A Shadow of Guilt

chapter SEVEN



VALENTINA LOOKED FROM the strewn jacket to him and then turned and paced away, glad she’d at least taken off her shoes because her legs felt wobbly enough at the moment. She turned back, feeling seriously jittery now and threatened to have her private space invaded like this, especially when she thought of the frothy lace excuses for underwear in the boxes in the other room. ‘I told you, Gio—I’m not one of your mistresses so please don’t feel like you have to kit me out in a similar manner.’

Gio flushed and Valentina took a step back.

His voice rang with indignation. ‘I’ve never had a mistress in my life—lots of one-night stands that I’m not proud of, but no mistress. I’ve never wanted to spend that much time with a woman.’

It was Valentina’s turn to flush. She felt confused and didn’t like the warm glow his words left in her gut. ‘So … why did you …?’ She trailed off and then tacked on, ‘Look, if you felt that I was letting you down with my own clothes you could have just said something and I’d have gone shopping myself.’

Gio straightened up from the door and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. ‘Dio. I didn’t feel as if you were letting me down. Damn it, Valentina, you could have been dressed in a sack and still outshone every woman there. You’d mentioned that you hadn’t had time to shop….’

The glow of warmth in Valentina’s gut spread and she panicked when she recalled her earlier vulnerability, the temptation to put on one of the dresses, wanting to look beautiful for Gio. That suddenly galvanised her into movement and Valentina stalked into the bedroom and gathered all the dresses up, along with the shoes, underwear and jewellery, in her arms.

Uncaring of the fact that she was leaving a trail behind her, she was only intent on getting rid of Gio and this reminder of how fragile she was around him. She came back and dumped it on a chair near him, the red dress slithering to a silken mound on the floor.

Valentina was breathing far more heavily than that little trip had warranted. She crossed her arms again and looked at Gio, who caught her gaze with a suspiciously impassive expression.

‘Look, I appreciate it, really. But I can buy my own clothes and I’ll go shopping tomorrow.’

A little scared by Gio’s lack of reaction Valentina blurted out, ‘It’s not as if you went to the trouble of getting them yourself….’ She flushed when she thought of the exquisite underwear and had a sudden fantasy that Gio had looked at it and imagined her in it. That spurred her back into the bedroom and she returned holding out the typewritten note. She held it up like evidence at a trial. ‘Look! Your assistant wrote this—you probably weren’t even aware of what you were signing.’

Gio’s arms were crossed now and he growled softly, ‘Yes, I was, because I wrote that note. No one else. Just like I had the boutique send over a selection of dresses and I chose the ones I thought would suit you best.’

Valentina’s hand dropped and the note fell from numb fingers to the floor. Dio. He had picked it all out. He had looked at it. Had he imagined—? Her mind seized at the thought.

Heat suffused Valentina to have it confirmed that he had chosen it. Himself. Increasingly panicked now she crossed her arms and said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I just want you to go.’

‘But it does matter,’ he insisted softly, coming closer. ‘You see, I don’t like you thinking that I could be insensitive enough to order you something as intimate as underwear via my secretary. After all, how would she even know your size?’

Gio continued. ‘I have severe dyslexia. It’s a condition I’ve had to learn to live with all my life and thankfully there is now a plethora of software out there to help people with my condition. That note was dictated by me, into a very handy machine which then printed it off, whereupon I signed it with my customary signature of G because it’s simply easier. And distinctive to anyone who knows me.’

Valentina’s arms were crossed so tightly across her chest now she feared she might cut off the blood supply to her brain. Gio’s mention of his dyslexia was throwing up memories of Mario sitting patiently beside him, laboriously working through homework assignments from Gio’s expensive prep school. She’d forgotten. And didn’t like the reminder, or the tender urges that came with it.

On jelly legs Valentina went to the door and opened it wide and stood back. ‘Thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it. I’ll return the dresses tomorrow and buy something suitable. I’d just like it if you left now. Please.’

But Gio didn’t appear to be listening. He was pacing back and forth and then he stopped suddenly and turned to face her, something so carnal and stark on his face that her whole body went slowly on fire.

‘The fact is that I did buy those dresses for a reason … and it wasn’t because you weren’t dressed appropriately. It was because I wanted to see you in them. I bought the underwear too, and I imagined how it would fit….’

