The Italian's Demand

by Sara Wood

  Her flapping hand stopped him. Told him not to speak. She could talk with her hands, too, she thought miserably.

  And she wove her unsteady way to the hall and the safety of her virgin bed, every part of her throbbing and reminding her that if she’d been more alluring she could have been lying in Vittore’s arms listening to the cicadas’ siren songs and the soft wash of the waves with the night sky above and its sequin stars.

  She tried to tell herself that she’d had a lucky escape. That he’d only ever made passes at her to keep her sweet and to encourage Lio to see him as a friend. But common sense and rational thinking made little headway in her brain. She still wished she was Vittore’s prisoner, trapped beneath his warm, powerful body, moving to the eternal rhythm of man and woman.

  How stupid, she thought forlornly, dragging off her clothes and slipping naked between the cool, caressing sheets. She’d fallen for the silken charm of a rake with an agenda on his mind, and she had become wanton in her desperation.

  But it wasn’t love that she felt, only sexual desire. And in the morning she’d be thankful that she was still intact.

  She frowned. Her breasts ached. Touching them, she closed her eyes and remembered Vittore’s teeth there, gently tugging. Horrified, she hurriedly flung her arms by her sides and lay as stiff as starch, willing the wonderful, wicked sensations to leave her starving body.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS a long time before the cascade of freezing water had eased his physical craving and he could step out of the shower. Cold showers had become an essential part of his life, he thought wryly.

  Unfortunately nothing seemed to diminish his hectic thoughts. Over and over again for hour after hour he paced up and down, replaying the scenes of that day he’d spent with Verity, reliving the pleasure he had taken in touching, tasting, and looking at her inflammatory body.

  No matter what he did, she wouldn’t get out of his head. Her laughing face, and gurgles of delight over dinner as they’d bandied words about, just stayed fixed in his mind, tormenting him relentlessly until he felt he must be going mad.

  Angrily he sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing the night away. After Linda, he had vowed that no woman would ever get to him again. But this one was really touching nerves. He ought to take her soon and ease his hunger. She was ready. Avida.

  Tomorrow he would suggest a trip to the sandy cove below the cliff. While Lio slept in the beach house at siesta time he would seduce her. From that moment on, they would stay close and Lio would have to acknowledge him, or be forced to keep his distance from Verity.

  He closed his eyes, trying to visualise the future. Perhaps in a couple of weeks it would all be over. Lio would run to him for everything he needed. They would play football, paddle, sit in the small boat and exclaim over the jewel-coloured fish off the headland. Verity would go home.

  Verity. His eyes snapped open in shock, reeling from a sick sensation that suddenly gripped his abdomen in a vice. Sitting up, he tried to calm himself. At the moment, he felt alarmed at the thought of Verity leaving because they had unfinished business between them.

  Once they’d made love, he reasoned, his obsession would fade—and then he’d probably be counting the days till she left.

  Unless she went, he’d never be Lio’s prime carer. It had to be. He would not accept being second-best in his son’s eyes.

  The nausea ebbed, the strong muscle contractions of his abdomen eased. With a sigh, he lay back again. And then those muscles—along with everything else in his body—tightened again in an instant as the door opened and Verity walked into his room.

  He stifled a groan. This time she was naked.

  She came to the bed, her eyes distant and unseeing. And he froze, silent and immobile but with all kinds of torment ripping through him.

  The perfection of her body left him in awe. The sweet swell of her high, firm breasts. The alluring curve of her small waist. The flatness of her stomach and the dark triangle of hair that matched the jet cloud framing her lovely face.

  He swallowed. Felt impelled to move when she gave a sigh and pulled back the sheet that covered him. Something held him there and he lay rigid, straining.

  To his dismay, she sat on the bed and began to stroke his body; first his chest, tracing the shape of his ribs and muscles. Then his tightly-contracted stomach. Her fingers paused in their inexorable journey and he closed his eyes in agony. Expecting. Hoping. Knowing he should stop this—but how?

