but it was certainly Aurora that he impersonated, and now they were heading into dangerous territory indeed.
‘In fact, when I come home late she doesn’t even ask where I’ve been. She accepts that I’ve been working.’
‘She’s so understanding!’ Aurora cooed.
‘Yes,’ Nico said. ‘She is.’
‘And do you make slow, boring love to her?’
‘There is nothing boring about me in bed, Aurora. But, yes, I make very slow love to her.’
She had to remind herself to breathe. ‘Does she fake it and let out a little whimper to signal that she’s done?’
‘No, she screams my name.’
Those shaky curls shook as she refuted him. ‘I don’t think so.’
He crossed the room and decided to lose the stunning view of Rome. He had something infinitely better to look at.
‘Not only that,’ Nico said. ‘She even closes the drapes.’
He did so, and it was unthinkable that he was closing out the busy day he’d had planned.
Not quite unthinkable—because with Aurora he knew this was how life would be. Chaos and tangled limbs. Making up and kisses and heaving tears. Drama from which he had run as a young man as though there was a wolf on his heels.
The heavy drapes blocked out the light, denying him the sight of her body, so he turned on the bedside light and looked down at her.
‘Get into bed.’
‘But you forgot to switch off your phone, darling,’ Aurora said, in the voice of his fabled wife.
Nico wagged a finger to chastise her for the poor imitation. ‘She would not ask me to.’
‘That is true,’ Aurora conceded, for Nico’s perfect demure wife would not ask him to do any such thing. And yet she fixed him with a glare. ‘But every game has its rules.’
And for the first time—and only for Aurora—he turned off his phone, while silently vowing his perfect revenge: she would scream out his name.
His eyes roamed her body and made her flood with warmth and shiver at the same time.
‘Get undressed and into bed before I turn off the light.’
‘Don’t turn off the light,’ Aurora said, for she wanted to see him.
‘But I come home in the dark, dear wife.’
She swallowed, and reminded herself of the game they were playing.
It was a little hard to get undressed, sitting on the bed, and Nico did not help with the zip at the back of her dress. He watched her struggle.
She got the zipper undone and wriggled the dress down instead of up. Took it off by lifting up her bottom and sliding it down her legs.
Aurora could feel that her face was flushed, but not for a second was she embarrassed. Instead she was turned on by his scrutiny, turned on by his silent observation. And wondering how she could even have cared that her underwear might clash when it mattered not.
Again, her hands went behind her back and she unhooked her bra. She heard his ragged breath as, without support, her breasts fell heavy.
Her nipples hurt because they were so erect, and she glanced over and saw his hands that had been clenched by his sides were now undoing his belt.
‘Wait,’ she choked. ‘I want to see you undress too.’
Oh, what was this game they were playing? For they had not so much as kissed, and she was not even in bed—they had not even started—but her thighs wanted to squeeze together and her throat was closing with the tension.
She slid down her panties and went to move back the sheets, impatient to get into bed, impatient for his touch. But he growled a word.
‘Fermare.’
Stop.
Halt.
Do not cover your body just yet, Nico said with that one word. Do not remove it from my gaze.
For on that torrid night, so many years ago, he had not gazed and he had not lingered.
Now he took in the gleaming olive skin and the delicious softness of her stomach, the dark brown nipples that were like searchlights for him and the dark shadow where her shapely thighs met.
He fought not to take her this very second.
He fought not to unzip himself as he parted her legs and take her there and then.
He admired his own control as he removed his jacket.
But it was not quite perfect control, because he could not seem to stop the thrill of anticipation that made his breath shorten.
For it might be daylight on the other side of the curtains, but this was their one night as husband and wife.
And so he dropped his jacket to the floor, and with the same carelessness and impatience discarded his socks and shoes. And then he took off his shirt and felt her eyes reclaim his skin.
Oh, Nico.
She had missed that chest so. It was broad and had a smattering of hair. His long arms were so toned that he could have been out working the vines.
Her breath hitched as she watched him remove the last of his clothes.
‘You could have had me on Monday night,’ Nico said.
‘I know.’ Her voice was so low and thick that she almost turned around to see who stood behind her, but of course it came from her.
‘Why didn’t you?’ he asked. For that was a side of Aurora that he wanted to know.
‘Things were different then,’ Aurora said.
Then she had been trying to get over him—then she had been denying the throbbing of her body and the beckoning of his soul to hers and telling herself she did not have to succumb.
But she did not have to tell Nico all that. She did not have to tell him that this very morning she had thrown a coin in the Trevi Fountain and asked to be made love to by Nico in Rome.
She hastily amended that wish.
For now she did not want to be made love to by Nico, she told herself. She wanted powerful sex with him, the way she had known it before.
Aurora was too afraid to know his love and then attempt life without it.
‘Please…’ she said.
Please come to bed. Please let me know again that flat stomach
