Then louder still, at which point, Antonluca laughed.
And started over.
This time, he decided to slow down and enjoy every moment, every last second, because he’d spent entirely too long reliving the moments they’d already had.
It was better live. He wanted to revel in this, in her.
In hiswife.
He moved from the bed and pulled her to the very edge, then helped her pull her gown up over her head. He tossed it aside and made a deep, approving noise as he gazed at her. Without the gown, she was wearing nothing but one of those bustiers and only a scrap of lace between her legs.
“Sei bellissima,” he managed to get out. “So damned beautiful.”
He knelt down before her and without preamble, leaned in and pressed his open mouth to that V between her thighs. He sucked on her, hard, and she made a strangled noise in her throat, then bucked against him.
So he moved closer, settling her legs over his shoulders, and letting his teeth share this pleasure.
He ate at her until she was riding against him, pressing that softest part of her into his mouth. Then he used his hands to pull those panties away and lick his way into all that soft heat beneath.
Antonluca growled in approval as she broke apart, arching up into him with her arms thrown back over her head.
And as she sobbed out her pleasure, he moved back and shrugged his way out of his own clothes. Then he stretched out on the bed beside her, turned her over, and felt something in him kick, hard, when she wrapped herself around him and pulled him to her so he was on top.
“Please,” she whispered.
And Antonluca was nothing if not obliging, so he reached between them to run his fingers through her dampness and then work his way deep inside of all that searing, molten heat.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, and there was something fierce and stark on her face as she began to move—undulating her hips and forcing him to sink in a little deeper.
He braced himself over her and sank as deep inside her as he could, and only then—only when they were both gasping at that thick, slick fit—did he begin to hammer in and out.
Over and over again at that same smooth, hard pace until he wasn’t sure if either one of them was clinging to anything resembling sanity—because God help them both, this was almosttoogood. This was almosttoointense.
This is Hannah, he reminded himself,my wife.
And he only realized that he’d said that out loud when she whispered back, “My husband.”
That was when he lost control. Completely.
He clasped her close and she sobbed against his neck, even biting him as she began to shake all over again.
And he let himself go. He let himself pound into her, recklessly and heedlessly, and it felt so good that he heard himself shout out his pleasure as the flames consumed him.
Even better, he held her close as they both spun off into oblivion.
Because only here, skin to skin, was he entirely sure of her.
Only here, tangled together like this, did he feel connected to her—a part of her—at last.
CHAPTER NINE
And then, suddenly, Hannah found herself living in some strange little fairy tale.
She worked every day in a luxury hotel, where every room was a study in soaring elegance, exquisite fragrance, everything lush and welcoming. Christmas Eve was fast approaching and as if the hotel was its very own Advent calendar, every day they unveiled a little more sparkle. A little more glee.
Every night when she left the hotel in all its graceful splendor, she let the starkly beautiful man who was not quite a stranger drive her home through the magical hills of Tuscany to a bare-bones castle, all forbidding stone and echoing, empty rooms.
But like any other fairy tale, she knew better than to look too closely at all that starkness, at all those hints of disrepair. Because he was her baby’s father. And more to the point, he was her husband.
