by Anna Cleary
She sat up, and with avid, trembling hands helped him to slide on the protective sheath, with a fervent mental prayer that this one she could trust.
‘I’ve dreamed of you,’ he said, gazing down at her nudity, dark eyes ablaze, his voice hoarse and rough with passion. ‘Like this. Hot and wild.’
The breath caught in her lungs.
She gazed up into his fierce, passionate face, her heart nearly spilling over with the most intense and poignant love and her need to express it, but she held herself back from framing the words, and reached up to kiss him instead.
He kissed her down onto the pillow, then parted her thighs, his smouldering gaze on her patch of blonde curls, and moved over her, supporting himself on his powerful arms.
She lay trembling beneath him in anticipation, ablaze to the feel of his masculine hair grazing her breasts and legs, tingling to feel the thrust of his hard length filling her.
‘Wrap your legs around me,’ he commanded, a flame in his black eyes.
Complying, she felt his hard rod tantalise the yearning portals of her moist sex, and melted to the hot, liquid rush deep in her womb. Then, watching her face with his aroused, heavy-lidded gaze, he plunged into her, his eyes closing an instant as if to savour the exquisite pleasure as he filled her with his hot, hard flesh.
Then he rocked her, slowly, gently at first, then harder, faster, with deep, sensual thrusts that made her breath come in gasping little cries. And, oh, the pleasure. She thrilled to the sexy rhythm, her passion fuelled by his athletic stroking of the sensitive, inflamed walls inside her. His rock-hard shaft glided deeper and deeper, faster and harder, in an escalating jungle beat of pure, primitive masculine possession.
Almost at once her excitement made the dizzy, steep reckless climb to the heights of ecstasy, and exploded in a blissful release of spasmodic waves that radiated pleasure throughout her entire body.
Alessandro reached his own climax shortly after, then withdrew from her body, and rolled back onto the pillows. After a few silent, heart-thundering minutes, he stood up and walked into the bathroom. She heard the rush of water, taps flowing, then he returned, glancing down at her with his warm shimmering gaze before joining her and lying on his back, his eyes closed.
Lara lay there as her tumultuous heart rate calmed, in the sweet, exhausted limbo between rapture and afterglow. After a moment Alessandro turned on his side, and leaned up on one elbow to gaze down at her, tracing the line of her body with one finger. ‘That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you. Your ability to respond to the moment.’
Smiling, she turned to her lover, just reaching up to caress his lean, shadow-rough jaw, when her gaze was trapped by the flash of the digital display of a clock radio on the bedside table.
10:40. Arghhh. Her brain snapped out of its pleasant miasma.
‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, my God, look at the time. I’m late. I’ll be late.’
She leaped from the bed, scrabbled on the floor for her pants and pulled them on, then threw on her dress, diving for her coat before she’d even done up the zip. She pounced on her bra, waved it helplessly for a second, then shrugged the coat on, stuffing the bra into a pocket while she searched for her shoes.
A deep growl intruded on her exertions. Alessandro was sitting up in the bed, his lean, austere face a mask of incredulity.
‘I told you, I have to go. I can’t stay, sorry.’ She cast about for her purse.
‘Per caritá. You can’t go now. What about…?’ His voice was a deep howl of outrage. ‘We have hardly begun. That was too-too fast. We need now to take it slowly. To let the passion build. To prolong our pleasure until we are both at the-’
‘I know. But that’s all I have time for. Honestly.’ She seized on her purse and turned for the door. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she said softly, blowing him a kiss. ‘It was…splendid.’
‘Now, stop right there.’ He sprang off the bed, and strode towards her, his tall, bronzed, hair-roughened body still glistening with a faint sheen of sweat after their athletic coupling. Truly, it tore her heart to leave him. ‘What can possibly be more urgent?’
She evaded his outstretched hands and backed away. ‘Mum’s waiting for me. I told you. I can’t let her down. I must get home for Vivi.’
He closed his eyes and winced. ‘Oh, yes, yes, of course. I’ll drive you,’ he asserted, swooping on his underwear.
