Marco and his band had met no one as they scrambled along the narrow, winding trails made by animals rather than humans. Darkness fell just after they had completed the trek from the caves and arrived at the point they had chosen to ambush the convoy. About an hour later having checked the terrain and positioned his men, he settled into the ditch by the side of the road. The latest information from the spies confirmed that the commander of the Blackshirt garrison was in place, ready to lead the convoy at first light.
They had about eight hours to wait.
Eight hours for him to think about Emma. Emma on his lap. Emma in his arms. Emma responding to his kisses. Emma on her back for Giovanni…
His breath whistled from between his teeth and he rose to his knees. The bustle of the departure from the caves had served to mask his pain for a few hours, keeping his mind and body fully active. But now there was nothing to do but wait. And remember.
A darker shape materialized against the velvety blackness of the moonless night.
Pietro slid into the space next to him. “All men in place,” he muttered.
“Where is my cousin?” Marco wasn’t sure why he asked the question.
He felt rather than saw Pietro’s shrug. “He told his unit he was going out to check on the guards further down the road. He’ll be back.”
“Of course.”
Marco stood and stretched. Restlessness skittered through his nerves. “Maybe I’ll join him.”
Pietro reached up and pulled on his arm. “No, dottore,” he said. “We can only risk one man out at a time. That’s your own rule.”
“Of course,” Marco said again and stepped back into the shallow trench.
When he was hidden, Pietro rose and slid like a snake from the ditch. The two men clasped hands and then the lieutenant melted away into the blackness.
Marco made himself as comfortable as he could on the hard ground. His grandfather had fought in the trenches in the First War. The Great War, they called it. The War to end all wars. In the darkness he smiled bitterly. Another war was coming, what with the maniac Austrian ensconced in Germany and Mussolini leading Italy to battle with Ethiopia. God only knew where it would finish once it started.
He no more wanted to contemplate that prospect than he wanted to imagine Emma with Giovanni. He dragged his thoughts away and made himself go through the preparations for tonight once more.
The convoy would be moving guns and money to support the government crackdown on a small rebel movement on the east coast near Bari. So what Marco and his men did tonight would help those brave souls a few hundred kilometers away.
They would seize the armaments and the gold, and put them to good use, but more importantly they would take the strongbox of documents.
Marco’s gut clenched at the thought of the commandante who would have the box under his personal supervision. In it were the stolen title deeds to all the lands he had usurped from their rightful owners. There would be lists of farms, houses, fields and livestock. Plus reports of rebels interrogated. The bile rose in Marco’s throat. This was the man who had tortured and killed Claudia. Each of Marco’s men had some grudge against him. For some, it was the rape of a daughter or a sister. Others had lost their land and their farms. For a few, a son had disappeared into the interrogation rooms, never to be seen again. It had been a long wait until they could be sure of waylaying Il Comandante. It would give all of them great pleasure to deal with him as he deserved.
It was a cloudless night. A half moon and the stars lit the terrain with a luminous glow. There was enough light to see movement and to make out a man’s features. He would have preferred cloud and total darkness, but he hadn’t the luxury of choosing his battleground.
Pietro reappeared out of the darkness like a gray ghost. “The men are all in place,” he whispered.
“Has Giovanni returned?”
“Not yet.”
Despite Pietro’s previous reminder about the rules, Marco scrambled from the ditch. “I’ll go half a mile or so out,” he said. “Something is wrong. I’ll do my own patrol.”
Emma felt as if she had spent half her life walking in these hills rather than a mere two or three days.
The birds had fallen quiet as dusk crept over the peaks. Night fell quickly this far south with none of the lingering twilight of England in summertime.
Soon after they started out the sun had sunk low, sending long shadows across the rocks, then disappeared completely, taking with it warmth and light. But it wasn’t only the chill in the air that pierced Emma to the bone, making her draw her shawl tighter around her. Ever since the account of the torture and death of Claudia, both she and Teresa had fallen silent. She could not rid her mind of the image of the laughing, sadistic men and the helpless girl. How many times had Marco reminded her she was no longer in England? She’d scoffed at him. Italy boasted a civilization going back centuries. The Romans had been building centrally heated apartments when her own ancestors had still dressed in skins and painted themselves blue with woad.
What had gone wrong? Only the rise of a dictator who believed he knew best. Such men would always bring out the worst in men, and women too. She remembered Johnny Westmarland saying that.
At long last, she understood what Marco was fighting for.
Now they walked by the light of the moon and the stars. Under other circumstances it would have been magically beautiful, but she had little time or thought for beauty.
