She sensed that Torre glanced at her a couple more times, but she kept her eyes firmly focused ahead. ‘Welcome to Casa Elisabetta,’ he said a few minutes later when he turned the car through a gateway.
Orla could not hide her surprise as she stared at the futuristic-looking villa that stood in place of the cottage she remembered from before. The new building appeared to emerge from the towering cliffs behind it, and her first impression was that its construction was a fantastic example of civil engineering.
‘It’s not what I was expecting,’ she murmured. The houses they had passed on the road were built of local stone and in a traditional style; pretty villas with arched windows and coloured shutters. In contrast, Torre’s house was an ultra-modern design. The white walls were uncompromisingly square, with unusual angles and huge windows that must give stunning views over the bay. It was a bold and innovative building that clearly reflected its owner’s personality, she thought.
‘Elisabetta was your mother’s name, wasn’t it?’ she asked as she followed him into the house.
‘Yes.’ He looked at her closely. ‘I thought you did not remember anything about me?’
She flushed and said quickly, ‘Are you going to show me around?’
The sleek, contemporary lines of the villa’s structural design were repeated in the internal décor, Orla noted as she walked through the large open-plan living areas on the ground floor. Bi-folding glass doors opened onto a wide terrace where an infinity pool looked like a mirror in the silver light of the moon.
‘The building sits perfectly in the landscape,’ she said to Torre as she stood on the terrace and looked up at the house, which was built over four levels. ‘Did you design it yourself?’
‘I had a strong idea of what I wanted but my area of expertise is in structural engineering and I worked with an architect on the house’s design.’
‘I’m fascinated by your drainage system. It must have been a massive task to excavate through solid rock to lay the sanitation and water supply pipes.’
He was silent for a moment and looked slightly stunned before he gave a shout of laughter. ‘You are the only woman I have brought to my house who is fascinated by my drains,’ he said drily. ‘Most women are interested in the soft furnishings and the colour of the cushions.’
Orla supposed that her comment must have sounded odd. She stared at him, transfixed by his wide smile and the amusement that gleamed in his eyes, and her lips curved upwards. ‘Drains are an important element of a building’s design and a lot more interesting than cushions in my opinion.’
‘I agree.’ He was still smiling and his eyes rested thoughtfully on her face. ‘You fascinate me,’ he said softly.
She wondered if she should explain that she had studied civil engineering, hence her interest in the villa’s construction. But he might ask why she hadn’t completed the qualifications and she did not want to admit that David had persuaded her to drop out of university soon after she’d married him. She felt such a fool for allowing her ex-husband to control her but David had been manipulative and it was as if she had been brainwashed by him.
A feeling of deep sadness swept over Orla as she imagined what might have been if, instead of rejecting her in the past, Torre had fallen in love with her just as she had fallen in love with him. Perhaps she would have gained her engineering degree and they could have planned the design and construction of Casa Elisabetta together, sharing their knowledge and interest. Maybe there would be a child or two upstairs in the nursery, and she would spread her time between being a mother and working alongside Torre. In this make-believe world she was confident and self-assured and Torre was proud of her. Just as importantly, she was proud of herself.
The painful reality was that she had survived her abusive marriage but David had robbed her of her self-worth so that she doubted her capabilities. Why would a gorgeous, clever, talented man like Torre fall in love with her? Orla asked herself bleakly.
She dropped her gaze from his, unaware that her expressive face revealed her vulnerability. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to my room. It’s been an eventful day.’
‘Of course.’ Torre was no longer smiling and his cool tone shattered the camaraderie that had briefly existed between them. ‘Come with me. There are no staff at the villa at night,’ he explained as he led her through the house and up two flights of stairs. ‘A married couple Tomas and Silvia run the house for me and they live in a staff flat next door.’
Had Torre made the point that they were alone in the villa for a reason? Orla wondered when he stopped in the corridor and opened a door into what was obviously a guest bedroom. She noted there was a lock on the door and resolved to use it.
‘What a lovely room,’ she murmured with genuine pleasure as she admired the décor of dove grey, white and pale blue.
Like the rest of the house, the room was modern and minimalist but it still managed to be comfortable and welcoming—unlike her host, she thought wryly when Torre bade her a curt goodnight and walked out, closing the door behind him with a sharp snap. Orla turned the key in the lock anyway, even though it was obvious that he could not wait to get away from her. How different his attitude had been when he had carried her upstairs to his bedroom in the old cottage. In his impatience to undress her, he had ripped her dress as he’d tugged the material away from her breasts and bared her to his burning gaze.
Ruthlessly she pushed the memories away and opened her suitcase. Before she’d left London she’d bought a new nightdress, thinking that it would be too hot in Amalfi to wear her pyjamas. The white satin chemise felt cool against her skin and the slide of the silky material across her breasts was sensual. Her traitorous mind wondered what Torre would think if he saw her in the chemise. Would he desire her?