  Gently, as if in wonder, she touched the swollen tip of him, that leapt to her fingers in an instant response. It was like a delicious torture. The merest caress of her questing forefinger was bringing him to the point of explosion.

  Then abruptly she rose and left the room, stumbling against the door as she passed through it. When he heard her bump into one of the landing tables he slid, shaking, from the bed. She might do herself harm. Could fall down the stairs…

  Grabbing his white silk robe, he also stumbled on his way to the door, his brain and body barely under control. At the last minute he had enough presence of mind to remember the baby monitor, which he pushed into the pocket of his robe before emerging on the landing.

  Verity was already halfway down the stairs. Heart crashing in his ears, he went back for the sheet to cover her, intending to lead her back to her room. But now she was running, light as a feather, her hair streaming behind her as she sped unerringly across the hall and through the dining room to the terrace door.

  Vittore dived for the house alarm and managed to turn it off before she wrenched at the handle. She moved like lightning, running across the terrace and down to the lawn before his aroused body could manage to cross half that distance.

  He caught up with her in the lower garden. She lifted her head as though she could smell the angels’ trumpets and raised her arms to the glittering sky. The scent of orange blossom drifted on the air from the orange grove above and fireflies pulsed in the grass.

  Fireflies, he thought. Sending out mating signals to mates who might never come. In which case, the glow would become weaker and weaker over the next few nights until the fireflies died, their biological purpose unrealised.

  Eyes dark with frustration, he watched Verity sink to the ground and stretch out as if in sacrifice, her beautiful body gleaming in the moonlight.

  He had to get her back for her own safety. Quietly he knelt beside her and carefully slid a hand beneath her shoulders to raise her up.

  ‘Vittore,’ she whispered, startling him.

  He couldn’t breathe. Could not move. Her arms came around his neck and her naked body pressed against his, nestling to him until there was not a millimetre between them.

  His head spun. He had never been so aroused in the whole of his life. He couldn’t do anything other than tense every muscle while she sighed and whispered into his hot, pulsing throat as her hands sought another, fiercer pulse and rendered him helpless.

  ‘No,’ he breathed, though it was nothing more than an inaudible groan. ‘Verity! Ti desidero tantissimo!’ he moaned. ‘But…come back to bed. Your bed. Alone!’

  ‘Mmm!’ she murmured, sliding down and taking him in her mouth.

  And he was broken. All good intent, honour and pride vanished. She had taken him too far, further than any red-blooded male could ever withstand. He raised her head and kissed her with all the passion and fury in his fevered body.

  She gasped and shuddered, speaking his name. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that she wasn’t asleep after all. Her eyes were dark violet and bright, gazing at him in full recognition. Anger and then relief swept through him. She knew very well what she was doing—had lured him into the garden and deliberately enticed him!

  Her breasts heaved against his chest in the sudden silence, the intensity of the night-scented flowers suddenly enhanced. All his senses were heightened, he realised, because he even heard the faint tinkle of the waterfall, far above, and the gurgle of the rill that fed it.

/>   Verity’s eyes closed, the thick lashes fluttering darkly. And he remained still and silent. It was important to him that she made the running. Then she could never claim that he had seduced her.

  Willing, therefore, to let her take the initiative, he waited, intensely aware of a deep, internal bruising ache that he knew only she could relieve.

  Gently she pushed him back and he made no resistance, his robe falling open. Her body lay on his. They kissed. No, that couldn’t describe what they were doing. It was like no kissing he had ever known. It seemed they couldn’t get enough of one another, their mouths gently savaging, tasting, sucking, whispering.

  He tried to hold back, not to rush her. God knows, he tried. With a quick flip of his hands he rolled her over and began to kiss every inch of her, ignoring her little whimpers and cries, intent on making this the most perfect night she had ever experienced.

  His mind was focussed just on pleasing her. On tasting the faint slick of sweat that slid between them, making their bodies move like liquid. Her frantic kisses and searching hands drove his needs deeper and deeper until every pore and vein and bone vibrated with the one compulsion to fill her with him and take her to the edge of sanity, where he already hovered.

