He evoked a longing in her that she’d never felt for any other man, she admitted to herself as she walked back up the stairs to her bedroom. She needed something to distract her, so she settled down with the sketch pad and pencils she’d found. It was some time later when she heard a knock on the door, and her heart clattered against her ribs as she scrambled off the bed and crossed the room to open it.
Santino braced his arms on the door frame and scowled at her. ‘Do you intend to hide up here and sulk for the rest of the day?’
For some reason his bad mood made her feel better, knowing that he was as disturbed by her as she was by him. ‘I didn’t realise I’d been working for so long.’ A glance at her watch revealed that she had been absorbed in sketching designs for a good part of the afternoon.
His brows rose and he said sardonically, ‘Working? I didn’t realise you knew the meaning of the word.’ He looked over her shoulder at the pages of sketches scattered on the bed and his scowl deepened. ‘You mean you’ve been drawing pretty pictures of dresses.’
‘They’re sketches of designs that I plan to create back at my fashion studio in London,’ she told him, irked by his mocking tone. She stood aside to allow him to enter the bedroom and he walked over and picked up a few of the sketches.
‘I know nothing about art or fashion but these look very detailed.’ He gave her an intent look, as if he was trying to fathom her out. ‘So, you have a studio?’
It sounded more glamorous that it actually was, but Arianna wasn’t going to explain that she had recently signed the lease on a space in an old warehouse. She was paying the rent with money she’d inherited from her grandmother and she was excited that it was the first step towards independence from her father.
Santino’s expression became speculative. ‘Are you trying to emulate your father or merely playing at being a fashion designer until you grow bored of it?’
‘Certainly not. Randolph won’t be involved in any way in my fashion business. He doesn’t know anything about my plans.’ She bit her lip. ‘No one does. You are the first person I’ve told.’ She was already regretting that she’d given away her secret, but she had been angered by Santino’s assumption that she could not do anything by herself and was reliant on her father.
‘I’m hoping to launch my fashion brand “Anna” at London Fashion Week in February next year—if I can find a financial backer prepared to invest in my business.’ She was unaware of the flicker of doubt that crossed her face. ‘The reason I want to attend Fashion Week this September is so that I can see what is trending in the fashion world and hopefully make some contacts.’
She waved her hand at the sketches on the bed. ‘These are ideas I’m working on for the mid-season shows, known in the industry as Pre-Fall, which are held around the end of November. The British Fashion Council are offering an opportunity for new designers to present their work. It will give me a chance to gauge the reaction of fashion journalists and buyers to my designs, but I’ll have to work fast to be ready in time. And it won’t help if I’m stuck in Sicily for weeks,’ she said ruefully.
She leaned over the bed to gather up the loose pages of her sketches and the wide neck of her shirt slipped down, baring one shoulder. Santino swore softly.
‘How did you get that cut? It looks sore.’
‘It’s nothing,’ she muttered. ‘One of the men on the beach was wearing a ring and the edge of it scraped my shoulder when he tried to grab me.’ She felt sick remembering the incident, and perhaps she paled, because Santino put his hand on her uninjured shoulder and pushed her gently down onto the bed.
‘Sit there while I find some antiseptic lotion,’ he commanded.
Once his self-assurance had seemed threatening to her lack of confidence but now she accepted his strength instead of resenting it. He strode into the bathroom and returned almost instantly carrying a first-aid kit, from which he took out a tube of cream.
‘Hold still.’ He unscrewed the cap and squeezed a little of the medication onto her shoulder. His touch was surprisingly gentle when he spread the cream over the cut.
Arianna had a sudden memory of when she’d been a little girl and her mother had cared for her grazed knees after she’d fallen off her bike. She had adored Celine, but the close bond between them had lessened when her father had insisted on sending her to a boarding school when she’d been eight. The older pupils had teased the younger ones who cried if they were homesick, and even at that young age she’d learned to hide her feelings behind a wall of bravado.
She could not understand why Santino’s unexpected kindness made her eyes fill with tears. She tried to blink them away but a trickle of moisture slipped down her cheek.
‘Does the cut hurt?’ His concern tugged on her heart. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had actually cared about her. Arianna shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. He sat beside her on the bed and trapped her chin in his fingers, tilting her face up so that she could not evade his gaze. Something indefinable flickered in his green eyes as he brushed a tear away with his thumb. ‘Don’t cry, piccola,’ he said softly.
She stared at his mouth as he brought it closer to hers and felt that inexplicable pull that had always existed between them. From the start there had been a connection, a mutual awareness, that they had both tried to deny. But she didn’t want to fight him any more, Arianna admitted to herself. She wanted to throw herself into his fire and burn in the blaze of his smouldering sensuality.
He moved his hand from her jaw to caress her cheek and she felt his other hand slide into her hair. Her heart was beating so fast that she felt breathless, and something hot and urgent unfurled in the pit of her stomach when she glimpsed the hunger in his gaze seconds before he claimed her mouth with his and the world spun off its axis.