Angry with her unruly thoughts, she marched into the en suite bathroom to brush her teeth and saw in the mirror the hectic colour on her cheeks. The hard points of her nipples jutted provocatively beneath the chemise. She had better get a grip on herself if she was going to survive working for Torre for the next two months, she thought grimly.
Her heart missed a beat when she noticed that her gold chain was missing. She lifted her hand to her neck to check if the chain had somehow become caught in her hair and then ran back into the bedroom and searched for it on the bedspread and carpet. It wasn’t anywhere, and when she shook out the dress that she’d been wearing she still did not find it.
Stop panicking and think. She remembered that she’d run her fingers over the necklace when she had been in Torre’s car, which meant that she hadn’t lost it at Villa Romano. The car was the obvious place to look but she was loath to disturb Torre. Instead, she hurried downstairs and found his car keys on a table in the hall where she had seen him drop them.
There was no harm in checking inside his car without asking him, she decided as she opened the front door and walked across the drive. She cursed when the sharp gravel dug into the soles of her feet and wished she’d thought to slip on her slippers and dressing gown before she’d left her room. She pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the car and the vehicle’s alarm activated. The noise was skull-splittingly loud and although she frantically pressed the lock button, the noise continued.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Torre’s voice was barely audible above the alarm. Orla spun round and her heart gave an annoying flip as she watched him walk down the steps of the house. He strode over to her, snatched the car keys from her fingers and seconds later the horrendous noise stopped.
‘Were you trying to steal my car, or did you fancy taking it for a spin?’ he growled.
His sarcasm made her want to grind her teeth. She tore her gaze from his bare chest covered in wiry black hairs that arrowed down over his flat abdomen and disappeared beneath the waistband of his grey sweatpants. ‘Neither, of course,’ she said tightly. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m wearing my nightdress.
’
The moment the words left her lips she knew it had been the wrong thing to say. Scalding heat swept through her body from the tips of her ears down to her toes as Torre trailed his eyes over the ridiculous bit of satin that had been designed to be worn in bed—but not to sleep in. She expected him to make another sarcastic remark but he spoke in a curiously rough voice that made her stomach clench hard.
‘I’d noticed. So what are you doing out here at midnight?’
‘I’ve lost my necklace and I wanted to look for it in the car. I know I was wearing it when we drove here. I’ve searched in my bedroom but it’s possible that the chain got caught somehow when I took my seat-belt off.’
He frowned. ‘Couldn’t you wait until the morning?’
‘No, I need to find it now. I won’t be able to sleep until I know it’s safe.’
He muttered something uncomplimentary in Italian and Orla decided that now was not the time to remind him she could speak the language. ‘I assume your necklace is valuable for you to be so concerned about it.’
‘It’s priceless. If you would unlock the car, I’ll look for it and you can go back to bed.’
‘I’ll look,’ he sounded impatient. ‘Go back to the house and, for God’s sake, put something on. You are a dangerous distraction.’
She could not look away from him and was stunned by the stark hunger in his eyes. Her breath was trapped in her lungs and her feet refused to follow the command sent by her brain to move, as something feral flickered over his hard face.
‘Go, Orla,’ he said, and the barely suppressed savagery in his voice brought her to her senses so that she spun away from him and ran back into the house. But instead of returning to her room, she walked through the ground-floor rooms and outside to the terrace and pool area, feeling increasingly desperate when she failed to find her necklace.
Finally she gave up the search and went upstairs. Torre was in her room, leaning against the dressing table, and when Orla saw her chain dangling from his fingers relief poured through her. ‘Oh, thank God. Where was it?’
‘It had slipped down the back of the seat in the car.’ He studied the necklace. ‘You said it was valuable, but it’s just a cheap trinket made of gold plate and the stones in the pendant are green glass, not real emeralds.’
‘It’s a four-leaf clover, which is a symbol of good luck in Irish folklore. The necklace is precious to me because my father gave it to me on my tenth birthday. It was the last time I ever saw him,’ she said huskily. ‘My parents divorced when I was a baby and I grew up with my mother in England, but I used to spend every summer with my father at his home in County Clare.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He was a fisherman and one night a storm blew up when he was on a boat out at sea and he was swept overboard. The coastguard found his body two days later.’
Torre looked down at the necklace. ‘The clasp is worn. If you want to leave the chain with me I’ll take it to a jeweller’s and ask them to fit a new one.’
‘Thank you, but I’ll wear it for now.’ Orla walked over to him and held out her hand for her necklace. ‘I keep it on all the time, even in bed.’
Instead of giving her the necklace, he moved to stand behind her. ‘Lift up your hair,’ he murmured.
He was so close that she felt the heat of his body burn through her thin chemise. The spicy scent of his cologne assailed her senses and she could not prevent the betraying tremor that ran through her as she stared at their twin reflections in the dressing-table mirror. He was very tall compared to her and his olive-gold skin was dark in contrast to her creamy paleness. He shoved his thick swathe of hair off his brow. His face was drawn tight with desire that gave his hard-boned features a sharp edge, and his mouth was so utterly sensual that Orla felt something tug hard, deep in her pelvis.
