He could have it all, including Gracie, and he intended to.
Rocco walked back over to the bed and sat down, smiling when he saw a small frown pleat the smooth skin between her eyes. Her mouth was in a delicious moue, still a little swollen. He bent and pressed a kiss there and her eyes opened.
He drew back for a moment, to see her looking at him with those wide, serious and wary eyes. Then she just said, ‘Hi,’ with a husky voice.
It was so simple and lacking in artifice that something turned over in Rocco’s chest. All his recent assertions suddenly felt very flimsy, and to avoid looking at why he just bent his head and kissed Gracie until she was breathless and arching her body into him and he lost himself in the bliss of her again.
When Gracie woke she blinked and squinted against the sun streaming into the bedroom. Rocco’s bedroom. As realisation sank in she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and groaned softly. And then she registered that she was naked and half uncovered. She scrabbled around for the sheet and pulled it right up over herself, and then peeped out to look around the room, trying to ignore the ache between her legs and in every muscle of her body.
The room was empty. All was still and quiet. She looked at the bedside clock and saw that it was one pm. With a squeal she sat up. And then lay back down again when she felt dizzy. Images started to flood her head. The endless night of being entangled with Rocco. His powerful body surging into hers over and over again, until she’d been weeping from an overdose of pleasure.
And then that morning, as dawn had broken outside, she’d woken to find him sitting there, just looking at her with such an intense expression, eyes dark. And he’d kissed her, and it had started all over again. Her body had been sensitive, but Gracie had loved the feel of Rocco moving so urgently within her.
But now when she moved a leg she winced. Sitting up again, Gracie cautiously got out of the bed, hugging the sheet around her, and went into the bathroom. Rocco’s used towels lay on the floor and over the sink. His distinctive smell made her reel with a fresh onslaught of memories.
Gracie’s brain shied away from trying to figure out how she could have given herself so freely to someone like him. He not only didn’t trust her—he was a world away from her world. She came from an ugly council estate surrounded by grim flats and few opportunities. He came from a country steeped in beauty and undoubtedly from a lineage in which he could list his ancestors back as far as Caesar.
Gracie couldn’t shower in his bathroom now. Not with his scent so fresh and mocking. She got to his bedroom door still with the sheet clasped around her and opened it quietly, half terrified she’d see him on the other side. No one was there. Gracie hurried back to her own room and shut and locked the door behind her.
And then she dived into her shower and scrubbed herself until her skin felt raw and sore muscles finally relaxed back to some semblance of normality. When she got out she dressed in loose pants and a shirt, as covered up as she could be. She tied her hair back into a ponytail.
When she opened her bedroom door she heard a noise coming from the kitchen and heat flooded her face when she thought of the carnage they’d left behind them. Her dress ripped open from neck to hem! Her discarded knickers!
Gracie imagined huge George in the middle of it, looking around with a scandalised expression, and with her face flaming she rushed to the kitchen. But the sight that greeted her was so unexpected that she stumbled to a halt. A small woman was mopping the floor, and the kitchen reflected nothing of the previous day or evening. Everything was tidied away, and fresh flowers stood on the table where Rocco and she had—
‘You must be Gracie.’
Gracie looked stupidly at the middle-aged woman who was smiling and coming towards her with an outstretched hand.
Numbly Gracie shook her hand and nodded. ‘Yes … I’m Gracie. I’m sorry, but … who are you?’
The woman smiled broadly. ‘I’m Mrs Jones. I’ve been retained by Mr de Marco as his new housekeeper subject to a month’s trial period.’ She leaned on her mop and said conspiratorially, ‘I’ve only just started back working full-time now that the kids are in college, so I don’t know how it’ll suit, but he seems nice …’
Gracie thought a little hysterically how nice didn’t do him justice, and just looked at the woman who was chattering away as if nothing was wrong. If this woman was now the housekeeper, then what on earth was she?
‘Are you all right, love?’
Gracie’s focus came back to the housekeeper. Vaguely she nodded. ‘Is George outside?’
The woman’s eyes grew round. ‘Is he the big man?’
Gracie nodded again and backed away, saying something about it being nice to meet her. She went out of the apartment to see George calmly reading a paper. He looked up and smiled. Gracie looked at him suspiciously. He didn’t appear to be traumatised by anything he’d seen. Perhaps he’d not been into the kitchen?
She took a shaky breath. ‘Do you know where Mr de Marco is?’
George frowned. ‘He should be in his office. He went there a couple of hours ago, just after the new housekeeper arrived.’
Gracie nodded and made for the lift. She stopped when George called her name gently and turned around to follow his gaze—which was on her feet. Her bare feet. Smiling weakly, she went back inside to get some shoes.
Rocco was standing at his window. He ran a hand around the back of his neck. He couldn’t ignore the steady hum of pleasure in his body, as if he’d just gorged on a feast. He grimaced. He had. A feast of Gracie.
