FINALLY it was over: the church service, the walkabout
she hadn’t realised she would be expected to
make, greeting the well-wishers, the friends of
Lorenzo’s, who had included his lawyer and his
charming wife, and the impromptu wedding lunch
which Carlo had insisted on preparing for them whilst
everyone else in the restaurant joined in the celebration.
Nine hours of it in all, during which Jodie had
not dared to attempt to eat or drink, never mind sit
down.
And now they were finally alone, Assunta having
prepared and left them a cold supper before coming
to the church to see them married. Jodie was so exhausted
she could barely stand. The corset had become
a form of excruciating torture from which she
ached to be free with every muscle in her body that
hadn’t been numbed by its pressure.
In the hallway of the apartment, she headed for the
stairs, picking up her long skirts.
"You are tired?" Lorenzo guessed.
She could barely nod her head. Tired didn’t even
begin to describe her physical and emotional exhaustion.
Emotional exhaustion? Because of what, exactly?
She felt like kicking the unwanted inner voice
for probing and prodding — it, after all, knew as well
as she did exactly how she had felt standing next to
Lorenzo whilst the priest spoke the words of the marriage
ceremony. The light from the windows had illuminated
her face, but the inner light illuminating her
understanding of a truth she hadn’t wanted to recognise
had been far more powerful. She had hated the
feeling of deceit that had clung to her, the sense of
guilt and shame at the way they were using vows that
should have been sacred to suit their own purposes.
"I’ll come up with you," she heard Lorenzo saying.
How could a mere dress weigh so much? By the
time she reached the top of the stairs her heart was
pounding nauseatingly, and she was feeling oddly
light-headed.
Outside the door to her bedroom, Lorenzo touched
her lightly on the shoulder and said coolly, "If you’ve
got a minute…?"
They had only just been married, and he was asking
her if she had got a minute as though they were no
more than acquaintances. But then, wasn’t that exactly
what they were?
She could see that he was waiting for her to cross
the corridor and follow him into his room. Her leg
was aching painfully, but she refused to let it drag.
She stepped into his bedroom and stood as close to
the door as she could, refusing to look at the bed.
Lorenzo had walked over to the tallboy, where he"d
picked up something, and now he was walking back
towards her.
"Knowing how you feel about the emerald, I
thought you might prefer to wear this instead. Oh, and
you can keep it afterwards if you wish," he told her
with a dismissive shrug.
Silently Jodie took the small box from him and
opened it. Inside was a perfect pear-shaped solitaire
diamond. Mutely, she looked at it.
"I couldn’t possibly keep that. It must have been
very expensive."
Lorenzo was frowning at her as though her refusal
displeased him. "As you wish," he agreed curtly. "It
isn’t of any real consequence."
"Like our marriage," Jodie heard herself saying
shakily. "I really would have preferred not to have
had a church ceremony. It made me feel—" She broke
off and shook her head as she realised the impossibility
of making Lorenzo understand how she had felt.
The sudden action caused a wave of dizziness to
swamp her, followed by the shocked realisation that
she was about to faint. Instinctively she made grab
for the nearest solid object, which just happened to
be Lorenzo. As she swayed towards him Lorenzo
caught hold of her.
"It’s the dress," she managed to tell him. "It’s laced
so very tightly…"
The next minute he was turning her round, supporting
her with one arm whilst he inspected the fastenings
of her bodice and demanded grimly, "Why
didn’t you say something? How the hell does this
thing come off?"
"The skirt and the train have to come off first, before
I can remove the bodice," Jodie told him weakly.
"They’re just hooked onto it."
Before she could stop him he was feeling for the
tiny fastenings, unsnapping them with ruthless speed.
When they were all free the train and skirt sighed
softly to the floor, leaving Jodie standing in her silk
stockings, high heels, tiny boy-short briefs — and the
unbearably tight bodice.
"What on earth possessed you to wear something
so tight?" Lorenzo demanded.
"It wasn’t my idea. It was the stylist"s," Jodie admitted.
