Feehan, Christine - The Scarletti Curse (37 page)

The old man suddenly rose and stepped toward her aggressively. "I could
not have done such a thing! I would remember if I had killed my beloved wife! I
cannot be that much a monster. Do you see, Nicoletta? Do you see the danger to
you? Heed me in this. You must leave this place. You must go while you still
can!" He sounded wild, once more spinning out of control.

"Nicoletta!" Giovanni burst into the room, his features a hard
mask, his dark eyes gleaming. He caught her to him protectively, drawing her
away from his grandfather's bony fingers and sheltering her small body with his
larger frame. "What is going on in here?" A wealth of menace was in
the low tone, his black gaze on his grandfather's face in a kind of condemnation.

"We were discussing the idea of walking in the hills," Nicoletta
said, patting the elder Scarletti's arm. "Well, among other things. I
think a walk would be wonderful." She struggled to keep her face stiff,
afraid she would betray the old man when he had forced himself to tell his tale
of horror, to condemn himself in her eyes in order to warn her. It was a noble
gesture.

Giovanni could feel her trembling. Her face was turned up to his, but her
dark, eloquent eyes refused to meet his probing gaze. He faced his grandfather
with controlled fury, but the older man looked fragile and seemed to sway with
weariness. Giovanni had never seen him in such a state. He forced a calming
breath back into his body, although his heart still raced at the warning the
guard had delivered to him, fearful for Nicoletta's safety. She was so young,
so innocent; he had to continually remind himself of that. She knew nothing of
the curse, the reality of monsters in men.

"Are you ill, Nonno?" He made the inquiry gently, when all he wanted
to do was sweep Nicoletta into his arms and carry her away from any possible
danger.

His grandfather held up a hand and shook his averted head. Giovanni
tightened his hold on his wife when she would have gone to comfort the older
man. "We must leave and let him rest, Nicoletta," he commanded
softly. He was urging her out of the room, his body pressing close so that she
was forced to move into the hall.

"Traitors," she whispered to the guards as she was whisked past
them. Both grinned sheepishly though un-repentantly at her.

"I know now why my ancestor built that tower," Giovanni informed
her. "I think it would be in my best interest to lock you in it as soon as
you rise. My heart cannot stand the strain you continually put on it."

She looked up at him, her dark eyes meeting his gaze. It was a mistake. She
knew it was a mistake before she did it, but she couldn't help herself. His
eyes ensnared her in a dark world of erotic need, temptation, excitement.
Nicoletta didn't want to feel any of those things, not after her recent vows of
good behavior. Not with his grandfather's warning echoing in her mind.

Jealousy. A madness that destroyed good men. She had already observed signs
of it in Giovanni, yet the threat wasn't enough to keep the embers smoldering
deep within her from leaping into flames at one look from his hungry eyes. He
made her weak with need, her body coming alive when he wasn't even touching
her.

He led her along the hall, his large frame urging her in the direction he
wanted her to go, his body hard and hot, a temptation she wanted desperately to
resist, a pleasure she wanted to taste again and again. "Giovanni."
She whispered his name, a plea to let her go.

He knew it, the confusion of her thoughts; he was somehow sharing her mind.
Never,
cara mia.
I will never release you.
She could feel his fierce
determination, his vow. He dragged her into a room she had never been in,
firmly closing the door and turning the lock. It was smaller than many in the
palazzo, with stained-glass windows and dark reliefs covering the walls. His
mouth found hers, taking her response, hard and dominating, his terror of
losing her evident in the firestorm of hunger rushing through his veins.

It was only when he felt the tears trickling down her face that he lifted
his head, his hands framing her face so that he could kiss her eyes, the
corners of her trembling mouth, taste her tears. "What is it,
piccola?
Am I such a monster that you cannot bear to live in this dark palazzo with such
a brute?" He could never let her go; she was as essential to him as the
air he drew into his lungs. He had no hope of explaining, no hope that she
didn't recognize the danger to her life and how utterly selfish he was.