Valentina felt faint; her sweaty hand nearly slipped off the door handle. All she could feel was searing heat and all she could see was Gio.

He came towards her before she had time to react and pushed the door closed again behind her and locked it. Valentina was trapped against the door but had a curious inability or wish to move. She could only look up at him and ask redundantly, ‘Why?’

Gio’s arms were braced either side of her head. His whole body was caging her in. His scent, his proximity … Valentina couldn’t move, couldn’t think straight.

‘Because of this.’ And then Gio bent towards her and, without touching another part of her body, pressed his mouth to hers, and the world went on fire.

It felt like aeons later when Valentina surfaced from the kiss to look up into Gio’s dark green-flecked eyes. Her lips felt swollen. His hand was on her waist and she was clinging to his shirt; it was bunched in her hands. She hadn’t even been aware of doing that. She could see herself reflected in his pupils, a tiny figure, and suddenly she remembered the excoriating rejection of the other night, how she’d vowed to him and herself that she wouldn’t let him touch her again. She’d just broken that promise with little or no persuasion.

Disgusted with herself she let go of Gio’s shirt and pushed away from him, and tried to ignore the way the beat of her blood was calling her back to him like a magnet. When she felt able, she turned around and wrapped her arms around her body in an unconsciously protective gesture.

She looked at Gio with huge eyes. ‘I can’t do this with you. I won’t do this with you. With anyone else but you.

‘After all,’ she reminded him bitterly, ‘I’m still a virgin, Gio. I haven’t managed to offload that burden yet.’

Fire and rage rushed through Gio with frightening force, at the very thought…. He ground out with an almost savage intensity, ‘And you won’t … with anyone else, except me.’

He came towards her and Valentina stepped back holding out an arm, as if that could stop him. Fires were racing all over her skin at the way he’d just sounded and the look of intent on his face. The magnitude of what could happen here if she let it. And how much she wanted it. Valentina had to fight it. She called up how it had felt when he’d handed her that robe and avoided her eyes. I don’t sleep with virgins.

‘Wait.’ Her voice shook. ‘How dare you suddenly decide that you’ve got any kind of right to make such a statement. You were very clear in your rejection the other evening.’

‘I didn’t want to reject you.’ Gio’s voice was rough and husky, weakening Valentina’s resolve. ‘Walking away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but I did it because I knew if I’d taken you, you would have woken afterwards and despised me even more than you already do.’

Those words lanced her deep inside. She thought he’d rejected her because he just didn’t want to sleep with her enough. She felt like an abject fraud because, if anything, she might have despised herself for being so weak, not him, but this was her only defence against Gio now. She tipped up her chin. ‘And what makes now any different?’

‘What makes it different is that I’m willing to risk your hatred because I want you too much. I’m not strong enough to stand back and watch some other man become your first lover.’

Valentina saw Gio’s hands curled to fists and felt his very tangible passion. The thought of some other man touching her, kissing her, almost made bile rise from her gullet.

Without Valentina realising it, Gio had come closer. He reached out a hand now and cupped her jaw, his fingers trailing against her neck where she could feel her pulse beating almost out of control.

He just said, ‘You want me … you can’t deny it, not here and now.’

‘I …’ she croaked and stopped, feeling seriously out of her depth. She couldn’t deny it. To deny it would be to utter the worst of falsehoods. Gio knew it. She knew it.

And in that moment she also knew that she was tacitly acquiescing because she had no choice. This had been building and building between them from the moment she’d seen him at the wedding just weeks before. And a long time before that, a small rogue voice insisted.

Gio smiled and it was unbearably bleak. ‘I’m giving you full permission to despise me all you want in the aftermath, Valentina, because I know you will. At least this way there can be total honesty between us. It’s physical, that’s all.’

His acceptance of her antipathy made something ache inside Valentina, but the promise of no emotions also freed something. She knew she could never love someone and risk losing them again, the way she’d lost Mario. Something pure and innocent inside her had been lost for ever that night. The grief was too deep, too raw. Gio was too inextricably bound up with pain for her, and guilt. The guilt of the shameful secret she was still too cowardly to acknowledge.

The shadow of Mario’s death was too long. But she wanted him. She’d never connected with another man on such a visceral, physical level. This would burn out, it had to. Intensity like this couldn’t last….

As if reading her thoughts, Gio said, ‘This will burn out, and when it does … we’ll move on.’

