Twelve Quickies Of Christmas 12: Christmas Angel Page 3

  Nicole’s contractions were slowing, her breathing slowing, too, though he could feel her heart hammering under her breast.

  It was okay. He breathed deeply, joy coursing through him. It was okay. He was alive and had his manhood back. Even after coming, he was still hard, so his cock worked again.

  He could function as a man and he had Nicole back.

  Everything was going to be all right from this moment on.

  Alessandro finally raised his head to smile down at Nicole and met her cool green eyes.

  “Well, that was fun.” She pushed at his shoulder. “Now get off me.”

  * * * * *

  Nicole wanted to weep. Her lower body was still climaxing. She could feel herself clenching tightly, rhythmically around Alessandro, who was almost larger than in her memory. He hadn’t even bothered to make love with skill, as she knew he could, regulating his strokes, following her rhythms. He hadn’t had to. Just seeing him had awakened nerves she’d thought dead. Her vagina—what he’d delighted in calling her ‘butterfly’—had no pride at all where Alessandro was concerned. Her orgasm would go on for long minutes, though he’d done nothing to merit it. She felt the spasms of orgasm as if they were remote arcane aspects of her body, having nothing to do with her.

  Her lower body was welcoming Alessandro back. Her mind was screaming—you fool!

  It was like being torn in two.

  Was this to be her future then? For the rest of her days, she’d live celibate and alone, sad and empty, waiting for Alessandro to walk in and out of her life as he pleased. She’d spend a year mourning him, then he’d show up and fuck her and she’d be stupidly grateful and then he’d leave again.

  Repeat cycle.

  It didn’t bear thinking about.

  She was still climaxing when she pushed again at his shoulder. “Didn’t you hear me? Get off me. Now.”

  Alessandro was looking down at her, face blank with shock. “What did you say?”

  Well of course he was surprised. Bimbos didn’t say no, did they? They were grateful for every second The Great Man was fucking them.

  She took a deep breath. “I. Said. Get. Off.”

  He clutched her hips and moved upwards with his penis, in short strokes that touched some secret spot only he had ever found.

  Pleasure spiked through her, insidious, burning, electric, her body’s curse. Tears sprang into her eyes as she tried to twist her hips to get away from him. She couldn’t, of course.

  “Be still,” Alessandro murmured. He held her hips harder, pumped more quickly. Nicole could feel herself moving quickly into another orgasm. She burned with humiliation, as if she was a cheap whore and he had a ten-dollar bill in his hand.

  Her thighs started trembling. She had to stop him, had to, before she came again.

  “There’s a name for this,” she said coldly, holding his eyes. “And it isn’t a pretty one.”

  Alessandro’s jaw muscles bunched. “This isn’t rape and you know it, cara.”

  “It is when the woman doesn’t want it.”

  Something hot flashed in his dark eyes. “You don’t want it?” The tempo of his hips increased, he did something that moved the heavy base of his penis directly against her clitoris and thrust hard. Nicole was caught in the grip of a wild burning storm, shaken from the inside out by the force of her climax. She cried out, her entire world reduced to her body, to her vagina and Alessandro inside her. The contractions went on and on as he kept pumping. She was helpless to stop it; it was as if some malign entity had taken over her body.

  She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to respond to Alessandro as if she was a lock and he was the key. The only key.

  She had just now started finding some measure of peace and serenity in her heart and he was breaking it all over again.

  To her utter horror, Nicole burst into tears.

  “Tesoro,” Alessandro murmured. She tried to evade him, but he held her head still for his kiss. He kissed her mouth, her closed eyelids, the tears from her cheeks. “Carissima, amore mio, non piangere.”

  Don’t cry, he was saying.

  He was right. She mustn’t –she daren’t—cry. Crying showed weakness and she was far too vulnerable to him. She shut her eyes tightly, biting down on her lips, willing the tears away. She’d shed far too many tears for him, anyway.

  It was so hard to think with him on top of her. He was still making love to her, his penis sliding in and out, much more deeply now. He’d shot so much semen into her they were making wet sounds and were probably staining the yellow satin of the couch. They smelled, too, the particular smell of her Diorissima, his soap and their sex. The smells of Amman.

  She’d tried pushing at him and twisting her hips. Now she’d try her tongue.

  “If you think you can just waltz in and out of my life as you please, you’re sorely mistaken, Alessandro della Torre. It doesn’t work like that.”

  He levered himself up, still moving deeply inside her and stared down at her. “I’m not leaving your life again, ever, Nicole, mia cara. And I couldn’t waltz if I wanted to. I can barely walk.”

  His face was somber, deep lines bracketing his mouth. For the first time, Nicole noticed how changed Alessandro was. He’d aged a lot in the past year. He was much more pallid than he’d been in Amman. Silver threads swept through his black hair. Though he was still heavy on top of her—he was a big man—he had lost a lot of weight. She hadn’t noticed it because he was still dressed, but now that she thought of it, she could feel how much lighter he was than before.

  She blinked up at him. There was something in his expression…

  “Stop,” she whispered, and clutched his buttocks. She couldn’t think while he was making love to her. Obediently, his hips stilled. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been in the hospital this past year.” His deep voice was sober, quiet. “I barely survived Christmas Eve.”

  “How—what?” Her mind whirled.

  “I don’t work for the Foreign Ministry, Nicole,” he said, watching her eyes. “I never did for them. I work—used to work—for the Ministry of Defense.”

  He knew she’d have received briefing books on her new posting, and she had—five thick tomes on every aspect of Italian political life. And its Secret Services.

  “Are you—are you SISDE?” A shadowy intelligence agency, modeled after the American CIA, SISDE was responsible for external security.

