AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Love?” Dante’s expression showed amusement then. “Who are you, and what have you done with Rocco Santoro? I thought love began and ended with the bedroom, for you?”
“For me, yes,” he was quick to agree. “But not with Raf, and not with Marcia. At the end of the day, this isn’t our decision.”
Dante grunted. “Like you’re okay with that.”
“I’m not,” Rocco admitted. “There’s a part of me that would love to do whatever I could to ruin this because I’m sure Raf would be happier without her. But it’s not my life; it’s his. He has to make his choices.”
“He’s made the wrong choice.”
“Forse. Only time will tell.”
“How can you be so sanguine about this?”
“Because he’s my brother,” Rocco said, with a hint of irritation. “And I love him. You know what our childhood was like. You know what losing our mother did to him, and how our father was afterwards. You know what he saw, what we all saw. If he has been able to erect something good out of all of that, to build this life for himself, then how can I possibly jeopardize it? He is my youngest brother; all I want is his happiness.”
“With Marcia?”
“And their baby,” Rocco reminded Dante. “Our niece or nephew. Let me put it another way: if they don’t marry, Marcia will be raising that baby, and who knows when we’ll ever see them. Is that what you want?”
Dante’s eyes shimmered like coal. “None of this is what I want.”
Secretly, Rocco agreed, but he’d come here determined to be supportive. They had no parents left, and for a long time, Rocco had stepped into the breech, playing the part of father to his two younger brothers. He’d always done that, he supposed. Even before their father’s death. Losing their mother as they had, and their father falling apart at the seams, it had come down to Rocco a lot of the time, to hold things together.
He was doing that again, now, doing what was necessary to make Raf happy. He just hoped it was going to work out—he couldn’t bear to see Raf, of all people, hurt. And if it was, in part, because he’d chosen not to expose Marcia two years ago? He’d never forgive himself.
He found her beneath a sweeping arbor of bougainvillea, a rich pink in color, stark against the crisp blue sky. She was marveling at it, to the extent she didn’t notice his intrusion until Rocco cleared his throat.
Her eyes dropped to his, but her smile remained. “This place is magnificent,” she said, with a shake of her head. “I meant to leave straight after my meeting with Marcia, but then this—,” she waved to the arbor and beyond it, to the gardens. Some were formal and structured, others were quite wild, with sprawling patches of color and contrasting textures. From the spikes of the agave to the softness of lilacs and Irises, the fragrance of lavender.
“How did your meeting go?” he asked, keeping any wariness from his voice.
“Oh, good,” she exclaimed. “Marcia has—firm ideas—about what she wants,” Maddie responded, with a slight furrowing of her brow. But it cleared quickly, and she smiled once more. “As she should. She’s the bride; it’s her wedding day.”
“What does she want?” He asked, coming to stand beside her at first and then finding he couldn’t stand so near and not touch her, so he moved behind her and wrapped his hands around her waist, drawing her against him.
She made a little sound of surprise but came willingly. “White,” she murmured, almost as though she was finding it hard to concentrate. He grinned, enjoying that. Enjoying this—her. Enjoying and needing her, in a way he hadn’t in the States. That had been about them. About what they shared and how this felt. This was about…escaping. His concerns about Raf, his guilt about the secret he’d kept for so long it was impossible to share now.
Until it wasn’t. Until it was just about Maddie again, and the way she felt against him, and how much he loved touching her, how he loved to feel her. His hand crept beneath her shirt, lifting it from her pants until he found her skin, her flat stomach and then, higher, the fabric of her bra.
“Rocco,” she said, her voice a little taut, but still she made no effort to pull away from him.
He pushed under the fabric of her bra, brushing her flesh with his fingertips, delighting in the way she shuddered against him. “And what would you do, other than white?” He nibbled low down on her ear, teasing the lobe between his teeth.
“I—,” her breath was more of a pant. “This,” she said, as his other hand moved into her pants, finding her most sensitive cluster of nerves and teasing it slowly at first, and then fast, until she was writhing against him, her body like a live wire, a current she couldn’t contain. “Rocco,” she ground out. “God, Rocco.”
She was incandescent with need. He could feel it moving through her, every frantic jerk of her limbs, every pulse of her body. He loved that he could touch her like this, could do this to her. Power thrummed in his veins, an ancient, primal thrill of masculinity that went straight to his cock. She pushed back against him there, too, so he knew she must feel his strength and hardness, must know how much he wanted her.
He moved his fingers faster, knowing how she liked to be touched, how she needed to feel, strumming her until she was crying out softly and then falling apart in his arms, and he kissed the side of her throat, the sweet, elegant column, tasting her flesh, feeling her moans against his lips, until she grew quiet and still, and her pleasure had calmed.
But only for now. He spun her in his arms, his hands on her hips directing her, his touch filled with his need for her. And a desire to tease her.
“This?” He asked. “What does ‘this’ mean?”
She looked at him with obvious confusion. “The wedding flowers,” he reminded her.
“Who can think about flowers right now?” she said on a husky laugh, clinging to his shirt. He grinned, that same sense of ancient power throbbing in his gut. He kissed her then, hard and with all the passion he felt, drawing her to the grass with him, his weight on her, as he continued to kiss her, to touch her all over, until he found the button of her pants and undid it.
“Rocco!” She gasped. “Someone will see us.”
