Page 19 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

Chapter Ten

It was a long, long time before Rico was capable of speaking. Marisa was cuddled into him, his fingers threading through the long strands of her silky hair. He could feel the strength of her heartbeats against his rib cage and knew she could feel his against her cheek.

He had to swallow to murmur, “Are you okay?”

Her answer was a sleepy, “I think so.”

“Did I hurt you?”

She raised her face to rest her chin on his chest and smiled dreamily. “No. It was beautiful.”

A little of the tension he’d been carrying lifted.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

He almost laughed. She was thanking him ? If he didn’t think his legs would buckle beneath him as he recovered from the most powerful orgasm he’d ever had in his life, he’d get down on his knees and worship her feet in thanks for the greatest gift he’d ever been given.

He gazed into the mesmerising brown eyes. “I love you.”

Her sigh was as dreamy as her smile. “I love you too…” Her smile faltered a little. “You are staying the night, aren’t you? ”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, and when she contentedly put her cheek back on his chest and yawned, he wrapped his arm tighter around her, wishing they could stay like this forever. Just them.

After a long silence passed, she sleepily whispered, “Did you mean what you said? About marrying me?”

“I’d marry you right now if I could.”

She kissed his chest and meshed herself even closer into his skin.

Soon, her breathing deepened and she drifted into sleep.

Rico should be sleepy too. He’d snatched only a few hours after closing the casino.

It was always impossible to fall straight to sleep after working, and, being far too early to see Marisa, he’d done the next best thing and read more of her book, putting it down at seven.

He’d woken at eleven, and instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, he’d wondered what Marisa was doing, and once he’d wondered that, that had been it. He’d needed to get up and find her.

His brain was too overloaded to fall into sleep now. What to do about his brothers and that stupid bet they’d made? If Marisa ever found out about it…

It made his guts twist just to imagine it.

The problem would be Tommaso. Mattia could be trusted to keep his mouth shut, but Tommaso was a very different character, someone who often spoke first then thought later.

Couple that with Tommaso’s belief that all women were witches put on this earth to torture men, and Rico had a potential recipe for disaster.

Should he just confess and throw himself at her mercy?

Throw himself at her mercy by confessing that he’d fed her one big lie for the sake of his ego, a chalet, a watch and a car? He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. How could she do anything but hate him for it?

He would marry her as soon as possible, he decided.

Tommaso could keep his fat mouth shut until then.

Once Rico had his ring on Marisa’s finger, he would confess his sins to her, and by then it would be too late for her to change her mind because Marisa was a good Catholic girl who didn’t believe in divorce. She would have to forgive him.

Even with the way forward finally settled in his mind, it took Rico a long time to fall into an uneasy sleep.

A loud rap on the door pulled Marisa from the deepest, most contented sleep she’d ever had. She sat up sharply and looked at her watch. Nine a.m.

Rico was sleeping the sleep of the dead.

There was another rap, and then she heard her name being called.

Her blood turned to ice. It was her mother.

Shaking his shoulder, she panickingly hissed, “Rico, wake up. My mum’s at the door.”

His eyes blinked open, blinked again, and focused on her. “Please,” she begged. “Go and hide in the bathroom.”

Jumping off the bed as Rico pulled himself up, she yelled, “Coming!’ and snatched her robe off the floor, shoved her arms into it, and then gathered Rico’s discarded clothes and thrust them at him.

He swept a hard kiss to her mouth before padding to the bathroom with the nonchalance of someone who’d never had an issue about his nudity before.

Her heart was racing as she clumsily knotted the sash of her robe and opened the door.

Planting a kiss on Marisa’s cheek, her mother walked in, carrying a coffee. “I bring a gift for you.”

“Thank you,” she stammered. “Have I missed breakfast again?”

“The restaurant’s still open for it, but I thought you could probably do with a decent coffee after your late night. How was it?”

To Marisa’s horror, her treacherous cheeks blushed. “It was great,” she said weakly.

Luckily, her mother was too busy admiring a picture hanging above Marisa’s dressing table to notice. “Good. You need to get out and enjoy yourself more. Your father and I are…” Her words suddenly cut off when she looked down and spotted a pair of enormous, highly polished men’s shoes by her feet.

