Redemption Of The Untamed Italian (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Clare Connelly

  She paused at the end of the runway, spinning slowly, her smile different from the other models’—she had the ability to light up a room, and he was certain he wasn’t the only man present who felt that her pleasure was all for him.

  To confirm this, he looked around, his eyes drifting through the audience. It was predominantly women, but everyone—male or female—was transfixed by Jemima. She was famous around the world but amongst these people—fashion devotees—she was like a goddess and they stared at her accordingly.

  His gaze wrenched back to her and now he paid proper attention to the outfit, to the gauzy, transparent nature of the skirt that showed her slender legs and hinted at the pale underwear she had on. The blazer was structured and navy-blue with brass buttons but she wore nothing beneath it, and the hint of her cleavage was displayed by the vee at its neck.

  He continued to watch her, an expression on his face that anyone in attendance might have regarded as bland—mildly speculative, at most—even when something was stirring to life inside him, beating hard like a drum against his chest.

  She looked beautiful, and she was there for all the world to see. He wasn’t used to a sensation of jealousy, nor the tight grip of possession, but he recognised it, just as surely as he recognised the desire to go onto the stage and wrap her in his arms, throw her over his shoulder and carry her back to Cannes. But this was her life—her real life—and he had no place caring how people looked at her, nor wondering if they were mentally stripping her naked.

  His mood didn’t improve as the night wore on. He was glad when the fashion show wrapped, glad when a thin man dressed all in black and holding a clipboard came up to him, a deferential expression on his face. ‘Mr Durante? Jemima’s asked for you to come backstage.’

  He stood, moving through the crowd, past security and into a crowded dressing area. The noise was deafening. Models, models and more models, all in a state of undress. His eyes scanned the room, looking for only one. She was changed already, into a pair of skinny leather trousers and a silk camisole that showed the outline of her breasts and the slender fragility of her arms and shoulders. Her hair was loose around her face, just as he’d ached to see it.

  ‘Hi.’ There was a shyness to her as she saw him approaching and paused mid-way through unclipping an earring.

  His first instinct was to tell her how well she’d done, that she’d been beautiful, that she’d been captivating, but he said none of those things. Surely she already knew them to be true? And saying them felt wrong, given what they were to one another.

  ‘Did you enjoy the show?’ she prompted, removing the earring and placing it on the glass shelf behind her.

  Had he? He didn’t get a chance to answer. Two women came over and wrapped Jemima in their arms, the floral fragrance of their perfume almost overwhelming. ‘You ready, babe?’

  Jemima’s voice stood out, so cultured and elegant. ‘I will be soon. Just give me five, okay?’

  One of the other models turned to regard Cesare, her eyes inspecting him with slow curiosity.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Just a friend,’ Jemima rushed out, her cheeks heating with pink. He wondered at his impulse to contradict her—they weren’t even friends. Could he blame her for not knowing exactly how to define their relationship?

  ‘You should bring him along,’ the other one purred.

  ‘I might. Five minutes, okay? Tell Larry I’ll be out soon.’

  ‘Hurry. I need a Ginsecco.’

  They disappeared as quickly as they’d arrived.

  ‘The after-party,’ Jemima explained.

  ‘Ginsecco?’

  ‘Prosecco and gin.’ She leaned closer, a smile making her face so familiar that his gut squeezed. ‘Half of one is enough to make me loopy.’

  ‘Jem?’ A male voice this time. Cesare turned around to see a man powering towards her. Not a model—he was too rugged and unkempt for that. ‘Bloody hell, it’s been an age. You killed it tonight, babe.’

  Cesare took a step back, crossing his arms over his chest, so he wasn’t even sure if the other man noticed him when he drew Jemima into his arms and pressed a kiss against her lips.

  Her eyes flared wide, though, and flew to Cesare, so he had only a second to tamp down on his first instinct—to rip the other man off Jemima forcibly. With his fist. Was it possible that this was the guy she’d slept with after him? He certainly seemed comfortable with her; their body language could pass as that of lovers.

  ‘You’re coming, right?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah. Just for one drink.’ She lifted her finger in the air to gesture the solitary number and the other guy hooked his fingers around hers, pulling her hand to his chest. ‘One of these days you’re going to let your hair down. I hope I’m there to see it.’ He grinned, a grin that was pure lascivious flirtation, and then he kissed her again quickly, walking away. ‘See you at the bar.’

  Jemima had the decency to look embarrassed as she closed the gap between them. She lifted a hand to Cesare’s chest, staring at it rather than him. ‘Sorry about Tim. He’s a photographer.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘The party’s just around the corner, in Knightsbridge. Do you want to come in our limo?’

  ‘No.’ The word was out before he could analyse it. ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her expression was crestfallen. ‘I have to go—it’s expected of me, contractually—but I generally only stay for one drink. Are you sure you don’t want to...?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked away, turning towards the door where some other guy was waving to her, gesturing for her to join him. ‘Well, I can come to your place after,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll be an hour, hour and a half max.’

