Innocent of His Claim (14 page)

He pressed a fortune’s worth of fresh herb into her hands. “I will have you know that one of my early apprenticeships was cooking, and I was damned good at it.”

“You’re good at everything,” she said with a smile.

If only he could be…. But nothing had changed.

“I am just a simple Italian,” he said, and she laughed harder.

“There is nothing simple about you,” she said, her teasing smile a balm to his doubts.

Hand in hand, they wound their way to the house, stopping for the occasional kiss. Each one lasted longer, firing his blood and numbing his mind well before they left the trail.

A drive to the village netted a selection of vegetables, a loaf of crusty bread and cuts of prime pork.

“You’re serious about cooking for us,” she said.

“Very. I will make a risotto that will melt in your mouth,” he promised on the short drive back to the house.

“I’m embarrassed to admit I’m horribly inadequate in the culinary arts,” she said, helping him carry their fare into the house. “Did your mother teach you?”

He smiled at that thought and poured two glasses of rich sagrantino. “My nonna taught me. She was an amazing cook. An amazing woman with only one fault—she was too trusting.”

Her eyes swam with intense hurt, but it was the touch of
her fingers urgently gripping his hand that made his heart lurch. “I’m so sorry my father maliciously destroyed your family’s business.”

He shrugged, the fury that usually swept over him thankfully absent, leaving only the slow burn of deceit on his tongue. “I am too. But it’s over. He is dead. The winery and olive press are mine again. And you are here with me.”

She bit her lower lip and he caught the barest tremor shaking her before she managed a smile. “I’m glad we had this time together. That we’ve cleared the air of misconceptions.”

His hand closed over hers, his pulse gaining speed as he stepped closer and cupped her cheek with his other palm. Her gaze lifted to his—open, questioning. Hesitant?

“Our affair doesn’t have to be temporary.”

She wet her lips, the pulse in her throat fluttering as wildly as his own. “Yes, it must end. Unless your feelings toward me have changed.”

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond the fact she’d called his hand, that she expected a declaration of his feelings before she would consider staying here.

It’s what he’d known she would do all along. So why had he brought it up when he knew the answer would push them further apart?

“Nothing has changed,” he said honestly, dropping a kiss on her nose, her chin, her mouth. “Especially not my hunger for you.”

She held herself stiffly for a moment, then lifted her face to his. Was that a flicker of pain in her eyes?

He couldn’t tell, and she drove the question from his mind by threading her fingers at his nape, bowing her body into his length. She kissed his chin, then nipped the flesh, sending a flash fire of desire racing through his blood.

“Then I suggest we enjoy good food and each other,” she said, definitely taking the lead this time.

He ran a hand down her back, damning the soft barrier of clothes that kept him from caressing her silken skin, dragging her body flush against his with an urgency that totally lacked finesse. His mouth settled on hers, as hot and hungry as he’d been for her years ago. Maybe more so because having her again was better than a memory, richer, hotter.

She was a fire in his blood, making him burn from the inside out. His shirt clung to his slick back and chest. His jeans were a nagging constraint to his sex.

“We have on far too many clothes,” he said, tearing his shirt off and flinging it aside.

“Way too many,” she said, her voice a breathy huskiness that fired his libido another notch.

She raked her nails down his chest to his waistband, the white-lacquered tips he liked to see against his darker skin slipping beneath to graze the tip of his erection. He hissed in a breath and went still, praying for control.

“I am too full with want for you,” he said.

“It’s okay,” she said, dragging his jeans down and kneeling before him. “I feel the same.”

“Maledetto!”
he hissed as her lips skimmed his hot hard length, her small fingers urgent on his skin.

He locked his knees and tipped his head back, giving her free rein, knowing by the blood roaring in his ears and pounding through his veins that it would be brief. The first part of his release jolted through him, his fingers threading through her hair as a shout exploded from him.

Somehow he remained standing until the last tremor rocked through him. He pulled her up into his arms, crushing her against his chest.

