Life Sentence Read online

  He could never know how deeply he affected her. Because she’d learned her lesson. She was never again becoming merely an extension to a man’s ego.

  She gave her hair a quick brushing and checked her moon-washed reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were still too big, too soft, but she blamed that on the lack of light. Once she got to the workshop, there’d be no sign of her weakness.

  He’d believe her when she told him she’d changed her mind and wanted nothing more to do with him.

  He had to.

  Chapter Four

  Sam tiptoed through the silent house down to the kitchen. Silently she took the pasta and bread from the refrigerator. She pressed the minimum number of buttons on the microwave to reheat them, holding her breath after each beep and opened the door before the buzzer could sound.

  She loaded a tray with a dinner plate, cutlery, serving bowl, bread and water glass. Her gaze stole to the floral arrangement in the middle of the kitchen table. A few gaillardia blooms would not be missed from the centerpiece and would make the simple pasta dinner more appealing.

  Damn it, no. She was not going out of her way to please Giacomo. She’d take over their leftover dinner because she’d promised him, but that was all he was getting.

  Back straight and head high, she carried the tray through the darkened yard, the crushed shell path to the garage gleaming white in the moonlight. Flickering blue light painted the curtains of the workshop, beckoning her onward like a flame calling a moth.

  As she climbed the stairs, she heard the low voice of a television announcer dispassionately reporting the latest financial news. She expected to find Master Giacomo sprawled in the lounger, feet up, as he watched the television. Instead, when she pushed open the workshop door and stepped inside, she saw him hunched over in the recliner, elbows on his knees as he leaned toward the screen.

  His head snapped around at the sound of the door closing behind her. If she’d thought her eyes were too wide before, they were nothing compared to his. White showed all around the iris and his olive skin had turned sallow and pale.

  Instinct overrode all her good intentions. She placed the tray on the nearest flat surface and ran to him, kneeling on the carpet so she could take his cold hands in hers.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  She glanced at the image on the television but news of a bank merger in Hong Kong could not be causing this distress.

  His fingers tightened around hers, the pressure stopping just short of pain.

  “So much has changed. My world, it is gone.” His voice broke and he swallowed convulsively. “There is nothing to return to. I am in hell after all.”

  He closed his eyes and bent his head but she doubted he was praying. His throat worked as he swallowed rapidly and she guessed he was fighting back tears.

  Silently she rose to her feet. Still holding his hands, she circled around to the front of the recliner. He opened his eyes, gazing at her with dark brown orbs sheened with moisture. At least they were no longer ringed with white.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  This was a bad idea. She was supposed to tell him that she wanted nothing more to do with him. But he was in pain and she could ease his distress. She was as helpless to resist as if she were caught in one of the deadly riptides off the coast. She knew how to survive a riptide—go with the current and wait for it ebb before fighting toward the shore. The same advice applied here. Rather than struggle not to help him, in fact to actively hurt him, she would go with the flow of her emotions and help him recover from his pain. Then she’d tell him she’d changed her mind, once the emotional current had subsided.

  She climbed onto the recliner, kneeling astride his lap. Her pussy tingled with anticipation as she spread her legs, but no leather-clad bulge rose up to meet her. Sex was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment. Sam was a little disappointed but mostly relieved. He would be able to accept her comfort without confusing it with other things, and make it easier for her to break away later.

  She slipped her fingers from his grasp. Reaching up, she glided them between the thick strands of his hair.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  Before he could answer, she bent her head and sealed his mouth with a kiss. He hesitated for a terrifying moment, an eternity when she feared her gesture would not be accepted, that her efforts to comfort would be met with scorn and derision.

  Then his mouth opened, taking control of the kiss. He sucked gently on her lower lip, his tongue caressing the sensitive skin. A moment later, she felt a cool draft against her back, as he lifted her pajama top. Then his warm hands were sliding up her spine, beneath the thin cotton, and she sighed into his mouth.