We’ll move on. Valentina wondered if they really could move on, find some kind of closure. For a long moment nothing was said. Valentina looked into Gio’s eyes until she felt as if she were drowning. And then she felt some great resistance she’d been clinging on to dissolve within her. She couldn’t fight this.

She put her hand over his on her jaw and turned her face so that she could press a kiss to his palm. She closed her eyes but she could feel the tremor that went through his body, or was it hers? She couldn’t tell.

Gio moved closer to her, putting a hand to the small of her back, and tugged her closer. Valentina sent up a fervent prayer that they could move on from this, because she didn’t have the strength to stop now. And as his mouth met hers and she melted into him and his kiss, it felt so right.

Gio was trying to curb the rush of desire sending his brain into a fiery orbit. Valentina felt so unutterably good in his arms. Soft and pliant and curvy. Her breasts were pressed against his chest and he could feel the thrust of hard nipples. Letting his hand drop he found the sweet curve of her bottom and cupped it, softly at first and then harder when he felt the instinctive sway of her hips towards him.

Victory was heady and he was rapidly getting lost in the nectar of the sweetest kiss. As sweet as it was though, he wanted more; he wanted harder, darker. He wanted to be inside her, and he had to be careful. She was innocent. Exerting extreme self-control Gio managed to somehow break the connection and pull back, almost groaning when he saw how long it took for Valentina to open heavy-lidded eyes, their dark depths even darker, pupils huge. Her lips dark red and swollen.

‘Let’s take this slow … OK?’

Valentina sucked in a breath, trying to force oxygen to her short-circuiting brain. That had just been a kiss and a relatively chaste one and already she felt as if she were burning up from the inside out.

Before she could articulate anything that might sound vaguely coherent Gio was taking her by the hand and leading her into the bedroom. He pushed her back gently towards the bed and she collapsed onto the edge to find him at her feet, those big capable hands moving up her legs and under the dress.

He looked up at her for a second. Lord. Valentina could feel her lower belly muscles clench hard. She couldn’t speak, could only watch as Gio’s eyes went back to her legs and watch how they cupped behind her knees before inching ever higher, pushing her dress up inexorably until her legs were bared.

Gio’s cheeks were flushed and Valentina felt the warmth of his calloused palms move up until they cupped her buttocks intimately. She gasped. He was right between her legs now, pushing them apart. She half collapsed back onto the bed, her elbows the only thing holding her up.

Gio looked up at her and said throatily, ‘Trust me?’

Valentina bit her lip and after a heated moment nodded her head. Without taking his eyes off hers Valentina could feel him lift her gently so that he could push her dress all the way up; now her entire lower body was exposed to him. For a fleeting second she wished ardently that she was wearing one of the impossibly delicate lace panties and not her very plain black ones.

But she soon forgot about that when she felt Gio’s hands find her panties and slowly start to move them down and Valentina felt herself lifting her hips ever so slightly to help. Somewhere she was aware of a shocked part of herself wondering how on earth she was letting this happen. With this man? When only minutes ago she’d been trying to throw him out of this room. But like a coward she blocked it out; this growing, pulling desire in her body was too strong.

Gio pulled Valentina’s panties off and threw them somewhere on the ground; now she was exposed to him completely, her dress bunched up over her waist. They seemed to have passed go and gone straight to level one hundred but all Valentina could see was the way Gio was looking at her with such awe and reverence, his big hands now on her thighs, spreading her for him.

He bent and pressed kisses along her sensitive inner thighs and she could feel the bristle of his stubble. It enflamed her nerve endings and she squirmed against his mouth, only to have his hands tighten on her, silently ordering her to be still.

His mouth was getting higher and higher, rising inexorably to the apex of her legs where she felt so hot and yet indecently damp. When his breath feathered there Valentina’s elbows gave out and she collapsed onto the bed, just as Gio’s mouth found her and she felt his tongue touch her moist cleft.

She had to put a fist to her mouth and bite down hard against the pleasure he was now wreaking on her body with such shocking intimacy. He was licking her, tasting her and ruthlessly pushing those legs apart when they wanted to close against this exquisite invasion.

And then she felt his tongue opening her up to him, exploring and stabbing deep inside, tasting her very essence. Valentina felt faint. A finger joined his tongue, pushing and stretching. She could feel her hips moving against his mouth, seeking more, a deeper penetration. She felt so stretched and yet unfulfilled and wanted more. A tight feeling was coiling deep inside her, getting tighter and tighter, making her move even more restlessly.