Sofia Rossellini was many things, but na?ve was not one of them. Even if she was, one look at Marisa’s now beetroot face would have been all the confirmation she needed that there was a man in the room.

Slowly, she drifted her gaze the length of her furiously embarrassed daughter and then let it drift to the bed that had clearly been slept in by more than one person.

Her gaze returned to her daughter. “Good for you,” she said softly, before smiling. “Your father wants to spend the day on the beach. Let me know if you want to join us for lunch or dinner.”

Once the door was closed, Marisa slumped on the bed and covered her flaming face with her hands.

A large body fell onto his back beside her. “That was an interesting way to start the morning,” Rico commented, grabbing her waist to pull her down to him.

Twisting into him, she buried her face in his neck. “It was mortifying.”

He laughed and rolled her onto her back. For someone who just minutes ago had been fast asleep, he had the energy of someone who’d been awake for hours. “I felt like I was seventeen again.”

“I don’t want to know how many parents you’ve hidden away from. ”

He slid a hand through the gap in her robe to palm a breast. “Your mother will be the last, so that’s all that matters.”

“I’m sorry for freaking out.”

He grinned and slowly kneaded her breast. “It was fun watching you panic – you’re normally so serene and composed.”

Impossibly, she could already feel arousal uncoiling deep inside her. “You should have seen me panic when she spotted your shoes.”

He skimmed his hand down to her pubis. “How did she react? I couldn’t hear.”

“She was pleased for me…” Her words trailed off as he gently rubbed her nub.

“And why was that, do you think?”

“I think she’d resigned herself to me being a vestal virgin for the rest of my life.”

“Will she be pleased when she learns the man who’s deflowered…” Keeping the friction on her now-swollen nub with his thumb, he slid a finger inside her. “… her vestal virgin is Federico Esposito?”

With the glorious sensations he was evoking, it was a struggle to speak. “She’ll be horrified. All my family will.”

“Because they believe I’m the antichrist?”

“Yes. They think all your family are.”

His eyes glittered. “You once believed that about me too.”

“A part of me still does.” But it no longer frightened her. It hadn’t for a long time.

“Imagine the children we will have,” he mused as he continued pleasuring her with his fingers. “Half angel, half devil.”

“Children?” she half-gasped; half-gasped because he’d slipped another finger inside her and was gently penetrating her, and it felt sublime.

“Many children. A football team of them.” He put his mouth to her ear and whispered, “After last night, there might already be a baby forming inside you.” Licking her earlobe, he moved his hand away and moved himself between her legs, covering her body deliciously.

Anticipation of what was about to happen shortened her breath.

Aware that this was all still brand new to her, Rico used the same restraint as he’d done their first time, and slowly inched his way into Marisa’s tight, wet depths.

By the time he’d brought her to orgasm, her head was thrashing and her hands were gripping his buttocks, pulling him so deep into her that when his own release came, he didn’t know where he ended and she began.

A short while later, when Rico suggested they take a shower together, Marisa’s innate shyness had immediately taken root.

He’d smiled indulgently with a look that quite clearly said, ‘You’ve shared the most intimate night of your life with me, and now you’re afraid to get naked in a shower?

’ and disappeared to the bathroom. He’d left the door open.

It was when she heard the water running that the longing to be in there with him had taken root, and she’d hurried in there before she could change her mind.

Now, as they left her room to head for the beach – their beach – she could feel happiness like a glow that permeated every cell in her body.

From the screams and shouts of laughter drifting through the air from the main poolside, most of the guests were there, and as she listened to them, the happiness clinging to her began to dissipate.

They were only taking the scenic route to the beach’s pathway instead of walking through the swimming pool area to lessen their chances of being spotted together .

“You’ve gone quiet,” Rico observed once they were on the path.

“I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

“About telling my family about you.”

“You’re going to have to tell them at some point – unless you want to marry me without your family being there,” he teased lightly.

“I know. It’s just timing it right. Being here has put them all under a lot of stress, and there’s your family to consider, too.

This is your sister’s wedding, so it’s her moment, and it doesn’t feel fair to detract from that.

” And Rico Esposito, notorious playboy and son of the Lorenzo Esposito, announcing his engagement would certainly cause a stir.