His skin tightened imperceptibly and he stilled. He recognised instantly when the energy around the office changed. Slowly he turned around to see a pale-looking Gracie, covered from neck to toe in loose drab clothes, heading for his office. Her hair was tied back, making her look young. His gaze narrowed on her and with fatal predictability his body reacted. He regretted the countless glass windows and lack of privacy even more. And then his conscience struck him as he had a lurid image of what he’d like to do to her in his office. Gracie must be sore. She was so much smaller than him and she’d been so tight …
And yet she’d met him head-on every time, until exhaustion had finally claimed them both.
Gracie was almost at the door, her dark eyes on him with unwavering intensity in an unsmiling face. This was so far removed from any other morning-after situation he’d been in it was almost funny. But Rocco wasn’t laughing when she walked in.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT’S going on?’ Gracie’s arms were folded, as if that could help protect her from the sheer animal appeal of the man standing just a few feet away. Her body was betraying her, going into full on readiness mode. Nipples peaking, stomach tightening, and down below, between her legs …
‘What are you talking about?’
Gracie willed her body to calm down and said tightly, ‘I met the new housekeeper. So what does that make me?’
Rocco’s hands were in his pockets. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a shirt and tie, and he looked magnificent with the sun streaming in behind him, highlighting the broadness of his physique. His shirt was so finely made that she could see the dark hue of his skin and the delineated muscles.
He came around his desk then and perched on the corner, hands still in his pockets. For a moment Gracie had a rush of imagining that he had done that to stop himself from reaching for her, and cursed her runaway imagination.
‘I hired Mrs Jones because I don’t want you doing any more housework.’
Gracie injected false brightness into her voice. ‘So I’m free to go?’
He shook his head, a glint in his eye. ‘Not a chance. You’ve never been less free.’ There was a thrilling edge to his voice that made Gracie shiver and feel intense self-disgust at the same time.
‘So … what? I’ve been promoted? To your bed?’ She tried to make herself sound disgusted and scathing, but the words came out breathy.
A tiny smile turned up the corner of Rocco’s mouth. ‘Yes,
you’ve been promoted to my bed. I like the sound of that.’
Feeling incredibly crabby all of a sudden, Gracie blurted out, ‘Well, I don’t. I’m not just a convenient plaything, you know.’
His mouth quirked. ‘I am well aware of that. You’re like a very volatile explosive substance mixed with the charm of a kitten and the claws of a big cat.’
Gracie blinked at him and said truthfully, ‘I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult.’
‘Oh, it’s a compliment, believe me.’ He stood up and came closer. Gracie’s breath hitched. He cast a quick expressive glance either side of his office. ‘You were right, you know … about the glass. It’s so that I can see everyone at all times. It makes me nervous not to know who’s coming or what’s happening. But for once I wish I had blinds—or tinted windows.’
Gracie’s throat went dry. She was mesmerised by the look in his eyes.
His voice was low and intimate, distracting Gracie from dwelling on his enigmatic words or their meaning. ‘I’d lock the door so that I could take your hand and lead you over to the sofa. I’d pull you down and take off your top so that I could touch and taste your breasts. Then I would move my hand down, underneath the flimsy elastic of your trousers to your knickers. I would keep going until I could feel your soft curls. I wonder if they’re already moistened—’
‘Stop it!’ Gracie all but hissed, arms clenched so tight across her chest that it was hard to breathe. She was sweating now, her heart beating rapidly, and down below … Lord, she wanted Rocco to pick her up and spread her across his desk the way he had in the kitchen last night.
She cast a quick mortified glance left and right. All she saw were bent industrious heads. She looked back to Rocco and felt dizzy. To anyone observing from the outside all they’d see was Rocco with his hands in his pockets, talking to the strange nondescript girl who’d suddenly started working for him.
But then Gracie looked down on an impulse and saw where his trousers were barely confining the truth of their conversation. She went puce.
In some pathetic effort to redirect the conversation she avoided Rocco’s eye and asked, ‘The kitchen … this morning … did Mrs Jones …?’
She couldn’t finish—too mortified when she could see the carnage in her mind’s eye again. She felt a finger come to her chin and Rocco tipped her face up. He’d moved closer, and she could smell heat and sex and lust. Her belly clenched tight with anticipation.
He shook his head. ‘No. I cleared it up.’
Relief flooded Gracie even as she registered surprise. She said faintly, ‘Somehow I can’t see that happening.’
Rocco let her chin go and smiled dryly. ‘I can pick things off the floor, you know. I’m not completely helpless.’
Gracie shivered. He wasn’t helpless at all. He was like some magnificent urban animal. And then she thought of him picking up her knickers, and that dress that he’d ripped apart with his bare hands. With a muffled groan Gracie turned away to leave. Her head was churning, trying to make sense of where she stood now with Steven and everything, but she couldn’t think when she was within three feet of this man.
She stopped when she heard Rocco say from behind her, ‘Wait.’
Reluctantly she turned around again. He was standing behind his desk. She breathed a little easier.
‘Do you have an up-to-date passport?’
She nodded, wondering where this was going.
‘Good. In that case we’re leaving this afternoon for Thailand for two days, and from there we’ll go to New York for a couple of days.’
Gracie could hardly believe her ears. She shook her head slightly. ‘Thailand?’