  ‘Are you sure you want this?’ he whispered in a thick growl.

  ‘Very,’ she breathed.

  ‘You are…safe?’ he asked delicately.

  She gave a wicked chuckle. ‘Not in the least! Very, very dangerous!’ she teased.

  But she must have been protected because her hands guided him, faltering in their urgency. Wanting to thrust with violent relief, he somehow held on to some part of his conscious brain and eased into her warm softness gently, a little at a time, a slight withdrawal, a firmer drive…

  ‘What do I do?’ she breathed throatily in his ear. ‘I want to move… Is that all right? Tell me. Teach me, Vittore!’

  He went still. Raised himself a little his expression bewildered, unbelieving. Surely she didn’t mean…

  ‘Teach you?’ he echoed dazedly.

  Her hot eyes glowed. His heart swooped in response to her beauty. ‘I’ve never gone this far before,’ she husked in little breathless jerks.

  Hell. He closed his eyes. And, despite her pleas and clinging—then battering hands—he drew from the tightening spasms of her silken core and flung himself out on the ground beside her, his arms above his head gripping the grass as if he’d drown otherwise.

  Her hand smoothed over his tightly clenched buttock. ‘No!’ he groaned, rolling away.

  With shaking fingers he drew his robe around him and secured it tightly, keeping his back to her all the time.

  ‘What are you playing at, Vittore?’ she protested jerkily.

  He had to stay detached or he’d fling decency to the four winds and make love to her.

  ‘I’ll see you back to your room,’ he said, his tone hard and cold.

  ‘What?’ she cried, bewildered.

  ‘You don’t want to get pregnant, do you?’ he asked coolly, turning to face her.

  ‘N-no.’ First she blushed and then her eyes went dreamy and sad.

  For one mad moment he felt a lurch in his heart at the incredible thought of Verity carrying his baby within her. And then he dismissed it with a scowl and got to his feet, putting a healthier distance between them.

  ‘Then we’d better go back.’

  ‘Ohh!’ she cried, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘Is that what you meant when you asked if I was safe? I thought…I wasn’t thinking. My brain wasn’t functioning. You did that to me!’ she accused.

  He held out his hand politely. Crossly she took it and he pulled her up. Then he bent and picked up his sheet embroidered with violets the colour of her eyes and wrapped her in it till all he could see was her unhappy face.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Not till you’ve explained yourself!’ she cried furiously. ‘What did you do? How did you get me out here? Why was I naked, with no clothes anywhere in sight? Was it the date rape drug? You louse!’ she sobbed. ‘Is that what you do to women?’

  The shock made him reel. That she could think so badly of him was beyond belief.

  His eyes glittered, black and sparking with unholy rage. ‘If I want a woman,’ he growled, ‘I seduce her. I have no need of artificial aids!’

  ‘So I decided to become a naturist without realising it?’ she hurled jerkily.

  ‘You’re making excuses!’ he grated. ‘You were fully aware of what you were doing when you came into my room—’

  ‘I did what?’ she yelled, almost losing control of the sheet as she let it slip in her anger.

  Now she was going to lie. Turn it all so that it was his fault. Well, he wasn’t going to let her.

  ‘You know damn well!’ he roared. ‘You drifted in, did a very good impression of a stripper and removed your nightdress.’

  ‘You’re making this up! I wouldn’t do anything so outrageous!’ she declared indignantly.

  ‘Then how do you explain how you got here?’

  ‘You…did something,’ she said, clearly appalled at the depths he’d sink to.

  ‘I will not have you suggesting that I’m some kind of pervert!’ he seethed. ‘I know what you were doing and what you did. You sat on my bed…’ He swallowed. His voice had become croaky. And no wonder.

  ‘What then?’ she scathed. ‘Did I suggest we might go for a walk?’

  His mouth tightened. Despite his anger, his body was leaping with life, tormenting him with the memory.

  ‘You touched me,’ he said thickly.

  ‘Oh, yes? Where?’ she scorned.