‘There isn’t time,’ she said hurriedly, dashing for the door before he could touch her, her words falling over each other in her haste. ‘Honestly. I’ll catch a taxi downstairs. Bye.’
The door closed behind her. Cursing with artistic versatility, Alessandro dragged on his trousers, snatched a sweater from a drawer, and, still stumbling into his shoes, hopped to the phone and dialled the concierge.
Three interminable lift minutes later, he sprinted across the lobby and caught her standing outside the entrance, just as his hired BMW swept into the driveway.
‘No need to worry, tesoro,’ he said, smoothly taking her arm and hustling her to the car. ‘I’m here now.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘THANKS for a fabulous time.’ Lara leaned across and kissed Alessandro’s lips. She noticed him unfastening his seat belt. ‘No need to get out.’ She reached for the door handle. ‘I’ll just dash. Do I look all right?’
She glanced down at herself to ensure she was decent, and lifted her bag, gathering herself for the leap out into the cold night air.
Alessandro placed his hand on her thigh. ‘I want to see her.’
Her limbs froze. After a stunned second she turned to stare at him and forced herself to reply normally. ‘Oh. Are you sure?’
He inclined his head slightly, his dark eyes cool and level. ‘I am sure. I’ll come in with you.’
‘Oh.’ An unreasoning terror gripped her. ‘She’ll be asleep.’
Without replying he got out of the car, and she had no option but to do the same. Walking up to the porch with him in a sort of numb trance, she thought helplessly of how it had been this time last night. Last night he’d been content never to see Vivi or know a personal thing about her. Support from afar, wasn’t that the agreed position?
She had the giddy sensation that all her worst nightmares were about to be realised. Once he saw her…
Her heart plunged. How would he not want her?
She inserted her key into the lock, then at the last instant turned and faced him, her back to the door. Her throat felt drier than the Gibson Desert. ‘Are you sure this is what you want? Didn’t you say you’d be better off not knowing anything about her?’
His eyes shimmered with comprehension and she felt so ashamed to be revealing her fear, but there was no containing it.
‘She is already alive in my mind,’ he said quietly. ‘How can I not see her?’
Somehow her hand turned the key, and she opened the door.
Alessandro stepped into a foyer. It was lit by a lamp and smelled like lemon furniture polish. Inside the door was a hallstand with a mirror, various coats and hats hanging from its hooks. What struck him about it immediately and sent a pang searing through him was a small yellow raincoat.
Lara led him past a set of French doors to a flight of stairs at the rear. He noticed childish paintings pinned to the wall, then his eye followed them all the way up the staircase.
He placed his foot on the lowest stair, conscious of a sudden rise in his blood pressure. He mounted the stairs behind Lara, his anticipation increasing with every step. By the time he reached the landing on the upper floor, his heart had quickened to a ridiculous gallop.
Curiosity. It was only natural.
He stood back while Lara paused outside a white-painted door and gave a soft special knock, then followed her inside.
He was in an airy, comfortably furnished sitting room, divided by an archway from a small dining room and kitchen. French doors led to the narrow balcony he’d seen from the street, but they were closed now. The room was pleasantly warm, cour
tesy of a fireplace with low flames leaping behind glass.
There were books, pot-plants and flowers, pictures on the walls, but he couldn’t take it all in, focused as he was on one thing only.
‘Mum, I’ve brought Alessandro.’
He glanced around and saw Lara’s mother rise from the sofa where she’d obviously been reading in the light of a standard lamp. At Lara’s words she exchanged a glance with her daughter, then turned her warm gaze on him.
Her shrewd blue eyes examined what felt like every atom of his soul, then she held out her hand and clasped his warmly. ‘Good to see you, Alessandro.’ She glanced back at Lara. ‘I’ll leave you to it, dear.’ She kissed Lara’s cheek. ‘See you in the morning.’
Lara murmured something to her mother, then the older woman gathered her things and left, closing the door behind her.