The tramp of their feet and the panting of the dog were the only sounds to break the mountain stillness. They set a fast pace and when they paused at the top of a slope to catch their breath Teresa tore a piece of bread from the loaf in her basket, handing it without a word to Emma. She nodded her thanks and ripped at it with her teeth as they continued walking.
The dog had resumed his patrol of the path on all sides of them. Just as they swallowed the last of the bread, he suddenly froze two paces ahead. He stood immobile, only his ears betraying him with a slight twitch every few seconds. Emma’s palms instantly turned sweaty, and her heart began to pound. She put out a hand to Teresa to halt the girl’s steps behind her.
Strange how silence could sometimes convey greater menace than the most violent noise. She peered into the gloom, trying to see what Mickey had seen, to hear what he had heard. Was it an animal that had set Mickey to quivering? Or the Blackshirts? Or Giovanni?
“Buona sera, signorine.”
The whisper came from behind and above. Emma twisted around so fast that she wrenched her sore ankle and grabbed at Teresa to stop herself from falling. She looked up slowly, the taste of fear metallic in her mouth, sapping logical thought. Perhaps if she’d had any mental capacity left, she would have felt astonished that he was here. As it was, his presence simply seemed inevitable.
Marco leaned against a large rock balanced above the path, feet crossed, a rifle dangling from one hand, the other hand shoved into his pocket, his long body dappled by the shadows cast by the starlight. A lingering ray from the sliver of moon highlighted several days’ worth of whiskers that darkened his face, emphasizing the strong planes and angles of his cheekbones and jaw. A straight lock of dark hair fell over his brow, hiding his eyes, making her want to push it away.
If it were not for the fact that the rifle pointed so steadily at them, he would have been the picture of careless indolence. But she didn’t make the mistake of confusing appearance with reality. He would never be careless around her again.
He was only a few feet away. He didn’t smile, wasn’t near enough to touch her, but she felt his presence in every cell of her body. Mickey growled in his throat and immediately the rifle shifted slightly to cover the animal. Emma moved to step in front of the dog, but sank to the ground at the stabbing pain in her ankle. She could not prevent a sob. The dog shoved a wet nose against her neck and she pushed him gently away.
Marco moved loosely down to a lower ledge. The rifle did not waver. He was close enough now that she looked directly into the black, malevolent hole of the barrel.
“A dog and two people who should not be here,” he said in a low murmur. He glanced at Teresa. “What is the meaning of this?”
Teresa moved forward and spoke in rapid Italian. Short, fast questions and answers fired between them, and Emma heard the name of Giovanni. Marco handed the gun to Teresa and turned back to Emma. He knelt down beside her and took her ankle in his warm, hard hands. The dog shifted nervously, but did not warn him off with a growl this time.
“It’s all right, Mickey,” she murmured. She looked up at Marco, tears blurring her eyes. They came from an equal mixture of relief at seeing him, and the pain in her throbbing ankle.
He held her gaze for a long moment. “Giovanni returned to us with his story,” he said simply. “He is on patrol.”
Her heart sank. She could imagine the pack of lies Giovanni had told. She shook her head. “He’s making his way to the Blackshirts to betray you.”
Quickly she told him what his cousin had said. His lips grew thin and tight, and the color drained from around his mouth. He shook his head in denial.
“If you don’t believe me,” Emma said, “find Giovanni. If you do, call him back from patrol and let me confront him.” She caught hold of his arm. “What did he tell you?” She scanned his face and let out her breath. “I can imagine what he said. Did he say I seduced him?”
“Yes.” His tone was flat, without emotion.
Anger sparked. “Not true. He meant to rape me. I was terrified for my life. I hit him before he could do more than kiss me.” She dropped her voice. “Even that was too much.”
“He tried to rape you?”
She saw the raw fury in his eyes and touched his shoulder. “He didn’t succeed. I swear it. I fought him. When he came after me, I nearly bit his ear off.”
She gazed at him anxiously, unable to tell what he was thinking from the expression on his face. The pain in her heart at the thought he might not believe her was greater than the pain in her twisted ankle.
She wanted to scream at him that he was supposed to trust her, that she had given him enough proof of her worthiness, but she knew he had to think his way through the news she had brought. Giovanni was his cousin, his own blood, who had worked with him for years.
By contrast she was a piece of flotsam thrown up by the sea, who had been only too willing to lie with a man she barely knew. How could she make him realize the danger he was in? What would it take for him to believe in her once more?
He lowered his eyes to her leg again and pressed the swelling flesh of her leg with expert hands. “Nothing broken,” he said. “Can you stand?”
“Of course I can.”
