His voice was low, and what was in it was all she yearned to hear.
‘How very, very much…’
He lowered himself down on her, coming into her waiting body, which was opening to his, fusing to his. And as their bodies fused wave after wave broke through her.
Not pleasure—nothing so mundane.
It was far more than pleasure.
Ecstasy.
Her spine arched, her head falling back, hips lifting, and still wave after wave took her far beyond mere earthly delights. To a realm where time and place did not exist. Only eternity.
She cried out. Heard her own cry. Heard his deep echoing of it. Felt him surge within her, completing their fusion, their absolute union, their coming together after so long…so unbearably long…
It was a gap in time that made her weep with the pity of it.
Or something did.
For her cheeks were wet with tears.
And her heart was full with all she had not dared to desire.
* * *
There was dew on the grass, and long, narrow strips of early sun striped through the gaps in the hedging. There was the faintest chill in the dawn air. Birdsong came, nascent as the day began, and the night yielded to it. Bianca stood barefoot on the lawn, hair tumbling down her back, a thin cotton dressing gownwrapped around her. She was staring sightlessly, her expression bleak.
She had told Luca that day at hispalazzothat the reason she had been so desperate for him six years ago was that she had yearned to belong to someone. She’d thought that now she did belong to someone—to Matteo—she was free of such desperation.
Her throat tightened, anguish filling her. She was facing the truth about herself—the truth revealed in Luca’s arms. There was something she was not free of…never could be free of…
She gave a smothered cry, tightening her arms around her body as if to staunch a wound that could never be healed—not in six years, nor in sixty, or six hundred. A wound that would be there for ever.
How long she stood there she did not know. She knew only that the sun had risen, and pale morning light was filling the garden. Surely Luca would have woken now, found her gone. Would be relieved that she had gone.
Sparing him.
Surely he would go back to his own room, making it safe for her to go indoors.
She caught her breath suddenly.
What was that noise?
A moment later she knew. It was the low, distinctive throaty growl of that lean, mean beast of a driving machine that Luca had arrived in. She stood frozen, listening intently. The growl increased in volume and then, as the car set off, moving away from the house, started to recede.
Relief washed through her. And also something quite different…
* * *
Luca sat back in his first-class airline seat, closing his eyes. He was on a long-haul flight to New York, then Toronto, then Chicago, then the west coast. Two weeks out of Italy.
Matteo had been dismayed, but Luca had been adamant. It was essential he take himself out of the country. Absolutely essential.
He’d made himself text Bianca, to tell her he was off, but would return at short notice in case of any emergency with Matteo. He’d said nothing more.
Her reply had been succinct, simple.
Thank you for letting me know.