Then she felt two fingers, pushing deeper, and his tongue found and circled her *oris with ruthless sucking intensity until Valentina broke free of the building tension to soar high to a place she’d ever seen before. Waves of pleasure more intense than she could have ever imagined broke through her and over her. It was so stupendous she couldn’t even cry out, absorbing it in shocked silence, biting into her fist even harder in a bid to contain what she felt.

As she floated back down into some sense of reality Valentina became aware that she was still throbbing in spasms, deep inside her. Her fist fell from her mouth, too heavy to hold up any more. Gio’s hands were gone and she looked up languorously to see him rise up like some kind of avenging God to rip open his shirt to reveal that magnificent chest. His eyes burnt into hers, and his hands went to his trousers, making quick work of his belt, buttons and zip.

Valentina couldn’t even lift her head, it felt so heavy. She was aware of being displayed wantonly towards him but couldn’t drum up a sense of shame. Not after what she’d just experienced. She’d never known it could be like that ….

‘I want to see you,’ Gio muttered thickly, finding her hands and pulling her gently upwards. Valentina sat up and felt light-headed. Gio was pulling her to her feet and found her zip, yanking it down, and taking her dress with it so that it dropped at her feet with a soft swishing sound. Now she stood before him in nothing but her own plain bra and Gio’s dark eyes were molten as they looked her up and down.

To her surprise, Valentina could feel some of the delicious lethargy move and shift, dissipate, so that she was being infected by a rising sense of tension again. It coiled deep inside her. Gio was naked and she looked down to see his erection thrusting towards her. Instinctively she reached for him, wanting to touch him, and wrapped a hand around his thick impressive length.

He breathed deep and his hands tightened on her arms where they’d gone to steady her a moment ago. Valentina was fascinated by the feel of him under her hand; he was like steel encased in velvet, infinitely strong and hard and yet so vulnerable. She looked up and her hand stopped when she saw the stark and almost feral need imprinted on his face. She gulped.

Gently he took her hand off him and said, ‘I don’t know how long I can last if you touch me like that. And I need to last—this is your first time….’

Valentina’s heart seemed to miss a beat. Her first time, here with this man. The reality suddenly hit her, along with the very fervent assertion that she didn’t want to be anywhere else. That threw up all sorts of emotional contradictions within her and to drive them down where she didn’t have to analyse them Valentina stepped up to Gio and put her hands on his face.

‘Gio …’ Her voice was husky and rough. ‘Make love to me.’

Her words hung in the desire-saturated air for a long moment and then Gio wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him, driving his mouth down onto hers and kissing her so thoroughly she felt dizzy with need.

Valentina was barely aware of Gio undoing her bra so that it dropped to the floor between them. She only came back to her senses when she felt herself being lowered back onto the bed and looked up to see Gio hover over her on two hands, huge and dark and devastating. Shoulders broad, chest wide, hips narrow and lean. And lower, where the trail of very masculine hair ended, jutted his arousal. Valentina’s eyes widened. She could see a pearlescent bead of moisture at the tip of his erection and her lower body clenched in instinctive response to such a display of male virility.

Gio started to press his mouth in a series of hot kisses all the way up from her belly to her ribs. Valentina held her breath. After an achingly long moment she felt him stretch out beside her on the bed and he cupped one breast, before his breath feathered over the distended tingling tip and he drew it into his mouth. The sheer sensation of that torturous delicious tugging sucking heat made Valentina’s hips buck off the bed, her feet desperately searching for anything to dig into.

When Gio’s mouth went to her other breast Valentina was nearly sobbing aloud from the sheer pleasure. She could feel heat gather between her legs, and as if guided there by her mind, Gio’s free hand gently pushed her thighs apart, as he sought access.

Valentina was too incoherent to stop him. With skilful precision, Gio parted her thighs wider and his fingers found the aching core of her body, fingers stroking and spreading her moist arousal. Valentina’s hands clutched at Gio’s shoulders, fingers digging deep into satin skin, dewed with sweat. Their combined scent, musky and tart with desire, only served to make her feel even hotter.

