Kitabı oku: «The Complete Christmas Collection», sayfa 94

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

VINCENZO HAD NEVER experienced a family Thanksgiving dinner like the one Audrey orchestrated.

He’d worked this holiday and pretty much every other one each year since taking his first job at the bank. The American branch of the Tomasi family did not do traditional holidays.

He’d had to take a call from Europe early that morning, but the rest of the day was clear and Enzu enjoyed it. Audrey and Toby’s friends were a warm and boisterous family, the love between parents and children obvious and genuine.

They were all relaxing in the living room now that they’d eaten their feast. Danny’s youngest sister and Audrey were playing with Lego on the floor with Franca. The teen’s mother cradled a sleeping Angilu in her arms while the remaining children and their father played Monopoly.

Enzu didn’t even know he had board games, but Devon had brought a stack of them on Audrey’s request.

“She’s a natural mom,” Toby said as he sidled up to Enzu. “Audrey’s got a nurturing streak as wide as the Grand Canyon and just as deep.”

“Sì?” As if Enzu did not know.

It was one of the things he found most intriguing about Audrey Miller. She was so completely different than any woman of his acquaintance. Even Gloria, while an estimable PAA, could not be accused of being remotely family-centric.

“It’s how I knew…” Toby let his voice trail off.

But Enzu thought he knew what the teen meant. “That you could go to her when your parents failed so spectacularly at their job of caring for you?”

“Yes.” Toby’s shoulders drooped and then he made a conscious effort to straighten them. “You know, I never looked at it as a failure on their part.”

“Audrey didn’t fail you, but they did.”

“You’re right. It cost her so much, though.”

Vincenzo thought that was something Audrey would never count. “She’s made it clear to me that she considers the cost worth it.”

Toby shook his head. “I was just a kid, you know? I kept thinking they were going to change their mind and everything was going to be okay again.”

“It was a reasonable expectation.”

“Was it?” Toby asked.

“Audrey’s actions should tell you how reasonable. She is a very good stick by which to measure sincere family behavior.”

“She is, isn’t she? I never want her to think her sacrifice has been wasted.”

“It has not and I know she agrees with me.”

“I’m just glad she’s found you.”

Vincenzo felt an odd sensation in the region of his heart. “Why?”

“I may not be going to MIT, like we dreamed, but I am going away to college.” Toby had a very adult, very Audrey-like expression on his youthful face. “I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

“No?”

“She doesn’t know it, but I applied to universities in New York, too. I’ve been accepted.”

“I thought you and your friend planned to go to school in Massachusetts?”

“Not if it means leaving her on her own.”

“You are a good man, Toby.”

“Thanks. I think you are, too, Mr. Tomasi.”

“Enzu.”

“You sure? Audrey drilled polite behavior into me even more strictly than Mom and Dad used to.”

“Sì. One day soon we may be brothers.”

“You think?” Toby asked, excitement barely contained in his tone.

“I do, but you will not say anything to Audrey.”

Vincenzo’s decision was made, but he felt completely alien nerves about informing her of that fact.

“My lips are zipped.” Toby made a zipping and locking gesture across his closed mouth.

Enzu grinned. “Good man.”

Later that night, after the children were in bed and the extra dinner guests had left for home, Enzu surveyed the scene he had set with a critical eye.

Everything was ready for the final seduction of a very sensual virgin. Except one thing.

There were too many shadows cast by the clusters of candles on the tables on either side of his bed and the large chest of drawers against the wall. Enzu wanted to see more than their flickering radiance would afford when making love to his biddùzza.

He turned on the recessed ceiling lighting, adjusting it to a muted glow.

Better.

Audrey wouldn’t even realize the luminescence from the multiple small flames had been augmented.

Casting a final glance at the king-sized bed piled high with pillows and covered with fresh crimson rose petals over the royal-blue silk sheet, he went to answer the soft knock on his suite’s door.

Audrey stood on the other side, wearing her pajamas and robe from the night before. Her chocolate gaze reflected unmistakable trepidation and anticipation.

“You remembered slippers tonight,” he said by way of a greeting as he stood back to allow her entrance to his personal sanctum, this one even more off-limits to others than his jungle paradise.

She nodded, making no move to come inside.

“Are you having second thoughts?”

Audrey shook her head, her lovely brown hair rippling and sliding against her robe.

He reached out and guided her inside, lust spiking in his belly from the simple touch of his hand against her silk-clad shoulder. She didn’t balk but came without hesitation, despite her clear inability to take this step of her own volition.

Just as it had in the pool last week, her instinctual compliance intoxicated him more than the champagne waiting in the other room ever could. She gave herself so beautifully and completely to his desires. She ensnared him with bonds he could not hope to break.

And in her innocence she had no idea.