‘It’s a country in South-East Asia.’
‘I know that,’ she said impatiently, too afraid to believe this for a second. It had to be a joke. ‘But … why?’
‘Because I have to go on business and I want you to come with me.’
Her heart was thumping like a piston. ‘As … what, exactly?’
He put his hands on his desk, spread wide. A feral look was in his eye and he smiled the smile of a consummate seducer. ‘As my lover, of course.’
Gracie was still in a mild state of shock hours later, when she was in the back of Rocco’s car with his long legs spread out beside her. She was clutching her passport in her hands and staring out of the window as London whizzed past and they entered countryside. Rocco’s jet was at a private airfield. Private jet. Gracie felt a bubble of hysteria rising.
Suddenly her passport was taken out of her hands. Her head snapped around. ‘Hey!’
She’d been avoiding looking at Rocco since he’d arrived back at the apartment to pick her up. He’d given her a scathing look up and down and muttered something about suitable clothes before making a call on his phone. Then he’d hustled her out of the apartment, leaving George behind, and into his car. And now he was perusing her passport. He looked up with an arched brow. ‘You haven’t travelled much?’
Gracie grabbed for her passport but Rocco held it aloft, and the motion of the car made her land awkwardly against his rock-hard torso. Cheeks flaming, Gracie scrabbled back, but Rocco snaked out an arm and captured her, holding her against him easily. Her breasts were crushed against him and her nipples were already peaking into tight stinging points.
Their faces were so close that Gracie could feel his warm breath. Her gaze slid to his mouth. She ached to touch it, to trace it with her finger. To feel the cushiony firmness.
Rocco’s arm moved up and his hand speared into her hair, cradling the back of her head. ‘Gracie …’ he said roughly.
She ached for him to kiss her. The tension had been spiralling through her since she’d woken that morning, aching for him to touch her again. And she’d been in a state of near arousal since his provocative words in his office.
It was a few moments before either one of them heard the discreet knocking on the window beside Rocco. Gracie sprang apart from him, mortified by how ready she was for him to make love to her in the back of a car.
Gracie scrambled out, all but landing on the tarmac in an undignified heap. Rocco just looked at her with a bemused expression and Gracie scowled at him. She didn’t need to suffer his look to know that he must be bemused by this attraction.
He set out across the tarmac to the plane, which was glinting in the setting evening sun. Gracie stumbled slightly and Rocco stopped and held out a hand. She’d expected him to walk autocratically ahead of her, not even checking to see if she followed, and she looked at his hand for a long moment and then put her hand in his. His much bigger hand curled around hers, and her belly was swooping dangerously all the way to the plane with their fingers entwined.
For some reason, and she hated to admit this to herself, the moment felt significant.
Rocco looked at Gracie, sitting in a plush seat across the aisle from him. She was staring out of the window, fascinated, as if she’d never seen an airport before. He shook his head. This was a novelty for him: to be with a woman who didn’t feel as if she had to give him her undivided attention and who also didn’t seem to care one bit for the fact that she wore no make-up and such unflattering garments in front of her lover.
The few occasions he had ever taken a woman away with him for whatever reason had been like military operations, with an extra vehicle just to carry their luggage. He’d put up with it because he’d assured himself this was his world now, but he had to admit that it had always disgusted him a little bit.
He was getting irritated now by Gracie’s extreme absorption in everything around her. The plane was starting to taxi down the runway and he spotted her open belt. That irritation laced his voice as he called to her, and something inside him clenched when he saw her flinch minutely before she turned her face to him.
He gestured to her lap. She looked down dumbly.
‘Your safety belt.’
‘Oh.’ She found the two ends and clumsily tried to put them together.
Rocco had a flash of
realisation when he remembered her brand spanking new passport. That something inside him clenched even tighter as he leaned across and made quick work of securing her belt, tightening it.
‘I could have done it.’
Rocco sat back and looked at her. Now she was looking at him. ‘You’ve never been on a plane before, have you?’
She flushed under his gaze. He could see her warring with the desire to blurt out, Of course I have! But after a moment she just shook her head, lips tight together. She was embarrassed, and Rocco’s belly tightened with some nameless emotion.
He asked roughly, ‘So why the brand-new passport? Were you planning on going somewhere?’
The second after he’d asked the question a cold trickle of realisation wound its way down his spine. His desire to trust her mocked him. How could he have been so stupid? Before Gracie could answer he laughed out loud. ‘Dio. Of course you were! You must have been planning a nice long overseas trip with your brother and the million euros he’d creamed off my clients.’
The mushy feelings Gracie had been feeling ever since Rocco had taken her hand dissolved. To think that she’d actually been about to tell him the real reason that she possessed a new passport! She cringed now at how he would have laughed at her.
Instead she tossed her head and smiled, drawing herself back deep inside and hating him for giving her such an amazing experience with one hand and then tainting it with the other.
‘That’s exactly it. We were thinking Australia, actually. A totally new and fresh start. Is that what you want to hear, Rocco? Because I can tell you what you want to hear until I’m blue in the face but it won’t change the fact that it’s not the truth.’
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 365