'Squisita…perfetta,' he muttered raggedly as he drew her towards him, and his mouth swooped down to capture a taut nipple.
Her back arched as a whimper of formless sound was torn from her throat. He suckled her tender flesh with an intensely erotic enjoyment that drove her wild. He bit with subtle delicacy, his hand toying with the neglected twin, shaping, tugging, exciting until she was writhing beneath his ministrations. She wanted his weight on her and he denied her, lifting his head only to trail the tip of his tongue teasingly down between her breasts, traversing the pale skin of her ribs and dipping into the hollow of her navel.
Her hands dug into his hair and tightened in immediate protest as he strung a line of wholly determined kisses from the bend of her knee to the smooth inner skin of her thigh, tensing tiny muscles she didn't know she possessed. And then her neck extended and her head fell back on the pillows. A cry fled her lips, all thought arrested as she sank into the seduction of pure sensation and was lost in the frantic clamour of her own body.
At the peak of an excitement more of agony than pleasure, Catherine cried out his name, and his hands curved hard to her hips as he rose above her, silencing her with the tormenting force of his mouth. Against her most tender flesh, he was hot and insistent. For a split second he stared down at her, desire and demand stamped in his dark, damp features, and then he moved, thrusting deep as a bolt of lightning rending the heavens.
Pain clenched her, unexpected enough to dredge her briefly from the driving, all-enveloping hunger for satisfaction that he had induced. He stilled, dealt her a look in which tenderness and triumph blazed, more blatant than speech, and pressed a fleeting benediction of a kiss to her brow. He muttered something about doubting her and never doubting her again.
She was in no condition to absorb what he was saying. With tiny, subtle, circling movements of his hips, he was inciting her to passion again, accustoming her to his fullness. All conscious thought was suspended. She was lost in the primal rhythm of giving all and taking everything, driven mindless and powerless towards that final shattering release. When it came in wave after wave of unbelievable pleasure, it was sublime.
His harsh groan of masculine satisfaction still echoing in her ears, she let her hands rove possessively over his sweat-dampened skin. Obtrusive questions licked at the corners of her mind. Had it ever been that profound, that overwhelming before? She remembered excitement, but not an excitement that swept her so quickly into oblivion. She remembered his hunger, but not a hunger that threatened to rage out of control in its raw intensity. She remembered the sweet joy of fulfilment, but not a fulfilment that stole her very soul with its fiery potency.
And she also remembered…sadly…that Luc was invariably halfway to the shower by now, shunning with that essential detachment of his the aftermath of passion when she had so desperately wanted him to stay in her arms.
He was holding her now as if at any moment she might make a break for freedom, and the awareness provoked a deep rush of tenderness within her. She rubbed her cheek lovingly against a strong brown shoulder. He shifted languorously like a sleek cat stretching beneath a caress, as unashamedly physical in his enjoyment as any member of the animal kingdom.
'I had a very strange dream.' She broke the silence hesitantly, afraid that the magic might escape. 'I don't know if it was a memory.'
Tension snaked through his relaxed length. 'What was it?'
'You'll probably laugh.'
'I promise I won't. Tell me.'
'I was writing on a mirror,' she whispered. 'Can you imagine that? I never write anything but my name unless I can help it, and there I was, writing on this mirror!'
'Amazing,' he murmured softly.
'It wasn't. It felt scary,' she muttered, half under her breath. 'It probably has nothing to do with my memory at all. What do you think?'
'I think you're talking too much.' Rolling over, he carried her with him on to a cool spot on the bed. 'And I would much rather make love, bella mia.' He nipped teasingly at the velvet-soft lobe of her ear and forged an erotic path along the slender arch of her throat as she involuntarily extended it for his pleasure. Her hair splayed out across the pillow and he studied the chopped ends wryly and looked down at her. 'You've been using scissors to hack at your hair again.'
'I can't think why,' she confessed with a slight frown. 'I'll go and get it cut tomorrow.'
'Someone can come here to take care of it,' he countered.
'I want to see Rome.'
'Bumper-to-bumper traffic and unbelievable heat and noise and pollution. Not to mention the tourists.' He extracted a long lingering kiss before she could protest, and then he started to make love to her again. This time he was incredibly gentle and seductive, utilising every art to enthrall her. Pleasure piled on pleasure in layers of ever-deepening delight. Incredibly, it was even more exciting than the first time.
A single white rose lay on the pillow when she opened her eyes. She discovered it by accident, her hand feeling blindly across the bed in automatic search for Luc. Instead she found a thorn and, with a yelp, she reared up, sucking her pricked finger. And there it was. The rose. She wanted to cry, but that was soppy. The dew still dampened the petals. She tried to picture her supremely elegant Luc clambering through a rosebed and failed utterly. A gardener had undoubtedly done the clambering. Luc wouldn't be caught dead in a flowerbed. All the same, it was the thought which counted and, for an unromantic guy, he really was trying very hard to please. In the end, it was that reflection rather than the rose that flooded her eyes with tears.
The heat had reduced Catherine to a somnolent languor. She heard footsteps, recognised them. The cool of a large parasol blocked out the sun and shadowed her. She turned her head, rested her chin on her elbow and watched Luc sink down on the edge of the lounger beside her. In an open-necked short-sleeved white shirt and fitting black jeans that accentuated slim hips and long, lean thighs, he looked stunning enough to stop an avalanche in its tracks. A sun-dazed smile tilted her soft lips. He also looked distinctly short-tempered.
Since wedding fervour had hit Castelleone, the peace, the privacy and the perfect organisation which Luc took for granted had been swept away by a chattering tidal wave of caterers and florists and constantly shrilling phones. Luc's enthusiasm had waned with almost comical speed once he'd realised what throwing a reception for several hundred people entailed.
r /> 'I feel like throwing them all out,' he admitted grimly.
'You wanted a big splash,' she reminded him with more truth than tact.
'I thought it was what you expected!' he condemned.
'A couple of witnesses and a bunch of flowers would have done me,' she confided, feeling too warm and lazy to choose her words.
He threw up expressive hands. 'Now she tells me!'