  Alessandro nodded, then his hard mouth lifted in a half smile. “I knew you were smart. You frighten me sometimes. Stefano Volpi told me he had to call you to warn you off. He was frightened you’d put it together.”

  “He broke my heart.” Nicole shivered as she remembered the shock she’d felt after Count Volpi’s phone call.

  “Yes,” Alessandro said simply. “But it was necessary.”

  “Were you—“ Nicole’s mind was whirling as she put the broken pieces of the last year together. “Were you in some way involved in the gunrunning scandal?”

  “I wasn’t just involved, tesoro. I broke it. I was in the Amman Embassy undercover. It was a very rare example of international cooperation amongst police officers and security agents because we knew we had to find out how these arms were entering the area. I had the help of an excellent CIA officer in your Embassy. He was under cover, too.”

  “Mike Holden,” Nicole said. “The Embassy driver.”

  “Dio.” Alessandro closed his eyes and shook his head. “Remind me never ever to cheat on you.”

  For the very first time, Nicole felt able to smile. “I would cut your heart out and eat it if you ever cheated on me.”

  “Beautiful and blood-thirsty.” He gave her a quick kiss. “I’m in very deep here.”

  She trailed her hand up his back in an uncertain caress, aware that her heart was opening to him with every word he spoke. “So…” she said quietly. “What happened?”

  “I put out feelers, saying I wouldn’t be averse to earning money by looking the other
way when my diplomatic pouch was being filled and, sure enough, they bit. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve we were to meet, the gunrunners and twelve diplomatic officers from eight embassies. I was wearing a body wire. We had our men outside, waiting. It was supposed to be a clean operation. I got enough information for convictions and was about ready to leave when a young American intelligence officer got overexcited and made a move. All hell broke loose and I was caught in the cross fire.” Alessandro took a deep breath. “I took seven bullets. I lost 3 liters of blood before the medics were able to stabilize me. I barely survived and was in a coma for a month.”

  “Alessandro,” Nicole whispered, shocked. In her deepest despair, in the darkest heart of the loneliest night, Nicole had still felt a little kernel of joy just knowing Alessandro was in the world. “You could have died and I would never have known.”

  “It’s the way of the world, tesoro. And before we go any further, I have to warn you that I have scars all over my body. Ugly ones. I have metal pins in both hips and a knee, enough to set off metal detectors. I will forever have a limp. I had to retire from SISDE on a disability pension and am currently without a job.” He searched her eyes. “With all of that, can you still love me?”

  “Alessandro.” Her voice was liquid with tenderness. She caressed his face, the new wrinkles around his eyes, the deep lines bracketing his mouth. “How could you even ask? I could never love another man after you.”

  “Excellent. Do you think you could possibly live the rest of your life in Naples? I know I’m asking you to quit your job and I’m willing to follow you around the world if you insist, but I warn you, I’d make a lousy househusband.”

  Living forever in this beautiful city. With Alessandro. There was only one possible answer. “Of course I’ll live here with you. I can find a job.”

  “My darling Nicole. You will find that there is an opening for a very high-level liaison job at the NATO base here and that they will jump to have you. And I will be finally putting my law degree to use. I’m joining my cousin Stefano’s law office. It’s a very successful one and there’s family money. A lot, in fact. So you won’t ever want for anything. But neither of us will start work until March. We’re going to spend the next three months in bed, making love and eating. How does that sound for a plan?”

  She blinked back the tears, her heart overflowing with love and hope. “Sounds…wonderful.”

  “Bene.” Alessandro flashed a sudden grin, looking suddenly like a young man. “Then let’s move on. Are you still on the Pill, cara?” He rotated his hips and Nicole could feel the wetness.

  Appalled, Nicole stared up at him. She hadn’t even thought of it. She could feel the blood draining from her face. “No,” she whispered. “My doctor cycled me off for four months. Oh, Alessandro, what are we—“

  “Good.” The deep voice rumbled with pleasure. “We have just made a child, my darling Nicole. I want a daughter,” he ordered. “Several of them. They are supposed to look after me and pamper me in my old age. That is the Italian way. I might some day want a son. Just one, someone to smoke cigars and play chess with. And while we’re talking about children—“ He reached into his jacket pocket, the movement pressing him more deeply into her.

  Nicole gasped, on the razor’s edge of climax. Alessandro grinned wickedly. “Patience, carissima,” he murmured, amusement in his dark eyes. “We still have some business to conduct and then I’ll love you as much as you want. Now pay attention because this is important.”

  It was extremely hard to pay attention with him so hot and heavy inside her. Nicole completely forgot about her lower body, however, when she saw what Alessandro had in his hand.

  A ring. A gorgeous antique ring. A diamond-cut emerald in an elaborate setting.

  “This ring has been in my family for a hundred years,” Alessandro said quietly. “Every della Torre woman who has worn it has had a long and happy marriage. Prolific, too,” he added, lips curved in a wicked smile. “I have to warn you that I have four brothers and they are all going to fall in love with you the instant they see you, so we must get married very soon. Immediately, in fact. My little girl must be born a della Torre.”

  His voice was teasing, but there were tears in his eyes as he slid the magnificent ring on her finger. Nicole didn’t even bother wiping away her own tears, streaming down her face.

  “Marry me,” Alessandro whispered.

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered back.

  There was an explosion in the air and she looked, startled, out the big picture windows at fireworks exploding over Vesuvius, purple and scarlet and gold. It was midnight.

  “Buon Natale, amore mio,” Alessandro said as he began thrusting.

  “Merry Christmas, my love,” Nicole answered, her own fireworks exploding inside.

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