  Temptation dragged on him, a temptation that made him wary because he wasn’t interested in anything other than Jemima’s body, and only for a limited time. He needed to control this, to remember that this was about sex—the pleasure and hedonism of no-strings sex. She wasn’t his real world any more than he was hers.

  ‘There’s no need.’ He lifted a hand, touching her hair as he’d wanted to while he’d watched her move down the runway. ‘We had a deal, remember? This is your night off.’

  He thought he’d feel better. He’d thought reminding her of their agreement, the terms, of the role she was fulfilling in his life, would make him feel in control again, would make him feel powerful. But the confusion on her features that was eclipsed by hurt as his meaning dawned did the exact opposite. He wished he could swallow the words back up.

  There was courage in her look as she met his eyes. ‘What if I don’t want a night off?’

  Damn it. Powerlessness surrounded him. He moved his hand so his thumb ran over her lower lip. Her eyes fluttered closed, her lashes forming two perfect fans on her face. ‘It’s what we agreed.’ He took a step back. ‘My jet will be waiting for you tomorrow.’ He slipped a card into her palm with the details of the hangar and his assistant’s number. ‘Just call when you’re ready to fly out and my driver will collect you.’

  She dropped her gaze to the card for a second and then looked back at him.

  ‘That’s what you want?’

  What he wanted? It was getting harder to answer that, but there was always his office, his livelihood, his determination to succeed. These were things that would never wane.

  He dropped his lips to hers, buzzing them for the briefest moment. ‘Goodnight, uccellina. Dream of me.’

  The hurt was gone from her features. Now there was defiance as she shrugged her shoulders, turning her body from his, moving towards her friends while lifting her head over her shoulder to call, ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  She dreamed of him in that strange way of haunted dreams, where the fragments seemed so real that she couldn’t say if she was asleep or awake. She dreamed of his hands on her body, his lip
s against hers, his arousal inside her. She dreamed of him, and she writhed for him, and she woke up with a need she couldn’t quell. It was a warm day in London, the kind of day that made her ache to be back at Almer Hall, where she could dive into the ancient pond, surrounded by mossy pavers and arum lilies, then turn onto her back, staring up at the sky until the sun formed little circles against her eyelids.

  She’d done it a lot after Cameron had died. She’d wanted to escape the house, her parents, their grief and their arguments. She’d wanted to escape the whole world. In the pond, with its murky darkness, its ancient shape, she’d found a world all her own. In the water, she’d been weightless, her ears dipped below the surface so she couldn’t hear anything except the beating of her own heart.

  In the pond, she’d found peace when her whole world had been falling apart. She’d found relief from summer’s bite and loss’s tight grip—the water had made her whole again.

  The sun stretched across her bedroom now, long and blade-like, brighter than a star. She lifted her hand, stretching her fingers in its path, and sighed.

  Cesare filled her pores, her mind, her soul, her every thought. He was a fever in her blood.

  She pushed the duvet back, showering restlessly and dressing quickly—a pair of denim cut-offs and an oversized shirt that had a habit of falling off one shoulder.

  Her need for him was insatiable, but there was no point rushing. He’d be working today, despite the fact it was a Sunday, and the thought of returning to their Cannes love nest with no Cesare in sight wasn’t a particularly palatable one. She might as well spend the day catching up with friends, seeing as she was in London anyway, and fly out in the afternoon.

  In fact, she made a point of going about her life, business as usual: tidying her flat, lunching with her closest girlfriends. She didn’t tell any of them where she’d been, nor who she’d been with. It was easy enough to say she was on location for a shoot—she travelled so much for work no one really thought to question it.

  Despite the fact she kept herself busy, the day passed interminably slowly. As her cab cut through London in the afternoon—she’d refused to call his driver, to appear as though she couldn’t manage to get herself to the airport—she admitted to herself that she’d spent the day in a sort of a trance. It was as though her life, her world, was being viewed through a piece of glass smeared in butter. Everything was blurry and impenetrable. She’d been going through the motions but nothing had felt vibrant or right.

  It was the dream that had unsettled her. That, and his comment the evening before, which she’d tried not to think about.

  ‘We had a deal, remember? This is your night off.’

  All day she’d pushed those words away, refusing to focus on them, but now as she approached the airport they found purchase in her brain and she couldn’t quieten them.

  ‘This is your night off.’

  She knew what they were, what she’d agreed to, yet his calm reminder of that tightened around her throat like a vise, so she could barely breathe. As though they could so easily be reduced to a simple arrangement, a contract, she as someone who got ‘nights off’. The idea of willingly choosing to be away from him... A shudder ran the length of her spine, a sense of foreboding, because very soon she’d no longer be a part of his life. To Cesare, this was just business, and she was a fool to have forgotten that, even for a moment.

  It hurt, but the pain was good. She held it to her chest because it was like a shield—so long as she remembered the truth of what they were, so long as she kept in mind the only thing he’d ever want from her was her body, then she could take the best of what this was, enjoying the sensual pleasure without letting her emotions—her heart—get even remotely entangled.