"She insisted on it being so tightly laced."
"How does it fasten?"
"It’s laced on the inside, and then fastened with
hooks and eyes." Just the effort of speaking was making
her feel sick from her inability to draw enough
air into her lungs.
"Don’t move," Lorenzo told her, leaving her standing
in the middle of the floor as he went over to the
tallboy and opened a drawer. When he came back he
was holding a pair of scissors.
"No, you can’t—" Jodie protested weakly, but it
was too late. He was already cutting into the fabric,
ignoring her protests.
She almost cried from the sheer bliss of simply
being able to breathe naturally as the corset fell away.
"Dio! It’s a wonder your flesh is not numbed and
dead," Lorenzo said critically as he studied the red
marks on her pale skin where the corset had cut into
her. "And why did you not say before now that your
leg is paining you?"
"Because it isn’t," Jodie fibbed.
"Yes, it is. Go and lie down on the bed. I will
massage it for you."
"there’s no need for you to do that," she protested.
"I’ll be fine now that I’m free of the corset." She
folded her arms over her breasts, suddenly, now that
she didn’t have to worry about taking her next breath,
acutely conscious her state of undress, but as she
shifted her weight from one foot to the other a sharp
pain shot up her injured leg, causing her to smother
a gasp of pain.
Lorenzo muttered something she couldn’t translate
and then picked her up, ignoring her tired protest as
he carried her over to the bed.
"You are the most stubborn woman I have ever
met," he told her grimly as he put her down. "Now,
lie down and I will massage your leg for you."
She wanted to refuse — out of pride if nothing
else — but the truth was that her leg was really hurting,
and the thought of having the pain massaged away
was too tempting to refuse.
Silently she lay down on her front and closed her
eyes. She had forgotten about the stockings she was
still wearing, and tensed as Lorenzo removed them—
as clinically and efficiently as though she were made
of plastic rather than female flesh and blood, she acknowledged
wryly. But her flesh knew that he was
male, and its response to the firm massaging movement
of his fingers against the aching muscles in her
thigh was most definitely not clinical.
She had originally lain on her stomach to conceal
from him both her naked breasts and her expression—
not so much out of modesty, but out of fear of what
they might reveal to him. Now, as she felt her nipples
hardening when his fingers stroked and kneaded her
aching flesh, she was very glad that she had done so.
As his fingers drew the pain out of her flesh their
touch replaced it with a very different kind of ache,
beginning deep inside her with a small fluttering pulse
that quickly grew stronger until the desire it generated
was spreading outwards into every nerve-ending.
Uncomfortably she pulled away, and moved to sit up,
fearing that somehow Lorenzo might guess what she
was experiencing.
"what’s the matter?" he demanded. "Are you worried
that I might try to seduce you?"
He was mocking her, she knew that. "No, of course
not. Why would I think that? After all, I already know
that you Don’t desire me."
She had rolled over now, and was sitting up. But
she couldn’t get off the bed because Lorenzo was
standing immediately in front of her.
"And you want me to desire you?"
"No!" she said fiercely.
"You’re lying." Lorenzo accused her, shocking her
as he suddenly drew her up to stand virtually body-
to-body with him. "But then, lying is second nature
to your sex, isn’t it?"
Yes, she was lying, Jodie admitted. Because she
had no other alternative, no other way to protect herself.
Why was he behaving like this towards her?
she’d realised from what Caterina had told her that
his childhood experiences with his mother and her
unfaithfulness to his father had given him a low opinion
of her sex, and a need to protect himself from
emotional pain, but that was no reason for him to
punish her. Just as she had no real reason to brand all
men as faithless, shallow cheats because of the way
John had behaved towards her? She swallowed uncomfortably,
unable to ignore her own inner critical
voice.
"You’re lying," Lorenzo repeated. "Admit it."
"Admit what?" Jodie challenged him recklessly.