She pulled herself to her feet by holding his arms, but she never made it fully upright.
She remained still, clinging to him, not from choice, but because she knew she was incapable of taking a step. Her head spun from the pain, from weariness, from all the emotions she had lived through. Dizziness preempted any protest when his arms came around her, holding her.
Everything swirled around her, whirling faster and faster until her legs crumpled under her. Somehow she’d lost the ability to make them bear her weight. She needed the strength of his arms or she would topple over.
Marco felt her sag against him. With a word to Teresa to make sure she kept the gun at the ready, he swung Emma into his arms. She gave a tiny sigh as he settled her head on his chest. A combination of nervous exhaustion and pain had drained the last remaining dregs of color from her face, leaving her deathly pale. A faint blue tinge ringed her mouth and her eyes were closed. He felt the beat of his heart thudding against her cheek and knew she must feel it too. The intimacy was wonderfully familiar.
He wanted to believe her account of what had happened with Giovanni. Although he did not want his cousin to be proved a traitor, neither did he want to believe Emma could seduce another man. She owned such a large portion of his heart that he had been torn apart at the thought.
He’d tasted the black despair caused by her supposed faithlessness, but his reaction to Giovanni’s story had been the pure instinct of a wounded animal. Now there was another witness. Teresa had explained how Emma had walked back to the caves to find him. Her story made sense. The hours he had spent with his bella donna, the knowledge he had of her nature, assured him that she did not lie. Emma was still his. Despite what this meant about Giovanni, he wanted to throw his head back and crow his relief and delight into the dark night.
Unable to help himself, he brushed her forehead with his lips. Her eyelids fluttered and opened. Dio, but she had beautiful eyes. They drew him into their depths like a thirsty man seeking water. Every glance bewitched him and lured him more surely under her spell. For the past few hours she had never been far from his thoughts, although he’d tried to bury his feelings for her under layers of activity and anger. Confronted with the reality of her body in his arms, those layers were proving fragile and insubstantial.
She gave him a tremulous smile and her eyes closed again. He glanced at Teresa, who was watching them. It seemed to him that the girl gave a small nod of approval. He gathered Emma more closely and set off. The dog seemed to understand that Emma was safe and resumed his scouting position ahead of the small group, with Teresa bringing up the rear. Marco strode as fast as he could without jarring the precious burden in his arms.
He took her into a shepherd’s hut with a broken roof and crumbling walls and laid her gently in the deep shadows on the earthen floor. It was not far from the spot they had selected for the ambush, but he was so full of confidence he had no fear for her. Failure was impossible now that Emma had returned. Teresa followed them inside with the discarded clothing from the pool and between them, under the faint light of the stars that shone through the gaps in the grass roof, they cleared wooden debris from the floor and made a makeshift bed for Emma to lie on. Mickey lay down beside her, his head on his paws, only his eyes alert and moving.
Marco told Teresa to find her way to the rest of his men. “Tell Pietro to send for Giovanni,” he said. “I will be there shortly to talk to him.”
Teresa nodded and slid silently from the hut. He remained standing, looking down at Emma. His night vision had always been good, and he could see clearly the pale oval of her face and the whiteness of her hands. The weight of her in his arms had produced exactly the same reaction as the first time he had carried her across Enrico’s farmyard. He found it strangely difficult to take a deep breath, and all his blood seemed to have drained to his heated groin. His fingers itched to tear the clothing and covers off her, expose her legs, her breasts-
“Did she take the gun?” Emma murmured.
He swallowed hard and bent to smooth her hair back from her face. His cock jumped in response to the contact with her skin, and he forced himself to speak calmly. “Yes, but don’t worry. I have another.” He pulled a pistol from his belt and laid it aside.
Emma gazed at him through half-closed eyes and placed her hand on his sleeve. “Armed to the teeth,” she said. “I had Giovanni’s rifle, but I lost it. It’s good to feel safe. And we have Mickey to look after us.”
Marco glanced at the dog. “As long as he knows who the enemy is. I don’t want him attacking me.”
“Why would he do that?”
He didn’t answer, and she pulled herself to a sitting position, using the wall as a support. He caught a glimpse of bare flesh as the movement opened her tunic at her throat. He had a flash memory of first seeing her tied in the stable, the torn material of her shift revealing the sweet curve of her naked breast.
“You aren’t my enemy, Marco.”
“No. Far from it.” He tucked a covering sheet around her, glad of the opportunity to do anything that gave him an excuse to put his hands on her. “In fact, what I want to do this very instant is to mount an attack on your body, to push you down on the floor and feel you under me. I want to hold you close and fuck you hard and fast.”