“I would like you to leave your slippers, robe and pajama bottoms here.” He waited to see if she would comply, his atavistic instincts certain of her reaction even as logic insisted the connection between the two of them could not be that deep and elemental.

Against all rational expectation of her reaction, his words seemed to relax her as an undeniable air of tension surrounding Audrey bled away.

She toed off the ballet-style black slippers, managing to place them neatly to the side of the rose petals creating a path from his door, through the suite to the bed in the other room. She surprised him by removing the bottoms first, folding them and dropping them on top of the slippers.

When she went to untie her robe he reached out and gently took over the task without any previous plan to do so.

That lack of fore-planning should bother him. He always planned every action in the bedroom. His control thing, as Audrey called it, didn’t just extend to his partners. Enzu demanded total restraint of himself.

Since his very first foray into sex Enzu had never once lost his self-mastery. Until the previous Saturday night, when he had kissed without thought and come within inches of burying himself inside Audrey’s untried body.

It had been his knowledge that to do so would cause her unnecessary pain that stopped him, not his own willpower or plan.

“Enzu?” Audrey looked up at him with inquiry, but no mockery.

He’d lost himself in his thoughts and she was not amused by it, did not tease him about losing control of the situation.

“You are a very good match for me, più amato.” The endearment slipped out, but he would not take it back. Best beloved.

He also had no intention of telling her what it meant if she asked.

She didn’t, only observed, “Not on paper.”

“Externals are not important Not here. Not between us.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No.”

“We are almost polar opposites.”

He slid her robe from her shoulders and then dropped it over the back of a nearby armchair. “Perhaps that is what we both need.”

“Yes.” She smiled, a mischievous light shining in her brown eyes. “I don’t think you’d find it nearly as much fun with someone as bossy as you are.”

He chuckled, but cupped her cheeks, making sure their gazes met and she could read the sincerity and challenge in his. “I do not believe you would enjoy yourself as much with an overly civilized partner, either.”

“I’m not even sure I would have ever been open to another sexual partner,” she admitted painfully.

“You have not been tempted in the past six years?”

She shook her head. “At first I was too hurt by the betrayal of the most important men in my life to trust anyone else enough to even go on a date.”

“You were busy trying to keep a home together for you and Toby while finishing your schooling as well.”

“Yes, but…” She swallowed, trying to turn her head from his gentle hold.

He would not let her. He sensed there was something important here he needed to know. “But what?”

“If I’d been open to it, I could have dated.”

“You weren’t.” She’d already said so. “What is it you think is so important you need to hide it from me?”

Her eyes widened as if his insight shocked her. He almost laughed. Did she not realize he expended more effort reading her than he did his strongest business rival?

He thought back over their words, looking for a clue to what Audrey was trying to keep from him. “You said at first.”

Fear skittered across her expression.

“What came next?” Had she had a bad experience?

“Toby started high school and he did really well, academically, socially—he was well-adjusted all around.”

“And he needed you less?”

“Yes, so I thought I should maybe start dating.”

His gut clenched. “What happened?”

“I saw you.”

It was so far from what he’d expected to hear Enzu dropped his hold on her face. “What?”

“You were visiting the bank. I saw you in the hall.” Clear discomfort colored her voice. “You turned to say something to Gloria and I saw your face full-on.”

“There is a portrait of me in the lobby of the bank building.” She had to have seen his face before that.

“Yes. I’d looked at it a lot. Only not really consciously, you know?”

“No, I do not know.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would.” She turned away and went to one of the huge bouquets of crimson and white roses that he’d had flown in to fill his suite.

“Audrey…” he prompted, his tone letting her know he would not drop this.

She reached out and ran a fingertip over one velvet blossom before leaning over to inhale the fragrance of the perfectly open blooms.

Her action wasn’t necessary. The heady perfume permeated the suite from sitting room to bathroom and the bedroom in between.

She was stalling.

“What did catching a glimpse of your employer have to do with your dating?” he asked, thinking a more specific question would get her talking again.

She turned back to face him, the picture she made in the silky pajama top that just brushed her upper thighs nearly making him forget their conversation all together.

“I didn’t see my employer in that moment.”

“That makes no sense.” Even when she’d worked at the bank, as its president Enzu had ultimately been her employer.

“I saw a man.”

Not for the first time in this woman’s presence, Enzu found himself speechless.

“A man I wanted.”

“That was four years ago.”

“Yes.”

“So you did not date in hopes of one day catching my eye?” he asked in disbelief.

“No. I never thought I’d come under your notice. But it didn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t generate interest in other men.”

“Even though you knew there was no chance you would have me?”

“It was so stupid, and I was determined to break the pattern once Toby had gone away to university.”

As illogical as it might be, Enzu did not like hearing that. “You were going to date?”

“I’d even created a profile on one of those online dating sites.”

