The Italian's Final Redemption - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,39
pleasure that washed over him, sweeping away the tightness in his chest and the poison in the centre of his soul. The corruption he could never escape, since it was part of him and would always be.
Sweeping away everything but the feel of her around him, the tight grip of her sex as she stiffened and arched beneath him, calling his name.
Everything but the pleasure that raced up his spine and exploded in his head, an excoriating fire that gave him finally what he hadn’t realised he’d been searching his whole life for: a single moment of purity.
It wouldn’t last, though, and deep down he knew it. Which was why this could never happen again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCY WOKE THE next morning knowing exactly where she was: Vincenzo’s bedroom.
Sunshine came through a gap in the heavy white curtains, leaving a trail across the crisp white sheets, making it abundantly clear that she was alone.
A thread of disappointment wound through the pleasant, lazy, sated feeling inside her. She wanted him next to her so she could explore that powerful, masculine body in the daylight, discover what made his breath catch and turned his black eyes to flame.
She shivered deliciously as memories of the night before flooded through her. Of the feeling of him sliding inside her, pushing in deep, and how strange it had felt and how wonderful too. There hadn’t been any pain, only a momentary discomfort that had gone almost as soon as she’d felt it. And then there had only been the most incredible feeling of connection, of being so close to another person. She’d never experienced anything like it.
His face had been stripped of everything but hunger, a fierce need that had echoed in her own soul. And for a brief, crystal-clear moment before the pleasure had washed it all away she’d seen something vulnerable in him. Something lost.
But the moment had been so brief that now, in the sunshine of the morning, she wondered if she’d seen it at all. Because what would make a man as strong and powerful as Vincenzo de Santi vulnerable? What would make him lost?
Curiosity tugged at her, that fatal flaw, but this time she indulged it. Staring at the ceiling, she remembered the research she’d conducted into him as she’d planned where to run to. The de Santi family was an old one, going back to medieval times when they’d been spies for a now lost Italian duchy, before an ancestor had found that there were more riches to be had in illegal activities.
In modern times they’d managed to stay one step ahead of the law, concerning themselves only with the jostling for precedence and constant need to earn respect among the crime families of Europe, fighting petty private wars and constantly stoking ancient feuds, and they probably would have continued in that vein if not for Vincenzo.
He’d betrayed his ancient heritage, his lineage, and reported his parents to the police in exchange for immunity.
Then he’d turned himself into the scourge of Europe, feared and loathed by the all the families who’d once considered the de Santis allies.
Lucy frowned at the ornate plastered ceiling.
What had made him turn his back on his family? Loyalty was the lifeblood of the old families, it was ingrained deep in their bones, but something had happened to Vincenzo. Something had shattered that loyalty. Or perhaps he’d never had it at all.
But no, that couldn’t be. A man who held to such a difficult purpose as the one he’d chosen for himself wouldn’t be a man with no loyalties or beliefs. If anything it was the opposite. But then, where did those loyalties lie? And to what? To justice? To making up for the sins of his family? Or was it something else?
What does it matter? In a week you’ll be in custody and then you’ll never see him again.
That thought hurt and so she ignored it in favour of slipping out of bed and heading for the shower in the en-suite bathroom. She washed herself, enjoying the cool water falling on various aching parts of her body, and when she was done she wrapped the familiar red robe around herself—which was the only item of clothing to hand—and went back to her own room.
The clothes he’d bought for her that had arrived the day before had been put away by Martina, and so she had to pull open the drawers on the big oak dresser and hunt through them. They were all very expensive, in beautiful