“You are a vixen.”

“And you are a sorcerer, catching me up in your spell.”

If only I could
,
he thought
.

If he had that power, this would be the beginning instead of an interlude. She would be his forever.

He pushed the nagging thought from his mind. A flick of his fingers released the snap of jeans that hugged her rounded bottom as he’d longed to do on the long walk back to the house. But they were too snug to drop on their own. Like skin. Hot. More arousing than any model he’d seen, than any woman he’d ever crossed paths with.

He should forbid Delanie to ever wear them in public, he thought as he hooked his thumbs over the band and peeled them down, his skin riding her hipbones, catching the tiny band of her thong as well.

Sweat beaded his forehead, his chest warming quickly as well. Had sex ever been this erotic before? This much sensual torture?

He didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. But his sex jolted again, aching with the need to be in her.

“I love this,” she said.

His ego swelled, his thoughts blurring in a haze of lust. He hoisted her onto the counter and spread her long sexy legs by riding his palms up her thighs, nostrils flaring as he caught her scent, insides tightening as she opened to him like a rose kissed by the morning sun.

“That is because this is heaven,” he said, whisking her top and bra off and filling his palms with the creamy swells of her breasts, convinced this was as close to paradise as he would ever get.

His first flick of his tongue over a hardened peach nipple had her surging forward, wrapping her legs around his hips. The jolt of her moist sex against his belly shocked his system while pumping moisture to his engorged tip.

Yes, foreplay was over.

He cupped her lush bottom and slid her close, mouth bonding
with hers in an explosion of raw lust. White lights exploded from their touch, blazing red as his sex found her wet, hot core and thrust in hard.

The world stopped for an instant, electricity streaking up and down his length, holding him in that erotic chasm for an instant. Heaven and hell.

No woman had ever brought him to such heights, made him feel so intently. He hated it as much as he craved it, ached for it.

She climaxed first, screaming his name. His hoarse shout, a benediction, a curse, he didn’t know, burst from him a heartbeat later.

All thought left him then, replaced by a torrent of sensations that roared through him with cataclysmic force.

“Marco,” she whispered against his shoulder, her hands clutching him tightly as if she feared she would tumble off the earth if she didn’t hold on.

“I have you,” he managed to get out, dredging deep to find the stamina he needed to carry the most precious thing he’d ever held in his hands.

Delanie. To his bedroom.

Each step was agony, taking a lifetime. But he got there and collapsed with her on the bed.

“You are amazing,” she said and planted a kiss on his temple, lips sliding down his cheek even while her small hand sought and found his sex. “Amazing.”

She made him believe that perhaps he was when blood rushed again to that part of him. The lethargy that had bound him was cut free, replaced by the beginning surge of desire.

He smoothed hands that shook just a fraction down her back, savoring the curve of her hip, the firm globes that filled out her jeans so very well. “I intend to spend every day I have with you right here.”

“Good plan,” she said, kissing her way past his belly, sliding lower to find his length that pulsed with need.

All rational thought fled him then, replaced by a nirvana he had known too seldom. But it felt right.

Everything felt right with Delanie
.

No matter what, he damned sure wasn’t letting Delanie go this time.

A week had never passed so pleasurably or quickly. They ate, they drank, they made love.

On the morning of the wedding, Delanie couldn’t believe it was over. Didn’t want to face the fact that their idyll was history.

Her contract would soon be satisfied and her affair with Marco would end. And then the heartache would truly set in.

She pressed a hand to the gnawing ache in her stomach. The only way she would be able to get through this day was to stay busy and stay away from Marco. So far so good.

But then, she thought as she stepped from the guest shower, he’d yet to rouse from their bed.

She dressed quickly in a beige shirtdress that was comfortable yet stylish enough to get her through the morning. Winding her still-damp hair in a French twist sufficed, and a bit of mascara helped divert attention away from the red streaks in her eyes. A bit of blush gave her unusually pale cheeks much-needed color.