  Gently he pressed her body closer until the swell of her breasts bumped his chin. He lifted his mouth from her lips, muttered something dark and urgent in Italian, and bent his head to take one cotton-covered nipple into his mouth.

  Sam moaned, her eyes closing and head tipping back as she lifted her breasts to him, offering him more. Her fingers flexed, gripping his thick hair. Her brain urged her to push him away, to stop this before it went any further and tell him of her resolution. Her body begged her to pull him closer, to fuse his hot mouth to her breast and drown in the waves of sensation emanating from his skilled lips and tongue.

  In the end, she did neither.

  He lifted his head but only to transfer his attention to her other breast. The air upon the damp cotton of her shirt chilled the nipple he’d abandoned, beading it to a hard point. When he lifted his head from her second breast and blew lightly across the wet tip, Sam felt the pleasure down to her core.

  His fingers trailed up her sides, pressing just hard enough not to tickle, eliciting shivers of delight instead. Beneath her shirt, his thumbs caressed her wet nipples, stroking back and forth in a seemingly random pattern of fast and slow touches that quickly drove her mad. She stopped trying to anticipate his touches and sank into the feeling.

  Her sleep shorts grew damp, hot and humid like a summer night and she rolled her hips, seeking relief. She bumped up against the solid iron of his cock stretching the front of his leather pants in a hard ridge.

  Sam moaned, rubbing against him. His answering groan seemed torn from the depths of his soul.

  “Take your hands from my hair,” he whispered, the English words husky and heavily accented. When she reluctantly complied, he added, “Now put your hands behind your back.”

  She smiled as she obeyed. He’d frightened her with his first demand, making her think he did not enjoy her touch. Now the rush of fear was fading, transmuting to a desire that throbbed between her legs. She needed him. She needed him to take her hard and fast and screaming his name in desperate passion. But he wasn’t going to, not until he was ready, and nothing she did could hurry him.

  Her helplessness added yet another thrill zinging through her bloodstream. When he stripped off her shirt and pulled it halfway down her arms, effectively binding them behind her, she laughed from the sheer bubbling joy.

  “Why do you laugh?”

  “You’ve caught me completely and I’m helpless.”

  His brow furrowed. “This makes you laugh?”

  “I was already helpless to stop you. Now I’m helpless to urge you onward too.”

  “Ah.” He nodded sagely. “But you can speak.”

  She blinked in surprise. That’s right. Just because he’d been muttering in Italian as he kissed and caressed her didn’t mean he’d forgotten how to understand English.

  He used her moment of inattention to smooth his hands down to her waist, trailing rivulets of pleasure from his fingertips, and a teasing hint of coolness where his silver bracelet brushed against her hot skin. Then, one hand supporting her ass and his arm wrapped securely around her waist, he stood up.

  Sam squeaked, instinctively trying to put her arms around his neck for balance, only to find herself hobbled by her shirt and unable to.

  “Do not worr
y, mia tesora,” he whispered, his cheek pressed to hers and his warm breath caressing her ear. “I will not let you fall.”

  Turning, he placed her on the edge of the recliner’s seat, pulling off her boxer shorts as he did so, then knelt on the carpeting before her. He caressed her hips and thighs before trailing his hands down to her knees. With one quick motion he lifted her legs, spreading them wide, and hooked her knees over the arms of the recliner. Sam’s hips tilted back and she splayed her bound hands behind herself to catch her weight.

  Her pussy was spread wide open before Master Giacomo and he was staring hungrily at it. She tried to close her legs but his hands still rested on her spread thighs and in her current position, she lacked the muscle strength to dislodge them. Her pussy heated, throbbing in time to the rapidly escalating beat of her heart and she felt the moisture welling up within her.

  He breathed deeply, savoring the scent of her arousal. His eyelids drifted partially closed and he smiled softly.

  “A treasure indeed. And you are all mine. Mine to look at.”