Gio took his mouth off Valentina’s breast and moved up to her mouth. She met him blindly, tongues lashing together as need mounted. She could feel a tremor run through Gio’s body beside her and had a fleeting sense of just how much he was holding back. As his tongue delved deep into her mouth, his fingers thrust inside her, deeply intimate. It was so sudden and yet shockingly arousing that Valentina gasped against his mouth. Tiny waves and tremors of another incipient orgasm started up and she drew back to look up at Gio in wonder. His eyes were black, molten. No more green flecks.

His fingers slowly started to move in and out. Valentina could feel herself being stretched and on the periphery of the mounting excitement and pleasure was the slight tinge of pain.

‘I want to prepare you … make sure you’re ready for me.’

At that moment Valentina felt Gio’s arousal, heavy against her hip. Long and thick and hard. She sucked in a breath as his words sank in. ‘Oh …’

‘Yes …’ He smiled wryly. ‘Oh …’

As Gio’s fingers picked up pace though, Valentina quickly stopped being able to rationalise anything. Her hands clutched at his shoulders again and her head went back, hips raising of their own accord. She moved them restlessly, seeking something … more.

‘Gio …’ she whispered brokenly. She felt something give inside her. It was a fleeting moment of sharp pain and Gio pulled his hand away. Valentina looked at him, blinking. Her body was still crying out for his touch, despite the pain.

‘Gio?’

Gio moved his body so that he hovered over her now, pushing her legs apart with his hips. She could feel the heavy length of him brushing against her sex. He took himself in his hand and Valentina looked down to see that he’d sheathed himself with protection with no idea of when or where he’d had the wherewithal to do it.

He was running the thick head of his penis along where she felt drenched with desire. So much that it embarrassed her. With that realisation she turned her head to the side, suddenly overwhelmed.

She felt him still and a hand come to her chin, turning her back. His face was etched with desire but also something else that made her quiver: concern.

‘Valentina?’

She took refuge from the tender feeling his concern aroused by focusing on the needs of her physical body. ‘I want you …’

The concern faded from Gio’s face and a stark primality took over. She could feel him position himself, feel his fingers on himself and on her as he slowly fed himself into her, inch by thick inch. The initial sensation was overpowering. Valentina sucked in a breath at the intrusion. This was so much more devastating than his fingers. But even as she thought that, her body seemed to recognise something she didn’t, or trust something she didn’t, and she could feel her muscles opening, admitting entrance.

With a guttural groan Gio took his hand away and rested on both hands over her body. With a hoarse calling out of her name, he thrust deep and hard and sheathed himself in her completely.

Valentina’s eyes opened wide and her chest expanded with the breath she’d drawn in. Her hands were on his biceps where she could feel them quiver under her fingers. He was shaking, or she was shaking; she wasn’t sure which.

She felt impossibly full and impaled, invaded. Gio was looking down at her, that concern edging back. ‘OK?’

Valentina jerkily nodded her head. ‘Please … Gio …’

Slowly he started to move, out … and then back in. His movements within her were so exquisite, bordering between pain and pleasure, that Valentina could only breathe in short gasps, struggling to hang on to whatever control she still had. She felt as if she was in danger of exploding into a million fragments with each long slide of Gio’s body back into hers. And with each stroke, the pain faded to be replaced and eclipsed by pleasure.

Without even realising what she was doing, her feet were digging into the bed beside Gio’s hips; her own were moving restlessly. As if sensing her inner turmoil over all this newness, Gio bent and pressed a kiss to her mouth, tongue stroking along hers for a long moment, soothing but also inciting.

‘Wrap your legs around me,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘and I’ll help you to fly.’

She could feel him find her leg and lift it up over one hip and blindly she lifted her other leg, wrapping both legs around those lean hips, ankles crossed just above his buttocks. He sank even deeper within her and their moans mingled. Valentina could feel his chest hairs scrape her sensitised breasts, making her arch upwards, seeking that contact again.

Gio’s movements became more urgent. He was thrusting so hard and so deep now that Valentina saw stars. And then without any warning at all, her entire body clenched tight before exploding into a million pieces. Valentina gasped, head back, bucking uncontrollably against Gio as he pounded into her, his own release finally stilling that huge body just as he touched the very core of her.

In the aftermath Valentina’s brain couldn’t wrap itself around the magnitude of what had just happened. The pain mixed with a pleasure more intense than she’d ever experienced. She was vaguely aware of Gio pulling free of her body and disappearing for a moment before returning. She was vaguely aware of him lifting her body so that her head touched a pillow. He drew a thin cover over her body. When he tucked himself around her, she found that she was instinctively twining her legs around his, holding him to her tightly.

