know that,’ she asserted valiantly, wondering why he found the sudden change in their relationship so much easier. Were men just built that way? Was he more adaptable than she was? Or more relaxed at the concept of a marriage in which the only glue keeping them together would be sex and the hope of parenthood? Just sex, nothing worth fussing over, he had said after he got out of a bed where he had literally rocked her world. It was true that the only pleasure had been hers but his cold-blooded, practical take on what had happened between them had still knocked her for six. Yet she still couldn’t drag her gaze from his beautifully shaped, passionate mouth.
Cesare studied her with veiled eyes, black lashes rimming the glint of smouldering gold. Desire was lancing through him with lightning-force potency, sending tiny ripples of tension through his big, powerful frame. He couldn’t take his eyes off her lush mouth and the pouting crowns of her small breasts, which stirred softly below the fine silk of her top every time she shifted position.
It was years since Cesare had been so aware of a woman and he loathed the edgy bite of frustrated hunger that made him tense. He wanted to have sex with her and persuade his libido and his brain that, after all, she was just like any other woman he had bedded. He hadn’t been with anyone since the day he had first met her and that bothered him. He hadn’t wanted Celine when he’d had the opportunity and no other woman had since attracted his attention. Of course the problem was doubtless that his affair with Celine had run its natural course and left him bored. Lizzie was new and different, which had obvious appeal. There was even something strangely, weirdly sexy about the idea of getting her pregnant. He wasn’t sure what it was but he knew that just the thought of it made him hard and ready. Given even the smallest encouragement, he would’ve ditched Maria’s wedding banquet of a meal and headed straight for the bedroom.
Shaking off that foolish thought, Cesare gazed down at his bride with the sudden piquant recognition that she was his wife. His legal wife, his to have and to hold, his to protect. Without further ado, he pulled her close and kissed her, a husky growl sounding in the back of his throat when her firm little breasts brushed against his chest. She liked being carried; he remembered that and smiled. He hoisted her up into his arms and Archie scrambled up from his position of repose by the sun-warmed wall and barked in consternation at the sight of them.
‘Keep quiet, Archie,’ Cesare groaned. ‘You can’t come between a man and his wife...and I warn you, Lizzie, he’s not sleeping with us tonight or any other night.’
Lizzie was challenged enough to think of sleeping with Cesare and her mouth was still tingling from the hungry pressure of his mouth. As he carried her upstairs she decided that she was turning into a shameless hussy. A gasp escaped her lips when she saw the bedroom, which had been transformed into a bower of candlelight and flowers while they had been dining. Candles flickered light from metal lanterns set round the room and lush vases of pristine white flowers completed the magical effect.
‘Did you organise this?’ Lizzie asked in wonderment when he settled her down at the foot of the bed.
Cesare laughed. ‘No. Maria has waited a long time for me to find a wife and I think she’s celebrating.’
Sudden shyness reclaimed Lizzie as he gazed down at her, the lights picking out the hollows below his high cheekbones, lending him an enigmatic quality. In that lambent light, he was truly beautiful, sleek and dark, exotic and compellingly male. With sure hands he pushed her hair back from her face, letting the long, silky strands flow down her back. He tipped up her face and claimed another kiss, feeding from the sweetness of her mouth with hungry fervour, crushing her soft full lips below his while her fingers clung to his shoulders.
‘I’ve been thinking about this from the first moment I saw you,’ Cesare growled against her reddened mouth, his dark deep voice vibrating down her spinal cord, the very essence of masculinity.
‘You do talk nonsense sometimes and please don’t tell me that’s a compliment that I should gratefully receive. The first time you saw me I was in my dungarees and looked a complete mess!’ Lizzie protested on the back of a rueful laugh.
‘There’s no accounting for taste or the male libido,’ Cesare quipped, impervious to her disagreement. ‘I saw your face, your skin, your eyes...it was enough, delizia mia.’
‘I like it when you talk Italian,’ Lizzie confided breathlessly. ‘You could be reciting the multiplication tables but it wouldn’t matter. It’s your accent, your voice, the pitch you use.’
Surprised by that unexpected burst of loquaciousness, Cesare grinned, a slanting wicked grin that utterly transformed his lean, darkly handsome face, wiping away the cool vigilance and control that was usually etched there. ‘What I like most about you is that you surprise me all the time.’
‘Right now I’m surprising me,’ Lizzie told him truthfully, uncertainty darkening her hazel eyes as it crossed her mind that she was behaving impulsively, not something she made a habit of after growing up with an impetuous mother. But then she was not her mother, she reminded herself squarely, and at the age of twenty-four was surely old enough to make her own decisions.
He took her mouth in a long, intoxicating kiss and sober thought became too much of a challenge. A tension of a very different kind began to lace her body. She became ridiculously conscious of the silk rubbing against her swollen nipples and the dampness at her feminine core. Her body was responding to the chemistry between her and Cesare with a life of its own, blossoming like a flower suddenly brought into bloom by the sunshine. Only chemistry, just sex, she reflected in an abbreviated fashion as she warded off her insecurities. There was nothing to fear, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing she need avoid to protect herself. Dimly she was registering at some level of her brain that her mother’s disastrous affairs had made her far too reluctant to take a risk on a man.
Her silk top fell in a colourful splash of silk to the wooden floor and, with a ragged sigh of appreciation, Cesare closed his hands to the pert swell of her breasts, his thumbs expertly capturing and massaging the protruding pink peaks until they were taut and throbbing and the very breath was catching in her tightening throat. Her hips dug into the mattress beneath her, seeking to sate the hollow ache tugging at her pelvis.
One-handed, he wrenched at his shirt. ‘You see how I forget what I’m doing when I’m with you, delizia mia?’ he rasped.
Lizzie only needed that invitation and she tugged at his shirt, delicate fingers stroking over his taut, muscular shoulders, adoring the heat and strength of him. He put his mouth to her neck and skimmed the tip of his tongue along her delicate collarbone and then, gently lowering her flat on the bed, he roamed down over her ribcage, sending delicious little jolts of desire through her each time he captured the tender peaks of her breasts.
Passion had claimed Lizzie. Her temperature was rocketing higher and higher, a sheen of perspiration on her brow, and her heart was hammering so fast it felt as if it were at the foot of her throat. Her hand delving into his luxuriant black hair, she pulled him up to her and kissed him with all the urgent hunger racing through her. He pushed her skirt up above her knees and trailed his fingers slowly up her inner thighs. Every inch of her felt stretched taut with the extreme wanting that had taken her over and she gritted her teeth as he anchored his fingers to her knickers and trailed them off. She wanted his touch so bad it hurt and she squirmed in a fever of need.
‘I’m trying to go slow,’ Cesare bit out raggedly, ‘but I feel like an express train.’
‘Talking too much,’ she told him, her teeth chattering together at the unwelcome pause.
With an almighty effort, Cesare stepped back from the source of temptation. Haste wasn’t cool, especially
