Italy's Most Scandalous Virgin - Carol Marinelli Page 0,57

‘I can’t face the board.’

‘No,’ Dante said, and just as she breathed again, he ran a hand over her gold curls and slipped his fingers inside. There was no clamp of her thighs now as she let him explore her.

He stroked her so lightly that it made her quiver and then he amended his request.

‘You don’t have to face the board, just come with me to Rome.’ He knew the press would be outside his apartment. ‘I’ll book us into La Fiordelise.’

‘Adjoining suites?’

‘If that’s what you want.’ Dante said.

‘Dante.’ She just wanted to focus on the bliss his fingers gave, and she answered through gritted teeth. ‘We’d have to drive.’

‘Fine,’ Dante said, not caring if it meant a five a.m. start.

His fingers were more probing and so insistent now that they brought her up on her knees. ‘Dante...’ she said, because she was coming undone and he had to stop with the questions, yet he didn’t.

‘You’ll come to Rome?’

‘Yes!’ She shouted it, scarcely able to believe he could carry on a conversation when his fingers were doing unimaginable things and she was rocking on his hand, just coming to his skilful command. ‘Oh, God,’ she shouted as he removed the pleasure of his hand and left her frantic and pulsing in the air, but then he took her hips and groaned as he slipped inside her orgasm and delicious tension encased his length.

She rested her hands on his chest as Dante moved her at his whim. It was the most delicious feeling, to feel all giddy and sated while she moved to his tempo. Dante thrust up into her as she screwed her eyes closed.

‘Open them,’ he told her.

She ignored him.

‘Open them,’ he demanded, and she looked down at the two of them, to see Dante sliding into her. To both see and feel the passion was dizzying, and it was then that Mia found her own rhythm and it wound her tighter, ever tighter. But it was the sudden tight grip of his hands and the digging in of his fingers that held her still as Dante started to come, and it toppled her so that she felt as if she was spinning undone as she gave in to the deepest orgasm she had known.

Mia collapsed onto his body, which wanted her, and lay listening to the thud, thud, thud of his heart that didn’t. At moments like this, she told herself she didn’t care.

Even when she rolled off and they lay both on their stomachs with their heads turned to face each other, all she felt was calm.

So calm that even the hoot of an owl outside didn’t startle her as it usually would.

Instead she looked right into his eyes as she spoke, ‘I’m really not sure about going to Rome.’

He stared back at her. ‘If my father’s secret has taught me anything, it is not to hide.’

‘That’s all very well,’ Mia replied, still calm, ‘but I won’t be paraded by you for a few weeks, until you relegate me to an ex who happens to have had your baby.’

‘Fine.’

‘So, what is the point of me going with you to Rome?’

It was Dante who blinked. He’d been about to point out that he still didn’t know what to say to the board, though the truth was he was very used to winging it. The deeper truth was that tomorrow would be made easier by knowing she was close—not that he told her that. Instead he trotted out his usual line when a woman tried to get too close. ‘You’re growing more demanding, Mia.’

And still Mia did not react. ‘Yes,’ she replied, for she would not be his plaything until he grew bored. There was something about Dante that imbued her with confidence and in this little post-coital haze she gave him a slow smile. ‘I am growing more demanding.’

‘You want me to marry you for the sake of the baby, don’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Good, because that is the most ridiculous reason on earth.’

It was now that she turned away, but still he wrapped her in his arms.

Dammit, how could he could be so nice, even while he was breaking her heart?

Married to Dante for the sake of a baby, that was the last thing she wanted to be.

Mia wanted the impossible.

But it was something Dante considered a pointless burden and something he didn’t believe in.

Love.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MIA DID NOT want to go to Rome!

There was too much music to be faced there and the more she thought about it, the more