‘I’ll take you downstairs to see the rest of the house.’
‘I’d like to see the ballroom,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve never been in a ballroom before.’
‘It took three years to restore it but it looks incredible and it opens out on to the terrace, which has wonderful views of the forest and the village.’
In the ballroom, she leant back her head to appreciate the incredible painted ceiling and the carved stone pillars that ran round the perimeter. She was picturing ladies in beautiful gowns whirling round the room, sitting down to catch their breath on the velvet couches or to enjoy a drink in the conversational areas. She suppressed a sigh, thinking for the first time of how very privileged she was to be enjoying such experiences as part of Tore’s life, and how hard it would be to adapt to a more normal lifestyle again.
‘The main salon, the dining room and the library are all fully furnished and decorated,’ Tore assured her. ‘I’ve only furnished the rooms I had a reason to use.’
‘Are you telling me that there’s no office sitting here in readiness for you to use?’ Violet teased.
‘No, there isn’t. When I need to work I go to the main office outside Siena.’
‘If Stella’s all right keeping Belle for another hour, I’m going for a bath,’ Violet decided on the spur of the moment.
A maid was already unpacking luggage in the dressing room. She gathered what she needed from a case and ran the bath. In the midst of her preparations, Tore knocked on the door and asked if he could use the shower. ‘Of course,’ she said and she waited until he had stepped behind the marble shower wall before doffing her wrap and stepping down into the warm water that was foaming with bubbles.
‘There’s a swimming pool behind the villa. It’s welcome on hot days,’ Tore told her some minutes later as he reached for a fleecy towel.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t swim.’ Violet rested back in her bath like a queen and stretched out her toes, blissfully relaxed. She collided unexpectedly with scorching green eyes, enhanced by the darkness of his lashes and she tensed, a little curl of heat coiling and tightening low in her tummy. Desire was always there on some level with Tore, she conceded ruefully. Every time their eyes met, their bodies brushed, every time he laid a hand on any part of her… And when it hit, it threatened to consume her.
‘That’s not a problem. I’ll teach you.’ Looping a towel round his waist, Tore gazed down at her. ‘Promise me that you won’t go near the pool without another adult present.’
‘I tend to steer clear of large expanses of water, so don’t worry about that,’ Violet countered, her cheeks burning at the admission she had felt forced to make. ‘When my class was getting swimming lessons, I was off school with glandular fever, so Tabitha can swim and I can’t.’
‘It would be safer for you to learn.’
‘Agreed, particularly with Belle on the brink of walking…in case there was an accident and she was to fall in or something,’ she muttered with an unconcealed shudder.
‘The pool’s walled off for safety and bristling with alarms.’
A knock sounded loudly on the bedroom door and Tore went to answer it. When he returned, he told her that dinner was being served early because it was the chef’s night off.
‘You have an actual chef here?’ Violet gasped in interruption as she sat up.
‘I can’t cook.’ Tore handed her a towel.
Having given up on her peaceful bath when she realised that their evening meal would soon be ready, Violet slowly raised herself out of the water and wrapped herself in the towel. She was awesomely aware of Tore’s gaze gliding over her wet, gleaming curves. He rested lean hands on her damp shoulders and stared down into her misty blue eyes. A jolt slivered through her, provoking an ache between her thighs and a surge of dampness. Painfully slowly, he bent and dropped his hands to her waist to lift her up against him.
And he ravaged her parted lips slow and invasive in the very best way, and something inside her just melted into a puddle of liquid heat. ‘Tore…’ she began.
‘I’ve got it,’ he asserted, backing into the bedroom, resting her back against the wall and dropping to his knees in front of her.
As he tugged loose her towel, something akin to panic momentarily gripped her. She felt out of control and excited and she didn’t like it how often that happened with him. But when his mouth found the wildly responsive heart of her and then his fingers slid into her slick centre and she was struggling to stay upright and simply breathe, conscious thought abandoned her. All of a sudden, she was simply living for the next moment and thenext. Sensation controlled her, driving her needy body up to a tormenting high, and then she was falling over that orgasmic edge, crying out, gasping, leaning back against the wall simply to stay upright on shaky legs.
Tore was moving up and away and she couldn’t bear that and she caught him by the waist and forced him still before dropping to her own knees. She found him with her lips and her hands and for once a nervous fear of her own ignorance wasn’t muting her every action. Just for once, she wanted to return the favour and to offer reciprocal pleasure. Tore had a bad habit of giving her everything in bed and not giving her the opportunity to match him. And this time she was determined to match him.
He growled deep and rough as her tongue twirled round the crown of his cock. The muscles on his torso rippled as he leant back and arched his hips. Wicked satisfaction warmed her core, turning her molten as she teased him. And then just as suddenly, he was breaking away from her again and across the room, rustling through a drawer to return to her, biting off the edge of the packet, sheathing himself and then reaching for her.
‘Dinner!’ she gasped the reminder, a rather belated recollection.
He said something unrepeatable about that reference and while he was doing so, he was lifting her clean off her feet, bracing her spine against the wall and bringing her down on him. Her arms fell round his neck as he penetrated her deep and fast, and her whole body rejoiced in that urgency of his and that sudden satisfying sensation of being stretched and full. From that point their movements merely grew more frantic as if they were battling for supremacy. She was in awe of his strength as he supported her before she was utterly engulfed by the pounding excitement of his urgent possession. In the safety of his strong arms, she came apart in a thousand pieces, surging up to the highest point and then tumbling down again into deep, abiding satisfaction as he, too, achieved release.
‘Madre di Dio, sei cosi sexy,’Tore ground out, kissing her and lowering her slowly back to the floor. ‘Nobody has ever got to me the way you do!’
Violet clenched her teeth. ‘That sounds painful.’
‘All we have to focus on now is getting downstairs for dinner,’ Tore informed her, only slightly out of breath, reaching out and tugging her close. ‘I can’t keep my hands off you. This is new to me, mia lucciola.’