  His fingertips traced invisible circles over her shoulder, waking her softly. Her eyes felt heavy and she blinked them several times to clear sleep from their depths. Disorientation followed. It was warm, as it had been the day before, and she remembered the pond at Almer Hall as though she’d actually been there, so vivid was her recollection. Except she hadn’t been; she’d been in London, and she’d been alone.

  Craving Cesare.

  And now she was back in Cannes, her body his once more, his body hers. Heat warmed her cheeks as she recalled the night before. He’d been waiting for her when she’d returned to the hotel. She hadn’t made it four steps into the room before he was dragging her to his body, stripping her clothes, lifting her against him and making love to her as though both their lives depended on it.

  ‘What time is it?’ Her words were groggy, infused with exhaustion from a night of passionate love-making.

  No, not love-making—sex, she corrected internally.

  ‘Early. I’m going for a run.’

  She frowned. He ran every morning, but he’d never woken her beforehand.

  ‘Do you have to?’ She rolled onto her side so she could see him better and caught a look of something like disapproval briefly cover his face.

  ‘I run every day.’

  Her smile was teasing, her hand lifting to his shoulder. She pushed him onto his back in the same motion she straddled him, bringing her naked torso down over his chest so her nipples brushed his firm muscles, his hair, and she felt a thousand little blades of desire shoot through her. ‘Why don’t you not run today?’ She moved her sex over his hard arousal and his eyes flashed closed.

  A rush of power filled her. She bit down on her lower lip as she reached past him to the nightstand where he kept a stash of condoms. Her fingers caught one and she ripped the foil square open with her teeth, her eyes hooked to his as she wriggled down his body. Eye level with his arousal, she risked another glance at him, only to find him watching her intently. Uncertainty shifted inside her but mostly there was still that rush of feminine power, and instincts that had been genetically programmed were now rushing to the fore.

  When she shaped her lips over his tip, she felt his body clench, his breath drawn in one ragged intake. She ran her tongue down his length, feeling the pulsing of him, delighting in his obvious pleasure and the feel of him in her mouth.

  Her exploration was slow, curious. She’d never done this before and she wanted to enjoy it. She took him in her mouth and listened to his breathing, his guttural moans. She felt when his hands lifted to her hair, tangling in its length, and when his body jerked she smiled and kept going, knowing that she was driving him wild and delighting in that.

  But then his hands were tracing her arms and he took the condom from her fingertips, pushing her away as he rolled it over his length, and before she could respond he was pulling her higher, grabbing her hips and guiding her onto his length, holding her down on top of him so he filled her completely. Now it was Jemima’s turn to moan as he took over, shifting his body to thrust into her, deeper, hungrier, his hands on her hips firm, guiding her as he wanted her and as he knew she needed him.

  And then his hands released her, leaving the tempo up to her, so she could lift her body on his length and satisfy her cravings as his hands ran over every inch of her, feeling her flesh, tormenting her, curving around behind her, exploring her buttocks before lifting to her breasts, cupping their soft roundness. His fingers tormented her nipples, as he obviously knew she adored, squeezing their sensitive tips until she was whimpering with the overpowering sense of pleasure that was tearing her apart.

  It was beyond sublime. She arched her back and tilted her head, her eyes finding the ceiling as pleasure detonated through her, through every nerve ending.

  ‘This is...’ She had no words. But she was sure he must know, sure he must feel it, too—that he must feel like the world had stopped spinning just for them.

  ‘Great sex,’ he supplied as he tilted his hips and thrust into her harder, his hands dropping to her waist again, holding her on his length as he climaxed with a guttural roar.

  Blood rushed through her veins. Her heart was
on overdrive, her breath was burning and she was tingling all over. Great sex.

  He was right. This was great sex. Just as he had often. With other women. Just as he’d go on having with other women when their time together was over.

  It was a sobering thought, dragging her back to earth, so she lifted off him and collapsed onto her back, the reality of this unfolding through her mind.

  He shifted and she waited for him to leave the room, to go for his run. So, when he brought his body over hers, their eyes level, it was a surprise she hadn’t braced for.

  ‘Don’t you have a run to do?’

  ‘It will keep,’ he said, kissing her then, slowly, exploring her mouth as though the kiss could tell him secrets, as though the kiss could fill him with understanding.

  He trailed his lips over her body, in the valley between her breasts, lingering there so she held her breath, aching for him all over.

  ‘You were beautiful the other night.’

  She couldn’t think. He shifted lower, his mouth on her stomach, his tongue circling her navel.

  ‘On the runway. Transfixing.’

  ‘Oh,’ she moaned, her nerve endings jangling.

  ‘But you already know you’re beautiful.’

  His words were said with a smile but she felt something beneath them, something she didn’t understand. His tongue flicked against her sex and she bucked, her whole body responding to the intimacy of his kiss. His hands curved around her thighs, pushing her legs wider, and she moaned.

  ‘Was that the guy you slept with after me?’

  The question came completely out of left field, and all the more so for the way his mouth was driving her body to another climax, his tongue exploring her slowly, sensually, so that coherent thought was almost impossible.