"That I want you? Why? What purpose or benefit is
there in my doing that? You Don’t want me. All you
want is for me to give you an excuse to go on telling
yourself that all women are like your mother and
Caterina. Well, we aren’t. You want me to lie to you
because that way you can keep on telling yourself that
all women are the same. Because You’re afraid of
wanting—"
"Enough!"
Jodie tried to protest, but it was too late. His mouth
was already covering hers, his hands almost bruising
the tender flesh of her upper arms as he held her to
him so hard that she could feel the buttons on his
shirt pressing into her skin.
"I am afraid of nothing," Lorenzo whispered
fiercely against her mouth. "Least of all of wanting
you. And to prove it…"
Before she could evade him he was kissing her,
deeply and intimately, whilst his hands stroked over
her body to cup her breasts.
She should stop him. She knew that. But her own
desire was stronger than her will-power. The anger
that had flared up between them had unleashed a passion
in Lorenzo that ignited her own and overwhelmed
her careful restraint. He lifted one hand to
her head, sliding his fingers into her hair and exposing
the slender vulnerability of her neck to the sensual
assault of his lips.
Shudders of hot, illicit pleasure that began where
his mouth caressed her skin and ended deep inside
the female heart of hers seized her, took her to a place
where reality didn’t exist and all that mattered was
following the lure of the primitive surge of her own
desire for him.
He had captured her nipple between the long lean
finger and thumb of his free hand and was playing
softly with it, then less softly when both it and its
partner stiffened with excitement. The erotic sensation
of him tugging sensually on it was relayed to her
through what felt like a million tiny nerve-endings,
magnifying the pleasure so much that she was racked
helplessly by its domination as it took her and filled
her, weakening her will-power along with her bones,
and focusing all of her straining concentration not on
the urgent warnings of her defences, but instead on
the wet heat between her legs, and the desire-swollen
flesh she ached for Lorenzo to touch.
Had she actually verbally said what she wanted?
She had communicated it to him somehow, Jodie realised
dizzily, as his fingers untangled from her hair and
his hand stroked down her body, moulding her hipbone,
his fingers pressing into the curves of her bottom
as he held her with both hands and pulled her
into his own body so that she could feel how hard
and aroused he was. He kissed her with shockingly
deliberate intimacy as he caressed the quivering flesh
of her stomach, then stroked his fingers along the hip-
hugging line of her silky knickers, teasing her eager
flesh with a softly tantalising touch that made her
press closer to him until he responded to her need and
slipped his hand into the softly fluted leg of her underwear
to cover her sex.
Completely lost, Jodie made a small delirious
sound of pleasure into his kiss that turned to a broken
exclamation of shocked delight when he slid his fingers
into her waiting wetness. The feel of the slow
movement of his fingers over her aroused flesh was
both an exquisite pleasure and an almost unbearable
torment. She wanted him to go on doing what he was
doing, but she wanted him inside her as well, filling
her, satisfying the need that was tightening round her.
She moaned out loud as he plucked softly at the
aroused nub of her clitoris, her own hand going immediately
to the thick thrust of his own erection, easily visible
beneath his clothes but frustratingly separated
from the full intimacy of her touch by them.
"Wait," she heard him tell her thickly, and then he
was lifting her, placing her back on the bed before
swiftly removing his clothes. She lay back, her head
on the pillows, watching him with an absorbed, hungry,
unashamed eagerness, her breath coming in soft
little panting gasps of need, her hand resting over her
own sex, not to protect it, but to quieten it as it pulsed
its clamouring message of readiness.
His nakedness excited her so much. She couldn’t
drag her gaze away from the stiff length of his erection
as it thrust upwards from the soft dark mat of his
body hair. It crossed her mind that she should be feeling
virginal fear instead of such a delirious sense of
eager excitement. He was leaning over her, removing
her briefs, watching her as he did so. Heat and shock
suffused her as he slowly slid one finger the length
of her wetness. Greedily her body lifted towards him
and his finger traced her again, stroking and lingering,
caressing the hard little nub of excitement clamouring
for his attention and then slowly, very deliberately,
sliding inside her. Jodie gasped and then moaned in
delight as she felt him stretching her gently, still caressing
her.
