‘Forget it,’ Jo told him, running her fingers through his black tousled hair as she sat up, determined not to be uncomfortable with her nakedness.
Gianni moulded a hand to a small pouting breast and pressed her flat again, an intent look narrowing his dark golden eyes. He let his mouth roam across her breasts and caught a pert pink nipple between his lips, pausing to suckle and savour the responsive bud, smiling as tiny sounds of appreciation escaped her parted lips. Tugging at the other swollen peak, he shifted his attention there, revelling in every sound he could wrench from her. He toyed and teased while her movements grew ever more frantic until the tiny little shudders racking her slender body strengthened and finally coalesced into a gasping cry of surprise and pleasure.
Rocked by that climax, Jo stared up at him, her eyes sliding shut as he claimed her mouth in a hungry, driving kiss, and the tightness at the heart of her increased. She wanted more, she registered, she wanted more so much that her fingernails dug into the smooth skin of his back. For the first time, impatience was claiming her and she knew why he was taking his time and that it was for her benefit, rather than his own, but she was still tempted to urge him on.
Gianni traced a line with his mouth from her breasts down over her stomach and lower. When she froze, he kept going, ignoring the fingers flexing taut in his hair.
‘I want you,cara. I want every bit of you that you are willing to share,’ he growled.
Jo swallowed hard and rested back. He stroked the fluted pink lips between her thighs and she shifted, struggling not to jerk, a little quiver of powerful awareness running through her. He lowered his head and flicked his tongue across her clitoris and in seconds, as that electric sensation engulfed her to send a glittering arrow of heat into her pelvis, she was lost. The ache between her legs built and built, tightening muscles she had not known she had and increasing a sensitivity that heightened by his every caress. He slid a finger into her hot, wet sheath and then another, scissoring them to ready her for him and she quivered as the excitement surged up and overflowed, sending her careening into another climax.
Gianni slid over her and she felt him hot and hard against her warm, damp entrance. She trembled, struggling not to tense, eyes wide at the sensations that gripped her as he slowly sank into her. And then came a pinch of discomfort followed by a sharp flash of pain that took her by surprise and made her cry out. Instantly he stopped.
‘No, don’t stop!’ she gasped. ‘Finish it!’
Her teeth gritted as he pushed deeper into her untried body and then she felt him, hard and urgent inside her, and she recognised the strain etched into his darkly handsome face as he fought to stay in control. The discomfort ebbed and he circled his lean hips and withdrew before burying himself in her again with a masculine groan of pleasure. A wave of equally enjoyable response travelled through Jo and she relaxed, her body sensually adapting to his rhythm.
‘You feel so good,’ Gianni confided in a ragged undertone.
Jo arched up to receive his next powerful thrust, excitement generating afresh, sparking in her tummy and blazing up to consume her as he increased his tempo. She lifted her hips up as he ground his body down into hers, setting off a chain reaction as the intensity of sensation clenched her every muscle tight. Hungry need gripped her as he slammed into her, control no longer his driving ambition, and ripples of delight rolled through her in an intoxicating wave.
Caught up in that wild exhilaration, she flew higher and higher, rejoicing in every very physical moment of that flight. Her body was humming and stretching and reaching, and then suddenly she was there where she most wanted to be, and a dizzying explosion of emotion and reaction engulfed her. Ecstasy flooded her, followed by convulsive spasms of intense sensation. In a world of her own, she was only dimly aware of Gianni’s harsh groan of release and the jerk of his powerful body against her own.
‘I’ve never had sex without a condom before,’ Gianni murmured breathlessly into her tumbled hair. ‘It felt wickedly erotic and forbidden.’
‘Oh...’ Jo responded and even finding her voice took effort when she was still drowning in the hazy aftermath of bliss. She felt weightless and drowsy.
‘No, you’re not allowed to go to sleep,’ Gianni censured. ‘You need to get in a bath to soak away your aches and pains.’
‘I can’t feel anything.’
‘But you will tomorrow,’ he assured her, springing out of the bed to stalk into the bathroom.
Still in a reverie, Jo lay listening to the water run. Gianni had exceeded her expectations and she didn’t think it would be wise to tell him that. A sunny smile softened her mouth. No, she definitely wasn’t about to tell him that.
A pair of hands slid beneath her and her eyes flew wide. ‘What are you doing?’ she exclaimed as she found herself in his arms.
Gianni slid her down gently into the warm water in the bath and she sat up and hugged her knees, feeling awkward and shy, which struck her as ridiculous in the circumstances. ‘Do you do this for all the women you’ve been with?’
‘Only wives,’ Gianni declared deadpan. ‘And you reallydofeel like my wife now,cara.’
He strode naked into the shower and she watched the bronzed silhouette of his lean, strong body through the water streaming down the glass, blinking rapidly as if that could somehow help to clear her foggy thoughts. She was happy, she thought in wonder, frowning at that unexpected development. Gianni’s wife, a role she had never thought to fill and yet, here she was...
As she slid back into bed still feeling very sleepy, she turned her head on the pillow as Gianni joined her, her curiosity stirring. ‘Can I ask what happened in that long relationship you had at university?’
‘I prefer not to tell you. Talking about it only stirs up bad memories,’ he told her bluntly, his lean, darkly handsome features taut and cool as ice.
Jo lost colour and flipped over to sleep with her back turned to him. He was under no obligation to tell her his every secret. Marriage didn’t mean he had to bare his chest and tell all, she reminded herself. But even so, she reasoned, she had been forced to confide in him about Ralph and about her virginity and she felt as though she had no secrets left. Some reciprocal confidence and clarification from Gianni would have been welcome. She couldn’t help but feel hurt by his lack of trust in her.
By the next morning, that shadow of anxious concern had faded. Jo winced when she got out of bed, the ache of soreness at the heart of her a surprise and a reminder of what they had shared. But she had no regrets, most particularly not when Gianni casually wrapped a towel round her as she emerged from the shower and then closed his arms round her. The effortless way he touched her and drew her close spoke volumes in the wake of his former reserve. Intimacy had brought down barriers that had made both of them stiff and uncomfortable. She smiled as he told her that, after breakfast, they were flying to the south of France. Without a doubt, there was a new ease between them. In time, she told herself firmly, as they forged stronger ties, Gianni’s ability to trust her enough to talk to her would improve.
That afternoon, they arrived at the Provençal farmhouse, an idyllic old property built of stone with a weathered terracotta roof and a host of well-maintained ancillary buildings. It was surrounded by wheat and lavender fields and lush orchards of fruit trees. In the distance the snow-capped peaks of the mountains were visible.
A tiny man called Antoine greeted Gianni with great familiarity in French and Gianni had to interrupt his eager flood of conversation to introduce Jo.
‘Antoine lives on site. He’s a former chef and a fantastic cook. I used to come here every summer as a child with my mother. Sometimes, I was left here with a nanny while she returned to London for treatment,’ he confided when he had taken her up to a big traditional bedroom. The bed linen was white, the windows were wide and a fat sheaf of purple-blue lavender in a vase scented the hot, still air. ‘After she died, I didn’t want to return because the memories of her here were too painful.’
‘I’m surprised you brought us back,’ Jo admitted.