She caught his hand in hers and kissed his fingers. “No.” His heart missed a beat and he saw the gleam of her teeth as she smiled in the darkness. “Hard and fast is good, but I’d like it long and slow. Do we have the time?”
“We have the time.”
She placed his hand on her breast. He could feel the racing of her heart under his fingertips. “You believe me?” she said. “About Giovanni?”
“I believe you. For a short while I was mad with rage at the thought of you and he… Forgive me, bella donna. In my heart I knew that you wouldn’t betray me.”
She let out a long breath, then frowned. “Do you believe you’re in danger?”
“I mean to find out. But I have time.”
She stroked the back of his hand, sending unbearable sparks along his nerves to his groin. Her nipple hardened under his fingers, and he felt the tremble through her body. He put his free hand behind her head and gently drew her toward him, fitting his lips against hers. She groaned against his mouth, but she didn’t move away, and he gave in to the urge that had been building hard and fast for the past hours…
He had never known a kiss like hers, so trusting and yet so intensely arousing. Her lips were incredibly soft, and they opened for him at once, inviting him in, releasing a dam of emotion within him. He was desperate to invade her, possess her, claim her as his alone.
The dog growled and stood as he held her tighter. She released his mouth and waved a hand at the animal.
“Quiet, Mickey,” she said sternly and pushed his furry head with her free hand. “There’s nothing to worry about. Down.”
The dog obeyed her and retreated to a corner. She turned her face back to Marco and kissed him, but he broke away from her and tore the clothes from his body in feverish haste. Naked, he put his hands on hers and stopped her removing her own garments. His eyes on her face, he loosened her thin tunic and pushed it from her shoulders. She sat forward a little to allow him to undress her and then remained perfectly still, only a quiver betraying the effect of his hands on her. He loved to watch her mouth grow lax and soft, her lips swollen and bruised-looking as her arousal grew. Although the darkness hid so much, he allowed himself to imagine the mist of desire clouding her bewitching eyes, the color rising in her cheeks. Soon he would make love to her in sunlight and watch every fleeting expression as he made her experience a pleasure she had never known before.
He slipped the tunic down further. Slowly. His nerves screamed at him to hurry, to tear the garment from her, but he wanted to savor every moment, every inch of newly exposed skin. She freed her arms, but the fabric caught on the hard peaks of her breasts. She waited. He sat back on his heels, entranced by the way the fabric hid the beautiful mounds, yet hinted so clearly at their shape. His fingers curved instinctively as if already feeling their roundness, their weight. He met her gaze, seeing the shallow rise and fall of her breath as she grew ready for him. The shiver that rippled through him had nothing to do with the mountain air. It had everything to do with the longing in his flesh, his heart, his very soul.
Perhaps it was foolish to want a woman so much, yet want her he did. She took a long, deep breath, the movement freeing one taut nipple. He licked his lips and promised the throbbing in his loins there would soon be release. Her breath caught as he reached forward to free her other nipple from the clinging fabric.
His hand lingered, his fingers brushing her lightly, like a blind man learning about a precious object by touch alone. His thumb caressed her breast. She leaned forward from the waist to kiss him again. Her mouth was an oasis of freshness and delight in a thirsty land. He cupped both her breasts and molded them in his palms, intoxicated by the smoothness of her skin, by the valley where they rose from her ribs, by the slope from her throat.
At last she pulled back. “Wait,” she whispered.
In a few seconds he saw the glimmer of her naked limbs as she slid the rest of her clothing from her and moved lower to lie beside him. She stretched a hand to his waist. “Come,” she whispered. “Come to me.”
He wanted to touch every part of her, taste her.
He rose to his knees and swung around, across her shoulders. He rested on his palms and felt her hands cradle his balls, while he suckled her breasts. He drew each nipple in turn into his hungry mouth, circling it with his tongue, driven by her cries and moans.
He moved back, letting his engorged cock brush her mouth. Immediately her tongue licked him, trailing fire along the length of him from the weeping tip to the root. He threw his head back and groaned in ecstasy. Her fingers scraped across the hot skin of his belly, and skimmed his ribs to play with the pebbles of his hard nipples.
He lowered his head and saw her legs spread wide, the dark triangle hiding the creamy softness of her cunt.
He lowered his face and nipped at the soft flesh of her inner thigh, putting his mark on her where no one else would see. In response she pulled up her legs, and he hooked his arms around behind her knees, holding them apart, baring the sweet moistness of her lips. For a long moment he looked at her, completely open to him, and inhaled the perfume of her arousal. Then he bent downward, pinning her thighs against his shoulders. All the time he nuzzled her folds, sucking and nipping, tasting the cream that oozed from her, she kissed and licked his cock, giving tiny murmurs of delight.
