The Medici Mistress: Nothing and no one would stop him from having her. (11 page)

“That will come,” he promised. “But for now, I am enjoying being in control of you.”

She shook her head against the sofa, and then cried out, as he drove two fingers inside of her core. She swore loudly, her whole body shaking with the desires he had stirred. Annie’s green eyes were closed to the world. She needed not to see, not to hear, simply to feel.

“You’re so wet,” he muttered, bringing his mouth down to her breast again and sucking her sensitive peak, while his fingers moved inside of her. “So wet and responsive.”

She gripped his shoulders as her orgasm made her mind weak, and her body tingle. He didn’t give her a moment to recover, before poising himself at her entrance and driving into her. She let out a low whistling sound as she experienced the fulfillment of his body anew.

“This. This is what I need,” she groaned, wrapping her legs around his waist to welcome him completely.

He had never needed anything as much as he did to feel her wrap around him. He lavished kisses over her body, touching where his mouth went with his fingertips. Every single bit of her, he kissed and touched, tasted and felt, and he moved inside of her, holding her close, moving with her and showing her that heaven really did exist on earth, so long as she was in his arms.

The last thought Annie had before her whole body seemed to explode with sexual release, was that she would forgive him anything, if it meant they could be together.

His whole body shuddered as he felt the full expression of their love making; his orgasm was intense.

Afterwards, as he rolled her to lie on top of him, and tenderly stroked her naked back, she propped her head onto his chest. “I have to tell you something,” she said seriously, running her fingertips through the coarse hair that surrounded his nipples.

“Oh?” His eyes were hooded. A combination of the long day, and their sexual exploration, had made him feel more satisfied than he knew possible.

She bit down on her lip, shyly. “You are the only man I’ve ever, um, done that with.”

His eyes flared wide, as possessive pride burned through him. Any hint of exhaustion was consumed by the fire within him. “I can’t believe it,” he groaned, gripping her face on either side with his hands. “How is that possible? It’s been three years.”

Her cheeks flamed. “Now you’re making me feel like some kind of prude.”

“No!” He shook his head, sitting up and pulling her with him. “It’s just… I can’t believe you haven’t had men beating a path to your door.”

She shrugged, self-consciously. “I haven’t really been interested.”

His smile bared his even, white teeth. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me.”

She arched a brow. “I thought you might feel that way.”

“Am I that predictable?”

She shrugged. “I guess so.” She smiled at him, slowly, and she felt like her future was bright. That maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay after all.

* * *

“You’re really not nervous?”

He was reclining lazily against her bedroom door, watching while she folded laundry. “Do I strike you as a man who feels nerves?”

She picked up a pair of rolled socks and threw them at him. “You strike me as a human being, and everybody gets nervous from time to time. Especially when meeting the Queen.”

“Meeting the Queen is not such a big deal. Would you like to come to the investiture ceremony?”

She wasn’t sure if he was serious. Her heart turned over in her chest as she shook her head. “I’d be way too terrified to meet, or even see, the Queen.”

He winked at her. “I have met the Queen before,
cara.
She toured one of the pediatric wings we helped fund in the states.”

“We?” Her heart thudded painfully, as it always did, when he alluded to Carrie.

“Yes.” His sigh was heavy. “We.”

Annie nodded. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. It had been four blissful days since Paris. Days in which life had almost seemed to carry on as normal, but nights... Oh, the nights. Her body burst into flames just thinking about the things they’d done to each other.

But always, at the back of it, were the questions. Questions about his past, their future. After all, he was based in America, now. She was in England. And geography was the very least of their worries.

“What is it?” He stepped into the room and picked up a towel off the bed. With a small frown of concentration, he began to fold it. It was clear, from the effort it took, that sorting laundry was not one of his usual activities.

Annie watched, perplexed. A sickening stone seemed to lodge in her heart. “I don’t know anything about your life.”

“You know
me
. That’s what matters.”

She was silent, working up the courage to say what she needed him to know. “Not if you see a future for us.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “I feel like there are all these redacted areas of your life; parts of you I can’t catch a glimpse of because you insist on keeping the book closed.”

He frowned. “I have told you,
cara
, there are things I won’t discuss out of respect for Carrie.”

“Respect for Carrie?” Though she didn’t know the other woman, her temperature spiked. “What about respect for me?”

He frowned. “I do respect you,” he ground out, giving up on the towel and moving swiftly around the bed to put his arms around her waist. “What do you need to know?”

Everything
, she silently answered. “Where do you live?”

“New York. Though I travel a lot for business.”

She nodded. “And you live with her, of course.” Her heart felt like it was splintering into a million pieces. It was an oddly delayed reaction, given that he’d been back in her life for weeks now. The reality of their situation was just making sense to Annie.

“We are in the process of divorcing. I moved out, months ago.”

Annie nodded, jerkily. “Do you still speak to her?”

He scanned her face. “Yes.”

“How long have you known her?”

His gut instinct was to shut down the line of questioning, but he understood Annie’s dilemma. In the normal course of events, they would discuss significant parts of their lives. “I met Carrie when I was fifteen.”

“Fifteen?” She visibly paled. “You’ve been in a relationship with her over half your life.”

He pulled the shirt she was hanging out of her hands and threw it angrily onto the bed. “Would you leave the Goddamned laundry?
Madre di Dio
. We can have it sent out.”