* * *
She tasted of honey, sweet and utterly addictive, and Santino could not resist her. He told himself that he had kissed her simply to comfort her, conveniently pushing aside the knowledge that caring was an emotion he avoided. The vulnerability he glimpsed in her chocolate-drop brown eyes stirred something inside him that he refused to acknowledge, much less define. Perhaps that air of loneliness about her was another illusion created by the smoke and shadows that was Arianna.
Right now she was real enough. Her lips were soft and moist beneath his and her warm breath filled his mouth. He wanted more, wanted her closer, and he lifted her across his lap and nearly lost it when her bottom pressed against the painfully hard ridge of his arousal. Her perfume teased his senses. She smelled of exotic flowers on a hot summer’s day, and the lemon groves in his beloved Sicily, but her fragrance was as frustratingly elusive as the woman who curled her arms around his neck and wantonly pressed her breasts up against his chest.
He could feel the hard tips of her nipples, tight and hot, burning through his T-shirt. It didn’t matter what Arianna was or what she was not. Right now she was in his arms and kissing him with a hunger that matched his own, and there was not a chance in hell that he would deny himself what he had wanted from the moment he’d set eyes on her. Arianna beneath him, on top of him. His fantasies about her had kept him awake at night, and he was done with trying to figure out why she fascinated him more than any woman ever had.
Without lifting his mouth from hers, he pushed his hand between their bodies and slipped it beneath her silky top, skimming his fingers over her stomach and up to capture one breast. He tested its weight in his palm and felt her shudder when he dragged his thumb over her nipple. Her skin was as soft as a peach and he had to taste her. Easing away from her a fraction allowed him to lift her shirt up and over her head, baring her breasts to him.
He gave a low growl of appreciation. She was perfection. Her creamy skin was satin-smooth and her breasts were round and firm, each pert mound adorned with a dusky pink nipple that tilted provocatively, inviting him to run his tongue over the tip. He was shocked t
o find that his hands were unsteady when he sank them into her glorious hair and let her silky curls slip through his fingers. Desire pounded an insistent drumbeat in his blood, and he knew from her rapid breathing and the slumberous heat in her eyes that her need was as great as his.
He shoved away the strange idea he’d had on previous occasions that her air of innocence was real. Stories of her excesses had filled too many gossip columns. Not that Santino cared. He enjoyed sex with women who were sexually confident. The sight of the cut on her shoulder made him hesitate, and perhaps he would have heeded the reminder that it was his duty to protect her if she hadn’t dragged the hem of his T-shirt up his torso and run her hands over his chest.
‘Witch,’ he said hoarsely when she scraped her nails across his flat nipples, making him even harder, even hungrier for her. Unable to control his impatience, he tugged his shirt off before he bent his head to her breast, closing his mouth around her nipple and sucking. Hard. The effect on her was instant, but the audible catch of her breath...surely she could not have sounded startled? Once again Santino pushed the odd thought away and concentrated on pleasuring her breasts, rolling one nipple between his fingers while simultaneously lashing the other turgid peak with his tongue.
She arched backwards, offering her breasts to him, and he had never seen anything more beautiful than Arianna with her cheeks flushed with passion and her long hair—shades of chestnut and cinnamon—tumbling in a riot of loose curls down her back. The heat between them burned hotter and the world disintegrated. He tumbled them both down onto the mattress and propped himself up on one elbow while he skimmed his other hand down to the waistband of her denim shorts.
‘Look at me,’ he commanded, a question in his eyes when her lashes swept up and she met his gaze. She answered him by pulling his face down to hers and parting her lips with an eagerness that caused his heart to give a jolt as he kissed her again and again. He would never have enough of her. She was a siren luring him to his doom, but he didn’t care about anything other than his need to possess her gorgeous body and seek salvation between her silken thighs.
He fumbled with the button and zip on her shorts, impatience making his movements uncharacteristically clumsy. Finally, he tugged the denim shorts down her legs and sat back on his knees to admire the graceful lines of her slender figure, almost naked but for the tiny black knickers that hid her femininity from him.
Her eyes were huge and dark with desire, and Santino’s gut clenched at the soft sound she made—half-protest, half-plea—when he leaned over her, braced his hands on either side of her on the bed and pressed his mouth against the scrap of black lace. The scent of her arousal filled his senses as he pushed the panel of her panties aside and ran his tongue over her slick, wet opening. Her molten heat was the sweetest nectar and he felt a quiver run through her when he delved deeper into her feminine core, lapping her, tasting her.
Arianna’s husky gasps of pleasure almost sent Santino over the edge, but somehow he still retained enough control to remember that they were not in his bedroom, where he kept contraceptives. But his sister and her fiancé had stayed in this room when they had visited earlier in the summer. His heart kicked in his chest when he pulled open the bedside drawer and found a packet of condoms. He was so hard he thought he might explode, and he bit back a groan when his denim shorts snagged on his erection as he yanked them off, followed by his boxers.
He knelt back on the bed and looked down at Arianna. She was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen with her silky hair spread over the pillows and her big brown eyes lit with gold flames. The elegant lines and sensual curves of her body were a work of art, and his gut clenched in anticipation of her long, lissom legs wrapped around his back. Her pert breasts were firm yet soft, the colour of pale cream, each topped with a cherry-red nipple, and he bent his head and feasted on them, smiling when she bucked and moaned.
