Page 35 of The Virgin's Dance with the Devil
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.Shewas thankinghim? 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. “Youarestaying 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?”