“That needs to be taken down immediately.”

“I deleted it before it ever went public.”

“Good.” He did not examine the relief he felt at that assurance. “So, what you are saying is that you’ve had a celebrity crush on me for four years.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

“What else could it be?”

“Love.”

“What? You cannot love someone you do not know.”

“No, you can’t be in love with a stranger. But the spark of love can be ignited. You’ve fanned it into a raging flame since that first day in your office.”

He crossed to her, putting both hands on her shoulders, his urge to kiss her strong. “You are saying that you love me?”

“Yes. Isn’t it stupid?”

“I have no experience with the emotion, but I do not think it is stupid, no.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” Perhaps these feelings she had for him explained how stunningly she gave herself to him.

“You don’t mind?”

“That you love me?”

“Or that when I came to you the first time I obviously had ulterior motives for approaching you?”

“If not for Toby, would you have approached me otherwise?”

“No.”

“Then your motives were as you described them. Your attraction to me made it possible to act on your desire to help your brother.”

“And Franca and Angilu. I thought I could make a difference for them, too.”

He nodded, believing that all too easily now he had gotten to know her.

Giving in to the urge that would not go away, he brushed Audrey’s lips with his own, knowing he could not afford to deepen the kiss yet. “We are done with this, sì?”

Her eyes widened with distress. “With making love?”

“With talking.” He shrugged off his own robe, letting it drop into a pile at his feet and giving Audrey an unblocked view of his arousal. “We have plans for tonight.”

“You’re very attached to your plans,” she teased, but her voice was breathy and her gaze kept getting snagged on his erection.

“I am.” Putting action to the sentiment, he led her back to the path of rose petals. “Come, we have many hours of pleasure ahead of us.”

She licked her lips and then smiled. “No early morning tomorrow?”

“No.” Mrs. Percy had already been warned not to expect him or Audrey to come for the children before lunchtime.

With the new game console Enzu had purchased for the game room, the teens had plenty to keep them occupied as well.

Enzu tugged Audrey along, the rose petals beneath their feet velvety soft against the deep plush pile of his suite’s wall-to-wall carpeting.

Audrey gasped when they came into the bedroom.

He stopped and let her take in her surroundings before asking, “You like?”

“Very much. It’s so…so romantic.”

“A woman’s first time comes only once.”

“Yes, but…”

“You will never forget this night.” He mentally shrugged off the arrogance he heard in his own tone.

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “It could have happened in a broom closet and I wouldn’t be able to forget it.”

“Because you love me?” he found himself asking, when he’d had no intention of doing any such thing.

He clamped his jaw on any further unplanned verbalizations.

“And because you are my first.” She didn’t deny the love thing.

He poured them each a glass of champagne and handed Audrey hers before offering his glass for a toast.

“To first times.”

The crystal clinked quietly, and then they both took a sip.

Audrey’s eyes slid shut and she hummed before taking another sip. “This is very good.”

“It is an excellent vintage from the South of France.”

She laughed softly as her eyes met his again. “Of course.”

“I thought a glass of wine would help your nerves.” And if they were going to imbibe it would be something worth drinking.

“I’m not nervous.”

The honesty of that statement was obvious in the sincerity of her tone, but also the relaxed lines of her body.

“Your trust in me is humbling.” And very little made him feel that way.

“It feels right.”

“Giving yourself to me?”

“Yes.”

Because she loved him.

He let her take another sip of her champagne before removing her glass from unresisting fingers and placing both flutes, still partially full, back on the small table beside the bed.

“After tonight there is no going back. You understand this?” Their futures would be set.

For the first time anxiety flickered in her chocolate gaze. “Yes.”

“Bene.”

His kiss was intentional and deep.

Melting into him, she opened to his questing tongue without even a token resistance. Pleasure coursed through him. This woman was so perfectly matched to him sexually.

He would show her how right she was to trust him with her body so completely.

He let the kiss build until the need to touch her had become acute. What many did not understand in the type of lovemaking that excited Enzu the most was that he got as much satisfaction out of challenging his own control as that of his partner.

But the time to move things to the next step had come.

He allowed himself to caress her body through the silk of her pajama top, mapping her body’s curves—the indent of her shoulderblades, the dip of her waist, the smooth outline of her hips, the soft expanse of her stomach, the gentle ridge of her ribcage, the pillowy curves of her breasts. He cupped them, squeezing and releasing until she made a restless movement with her hips.

Enzu moved on to tease her beaded nipples, sliding his fingers over the silky fabric covering them. He pinched them lightly, enjoying the way her pajama top encouraged his skin to slide off, and then repeating the maddeningly short touch again and again.

She moaned against his lips, the sound as exciting as if she had taken his rigid sex into her hand.

He ended the kiss, once again cupping her cheeks and forcing total focus between them. “I am going to take off your top now.”