Once he and Lara were alone, tension crackled in the room higher than the flames in the fireplace. She looked white, her face set as if for an ordeal, her eyes strained and shadowy.
‘Will you wait here a second?’ She gestured to him to stand still and not move, then left to hurry through a door leading from the dining room. She came back a few moments later, still pale, but looking resigned.
‘All right.’ She sent him an appeal in her glance. ‘You’ll-you’ll have to promise not to wake her.’
He could hear her anxiety, but what reassurance could he offer? It was his right to see his child, and he was claiming it. He merely nodded and followed when she motioned him.
With the blood suddenly pounding in his ears he was hardly aware of the room she showed him to, just a blurred impression of deep rose and white surroundings, the narrow bed with a net canopy like the bower of a fairy-tale princess, and the little girl.
At first sight of her his heart seized. She was sleeping on her side, her cheek on the pillow, so he couldn’t at once see her face in total.
A toadstool lamp by the bed shed a soft light on her head of silky dark hair. Her rosy lips were parted, and incredibly long, curly dark lashes fanned in a perfect semi-circle against the softest, purest cheek he’d ever laid eyes on.
The breath constricted in his lungs. As he stared, immobilised, drinking in her exquisiteness, her long lashes gave a few rapid tremors and she made a restless movement and flung out one arm.
‘She’s dreaming,’ Lara whispered, bending to gently rescue a worn-looking doll in danger of being crushed. She replaced the covers over the girl’s small shoulders.
After a few thundering minutes, or it might have been hours, Lara telegraphed a querying look at him and he roused himself from his trance to gaze at her across the divide. She dropped her eyes, defensive and inaccessible, even though the naked imprint of her slim, nubile body was so freshly seared into his own.
He returned with her to the sitting room, but didn’t stay to talk. With the uproar pounding in his head and the storm in his soul he needed to be alone.
The last thing he remembered was Lara standing on the staircase, watching him leave, her hands contorting before her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LARA woke late, with an immediate sense of something irrevocable having happened. Even the sensual impression left by Alessandro’s lips and hands and big lean frame was overwhelmed by her anxiety. Her restless night had taken its toll.
She lingered in her bed, torn by conflicting fears.
If only she had some way of predicting what he might do. Now that he’d seen Vivi, would his curiosity be satisfied? Would he go on his way and never look back at his child? At her?
She felt a deep wrench within her. True, that had been what she’d thought she wanted, but now…
With a rush of certainty she knew it would not be for the best. Not for Vivi.
As for herself…He’d said some wonderful things to her last night, things she could have sworn were sincere, but so he had the last time he was here. She’d put all her faith in them then, and love and trust had turned to bitterness and heartbreak.
Even now, if he said he loved her, if by some wild turn of the card he decided he wanted to marry her, could she crush down her hurt and misgivings over his casual treatment of her in the past and go through with it?
A misty little fantasy nudged its way in through the barriers. The scenario in which seeing Vivi last night had inspired him. He’d been enchanted. He’d understood then how beautiful and special a gift a child was, and he felt proud of her. So proud. He’d decide to stay and be a proper father. He’d marry Lara, not because she was the mother of his child but because he loved her, and when they went walking he’d hold Vivi’s hand, and Vivi would have a dad she could take to the Year One Father’s Day Picnic…
Her throat thickened and tears rushed into her eyes. Even if all that miraculously happened and she hadn’t absolutely blown her chances by telling him straight off that she wouldn’t marry him, could she do it simply because he wanted Vivi? Wouldn’t the old betrayal always be there, undermining their happiness?
And how likely was the Marquis of the Venetian Isles to give up his sophisticated globe-trotting lifestyle for domestic bliss?
She cancelled the fantasy, reached for a tissue and gave her eyes a good wipe.
As usual, Vivi was up and about, probably since first light like a little bird. Lara could hear her voice from her playroom, singing to Kylie Minogie one minute, ordering her to sit up straight and pay attention or march to the time-out room the next.
She roused herself and drifted in to greet her darling, then wandered into her bathroom.