  His hot gaze traveled up her body, lingering at her swollen breasts with their tight, wet nipples before reaching her mouth and finally, her eyes. Her skin flushed in anticipation beneath his frank admiration, her nipples tightening even further and her lips suddenly felt parched. She darted her tongue out, the quick movement capturing his gaze and he followed the wet path trailing across her lips.

  Bracing his hands against her thighs, he rose up and leaned forward, sweeping his tongue across her lips. Her mouth opened on a breathy sigh.

  “Mine to taste.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes, whether searching for an answer or to ensure she understood his meaning, she had no idea. She just wanted him to kiss and lick her lips again. Mutely she tilted her chin up, lifting her lips to him.

  He smiled but returned to his position on the floor. Then he leaned forward and blew softly across her damp pussy.

  Sam shivered and moaned with pleasure.

  “All mine,” he insisted. Then his tongue plunged between her wet folds.

  Dimly she was aware of his hands on her thighs, stroking lightly across her skin or holding her still when she bucked against his mouth. But her focus was on that glorious, heavenly mouth. He licked and nibbled his way along her folds, paying attention to the sensitive skin that was so often ignored, all the while her clit throbbed with growing urgency.

  Then he was between her folds at last, stroking his tongue around and across her clit. Sam gasped and tried to buck, only to be pinned in place by his grip on her thighs. She felt the warm rush of her juices, excited at her helplessness.

  Master Giacomo chuckled softly and began lapping up her eager flow. She lost all sense of time and place, surrendering herself to the flickering caress of his tongue. Short and quick, long and deep, and gentle, sweeping circles, he knew just how to bathe her pussy to keep her balanced on the knife-edge of arousal without sending her over the edge.

  “Master. Master, oh please, Master. Please. Oh Master.”

  She moaned his name in a ceaseless litany of begging, the sounds without meaning in the sensual haze through which she drifted.

  He lifted his mouth away and she cried out in loss and frustration, her bound hands unable to reach for him.

  “No, Master, please, don’t go, don’t leave me like this, please.”

  His fingers tightened on her thighs, piercing the fog of her arousal with a hint of pain.

  “Do you think to give me orders?” he snapped.

  Her pussy clenched, her knees pulling against the recliner’s armrests in a futile attempt to protect herself from his anger.

  “No, Master. No. I didn’t know what I was saying. Please don’t be mad at me.”

  He stroked his thumbs over her inner thighs, circling gently, soothing her distress. “I am not mad, mia tesora. But I am your master. You are mine to do with as I will. To look at. To taste. To take.”

  He lifted his hands and she heard the rustle of leather against leather. She tried to open her eyes and see what was going on but they didn’t seem to be working. Then his hands were on her thighs again, sliding down to her hips and holding her steady. With a single deep thrust, his hard, thick cock entered and filled her.

  Sam gasped, her muscles clenching and trembling. He gave her no time to get used to his presence within her however, before he was moving, thrusting in and out in time to his words.

  “You are mine. Mine to taste. Mine to take.”

  Then faster, harder, “Mine…to…make…come!”

  The last thrust was the deepest yet and Sam cried out as she climaxed, her entire body shaking, deep shudders rippling through her, tearing her apart in agonized ecstasy. It went on forever. There had never been anything but his cock inside her, filling her with unbearable pleasure, and there would never be anything else. Until at last it was too much for her body to bear and she drifted free, lost on a tide of pure bliss.

  She came slowly to awareness, conscious first of warmth and deep, drugging contentment. Then of her body positioned at an unexpected angle and pressure against her side, lifting and lowering her ever so slightly.

  Sensations resolved into sense and she found herself naked, cradled in Master Giacomo’s lap and leaning against his reclined chest. She rose and fell with his breathing.