“Yes,” she breathed.

He let his eyes warm with approval as he undid the first and second buttons in quick succession, caressing her breasts with the backs of his hands. The satin fell open to reveal smooth, creamy skin.

He leaned down and pressed sensual kisses to each gentle curve of her upper breasts. Letting his tongue flick out, he tasted the silken skin.

She gasped. “Enzu.”

He undid another button, widening the gap in the fabric. It caught on the hard peaks and he let it stay there, teasing them both with her almost-nudity.

He dropped to his knees and nuzzled the fabric aside so he could take one raspberry bud into his mouth. Suckling, he teased the tip with his tongue while he skimmed his hands up the backs of her thighs to cup her naked buttocks.

Her hands landed on his shoulders, fingernails digging in hard enough that he knew he would have crescent-shaped marks there tomorrow.

“Please, Enzu, don’t tease. I need you.”

He lifted his head, giving her his most wicked smile. “You have only begun to need.”

She shook her head. “No. You don’t understand. I’ve wanted you so long.”

“And you will have me, sweet Audrey. But in my time.”

He waited until he saw acceptance in her expression. Willing her to remain still with his eyes, he finished taking her top off. It necessitated removing her hands from his shoulders, but he gave up one pleasure for the promise of a greater one.

She stood silent, still, completely exposed before him.

He had never been so turned on, and if he was not careful he would climax before he ever got inside her.

In an explosion of movement that made her cry out in surprise, he surged up and then lifted her into his arms. Showing her trust in him, she did not scramble to hold onto his neck, though both hands touched his chest, fingers splayed as if she sought to maximize the connection.

He laid her against the pile of pillows, stopping to enjoy the way the royal-blue silk set off her milky skin. Her hair fanned out over the pillow under her head in enticing disarray.

“Molto bèdda,” he praised.

“The view’s not bad from here, either.” She smiled up at him, eyes half-mast with sensual appreciation.

She did not resist when he guided her hands to grip the iron bars of his specially designed headboard, stretching her body and arching her back so her breasts were on tempting display.

With careful hands he arranged her legs so they were spread wide and bent at the knees, pillows placed strategically for her ease.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked, his throat tight with intense desire.

She was blushing like the innocent she was, but she nodded.

“Words, biddùzza. I need actual words.”

“Yes, I’m comfortable.”

“Bene. If you become uncomfortable you can move, or ask me to move you.”

“Ask you to move me?” she inquired in a tone laced with confusion.

“There is great pleasure in leaving the responsibility of every element of your comfort and pleasure up to me, amore.”

“It doesn’t seem fair.”

“If it is my own preference it is a fair exchange. Trust for trustworthiness. Ceded control for beneficial restraint. Pleasure for equal pleasure.”

“Yes,” she breathed out.

As he knew she would.

Goosebumps were forming on his skin at how well they fit. If he’d believed in such things, he would have thought they were connected on a soul-deep level.

“Thank you,” he said, breaking his own rule of not saying the words for something that felt so right.

Her expression said she remembered that injunction from Saturday, but she didn’t remind him of it. And for the second time in less than a minute he experienced profound gratitude toward the woman in his bed.

This time he was able to hold back the words, though. He leaned to the side and reached out so he could tug a silver tray with four porcelain dipping bowls within easy reach.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“I have two weaknesses,” he admitted, instead of giving a direct answer.

“I didn’t know you had any.”

“Sì. Even a control freak like me has his vices.”

“I bet you have more than two of those.”

He was impressed she’d immediately recognized that the two were not mutually inclusive. Not all vices became weaknesses. And he did not consider one of his weaknesses a vice. Audrey was simply Audrey, a woman like no other.

“I won’t take that bet.”

Her gaze flicked to the tray and then back to him. “What are your weaknesses?”

“These dipping pots are filled with four different kinds of chocolate.” Again he forbore from giving her a direct answer, but he was confident she would figure it out.

“You’re a chocoholic.” The laughter in her tone and merry eyes did not actually spill out.

“I am.”

“Good to know.”

“Is it?”

“I think so.”

“I am going to indulge, but there is one catch.”

“Yes?”

“I will indulge myself…and you…so long as you do not move from your current position. Once you move, whether it is letting go of the headboard or shifting your legs, I will know the time has come to press forward in tonight’s activities.”

“So, I can squirm? I just can’t break position?” she asked, to clarify.

“Precisely.” Did she understand the rest of what he’d said as well?

“You’re giving me the power to decide when we stop playing.”

“Mmm…” he said in approval.

“I get to say when the foreplay ends?” she asked, like she couldn’t quite believe it.

“Sì, but when you are making that decision be aware you are cutting off one kind of pleasure, delight that can lead to many wonderful things, in order to pursue another.”