His voice was so tender, it turned her heart over. He sounded so alone, aching
with his need of her. Nicoletta looked up at him with her innocent honesty.
"I do not understand this place or the people in it. I do not know right
from wrong here. You are very powerful, and you sweep me away so I do not
recognize myself when I am in your arms. I do not even know you, yet I…"
She trailed off, her face flushing scarlet, but she bravely met his gaze.

"Nicoletta." He seemed to breathe her name, almost in relief.
"What a husband and a wife do to express feelings for one another is never
wrong. How can such a thing be wrong?" His hands shaped her body, brushed
her breasts, free beneath the thin material of her blouse. "Can this be
wrong, that a husband would want to touch his wife, show her the strength of
his feelings? Would you wish to live years without wanting what is natural
between a man and woman?" His hands tugged at her blouse so that he could
bend his head to the offering of her breasts.

Nicoletta closed her eyes as jagged streaks of lightning seemed to dance
through her body. Her slender arms cradled his head to her. She couldn't resist
him, his dark hunger and intense need. She couldn't resist the way her body
craved his. "No," she whispered in defeat. And it was true. Better to
live like this, wanted and fiercely alive, than unwanted, performing only for
the sake of heirs and detesting the act as some other women did.

He drew up her long skirt, his hand moving up the bare flesh of her thigh
until he found the hot, moist treasure he was seeking. "You take the
darkness from my soul, Nicoletta," he said softly, his voice husky and
aching as he pushed aside her underclothes and inserted two fingers to find her
hot and tight, waiting for him. "Do you fear me so much? What do you think
I will do? Teach you to please me and then name you witch to the world? You
already please me." Giovanni closed his eyes, savoring the hot silk of her
channel, the way her body bathed his exploring fingers with liquid fire.
"I could never condemn you without condemning myself. You are my heart and
soul."

She feared his possession of her more, that he could make her his slave,
that she would cease to be Nicoletta and be only what he made of her. Her body
was moving against his hand, wanting him, craving him. He freed himself from
his confining clothing and lifted her into his arms. "Put your arms around
my neck,
piccola,
and wrap your legs around my waist." He would
never let her go, never. He wanted her needing him, wanting him, loving him so
much she would never think of attempting to escape him. He would tie her to him
in any way he could.

"It is you I want, no other woman." He clenched his teeth as he
positioned her beckoning feminine sheath directly over the thick, bulging
evidence of his need.

Nicoletta could feel him pushing against her, hot and needy. His body was
trembling, rock-hard, every muscle defined. Deliberately she moved her hips, a
small circling motion, enticing, wanting him with every fiber of her being.
Inch by slow inch she took him into the heat of her body.

She was tight and moist and unbelievably exciting. "It is true I have
had other women. I could still have them if I wanted such a thing. But for me
there is only you," he whispered, his hands on her waist.

Her breath escaped in a little rush as he filled her, the position allowing him
to stretch her tightly. He stopped several times to allow her body to adjust
and accommodate the invasion of his. He began to move, slow and easy, careful
of her youth and inexperience. The savage fury in him he kept tightly under
control. He buried himself deeper, a little harder, reaching to drown himself
forever in her fire. She burned away the inner darkness that crept like a
monster, shadowing his life. Her flame was bright and pure, a molten, white-hot
light that kept him sane.

He lost a little more control as her fingers clutched at him, as her breasts
pushed against his chest and her hair spilled around her face in a blue-black
curtain. She moaned softly as he pressed her back against the wall to drive
ever deeper into her. His hips thrust again and again, burying himself deeper
in her fiery sheath. He took her with him, his hands helping her to ride him,
teaching her the way to move so that his teeth clenched with the need for
self-control and he could feel her small muscles tightening around him in
preparation for her own release. He felt her body began to spiral, rippling and
bucking, triggering his own response, a violent explosion of ecstasy, and for a
moment he thought she really had ignited his body and flames were dancing
around him, around her, in her, through both of them.

