Venetian Masquerade Read Online Free PDF

sleepily.
    “Yes, we became lovers,” Amy replied softly as the old lady closed her eyes with a smile, drifting into a light doze.
    Sitting beside her godmother, Amy remembered that kiss as if it had happened yesterday. Alessandro had brought her home and led her to the garden gate, leaning on it with such a look of longing in his eyes, her heart somersaulted. He didn’t touch her, not even a kiss on the cheek and then, to her dismay, he’d turned to leave. “Goodbye, Amy,” he’d whispered, and panic had stricken her heart.
    “That sounded very final, Alessandro,” she called after him.
    “Do you want it to be?”
    “No.”
    “Then you must show me what you do want.”
    Amy took a deep, shaky breath, knowing what would happen, but she was in an agony of need, longing to be in his arms. Slowly, she walked towards him and, standing almost on tiptoe, brushed her lips across his. The effect was electric, and with a groan, he took her face in his hands and kissed her back, gently at first and then more and more deeply; she was swept away in a tidal wave of desire and flung her arms around his neck.
    “At last,” he murmured. “I would have gone insane if you had made me wait any longer. Come with me, my darling. Come with me now…now…”He pulled her back into the car and told the driver to head for Lido di Roma. He made a mysterious phone call, saying simply, “Luigi, tonight.”
    “Where are we going?” she gasped, coming up for air a few minutes later.
    “We are going to my yacht. I am taking you away for a few days.”
    “Your yacht? I can’t, I have to work. You have to work…I haven’t packed…”
    But he laughed and kissed away her protests, and by the time they arrived in the old Roman port, she felt as if her insides had turned to liquid fire. The port was lit by myriad lights, and Alessandro took a bag from the boot of the car, which she later discovered contained everything she might need, and sent the driver back to the city. Then he led her to a beautiful white yacht named Silver Lady, gleaming in the moonlight, moving sensuously to the lap of the waves, and led her on board.
    “We’ll stay in port tonight. Tomorrow, Luigi and my crew will come on board and I shall take you on a cruise you will never forget. Now, come with me.”
    He led her to his stateroom—a room such as she had never seen, furnished exquisitely with antiques and leather sofas. Next, he took her through to the bedroom, in the center of which a vast double bed dominated the room, draped in blue silk damask, with a bottle of champagne on ice by the bed.
    Amy began to laugh. “Did you learn all your romantic gestures from Hollywood B movies?”
    “Too much? All right, we’ll take the champagne on deck and look at the moonlight.”
    Amy laughed even more, going into paroxysms, making it difficult to breathe.
    “You are impossible, Alessandro,” she gasped at last. “I don’t want the grand gesture, for Heaven’s sake. I just want…”
    “Me?” he asked tenderly. “Please, say you just want me, cara.”
    “I do, Alessandro. Truly, I do…but…”
    “But what, Amy?”
    “I’m not very…experienced. I’m afraid you will be disappointed…” she murmured, remembering ruefully her only previous sexual encounter with a fellow student after a party. It had been such a let down, she had fought off all comers ever since.
    “It will be my sublime pleasure to teach you, Amy. Relax, darling, simply relax. Come here…”
    And she had gone shyly into his arms.
    Sitting beside the slumbering Maria, Amy remembered every erotic, sensual detail as it replayed in front of her eyes. She heard herself crying out joyfully many times during that night and remembered Alessandro burying his face in her hair afterwards, whispering her name over and over.
    When she woke, after the most exhausting and unforgettable night of her life, the boat was at sea and the Italian coast had fallen behind the horizon. Alessandro had