The devil to pay, p.17
The Devil to Pay, page 17
She leaned over him, extended her hands, and placed them tentatively on his shoulders.
His skin was warm and the muscles twitched like those of a skittish stallion. She flattened her palms and stroked outwards, then, growing bolder, ran them down the hard ridges of muscle that bracketed his spine. She stopped when she reached the top of the sheet and slid back up, over his ribs, back to his shoulders, in a rhythmic, mesmerizing pattern.
The room was quiet, save for his breathing and the crackle of the fire. He lay completely at ease, eyes closed. His eyelashes were ridiculously long, fanned against his cheeks. She’d kill for eyelashes like that. They were wasted on a man.
Gaining confidence, she alternated firm strokes with a lighter, feather touch, and was gratified to see goose-bumps rise on his skin. The healer in her was pleased that she could make him relax. The woman in her just enjoyed touching him.
He gave a deep groan of appreciation and she took a moment to admire the landscape of his back. Purely from a detached, scholarly perspective, of course. He was as well-proportioned as the warriors of Homer’s Iliad; Achilles maybe, or Hector, her secret literary heroes. She could just imagine him storming the walls of Troy or stealing another man’s wife.
With one finger she rubbed the pale ridge of an old scar, as if her touch could erase the pain it must have caused. How hard and violent his life had been. A mistake, he’d called it. He was human, after all. Just a man.
But what a man.
She splayed her fingers wide. They didn’t even reach half way around his bicep. He tensed as she pressed a tender spot on his shoulder; presumably the injury that was still causing him trouble.
A shiver of awe at his strength ran through her. There was such banked power in his frame. Even at rest he seemed ready to explode into action. His fingers twitched on the pillow. Holding her breath, she swept her hands lower, edging under the sheet.
Chapter 32
Alessandro suppressed a soul-deep groan as Cara’s fingers skated toward the base of his spine. The bloody woman had done it again; surprised him, when he’d cynically imagined that nothing could surprise him ever again.
Whatever had made her change her mind about sleeping with him—and he was sure she had some complicated, convoluted reason—he wasn’t about to question her decision, nor fail to take advantage of what she was offering. He’d wanted her for far too long.
“Enough,” he growled, rougher than he’d intended. He flipped over and she leapt backwards as if she thought he was going to bite her. The idea only made him harder. “Take that off.” He nodded at the flimsy nightdress, privately amused at the catch in his voice. He’d told her to remove her clothes the first time she’d visited his room, too.
She wouldn’t go through with it. Any second now she’d come to her senses and bolt.
She grasped the hem of her gown.
Alessandro watched, outwardly impassive, inwardly incredulous, as she raised the thin garment over her thighs. Past her gently flaring hips, the dark triangle between her legs, the pale skin of her stomach.
His mouth went dry as she exposed her small, perfect breasts, pink nipples beading in the cool air. His breath caught as she pulled the material over her head and her hair settled around her shoulders in a dark cloud.
For a moment she clutched the bundled silk to her chest, then she gathered her courage and slowly extended her arm away from her body. Opening her hand, she dropped the nightgown defiantly to the floor as if throwing down a gauntlet to challenge him to a fight.
Her bravery was costing her. He could see her nervousness in the tightness of her shoulders. His heart gave a jolt of admiration. Firelight flickered over her body as she faced him, an Amazon queen, haughty and proud. His blood thundered in his ears. Bravo Signorina Montessori.
A unwelcome glimmer of unease assailed him. She was offering exactly what he’d demanded; total surrender. Complete trust. He wasn’t worthy of either of those things. But he wasn’t above taking them.
“What now?” she whispered uncertainly.
“What do you think we should do?”
Her small white teeth bit her lower lip in indecision and his cock twitched in response. God, she was killing him.
“Kiss?” she ventured.
“A good start. Come here then.”
She didn’t move.
He refused to make it easy for her. The decision had to be hers and hers alone. “If you want it, you have to come and take it.”
