Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
A falling star streaked across the night sky. Staring in wonder at the show Mother Nature was putting on just for the two of us, I murmured, “Am I still dreaming?”
He looked down at me. In his eyes there was more love gleaming brightly back at me than there were stars above. “If you are, don’t wake up. I want to stay a little longer.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next day we disembarked in Sardinia. Sebastian’s private jet was waiting for us at the airport of Olbia. A parade of private jet after private jet taking off and landing on the airstrips. Two hours later we landed in Venice and checked into the Gritti Palace hotel where Sebastian had reserved an entire floor of suites. A week after landing in Venice, we were married on a humid Sunday in the middle of September.
My head was spinning at how quickly and efficiently Sebastian arranged everything. All I did was stand back and let the inexorable force of my beloved control freak take me wherever he wanted to go.
Hanging out of the open window, I watched the vaporretto, the water taxi, steam by on the Grand Canal and took in the incomparable view, almost surreal in its beguiling beauty. My spirits soared so high I could have flown out the window. A cacophony of different languages, from German to Japanese, drifted up from the narrow sidewalks down below. I smiled and waved at a Japanese tourist who lifted his camera to take a picture of the grand historic building.
“It’s just a wedding, my love. Does it really matter where we do it?” When my question was met by silence, I glanced over my shoulder.
Since Sebastian was raised Baptist and stopped practicing ages ago, Roman Catholic law wouldn’t allow us to be married in a church. Not unless we wanted to post banns and wait a month. It didn’t stop him from trying though…the word no was a difficult concept for him to grasp.
Seated at the breakfast table bare chested with his pajama bottoms hanging on his hips in shear desperation, he looked sexier than anyone had a right to. No shame whatsoever––I loved that about him. His heavy lidded eyes met mine over the rim of his coffee cup. My attempt to reason with him was answered with a frown and an emphatic, “Yes.”
Placing the cup down, he licked his lips and stalked over to me. A big cat hunting prey. He blanketed my body from head to toe, caging me with his arms and thighs. A low groan rumbled in his chest as he pushed the erection tenting his pajama bottoms against my rear end. He crammed himself snuggly between my cheeks and heat radiated to every point in my body. A slow burn that made me soft and compliant. His hips rocked slowly. His warm palm cupped my breast. He knew my weaknesses, knew how to turn them into his strengths, how to mold them into desire.
My eyelids grew heavy, my eyes lost focus. But I caught it nonetheless––the shadow of a woman in the building across the canal. Partially hidden behind a heavy silk curtain, she was watching us. My eyes tangled with her tip-tilted dark ones. She was older, maybe sixties, and by the easy grace in her posture and the way she held her cigarette between her long fingers, sophisticated. A dark flush of embarrassment crept up my neck, and yet, I possessed neither the will, nor the want to stop him.
He bit and kissed a path down the curve of my neck. An act of possession, of ownership. It sapped all the strength from my legs. Pressing his groin harder into my rear end, he trapped me against the wall below the window frame. His hand covered mine on the sill, his tan fingers resting between my paler ones.
A sudden realization crashed down on me. Everything that came before him, everything that I thought I was, had been a sham––the imitation. This is who I really was, my natural state. With him I felt alive for the first time in my life.
His other hand found the crease between my thighs and petted me over my nightgown. With no means of escape, I was tortured ruthlessly. “Now what were you saying?” he crooned while his other hand slipped beneath the gown and brushed my nipple.
“I…I don’t think you should take it personally that the Pope wouldn’t speak to you,” I said, my voice cracking and breaking as I jumped between laughter and lust. Biting my lower lip, I managed to squeeze out, “I think he has more important matters to attend.”
“I’m ‘bout to atten’ you in a minute, darlin’,” he crooned. His accent thick and rich ratcheted the heat up times ten. The shameless seducer knew what that accent did to me.