He drew her into his arms, struggling to regain his breath, holding her
close with her head nestled on his shoulder while their hearts pounded out a
frantic rhythm. Both of them were damp from their fiery dances. "I did not
mean to be so wild,
piccola.
I apologize for my lack of control. You
drive out all sane thoughts. I fear all my training was for naught."

Nicoletta rested against him, unable to believe there could be such pleasure
in life as that she found in this man's arms. He was powerful, an
aristocratico,
really no more than a stranger and one she feared, yet she found much to
attract her. "Is this the way it always is between a man and a
woman?" How could so many women say they lay as stone under their husbands
as they "rutted"?

Giovanni stiffened, a surge of hot blood rushing through him. He tightened
his arms around her to the point of pain. "It is unseemly for you to think
of other men, Nicoletta," he reprimanded. "Do not ever be so foolish
as to seek the answer to that question." There was a wealth of menace in
his voice. He allowed her legs to drop to the floor so that her skirt fell in
soft folds around her bare ankles.

Nicoletta was acutely conscious of her blouse exposing her bare breasts to
his gaze, of his seed trickling down her leg. Shamed, she pulled the fabric
back into place, her teeth digging into her lower lip as she stared at the
floor.

Giovanni caught her chin in his hand and forced her head up.
"Nicoletta," he said softly with a little sigh of resignation.
"You must learn that you are a married woman now and subject to your
husband only."

"I asked a question to learn the answer," she said in a low tone.
"I thought one could ask such things of her husband. Maria Pia told me
that only you should answer my questions. Are we to simply have this…
relationship… and no other?" Nicoletta sounded forlorn. "I had
thought we would be friends, too, that I could ask you anything I did not know.
That is not what will be between us?"

The fury died down, leaving him feeling sheepish and guilty. "In truth,
bambina,
I misunderstood. Signorina
Sigmora is correct. Your husband should instruct you in these matters. I do not
know why I spoke harshly to you. It was wrong of me." He bent to brush his
mouth gently over her lips still swollen with passion. "I know we will be
friends. And you can ask me anything. No, it is not always so between a man and
woman. Nicoletta…" He hesitated, as if searching for the right words.
"Do not be alone in the presence of other men. It is not safe for
you."

"Do you mean your
nonno
? He has no reason to hurt me."

"Heed my words,
cara mia
." He reiterated, "It is not
safe."

"Ketsia is already here, Nicoletta," Sophie said petulantly.
"Hurry up. We want you to come with us."

Nicoletta smiled up at Bernado and Maria Pia as she took another sip of the
hot tea that had been awaiting her. "I seem to always miss breakfast,
Bernado.
Grazie
for all the extra trouble you must go to for me. It is
much appreciated." She smiled at Sophie, who was tugging at her skirt.
"As for you, little imp, you must learn patience. If I do not eat what
Bernado has so skillfully prepared for me, he will not do so again."

Sophie laughed. "Of course he will. He always does."

"Then you should hold him in high esteem and treat him with great
respect. Always remember that,
bambino.
Those who care for you and work
hard for you should always be accorded proper respect. They are more than
servants, they should be a
famiglia.
Do you understand?" Nicoletta
imparted the advice gently, tipping up the child's face so she could brush a
quick kiss on her cheek. "Did you take care of Maria Pia for me? I worried
about her until I remembered she was with you. I knew you would be good to
her."

Sophie beamed, radiant under the praise. "She promised to tell me
stories of you as a
bambina."

Nicoletta laughed softly. "Those stories might not be appropriate for
your ears. I was always in trouble. Come kiss me good morn and take Ketsia off to
the courtyard for your morning romp. The rain has brought us a fresh clean
day."

She waited until the two little girls had kissed and hugged her and skipped
off to play before turning her attention to Maria Pia. "Why are you
staring at me as if I have grown two heads?"

Maria Pia lightly slapped Nicoletta's hand. "There is no need for that
sharp tongue,
piccola.
I am not looking at you in any such way. Perhaps
you are feeling guilty for sleeping most of the day away."