Acutely aware of her nakedness, Cara drank in the sight of him, long and lean, stretched out on the bed. Terror and excitement roiled inside her and his hot gaze turned her bones to water. She bent her knee on the bed near his hip, playing for time.
His lower half was barely covered by the sheet; she could feel the heat of his thigh through the thin barrier. She placed one hand on either side of his face and bent forward so that her lips hovered a scant inch above his own. Her breasts brushed against his chest and she gasped at the contact and paused, terrified of the momentous step she was about to take.
“My education didn’t include much about seduction,” she admitted. “Father Andreo used to blush just reading the Song of Songs. Especially the bit where it says ‘my lover’s breasts are like the twin fawns of a gazelle.’”
“Ah, the only good part of the bible.”
She gasped at his nonchalant blasphemy and he chuckled. “I’ve read it. ‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm. For love is strong as death and jealousy is cruel as the grave.’”
She shivered at the intensity of his gaze.
“Kiss me.” His voice was like woodsmoke, curling around her. His breath teased her lightly parted lips. “Just put your mouth on mine. Is it so difficult?” There was laughter in his eyes. And challenge. “Don’t back out now, Cara. I never took you for a coward.”
That did it! She lowered her mouth to his and flicked her tongue across the seam of his lips, tasting him, coaxing a response.
His lips stayed firmly closed.
She raised her head in annoyance. His eyes were still open, frankly assessing. His hands were exactly where they had been, on the pillows behind his head. He hadn’t grabbed her hair to hold her in place, hadn’t thrown her down onto the covers in impatience. How could he not be affected? Was she really that bad?
“You have to kiss me back!” she said.
His smile was slow and impossibly sexy. “Is that how it works?” He slid his hands up her arms and over her shoulders, raising goose-bumps, then threaded his fingers through her hair and tugged her forward. He bit her lower lip, teething gently. Her stomach flipped. “Let me show you,” he said.
For a few seconds Cara was simply content to marvel at his artistry. Lord Above, the man knew how to kiss. His lips tormented hers, teased and soothed in the same breath. She kissed him back, clumsily, inexpertly, wholeheartedly, and she must have done something right, because he made a low, growling noise in the back of his throat and tightened his grip on her hair. The sound was one of sheer, animal arousal.
The tenor of the kiss changed. Within seconds it became a competition, each of them vying for supremacy, pleasure the only goal. Their tongues tangled and fought, an endless game of advance and retreat. Shivers raced over her skin. Minutes, or perhaps hours later, she reared back, gasping for breath. His lips were wet and glistening. Her heart was racing as if she had a pack of wolves after her.
“You’re definitely improving.”
His words were taunting, but there was a roughness in his voice that betrayed him. He wasn’t unaffected.
“I still don’t like you,” she whispered against his mouth. “You’re still a Devil.”
She felt his lips quirk. “I know.”
In a lightning quick move he tugged her down onto the bed beside him and rolled her over so she was lying beneath him, as they’d been in the forest. He trapped her hands against the rumpled covers. She gasped as his chest pressed her into the softness of the mattress and stilled, suddenly wary, intensely aware of his size, his strength, his sheer domination.
“Don’t give me the timid virgin Cara,” he whispered, sensing her uncertainty. “Give me the girl who bloodied my nose in the bailey. The girl who stabbed me in the forest.”
“You deserved it,” she whispered. “Show me what to do.”
His smile was pure wickedness. “You don’t need to do anything. Just lie there and enjoy it.”
He kissed his way down her body as if he had all the time in the world. First her neck, then her collarbone, then the upper slope of her breasts.
Cara struggled to breathe. Until recently she’d barely given her breasts a second thought. They were just, well, there. Annoying things that bounced painfully when she rode and got in the way when she practiced archery. She’d never dreamed they could be so incredibly sensitive.