  His brows met in a terrible frown. ‘Think of the most intimate part of the male anatomy.’

  She looked in horror at her hands as if they had stroked him, not her lips. He didn’t dare enlighten her.

  ‘Now I know you’re lying!’ she cried, her face aflame. ‘I—I wouldn’t dream of doing what you said! How dare you suggest—?’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to pretend you were sleepwalking again,’ he snapped cynically.

  She froze. Looked at him in alarm. ‘Again?’ she whispered. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Verity. You can’t make out that you don’t know. You must have woken in strange places and wondered how you’d got there.’

  Her horror seemed genuine. ‘I—I have,’ she said in a small, scared voice. ‘In England. Linda’s house. I woke up one morning—not long before you arrived—and I was lying on the floor by Lio’s cot.’ She jiggled about in agitation. ‘Do you think I was sleepwalking then? And…how do you know about it, anyway?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because several times you came to Lio’s nursery while I slept there. You curled up on the floor and went to sleep. You usually went back to bed in the early hours.’

  ‘What…’ She gulped, her face a picture of dismay. ‘What did you do?’ she squeaked.

  ‘Turned over and went to sleep, too,’ he muttered. But didn’t say that it had taken a hell of a time to do so. ‘I can promise you, Verity,’ he drawled, ‘that if I had taken advantage of the situation and made love to you, you would have known about it.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry. I—I honestly had no idea! Why didn’t you say what I was doing?’ she cried, aghast.

  ‘I imagined it was stress because you were worried about Lio. I didn’t see what could be done,’ he said irritably. ‘Short of tying you to your bedpost.’

  That was a mistake. He’d had a quick vision of Verity complying with a sex game, her hands lightly caught by silk scarves, her eyes inviting him to plunder her eagerly defenceless body.

  ‘Well,’ she said breathily, ‘that’s what must have happened tonight—I was sleepwalking! But this time you clearly did take advantage of me, Vittore!’

  ‘Like hell I did!’ he snarled. ‘And you can forget the sleepwalking excuse. I looked into your eyes and you were fully awake—’

  ‘Yes, I did wake!’ she cried helplessly. ‘And found—found I was in
your arms and you were t-touching me and—’

  ‘And then you led me on,’ he grated, wanting her, desperate to stop this argument and seal the matter once and for all.

  ‘I’m inexperienced!’ she protested. ‘You must have already done goodness knows what to arouse me and I didn’t know what was going on inside me. I don’t have the defences or the sexual knowledge of a woman of the world,’ she stormed. ‘You knew that and—’

  ‘I’ve had enough!’ He held her shoulders and fixed her with a furious glare. ‘I know what you did. If I hadn’t mentioned the possibility of pregnancy, we would have made love. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? That’s why you enticed me out here and pretended to be unaware of what you were doing—’

  ‘I was unaware!’ she sobbed, tears trickling from the corners of her watery violet eyes. ‘You know I’ve been sleepwalking in the past. Why won’t you accept that I might have been this time?’

  ‘Because trust works both ways,’ he said bitterly. ‘And until we trust one another we can’t ever be free of doubt and suspicion. I know you want me. I’m not stupid. I can understand why you want to salvage your pride by claiming that I used underhand means to get you out here. But you’re not pinning this one on me. I operate by a code of honour—’

  ‘Honour? You virtually said you wanted me as your whore!’ she spat.

  ‘Sure I want you. But not comatose!’ he roared. He couldn’t contain his anger as it boiled within him, firing his passion to dangerous heights. ‘I want you to be willing,’ he husked, seeing her eyes melt helplessly at his low, enraged growl. ‘To hurl yourself at me, tearing at my clothes, groaning, moaning, begging me to hold you and caress you, to take away your ache and make love to you until you don’t know if it’s day or night and whether you are standing or sitting or sprawled defenceless on my bed! I know what we can be together. And I want you to be fully aware of every second of pleasure I give you because I will want you eager and waiting for me whenever we can be alone. And that will happen, Verity, because we can’t stop it, nor do we want to.’