So did the red patent belt she cinched around her waist. Stepping into matching red patent pumps and adding a strand of red beads with matching earrings completed her business attire.

“You are up at an ungodly early hour,” Marco said.

She gasped, shaken to see him lounging against the doorjamb, his dark eyes unreadable, his jaw rigid. How long had he been watching?

“Today is the wedding so it is a workday for me.”

He snorted. “Your bag looks packed.”

“For the most part,” she said. “I wanted as much done now as I could since I’ll be busy all day.”

There was nothing welcoming about the muscular arms crossed tightly over his bare chest either. Strong arms that had held her close to his heart last night, that were now hard with tension.

Her gaze followed the dark hair that arrowed over his washboard abs, disappearing under faded jeans that rode indecently low on his lean hips. How could he look angry and sexy at the same time?

“Why are you doing this,
cara?
”

“Because my job will be completed and there is no reason to remain in Italy any longer.”

He muttered something in Italian that she couldn’t guess. Just as well, for it was likely a curse.

“There most certainly is a reason.” He waved a hand between them. “This thing between us is not over.”

So close to the words she’d longed to hear. But she didn’t want
close
anymore. She wanted the words, wanted to hear passion and his heart behind them.

All or nothing.

“This thing?” she repeated, and he jerked his hand back and stared at some point beyond her. “Can’t you call it what it is? A love affair? Or is using the world
love
as much a problem for you as professing what’s in your heart?”

His impossibly broad shoulders stiffened with military precision. His eyes burned with something she’d never seen before—an emotion that left her shaking inside.

“Love is nothing more than a word to me,” he said. “A word without substance. A word that deceives.”

She lifted a hand, right on the verge of reaching for him. Of cupping the jaw set like stone. Rubbing a thumb over lips that were pulled into a thin disagreeable line.

But she reined that impulse in and reached for her bag of
toiletries instead. She tossed them in her case with hands that shook, and she blinked her suddenly stinging eyes, desperate to stay the tears that threatened.

Crying would solve nothing. She’d learned that long ago.

“You’re wrong, Marco,” she said. “But until you stop fearing the emotion that can free you, you’ll never believe in its power. There will always be something missing from your life, something you can’t buy or take over.”

He snorted. “If you say so.”

She shook her head. Sighed.

At least Marco was being honest. He wasn’t promising her something he couldn’t give her.

For that reason alone she respected him. Loved him even more, which made the pain of leaving him all the more intense.

But one-sided love was worse than an arranged marriage. She’d seen it in her parents but she hadn’t understood how a woman could accept such a situation until she’d experienced it firsthand with Marco.

But, unlike her mother, she wouldn’t settle for less than all his heart.

Her time with Marco was over. Now she would begin the process of filing those special memories of them away so she could pull them out and cherish them when her thoughts were clearer, when her heart wasn’t aching so much.

“I trust you’ll have my paperwork ready for me today.” She walked to the doorway he filled so completely, expecting him to at least be a gentleman and move.

He didn’t budge, but the muscle along his jawline quivered. She had her choice of trying to push past him or stop. She stopped.

“If that is your wish,” he said, his upper lip curling with obvious distaste.

Her wish would be for this to be a bad dream. When she awoke it would be to Marco vowing to love her forever. But that wasn’t going to happen.

She tried for a professional smile. “It is.”

Because she simply couldn’t spend another night in his arms. Already her stomach cramped and her nerves felt raw and frayed at the thought of leaving him. At least if she was busy all day, she could rush to the airport tonight and be gone before her heartache truly set in. Before she surrendered to the flood of tears that were sure to come.

“Anything else?” he asked, voice flat. Emotionless. Sounding as empty as she felt inside.

“I need transportation to the villa to ensure all is well with Bella’s wardrobe, then back here so I can oversee that events will run smoothly at the church and the castle.”

“Fine,” he said, pushing away from the doorway and storming back toward his bedroom. “I’ll drive you.”