  The warmth she’d sensed came only partly from being pressed against his shirtless chest, one of his arms wrapped loosely around her waist to keep her from falling. He’d found the old afghan she’d made when she was first learning to knit as a child, an awful thing of red, white and blue acrylic kept for sentimental value but banished to the workshop so company could not see it. The ratty old thing was tucked carefully around her, even wrapping her feet where they dangled over the arm of the recliner. It was ugly but it was warm.

  He’d turned off the television and the overhead light, leaving the workshop in darkness. She wondered if he’d dozed off but as soon as she lifted her head to look, he tightened his hold and lifted his free hand to caress the side of her face.

  He’d been sitting in the dark, watching her sleep. She wasn’t sure if she should feel charmed by his attentiveness or vaguely disturbed.

  “How long was I out for?”

  His brow creased briefly until he worked out the meaning of the idiom. Then he shrugged. “I have no watch.”

  Sam shifted restlessly, beginning to feel the ache of overuse between her legs. She smiled, remembering the feel of his mouth driving her to distraction until his cock slid inside—

  She stiffened.

  “What is wrong, mia tesora?”

  “Did you use a condom? You know, protection, so I don’t get pregnant?”

  He shook his head. “No, but there is no cause for worry.”

  “Why, because you’ll take care of me if I do?” She’d heard that line before, from her ex-husband. That hadn’t been why she’d married him but in retrospect, she realized it should have clued her in to his true nature, that his immediate comfort and convenience meant more than the possibility of a life-altering event for her.

  Master Giacomo merely shrugged. “It is a function of life and thus denied me.”

  She blinked. “You mean, you shoot blanks?”

  Again his brow furrowed but this time the expression didn’t clear. “Shoot blanks?”

  “Yeah. Blanks. Duds. Your sperm don’t swim.”

  His expression froze into the haughty glare she remembered from their first meeting. “They are Olympic-class swimmers.”

  Before she could reply, he sighed, his arrogance deflating. “But now they do not swim. My body is as it was moments before my death and it will remain unchanged until my life is restored. I do not eat. I do not sleep. I do not bleed. And I do not find sexual release.”

  “Wait a minute, your death? And what do you mean you don’t eat? You told me to bring you dinner.”

  A dull red flush stained his cheeks and he glanced away. “I wanted to taste food again, even
if I could not eat it. It was delicious. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. But what’s this about you being dead? You seem pretty alive to me.”

  “No. I died in 1967, in a…boating accident. But it was not my time to die so an arrangement was made. When the terms are fulfilled, I will resume my life.” His eyes clouded with the same pain she’d seen earlier. “A life, rather. Not mine. Mine ended. I had been told but I did not truly understand.”

  Sam longed to comfort him but didn’t know how. And she was having some trouble adjusting to his revelations herself. She’d just made love to someone who’d died before she was born. How freaky was that?

  He traced patterns on her skin with one fingertip. “I am trapped in this half-life until I give you the pleasure you requested when you invoked me. Tomorrow your training begins in earnest. We will begin at dawn.”

  She shivered, imagining a day devoted to carnal exploration. If it were anything like what he’d done to her tonight before they finished, she’d be the one who was dead.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” She pressed her index finger lightly against his scowling lips, silencing his unvoiced objection. “You’re trapped by magic but I’m trapped too. By bonds of duty and devotion. I have to take care of my mother. That means tomorrow driving her to her hairdresser’s, to lunch and to go shopping for a toy.”

  There was something else on her agenda too. Something about Master Giacomo. She struggled to remember, but could recall only that it was important.

  He pulled her fingertip into his mouth and nibbled lightly on the pad of her finger. Sam moaned softly, her body instantly heating, and stopped trying to think. Tomorrow could take care of itself.

  He licked and nibbled his way up her finger, to the palm of her hand. She sighed with pleasure as he swept his tongue along the sensitive paths of nerve endings she’d never known she had. Then he moved his attentions to the inside of her wrist. Licking, kissing and nibbling, his featherlight touches made her writhe in ecstasy.