Her eyes were huge pools of green in her face, as she stared up at him.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned, pulling her against his chest. “I just wish… I could go back in time and change how I behaved back then. The decisions I made. Everything.”

“You can’t.” She bit down on her lower lip. “I don’t know how to trust you.” It was a whisper into the abyss. A question neither of them could answer.

Giac knew that a full explanation was required, but he was only human. There were things he found almost impossible to discuss. His circumstances with Carrie fit squarely into that box. “Trust this.” He squeezed her tighter, holding her to him.

“What would you change? What do you want for us, now?”

He kissed the top of her head, and said the only thing he knew to be true, with any degree of certainty. “I want you.”

Annie wondered how long he’d feel that way, and how he saw it working when they lived in different countries, but she stayed quiet and still in his arms. It was the only place she wanted to be.

He kissed her on the lips, but it was inquisitive and gentle, so unlike his usual touch that Annie felt tears clog her throat. It felt like a parting. Like the beginning of the unraveling of what they had.

She broke the kiss, stifling a sob, and blinked back tears. “I can’t.” She shook her head and pushed past him, into her bathroom. She pressed her palms against the cold ceramic of her basin, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She saw the worry and sadness there. It was not the face of a woman in love. Not one free to be in love, in any case.

She ran the cold water and scooped her hands into it, flushing her face punishingly. The cold water was refreshing. She reached out, feeling for a towel.

“Here.” Giac stood, implacable and strong, holding one out for her.

“Thanks.” She padded her face then hooked it back on the wall.

“I am not a man who likes to discuss feelings, and I fear I do not do it well. What I should have said, what I need you to know, is that I am completely in love with you, Annie Carlton.” He lifted her chin, so that she could see the truthfulness in his face.

Her smile was touched with wistfulness. “But you loved me then, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Her unspoken question hung heavy between them.

“I was wrong to be with you then. I had no business falling in love with you when I was committed to someone else.”

“And now?” She demanded.

“It is over between me and Carrie.”

She nodded jerkily. It had been the most amazing time of her life, and he regretted it? She blinked furiously to hold the tears at bay.

Giac exhaled heavily. “Carrie loved me before I had a penny to my name. When I was eighteen, her father told her to leave me, or she’d be disinherited. She stayed. She loved me when I was worth nothing. She has always been loyal to me. I owed her the same.”

Annie liked the other woman for her loyalty, but at the same time… “I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t threatened by what you’ve shared with her.”

His smile was grim. “I love Carrie. Almost like a sister. We grew up together. It is nothing compared to this.”

The lawyer in her wanted more proof; concrete facts. But love was about taking a leap of faith, screwing one’s eyes together and wishing for the best. Hoping it would all work out, even when there could be no guarantee.

Her small nod was invested with all the hopes of her heart. Because she loved him in a way that was impossible to resist.

CHAPTER NINE

Annie stretched languidly against the pale sheets of her bed. They still smelled of Giac. She breathed in his husky scent, the smile on her lips impossible to control. She listened to the shower, raining down water, imaging him naked and wet, and sighed. Without really thinking about what she was doing, she pushed the sheet off and climbed out of bed.

He was singing in his native Italian when she opened the door to the shower. Instead of pausing, he grabbed a bottle of her shampoo and held it like a microphone. She giggled, as his serenading became more dramatic and louder by the moment.

Finally, he pulled her into his arms, and lowered his voice, but continued to sing, staring directly into her eyes. Annie’s bliss was approaching a state of euphoria.

“You could just about quit your day job,” she remarked with a cheeky smile.

“Mmm. I think I have more success at my day job.”

With his forefinger, he traced a circle around one of her pert nipples, watching his fingertip’s progress with fascination. Annie gasped, as little arrows of pleasure danced through her body. “People would be crazy not to come here you sing,” she moaned, as he leaned forward and took her nipple in his mouth. Her body was wet, and she was even more so.

“
Bellisima,
” he whispered, crouching to his knees. Water ran over them like a fountain. Annie closed her eyes as the warmth pummeled her shoulders.

He teased her with his tongue, dragging it around her belly button, and then lower, until he was tantalizingly close to her most sacred heart. She gripped his shoulders, as he kissed her entrance, making her weak and shaky at the same time. She leaned against the cool tiles for strength as he moved his mouth against her.

“You know this makes me crazy,” she expelled in between roughly drawn breaths.

He stood, his eyes clashing with hers. “And you make me crazy,” he promised, kissing her neck, while his hands moved down the length of her body.

“You know,” she said, staring at the ceiling while her body reverberated at an intense frequency of passion and desire. “I came in to see if
I
could help
you
get cleaned up.”

“Help away,” he agreed, without moving from her.

A glint in her eye, she ducked down and out of his imprisoning arms. She reached for a bar of soap and rubbed it between her hands until a lather formed. Conscious of him watching her, she moved slowly.

“Impossibly sexy,” he complained, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Though shower gel might be quicker.”

She arched a brow as she replaced the soap on the tile block and turned to the man she loved with all her heart. “Now,” she pretended to ponder the question. “Where should I start?”

His smile was lazy, loaded with speculation, as she slowly raked her eyes the length of his body. His broad, strong shoulders, his powerful chest, his stunning erection. Lower still, over his darkly tanned legs, to his shapely calf muscles. She crouched down, pretending fascination with his ankles.