the expected rich advantages that came with the wedding ring? In Venice she could have partied with his mother’s wealthy and famous friends and shopped in expensive boutiques and jewellery stores. An ancestral palazzo in the mountains was no fair exchange.
‘It’s a great place for a honeymoon,’ Cristo informed her with something that just might have been amusement glimmering in his keen gaze.
A honeymoon? Well, she was married. But why was he laughing at her? Did he also see the ludicrous gulf between a boy raised in a gilded Venetian palace and the housekeeper’s daughter? How could he fail to? A tide of self-conscious colour washed Belle’s complexion as they entered the enormous palazzo. She knew time was running out. They had dined on the plane, so not even the need to eat could be stretched out to lengthen the evening ahead. For goodness’ sake, she urged herself, lighten up, wise up. This was the deal; this was the agreement that would ensure her siblings received everything that should have been theirs from birth. They would grow up secure and safe as Ravellis and nobody would have an excuse to mock them or sneer at them. They would have the best of educations and opportunities to equip them to enter adult life. They would never have to worry about where their next meal was coming from. As she listed the countless benefits of having married Cristo Ravelli, Belle’s breathing slowly steadied and she steeled her spine.
Franco clutched at her dress as they mounted the stairs and the manservant who had let them in showed them first to a nursery suite where the nanny tried to detach Franco from Belle. But Franco didn’t like strange places and he started to sob and clutch at his sister and it took Cristo to detach him from her.
‘Kiss-do,’ Franco warbled mid sob, ready to smile until Cristo handed him over to the nanny, and then in desperation stretching his arms out to Belle instead.
Belle moved forward to go to Franco but Cristo forestalled her with a hand on her arm. ‘It’s our wedding night,’ he reminded her drily and the very dryness of his tone disturbed her.
In her opinion only people who loved each other had wedding nights, but that wasn’t what she had signed up for, she reminded herself squarely as Cristo led the way along the corridor and cast open a door across yet another landing into a huge bedroom. In spite of her nervousness, the thrill of desire began to build within her.
Belle’s attention centred on the giant gilded four-poster bed topped with a gilded coronet and stayed there as if a padlock had snapped her into place. Suddenly she was regretting the innate shyness and mistrust that had kept her out of other men’s beds. A little sexual experience would have felt better at that moment when ignorance felt more like a threat.
Cristo closed his arms round her rigid figure from behind and the scent of him engulfed her. He smelled so good, a citrusy mix of designer cologne and aromatic male that did something strange to her senses. Her heartbeat kicked up pace as he tugged her hair back from her shoulders and bent his mouth to her nape. His chest was against her spine and as solid as rock, and lower down against her bottom she was suddenly startlingly aware that he was aroused and that had the oddest effect on her. Even as her nervous tension heightened, she couldn’t help being pleased that she could have that much influence over a male who tended to reveal very little on the surface, and who had stood at the altar in the chapel as though he were an innocent bystander on the brink of boredom.
‘I love you in that dress, gattina mia,’ he growled against her skin, and buried his mouth there in a place she hadn’t even known could be sensitive. Every cell in her body pulled taut with anticipation as he laved her flesh with the tip of his tongue and grazed her with the edges of his teeth in an incredibly erotic approach she had certainly not expected from Cristo Ravelli. She was already trembling, her nipples tingling, a sliding sensation of warmth rising between her thighs. A slice of cooler air feathered her spine and her wedding gown slid down her arms without any warning. A gasp of surprise was wrenched from her but ten seconds later the dress was pooled round her feet and he was lifting her out of it.
He spun her round, swiftly engulfing her hands in his before she could make any move to cover the lacy bra, knickers and hold-up stockings she wore beneath. Shimmering eyes, dark as Hades, flared naked gold as they scanned the full curves of her breasts cupped in the bra, sliding down to her narrow waist and the flare of her hips before seguing down the long, shapely length of her legs.
‘You were definitely worth waiting for,’ Cristo told her with hungry conviction lacing every syllable. ‘You’re gorgeous, cara.’
Belle sucked in a shaken drag of oxygen and then he kissed her with a heat and strength that consumed her. He caressed the seam of her lips, parted them, delved deep and sent a shudder of excitement racing through her that startled her. Yes, as she had noted before, Cristo knew how to kiss and his mouth on hers was deeply addictive and intoxicating. He teased her with his tongue and she shivered and dimly recognised that she was being very efficiently seduced by a man she had once written off as a stuffy banker. Her fingers laced into the thick black hair at the back of his neck and an appreciative growl escaped low in his throat. Just as quickly she became airborne when he scooped her up and settled her down on the bed.
Green eyes dazed, Belle stared back at him, nerves beginning to rise again as he undressed, shedding his tie, his jacket and shoes with a careless haste that flattered her. With his scorching golden eyes pinned to her as intently as though she were Helen of Troy, she realised that he truly did appear to find her very attractive, and when he shed his shirt to reveal six-pack abs and a torso straight out of a male centrefold Belle’s mouth ran dry because for the first time ever she was appreciating the male body. With his every movement sleek muscles flexed below smooth golden skin. A thin furrow of dark hair ran from below his navel and disappeared beneath his waistband and then just as quickly he was skimming off the trousers as well, displaying tight buttocks and a...and a massive bulge in the front of his boxers.
At that point, all of Belle’s virginal concerns surged to the forefront of her mind. Was he supposed to be that big? Was that normal? She could hardly ask.
Cristo wondered why she was blushing as red as a tomato. He had never seen anything more beautiful or more innately satisfying than the sight of her on top of his bed, clad only in delicate lace lingerie. He tugged off his boxers and left them in a heap, on fire for the climax his body craved.
The full-frontal effect caused Belle to edge back up towards the headboard. He didn’t seem to have a single inhibition in his entire body. Her lashes lowered to screen her expression, heat and what she didn’t immediately recognise as hunger snaking through the secret places of her body.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Cristo remarked, tugging her back into the shelter of his arms and reaching behind her to unhook her bra.
‘And you’re very...single-minded.’ Belle selected the word shakily because she thought he had a lot in common with a bullet aimed at a target.
‘I’ve had three weeks to think about this moment,’ Cristo growled low in his throat. ‘Three weeks too long...I wanted you the first moment I saw you.’
‘When you thought I was my mother?’ she parried incredulously.
‘You were crossing the lawn with the dog in tow and looking exactly like yourself,’ Cristo contradicted, raising almost reverent hands to the spill of pale breasts he had unveiled, long fingers tracing the underside of the full round swells. ‘You are totally magnificent, cara mia.’
Her breath was feathering in and out of her lungs in insufficient drags while he played with her straining nipples, teasing and plucking the tender crowns and sending trickles of fire flaming down into her pelvis. He smoothed his hands down over her quivering frame.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked in surprise.