He flicked one nipple with his tongue then circled it with a lazy swirl. And when he put his mouth over the peak and suckled her, she arched off the bed with a gasp. His fingers traced the healing scratch on her ribs and his dark bows lowered in a frown, as if he were angry that she’d been hurt, then he feathered kisses down her stomach and she tensed, suddenly ticklish. He traced his way up her legs, fingers skating over her calves and the weak spot behind her knees, and she jerked as he nipped the tender skin of her thigh with his teeth. Her blood pulsed thickly in her veins as she grasped his shoulders. She felt light-headed, over-warm.
“What are you doing?!”
“Relax, Carissima. Enjoy.”
His tongue traced the crease where hip met leg. She grabbed his hair with both hands and tried to pull him back up, but he ignored her and dipped lower.
Embarrassed beyond anything, Cara felt herself wet, there, where he was.
Oh, Holy Mother! He was kissing her there! In places she couldn’t even give a name to! She closed her legs around the sides of his head just as he touched her with his tongue.
Cara closed her eyes, certain she was about to die of mortification. Ovid hadn’t mentioned this. A bolt of pure energy shot through her. “Good Lord!”
His upward glance was entirely wicked. “I doubt He has much to do with this, sweeting.”
He was right; the feelings he was producing were sinful indeed. This was the Devil’s touch—she was burning and desperate, like Satan’s Inferno itself. And del Sarto fanned the flames with his tongue then blew on her gently, sending icy shivers all over her body.
She yanked on his hair in wild desperation. “Don’t stop! Don’t you dare stop!”
He laughed darkly against her skin. He kissed and licked, teased and tormented, and Cara nearly jerked off the bed. Maybe it was heavenly, after all. Her heart felt as if it would burst out of her chest.
When he pulled back she moaned in wordless denial, aching and somehow bereft. Why had he stopped? She could have howled in frustration. If she’d had her dagger she would have stabbed him, without a moment’s hesitation. She was restless. Fevered. Incomplete.
“Turn over,” he murmured. “It’s your turn for a massage.”
Cara frowned but complied unquestioningly. The man clearly knew what he was doing. His hands settled on her back, rough and smooth at the same time. She could feel the skin on his palms, sections coarsened by constant weapons practice. They moved over her, kneading the tense muscles of her shoulders and she bit back a groan. It felt so good.
He stroked the ridges bracketing her spine over and over again in a mesmerizing rhythm, then smoothed the indents at the top of her buttocks, and moved lower, onto the curves of her bottom. Cara floated, her body strangely languorous, both relaxed and increasingly excited at the same time. The place between her legs throbbed.
His hands moved over her buttocks onto the top of her thighs, then reversed direction, gliding upwards again. The V made by his splayed thumbs and forefingers pushed her cheeks upwards before he returned to her lower back. She buried her head in the coverlet and held her breath. And then his fingers dipped down and she gasped as he parted her slick folds and rubbed the spot where his mouth had been.
Cara had never experienced anything like it in her life. It was glorious.
Then he pushed the tip of one finger inside her. She squirmed, but he rested his other palm on the small of her back, pressed her gently back down onto the bedclothes. His voice at her ear was velvet-rough.
“Enjoy it, Cara. Let it happen.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about. She shifted on the bed, aching for his touch. His finger pushed deeper, then withdrew and pushed in again. It was a monstrous invasion, but it felt so good. Each slide seemed to hit a spot inside her that made her desperate for something, just out of reach.
She fisted her hands in the bedclothes, suddenly reluctant to cede all power to him. She resented the way her body surrendered so easily to his wicked, clever hands. She tried to resist the feelings building inside her, but it was no use; she was shaking, gasping—almost there, reaching for some end to the exquisite torture—
The world exploded. Pinpricks of silver lightning exploded behind her eyelids like one of Fra Domenico’s fireworks and her body was clenching, contracting. Splintering apart and reforming. For an instant nothing existed but darkness and pleasure. And then, slowly, slowly, she returned to earth and lay stunned and panting.
What a wicked, magical thing.