His body was covering hers now, and he was kissing
her. Eagerly she kissed him back, only stopping
when she felt the loss of his pleasure-giving fingers.
Her eyes rounded and her face burned when he lifted
his hand towards her lips and told her thickly, "Taste
yourself on me." Hesitantly she opened her mouth and
let him place his fingers within it, closing her eyes
and obeying his whispered, "Suck them," as she drew
in the taste of her own arousal mingled with the taste
of his skin and felt the power of the aphrodisiac he
was giving her.
Now she was totally lost, a mindless slave to her
own sexuality and need as his hands and his mouth
caressed every part of her. Her shoulder, the inner
flesh of her arm, her breasts, her belly, and she
writhed and moaned and reached for him with her
own hands and mouth, savouring the sharp taste of
him as she breathed in his intimate man scent and felt
its erotic impact on her senses. She ached to let her
tongue-tip circle the stiff shiny head of his sex, but
Lorenzo wouldn’t let her. Instead his tongue was exploring
her, tracing a sensual pathway of fiery pleasure
over her wetness, stroking firmly against her clitoris,
taking her far, far beyond the furthermost
reaches of her own sensual imaginings. She wanted
him so much. Too much…
Abruptly, reality pierced her sexual arousal and she
tensed, pushing Lorenzo away whilst her body
screamed its pain at her denial of its pleasure.
Lorenzo sat up, frowning, and made to take her in
his arms, but Jodie resisted him and shook her head,
telling him fiercely, "No!"
"What? What are you saying? You want me — you
were giving yourself to me…" he insisted fiercely.
"And you want to prove that all women are like
your mother — that we all lie and cheat. Yes, I do want
you," she agreed shakily. "But I want my self-respect
more."
As she spoke she was wriggling away from his restraining
arm and getting off the bed, hurriedly gathering
up her scattered clothes, fully aware that
Lorenzo was watching her but not daring to look back
at him in case her resolve wasn’t able to withstand
her doing so.
Lorenzo lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.
The ache he could feel inside himself was just physical,
that was all. And the emotion burning inside him
was just furious anger that Jodie should dare to say
to him what she had. She meant nothing to him.
Nothing!
The emptiness of his bed without her was something
that he welcomed, rather than regretted. As he
would welcome the emptiness of his life once she had
gone from it, he assured himself fiercely.
The reason he had been so sexually aroused by her,
so sexually lost in the sweetness of her, was simply
that it had been too long since there had been a
woman in his bed. And that was a need he could
easily satisfy. Right now, if necessary, simply by
making a phone call. And if he couldn’t reach any of
the many women whom he knew would be pleased
to receive his summons — well, he knew, although not
from personal experience, that Florence, like any
other city, had its high-priced and high-class hookers,
women who knew how to please a man without making
any demands on him other than their fee.
But why pay a hooker when remembering one was
enough to cool his sexual desire? When he had first
met Caterina she had made no secret of the fact that
she had several rich lovers, even if later she had
claimed that it was not true and that he had misunderstood
her. And his mother, with the expensive gifts
she had received…a reward for her infidelity, even if
they had only been from one lover. His heart started
to thud angrily.
He got up off the bed. Five minutes later, standing
beneath the lash of the shower, he could feel his heartbeat
returning to normal.
What really infuriated him was that Jodie, whom
he had begun to consider someone whose thinking
was sound and rational, should start making such ridiculous
and unfounded accusations. How dared she
accuse him of being so emotionally damaged that he
wanted her to lie to him to reinforce his belief that
her sex could not be trusted? He had proved that he
trusted her, had talked to her about things that were
so close to his heart he had never discussed them with
anyone else. Did she really think that he would do
that and then try to create a reason to mistrust her? It
was totally illogical that he should do such a thing—
like a panicking child trying to protect itself from being
hurt because it feared to love.
After all, it wasn’t as though he was afraid he might
be falling in love with her and was fighting desperately
against doing so, was it? Was it?
He turned off the shower and reached for a towel.