He lifted an arm and she felt his fingers smoothing damp strands of hair from her face. She opened sleepy eyes and caught a glimpse of a mark on the inside of his upper left arm. In the dim light she hadn’t noticed it before. Without thinking Valentina reached up to trace what looked like black marks etched into his skin. A tattoo of some sort. She frowned. ‘What’s this?’

Gio’s fingers in her hair stilled and she felt him tense. After a long moment he drew his arm back from her questing fingers and just said, ‘It’s nothing. rest now.’

He shifted his body so that Valentina was curled into his side, and with her cheek resting on his chest over where his heart beat steadily, she found herself slipping down into a dark dreamless place. She would think about those marks … later. She would think about it all.

As the dawn light filtered into Valentina’s room, bathing everything in a pinky gold, Gio sat in a chair in the corner of her room. He’d pulled on his trousers, leaving them open, and just watched the woman who lay sleeping in the bed.

She was on her front, the sheet provocatively resting just over her buttocks, revealing the long smooth curve of her back. One arm was curled up to her chest where he could just make out the swell of her breast. His body tightened predictably and Gio grimaced at the response.

Her other arm was flung out by her head and her cheek rested on the pillow, long black lashes casting a shadow on flushed cheeks. Still flushed. He remembered how it had felt to sink into her velvet hot embrace, how tight she’d been at first…. His own body tightened even more and Gio gave up castigating himself for such a helpless response.

It had been the hardest thing in the world to extricate himself from Valentina’s embrace but a part of him hadn’t relished the prospect of her expression when she woke to find herself curled around him so comprehensively. And another part of him had needed to get some space … to try and rationalise the sheer scale of what had just happened.

Gio had never experienced sex like that … so intense and primal. His face grew stark—admittedly, many of his previous experiences were a blur from those two hellish years. But even before that … it had never been like this. He’d never lost control, lost himself so completely. Mario had used to tease him mercilessly: You won’t be able to cut yourself off forever, Gio. One day you’ll meet someone who won’t let you stay so aloof….

The truth was, Gio had envied the ease with which Mario had fallen in and out of love. Gio just hadn’t had that capacity. Emotions for him were a dark and dangerous place to explore. Once, when he’d been tiny, he’d gone to his father with something he’d made, desperate to try and get his attention, acutely aware of how his older brothers seemed to effortlessly get and hold their father’s attention in a way he couldn’t.

Gio had stood in front of his father holding out the model airplane he’d spent hours working on. He could remember that all he’d wanted to say was, I made this for you. But under his father’s arctic judgemental glare the words just wouldn’t come out.

His father had snapped at him, irritated at this hesitance, and Gio could remember how his hands had trembled. The less he’d been able to speak, the more angry his father had become until he’d ripped the airplane out of Gio’s hands, thrown it to the ground and stamped on it.

A lot of his father’s vile words from that day were forgotten, but not the acrid sense of betrayal and hurt. Or the way his mother had shrank into the shadows, unable to stand up for her youngest son, too scared of directing that wrath towards her when she was so desperately trying to get back into her husband’s favour.

He’d learnt to draw inwards that day, to protect himself.

A movement from the bed made Gio focus on Valentina again. He welcomed the distraction. She was uncurling her arm from her side and Gio could see the swell of her plump breast. With fire igniting in his veins again he stood up and went over, sitting beside her on the edge of the bed.

Slowly she opened her eyes. He saw her try to focus, to assimilate the information her body was undoubtedly giving her. And then she saw him. Those amber feline eyes widened, the flush on her cheeks deepened. Gio’s chest constricted when he could see the myriad questions about to come out of her mouth.

Without thinking he put a finger to her lips, their softness making him ache. ‘Shh … don’t think … don’t say anything … just let it be ….’

Gio watched her wary response, and then as if some inner turmoil had been resolved she nodded imperceptibly. He took his finger away and said throatily, ‘How do you feel? Are you sore?’

Even as he watched he could see the glowing embers of desire in her eyes, and his arousal soared. Looking endearingly shy now, she just shook her head against the pillow.

‘Good,’ Gio said and bent down to press a kiss to her mouth. She turned onto her back, opening up her body to him again and Gio fell back into the glorious blaze once more.