Chapter 33
When Cara finally found the energy to roll over she found del Sarto, half propped against the headboard, watching her. Her face flamed at the liberties he’d taken with her body but he gave her an amused smile, and brushed her hair away from her neck. “Beautiful.”
He’d tugged a sheet across his lap but her eyes were immediately drawn to the disturbing bulge that was ruining the contours of the bedclothes. Her body was still warm and tingling but it suddenly occurred to her that they weren’t finished. He hadn’t taken his own pleasure.
He lay there like a sultan awaiting the ministrations of one of his harem, the planes of his chest muscled and hard. Beautiful himself.
“Touch me.” His voice was deep, gravelly with desire, and she shivered.
Gathering her courage, she placed her hand flat on his chest. His heart beat strong and steady beneath her palm. Filled with curiosity, she used one finger to trace a circle around his flat brown nipple, as he’d done to her to such astonishing effect.
His whole body went rigid.
A wicked thrill raced through her as she remembered all the giggled conversations she’d overheard between the kitchen girls at Castelleon. Things that had sounded disgusting now sounded . . . rather intriguing. She recalled what Vanessa Canozzi had been doing to him in the stables.
Holding her breath at her own daring, Cara trailed her fingers downward and watched in fascination as the muscles of his abdomen twitched in responsive relay. She ran a finger teasingly down the line of hair that led from his navel and he raised his eyebrows, silently daring her to pull away.
He didn’t think she’d do it. Well, she’d never backed down from a challenge. He should know that about her by now.
She pushed the sheet down and a little shiver ran through her when she saw his naked form. He was magnificent. His member reared up proudly towards his belly, nestled in a mat of curly dark hair. A hum of gratification warmed her at the evidence of his body’s reaction. Of course, it probably did this at the sight of any naked female, but still, this time it was for her, and her alone.
She looked up to find him watching her, gauging her reaction, completely unashamed of his nudity. It was little wonder; if she had a body like his, like some Olympian demigod, she’d probably walk around naked all day long. It was a sin to cover something so beautiful with clothes. He was an animal in its potent prime, as muscled and vital as Saraceno. And tonight he was hers.
Her hand crept lower, but just before she touched him she lifted it away and placed it back in her lap.
He practically growled. “Why did you stop?”
She adopted a prim expression. “I don’t even know your full name.”
He held her gaze for several heartbeats and Cara rather thought he might be counting to ten. Or praying for the strength not to strangle her. She hoped so. It served him right. He’d tormented her for years. It was only fair that he should suffer a little too.
“Why on earth does that matter?” he asked tersely.
She shrugged. “It just does.”
His frustrated exhalation indicated his displeasure as he curled up towards her and kissed her on the lips. “You know my name; Il Diavolo.”
He gave her another kiss, harder this time. “Kingmaker.”
Another kiss, more urgent. “Mercenary.” Kiss.
“Soldier of fortune.” Kiss. “I have many names, sweeting. Take your pick.”
“You know what I mean,” she managed breathlessly. “Your real name.”
He lay back down and covered his heart with his palm as if taking a sacred oath. “My name is Alessandro Rafael del Sarto.”
It rolled off his tongue like warmed honey from a spoon and Cara nearly laughed at the irony. Of course the devil would have an archangel’s name.
She reached out and touched him.
He fisted the sheets and let out an uneven breath as she stroked her fingers from tip to base. She was amazed by the heat, the silky softness of the skin overlaying the hardness beneath.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He covered her hand with his own, curled her fingers around his shaft and began to move, his fingers enveloping hers. When she caught the rhythm he released her and lay back and she continued alone, stroking up and down. He closed his eyes and his expression was almost tortured. It was clear he was struggling to maintain control. Cara felt a flash of womanly satisfaction.
And then she remembered something else she’d seen in those naughty books he’s given her. Cautiously, she bent her head and touched the very tip of him with her tongue. He nearly jerked off the bed.
She reared back in alarm. “Is that wrong? Did I hurt you?”