There was so much to consider, she mused, surrendering her nakedness to the soothing stream. So what if he’d had his marriage annulled? Did she seriously think he might not have had other girlfriends since that time? Did she care about all of them?
Of course she didn’t. She only cared about the Giulia affair.
Bathed, semi-dressed and wrapped in her towelling robe, she ironed her blouse, then Vivi’s school dress, while Vivi gouged a hole in the Vegemite with a knife and inexpertly smeared the massive lump on her toast. Lara paused to watch her take a bite, and winced in sympathy when her little elfin face screwed up in horror. Ugh.
At work Lara was faced with a heavier than usual pile of manuscripts submitted by aspiring authors. She grimaced. Fantastic.
Her worries kept intruding. Despite her feelings about Alessandro’s marriage to that woman, could she seriously contemplate just letting him walk away? She knew she wasn’t up to another airport scene. The last one had nearly killed her, and then she’d been sure he was coming back.
She forced herself back to the manuscript she was reading, and realised she was on page two without having taken in a word. Something about a possum and a tree house. Hopeless, she realised, and airlifted it to the waste basket.
But how could she stop him? Other women seemed able to dig their claws in and hold onto men. Her lack of ability to do so had already been clearly demonstrated to the world.
She opened another masterpiece, her heart sinking in misgiving when she thought of his face when he’d left last night. He’d looked so stern and remote, so closed off from her. If only she could get some inkling of how he was feeling today. She really needed to see him. Find out how he looked.
It was agony, knowing he was just a short walk away down the corridor, yet out of her reach. She supposed she could hardly mosey along and interrupt the interviews going on in there for the new MD’s position. Not to mention that Donatuila was forever present, guarding him like a mastiff.
She drummed her fingers on the pages spread before her on the desk. Soon he would be leaving.
Panic seized her. Her time was running out. Once he got on that plane it would be the end of everything. Her absolute joy. The excitement of not knowing what he would do next, the sheer thrill of being with him, the passion. He’d fly out of their lives and she’d be back to her nun-like existence.
Anguish speared through her at the thought of losing him again. How would she ever bear i
t?
She turned a page and puzzled over a strange sentence for a while, then gave up and aimed it for the bin. Another slam dunk. Why couldn’t people learn to punctuate?
She was reaching for the next one on the pile just as the phone rang on her desk. She started, and her heart jumped into a nervy racketing.
‘Lara?’ It was Alessandro’s deep voice. ‘Can I see you for a few minutes?’
‘Certainly,’ she said. Calmly, she hoped.
She didn’t feel calm. She replaced the phone with shaking hands, realising this was it. The verdict. After a few seconds, avoiding Josh’s interested glance, she stood up, straightened her blouse and soft blue jacket, and brushed down her pencil skirt.
Alessandro was waiting for her at the door of his office. She tried to read his expression, but he looked controlled and inscrutable. He closed the door behind her when she walked in, then bent to brush her cheek with lips that were cool.
‘Good morning, Lara.’
Lara. Not Larissa, or carissima, or tesoro. After being lovers last night, they were back to being formal.
Some expensive, tangy aftershave lingered on his lean, smooth-shaven jaw. He looked so tall, dark and delicious in his charcoal suit and crisp blue shirt, on another, less nerve-racking occasion, she might have kissed his beautiful, stern mouth. It was easy to believe he was the Marquis of the Venetian Isles, though impossible to credit that such a gorgeous, sophisticated example of masculinity had ever desired her.
Maybe she’d dreamed last night and those things he’d said. Maybe, when he’d left her afterwards with that remote, closed expression, it was because at heart he was repelled by the modest domesticity of her and her child.
She managed to stay upright on her legs, but her entire being was a vessel of nervous flutterings.
‘So?’ she queried in a low voice, her heart on a cliff’s edge, last night’s scene with Vivi vivid in her mind. ‘What-what is it?’
His brilliant gaze scoured her face in careful assessment, then he lowered his lashes. Choosing his words, she realised, her heart plunging in fear.