He brushed his lips against her swollen clit, sucking it into his mouth and at the same instant, she drew his cock deep into her throat.
Emma lay a willing prisoner beneath him in the ghostly light of the stars. His hands held her legs apart so he could eat her. His cock was heavy within her mouth, pinning her down, the pale, gleaming mass of his body arched over her. Although she was naked her flesh was warm, pulsing with life in every inch, the blood pounding in her veins.
Others had said they wanted her. Some said “make love”; some said “go to bed”. Whatever words they used, all she had ever felt was a faint quiver of desire, with no thought of losing herself. When Marco told her the same thing, using words that resonated in her core, she was bowled over. Reason, self-preservation, common sense, they all dissolved in a hot rush of desire. And she melted, merging every part of herself with him.
She ran her hands up the muscles of his thighs as he straddled her and let her fingers skim the hard curve of his buttocks. All of him was taut steel, quivering with tense strength and power. It made her body soften even more, anticipating the powerful thrust of his cock into her velvet sheath. Her inner muscles throbbed and tightened.
Her mouth still full of his cock, her cunt still fluttering from the torment of his teeth and tongue, she lightly traced the line of the crack of his ass with her fingertips and felt him nip harder at her cunt in response, making her juices flow even more. Her hands parted his cheeks and she used her forefinger to stroke the skin in the valley, letting it rest on the round, tight hole.
He gave a groan as if in pain, but she kept her finger in place. He thrust his tongue further into her vagina and she rewarded him by circling the puckered opening. He tightened his cheek muscles and trapped her fingers, raising his head from his ministrations between her legs.
“God have mercy,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Do you know what you are doing to me?”
She made an “uh-huh” sound around his cock, then released it so she could speak. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No. Yes.”
“Make up your mind.” She smiled in the darkness.
“This is what I want.” He bent his head again pushing her legs even wider apart if it were possible, his hands a vise around her ankles. “Come, come,” he said. “You are to come for me. Let me see it. Let me feel it.”
His beard scraped her soft, moist flesh, adding to the myriad sensations that assailed her. His tongue teased her, and when she gasped, he plunged it into her and withdrew, sucking her swollen clit before every thrust.
She was powerless to resist as he brought her to climax, the sensations ripping through her, making her cry out and clutch at him as the wave from within her washed upward, and took her out to a space where there was no feeling, no thought but the exquisite moment. Every inch of her cunt and her belly quivered, shot through with an aching delight, until she thought she might break apart.
As the storm subsided, she lay limp and stunned for a half-minute, her heart thudding, her body sensitive to every touch. Before she could come down completely from the sensual heights, he moved to straddle her face to face, spread her legs and drove his stake-hard cock into her. It filled her and stretched her, brushing against the mouth of her womb.
Astonished, she found herself trembling on the brink of another orgasm. Her hips arched off the floor to meet him, to drive him deeper still. She wanted to feel his hardness far inside.
She wound her arms around him and held him. He moved slowly, forcing her to wait, then increased the rhythm, making her gasp with every thrust. He brought her to the limit again, holding her poised on the brink before plunging into her one last time.
When she could think and breathe once more, he was still sheathed inside her, holding himself over her body. She moistened her lips. His cock was still big and firm. She squeezed her inner muscles and he started and moaned.
“Have pity.”
“You had none on me.”
With one hand he pushed her sweat-dampened hair out of her eyes and moved her head, compelling her to look at him. “Forgive me. I was under the impression that was what you wanted. Was I wrong?”
She had no desire to banter, to tease. What had happened between them was too profound, too intense.
“No,” she whispered. “You weren’t wrong at all.”
He pulled himself out of her and gave her a long, tender kiss. “I want to stay with you more than anything, but I must leave you, bella donna.”
She sighed. She knew he had to deal with Giovanni and had to conduct his long-planned ambush. She reached for him and trailed her fingers down his face, tracing the line of his lips. “Stay safe. Come back to me.”
With a final, tender kiss he rose to his feet and pulled on his discarded clothes. “If I know you are waiting, I’ll make sure it is swift and decisive.”
Within five minutes he was the bandit leader again, hard-faced, armed, resolute.
He cast a glance in the corner where the dog lay alert. “You’re on guard,” he said. “Look after her for me.”
He bent over her for a last, lingering kiss. “I will return for you, bella donna.”
Emma watched him move away from her. At the open wall of the hut he paused, outlined in starlight, then faded into the night.