Next time he would take things more slowly and indulge in leisurely foreplay, he promised himself. But right now he was desperate to be inside her and he swiftly donned a protective sheath. He pulled her panties down her legs and ran his fingers over the neat vee of soft brown curls he’d exposed before he pushed her thighs apart. Supporting his weight on his elbows, he positioned himself over her and lowered his head to claim her mouth in a hungry kiss.
‘I should probably tell you...’ she whispered against his lips.
Dio! Had she changed her mind? His heart was thundering in his chest but somehow he held himself back. ‘The only thing you need to tell me, cara,’ he growled, ‘is if you want this. One word—yes, or no?’
‘Yes,’ she said without hesitation.
Relief surged through him, adding to the potent heat in his groin. He didn’t wait—couldn’t, if he was honest. His desire for her consumed him and he slid his hands beneath her bottom to lift her hips towards him.
At last he was where he wanted to be—on the edge of heaven.
He surged forward and thrust into her. And stilled.
His shock turned to incomprehension and disbelief when she went rigid beneath him. The sharp cry she’d given at the moment he’d penetrated her had been of pain.
How the hell could Arianna be a virgin?
Guilt seared through him even as he felt the tension slowly seep from her body as her internal muscles stretched to accommodate him. He felt as though his aching shaft was encased in a velvet glove. Her slick heat enticed him to slide deeper into her. But he held back, just, his throat working as he swallowed hard. The craziest thing of all was the swift, fierce rush of triumph that swept through him, a possessiveness that shook him to his core and which he rejected absolutely. Sex and emotions was not a mix he had ever sought.
He withdrew from her, even though it was the hardest thing he had ever done. He did not know if it was disappointment or relief that darkened her eyes, and when she bit her lip the beast inside him roared. Cursing beneath his breath, he propped himself up beside her and trapped her gaze with his. ‘Why?’ he demanded tautly.
Something flickered on her lovely face, that hint of vulnerability that he now knew was real, he thought, guilt clawing through him again. ‘Why was I a virgin, I suppose you mean?’ she said in a low voice.
He gritted his teeth. ‘You suppose right, cara. How could it be so, when stories of your affairs have littered the gutter press for years and provided cheap titillation for anyone who is interested?’
Colour ran along her exquisite cheekbones but she said defiantly, ‘No one believes the rubbish printed in the tabloids.’
The implication that anyone who did was a fool was not lost on Santino, and with a flash of insight he realised that he had wanted to believe the worst of her to keep her at arm’s length. ‘What about when you defied me and left Villa Cadenza to go and meet your lover in Positano?’ He recalled the scalding jealousy he’d felt, imagining her in bed with some guy.
‘I was having sewing lessons with a seamstress in her workroom next door to the beauty salon.’ She shrugged when his brows lowered. ‘You were convinced that I must be having an affair because you believed my reputation as a tart was true.’
Santino sighed heavily, unable to deny her accusation. ‘Did you never consider denying the things that were written about you or demand a retraction from the newspapers?’
She glanced at him from beneath her long eyelashes. Her wariness that he had assumed was an act now tugged on emotions he did not want to acknowledge. ‘You’ll laugh if I tell you the truth.’
‘Try me,’ he said gruffly.
‘The only times my father ever phoned me were when some scandal or another about my private life made the headlines. He hated my notoriety, not because he cared about me, but because he feared it could have an adverse effect on the only thing he does care about, which is Fitzgerald Design.’ She bit her lip. ‘When I was a child, Randolph only noticed me when I behaved badly, so I carried on. But a year
ago I decided that I can’t spend the rest of my life seeking my father’s attention.’ Her rueful smile did not reach her eyes. ‘I suppose I finally grew up.’
Santino ignored the complicated feelings that Arianna evoked in him. ‘I haven’t seen much evidence of that,’ he mocked. ‘You should have told me it was your first time.’
‘I tried to...’
He swore, and colour ran under her skin, but her eyes flashed gold with temper. ‘Would you have believed me?’ she came back at him, fiery and proud. She sat upright and pushed a hand through her hair, drawing his eyes to the silky brown curls that tumbled over her breasts. Desire corkscrewed through him but he couldn’t succumb to his hunger for her that made him feel hollow and aware of the gaping emptiness inside him. An emptiness that Arianna of all people could not fill. Whatever she thought of her father, Randolph had hired him to protect his daughter, and he would do his duty, Santino vowed silently.
‘Why me?’ he demanded.
She did not pretend to misunderstand him and her reply set off alarm bells inside his head. ‘I knew I would be safe with you,’ she said softly.
Safe! The word mocked him. ‘Arianna...’
She interrupted him. ‘From the start you have taken care of me.’
‘It is my job to protect you,’ he growled.
She shook her head. ‘It’s more than that and you know it. There is a connection between us.’ Before he could deny it, she said fiercely, ‘I wanted you to be the first.’
‘And because you are Arianna Fitzgerald you decided that it is your unassailable right to have what you want, with no thought of the consequences,’ he said furiously. ‘You should have been honest instead of dumping your virginity on me and expecting—what?—that I would fall in love with you?’
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