as she clasped his hands and tugged him into the living room.
Skipping away from him, she put her bag on a table and pulled out her phone. A moment later, music filled the room.
It was one of the love songs she so loved to listen to.
Her eyes locked back on his and the dreamy smile returned. Stepping to him, she put a hand to his chest. ‘Dance with me.’
Putting his hands back to her hips, he slid them around her waist as her hands slid up his chest and around his neck.
Eyes locked together, they began to sway to the music.
The tune changed. Another love song came on. This one had a more sensuous vibe.
The dreamy smile had faded but its echoes rang vividly in her eyes. ‘This song makes me think of you,’ she whispered. Her thigh slipped between his.
Their lips brushed together. They continued to sway.
He untied the neck of her dress. Her hips continued to sway as he pulled the zipper down to her bottom. The dress swayed in time to the floor.
She arched her neck, inviting his kiss. And then he kissed the swell of her breasts before sliding a hand around her back to unclasp her strapless lacy bra. It was the red one he’d seen in its box when he’d still been foolish enough to think he could resist Clara’s erotic chemistry.
Her fingers skimmed over his throat to the top button of his shirt. When she’d finished unbuttoning them, she spread the shirt apart and pressed the tips of her naked breasts to his chest. Her breaths were slowing and becoming more ragged against his mouth. Desire saturated her stare.
Working simultaneously, still swaying, lips still brushing together, they undid Marcelo’s trousers and pushed them down with his remaining scraps of clothing. Clara’s knickers followed. Not breaking the connection between them, they stepped out of the discarded items. His erection jutted into her abdomen. She moaned.
He clasped her bottom and kissed her deeply. Passionately. She wound her arms around his neck and raised a thigh, rubbing herself against him.
Groaning, Marcelo lifted her into his arms and carried her to the nearest wall. Lithely, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held herself tightly to him.
Dio, he wanted so badly to be inside her, but there was a growing whisper in his head reminding him he needed to get protection...
As if she could read his thoughts, she dug her fingers into his skull and looked him deep in the eyes.
‘I want to feel everything,’ she whispered.
He stilled. Breathing heavily, he tried to read the desire-saturated eyes.
‘Make love to me, Marcelo. Be my husband for ever.’
As Clara uttered the words, a sense of rightness filled her that was as powerful as her hunger for Marcelo’s possession, and then he thrust into her and his naked possession was so all-consuming that her thoughts spilled away and all she could do was lose herself in this most glorious and heady of rides as he drove into her over and over, taking her to a peak that convulsed her entire body until he slammed into her one last time, roaring her name.
Marcelo thought he must have died and gone to heaven.
Clara was riding him. Her hands were on his shoulders, the tip of a breast in his mouth as he lavished it with the attention that always fed her arousal.