Page 243 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

‘No.’

Her fingers slid down his abdomen and she kissed his nipple. ‘Please?’

He sprang to immediate attention. ‘No.’

Wrapping her fingers around his arousal, she gripped it with just the right pressure and lazily moved her hand up and down the shaft. ‘Please?’

‘No.’

Keeping hold of him, she lifted herself so her face was over his. Still masturbating him, she hooked her thigh between his legs and kissed him deeply, parting his lips with her tongue and moaning into his mouth.

Threading his fingers into her hair, Marcello closed his eyes and submitted to the eroticism of Victoria’s hand pleasuring him, her pubis grinding into his thigh, the weight of her breasts pressed against his skin, and her hot mouth devouring him.

‘Please?’ she breathed into his ear, now masturbating him with the vigour he craved.

‘You are not playing fair,’ he groaned.

‘I know.’ And with that, she released his arousal and twisted around so her back was to him.

‘Why, you little tease...’ Moving quicker than he’d done since childhood, he ignored her kicks and squeals of laughter as he tussled with her and pinned her onto her back.

They were both still laughing when, fully sheathed, he drove himself inside her.

Victoria thought the best thing about being a billionaire had to be the way it made mere mortals bow to your requests. Two hours after Marcello suggested a walk in Central Park, they were both dressed for an Arctic expedition and crossing the slushy, gritted road, heading towards the most magical of winter wonderlands. Fresh snow had settled overnight and covered it all afresh, and it seemed that the whole of Manhattan had come out to experience it, families building snowmen, children being pulled along on sleds by hardy parents, even hardier joggers making the most of their freedom and ploughing their own trail.

‘Shall we skate?’ he suggested when they spotted an ice rink through the trees ahead.

‘I don’t know how.’

‘Then I shall teach you.’

‘You know how to skate?’ she asked, amazed.

‘My grandparents lived in Milan near the Bagni Misteriosi. It is the most beautiful outdoor swimming pool and in the winter it is turned into an ice rink. When we were children, Benito and I spent much of our Christmas holidays skating on it.’

Once upon a time, Victoria would have changed the subject at such a personal turn to a conversation. It had been a part of the rhythm of their lives. Talk about anything and everything so long as it didn’t have real meaning. Now, though, everything was different. She was different. They were different. And it was his use of the past tense that made her carefully ask, ‘Are they still with us?’

‘My grandfather is. He moved back to Rome after my grandmother died. That was a few months before I poached you.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

Victoria had met his parents during their last two visits to Manhattan and thought them lovely, warm people. She wouldn’t have guessed they’d been suffering a recent bereavement.

He squeezed her hand. ‘No need to be sorry. She was very ill and now she is at peace.’

They’d reached the queue waiting their turn on the rink.

‘Shall we?’ he invited.

‘You’re sure you can teach me?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You doubt me?’

Laughing, she shook her head. ‘If I know you, you were probably good enough to turn professional.’

‘It was suggested,’ he said without an ounce of fake modesty that only made her laugh harder.

‘What stopped you?’

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