She could not find the strength to defend herself against his potency as she gathered her long hair in her hand and held it up so that Torre could fix the chain around her neck. The brush of his fingers against her throat sent a shiver through her. He laughed softly and she felt his warm breath stir the tendrils of hair at her nape.
In the mirror she saw her nipples peak so that their outline was clearly visible beneath her chemise. Torre made a rough sound in his throat, and Orla’s breath left her on a shuddering sigh when he bent his head and pressed his lips to the side of her neck. Molten heat flooded through her.
Time ceased to exist and the world stopped turning. She was conscious of nothing but the sensual brush of his mouth as he trailed kisses along her collarbone. She stared in the mirror and watched him slide his hands round to her breasts to stroke the hard points of her nipples through their satin covering. The sensation was beyond exquisite and she could not restrain a thin cry that betrayed her need.
His strong arms flexed around her, and before she knew what was happening he spun her round to face him and jerked her against him, one hand on the small of her back and the other tangled in her hair as he bent his head and claimed her mouth in a kiss that plundered her soul.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE UNDRESSED HER in the moonlight, sliding the straps of her chemise down her arms and then peeling the satin away from her breasts.
‘Orla.’ There was something akin to desperation in Torre’s voice, and the predatory look on his face made her tremble with a desperation of her own that she could not deny when her body betrayed her desire. Her breasts ached for his touch, and she gasped when he rolled her taut nipples between his fingers until she thought she would die from a surfeit of pleasure. It was too much, he was too much. A little voice in her head tried to remind her of how he had humiliated her years ago, but she was deaf to the warning, dazzled by his masculine beauty and his intoxicatingly hard body.
He lifted up a handful of her hair and spread it across her white throat. ‘It’s like amber silk,’ he growled. ‘You are perfect. So beautiful. And, God help me, I can’t resist you.’
He put his hands on either side of her waist and lifted her up high so that her breasts were level with his face. ‘Put your hands on my shoulders,’ he ordered, and when she complied he drew one nipple into his mouth and sucked hard, sending starbursts of sensation shooting down to between her thighs. She wrapped her legs around his hips and wantonly rubbed her pelvis up against his. The harsh groan he gave rolled through her like thunder and something primitive stirred inside her, a need as old as time and as consuming as wildfire.
She had only ever felt this uncontrollable hunger for Torre. What did that say about her failed marriage? her conscience asked. Had her ex-husband somehow guessed what she had been unaware of until now—that her body, her heart belonged to another man, to this man? Her confused thoughts were driven from her mind by the pounding of her blood in her ears. She could hear the ragged sound of her breaths. Or was the harsh rasp the sound of Torre’s uneven breathing?
She gasped as he transferred his mouth from one breast to the other and flicked his tongue across the tight nub at its centre. His hands gripped her bottom and he circled his hips against hers, making her aware of just how aroused he was as he carried her over to the bed and tipped her backwards so that she landed on the mattress. Orla watched him strip off his sweatpants and the sight of his powerful body turned her insides to liquid.
There was a sense of unreality about lying sprawled on the bed with Torre, naked and hugely aroused, standing over her. If she told herself that it was a dream like one of the many dreams she’d had about him then she might be able to forgive herself afterwards.
His eyes narrowed and the gleam of steel from beneath his black lashes sent a shiver of anticipation through her. There was only one way that this madness was going to end. She’d known it from the moment he had kissed her. In truth, she’d known it when he had found her standing by his car at Villa Romano, Orla admitted to herself.
She did not stop him when he pul
led the top of her chemise down to her waist and then whipped the satin slip off completely with an impatience that made her heart thud. His eyes locked with hers as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her matching satin knickers and tugged them down her legs. He stared down at her slender body he had bared and a nerve jumped in his cheek.
A tiny voice of sanity demanded that Orla should move now, before she did something she would one hundred per cent regret later. But her body had a mind of its own and it wanted everything that the fierce glitter in Torre’s eyes promised he would give her.
He knelt on the bed and leaned forward so that his chest hairs brushed the sensitive tips of her breasts. With a low moan she curled her arms around his neck and tugged him closer still, parting her lips as he covered her mouth with his and kissed her with an urgency that matched hers. It was a crazy, feverish need, a desire so overwhelming that she was helpless in the path of the storm.
He pushed her legs apart and slipped his hand between her thighs, gently parting her to discover the slick heat of her arousal. She sighed and lifted her body towards him, and he gave a rough laugh that ached with sexual tension. The fierce purpose in his eyes made her tremble with desire.
‘Do you like that?’ he asked thickly as he pushed one finger, then two, into her and swirled them in an erotic dance that drove her to the edge of reason and left her speechless. ‘I see that you do,’ he murmured. But she was beyond caring that her eager response betrayed her need for him as she arched her hips and moved against his hand, gasping as the first flutters of her climax started deep inside her.
Hired for Romano's Pleasure Page 8
