And yet, that trust didn’t feel like a weight, like his other relationships. Her expectations that he take everything he wanted from her was like undoing a shackle he’d wound around himself.
She asked for nothing and yet somehow took everything he had.
It felt like discovering a patch of sunlight after living in shadows and darkness. Like a gift he wasn’t sure he deserved.
As dawn’s pink and orange light illuminated the room, he gathered her closer. Marveled at how easily he could get used to sleeping with her wrapped around him like this. To wake up with her like this for a million mornings.
Sated in body and mind, he couldn’t stop his heart from wondering about the shape of a future with her.
Chapter Eleven
ALESSANDRO DIDN’T GOinto work for two whole weeks. The day after the weekend, his cell phone blew up enough for Sam to know how unprecedented it was.
The first three or four days, she ate and slept and woke to have sex. For his part, he fed her in bed, drew her rose-scented baths, cajoled her into a game of chess and, when she was in that sleepy, lazy state, played the piano for hours. Only coming to bed when she dragged him to it, pulling at his stiff fingers.
He was insatiable. She was even more so. For years, she’d wondered if sex would ever be something she craved. If her history had somehow inhibited her ability to simply let go, to live in the moment. She definitely had frustrated Matteo on more than one occasion with her lukewarm responses and halfhearted interest.
But now, she knew the taste of that mindless craving.
Alessandro and his kisses, caresses, lazy lovemaking and sudden bouts of have-to-be-inside-you put paid to any and all doubts she’d ever harbored.
On day four, they ventured into his study through the secret corridor to pick up something to read. Because her body needed a break and he needed a distraction, he’d declared.
She’d discovered she had muscles in places she hadn’t even given a thought to. They’d spent hours lazing in separate recliners, discussing Jane Austen and classical music. Then they played chess while eating cheese and fruit.
On the way back, she’d kissed him in the darkness, feeling that urgency of having wasted too many precious hours. That itch beneath the skin that wanted to touch him, lose herself in him. He’d offered token protest, groaned when she’d bit him, picked her up, propped her up against the wall as if she weighed nothing and then thrust into her.
She had been ready. He’d checked. Still, the first thrust had felt raw and rough and painful but oh so glorious. When she’d been unable to hide her grimace on the second thrust, he’d pulled out, sunk to his knees, whispered apologies and soft kisses into her belly and then made her come again with the featherlight flicks of his tongue.
She’d been sobbing at the end, alternately begging for more and for him to stop.
By the time the next weekend rolled around, he’d thoroughly trounced her at chess, in so few moves that all her competitiveness spilled out. When she had attacked him on the bed, outraged that he’d pretended to lose to her until now, he’d let her straddle him and then, while he was inside her, he’d confided that she’d beaten him the other times because he’d been far too distracted imagining her in all kinds of positions.
On the eighth day, he worked from home while she painted in the studio he’d arranged for her. Tongue in cheek, she had said she could bear it if he went in to Milan for work, but he’d insisted on staying near her. He’d ruined her concentration by coming to his knees in front of her, punishing—or rewarding—her for teasing him.
They were both people used to silence, who craved solitude and yet somehow to find it with each other too. As if their silences had their own language to communicate with. They spent hours together not talking, her painting, him working, then coming together in a flash of biting kisses and rough, needy sex.
Sam didn’t understand the magic of their togetherness and decided against trying.
As remote and untouchable he was, Alessandro said hello when she called her cousin Kavi who never coddled or was condescending to her. He’d been shirtless and looked thoroughly debauched, and when Sam had ambushed him because Kavi begged to seewho Sam was tapping, he played along with his arms wrapped around her while Kavi gushed over his good looks and teased Sam with horribly intrusive questions. Alessandro had then informed Kavi in that deep voice that Sam had seduced him with her stubbornness… It was the moment Sam knew he had her heart. Faulty and courageous as it was, it had gone over into his keeping.
And she also knew the inevitability of it shattering into so many pieces soon and of being able to do nothing to stop it.
They were like a newly married couple on their honeymoon, Angelina told a stunned Sam when she’d come down for breakfast on the second weekend. Sam hadn’t been expecting all of the Riccis to be right there in the kitchen having breakfast.
Alessandro still worked from the villa, and Sam had started painting him with oils. They escaped one evening to a museum, which had of course been emptied of people for him. Because he didn’t want the world to intrude on her time with the art, he’d said.
Dismayed, Sam stared down at her short shorts and old T-shirt of Alessandro’s. It wasn’t indecent, but it was an undisputed announcement to a kitchen and backyard full of family, cousins and close friends.
How was she to know that her sudden cravings for carbs would result in all of the Riccis bearing witness to her walk of shame? Was it a walk of shame if she wasn’t ashamed of all the things she’d done with him?
Sam filled her coffee cup blushing beetroot red no doubt and said hello to people Maria insisted on introducing her to. Several male cousins winked at her. A couple of aunts looked her up and down, as if to see what all the fuss was about. One, introduced as Lucia, muttered something about violets.
Looking away, Sam took the picnic basket a beaming Maria handed her, piled with enough food to last them another week, and tried not to run. But even in her haste, she didn’t miss the fact that Alessandro’s aunt had loaded it up with protein bars, the kind she liked, and yogurt cups.
She’d almost teared up on the stairs. Yep, she’d finally reached the stage where her body had been through such a wringer that facing reality felt like a hard crash.
She had half finished a protein bar by the time she returned to his suite.
