Mediterranean Men Bundle

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  And the way he’d looked at her—well, she wasn’t going to think about that! Striking out in a racing crawl, she kicked out for the headland that sheltered the cove.

  She was a strong swimmer and loved the water. In fact she had won cups during her schooldays. It was the one area where she had left Jilly far behind. Jilly hated physical exertion.

  For the first time since she’d made the momentous decision to go along with his belief that she was her twin sister, Milly felt free, at ease with herself and the watery elements as she stroked through the swells. But the rocky headland looked no nearer and at this rate she wouldn’t reach it until a week on Sunday—

  A sudden surge, the impression that she was being attacked by an extra large and determined octopus, had Milly gasping, squirming as Cesare’s head emerged, sea water running in rivulets from his sleek head, his arms tight around her body.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she spluttered in outrage. She had headed out here to escape him for a short but precious time. But he’d followed. Wasn’t the ocean large enough for both of them?

  He was spoiling her pleasure, wiping out that glorious feeling of freedom. ‘Let go of me!’ He was stopping her progress, what there had been of it. And worse, far worse, his grip meant their bodies were touching, breast to thigh. She could feel the hard determined strength of him against her slender curves and it was just too much. Her heart was pounding with the effort to stop herself from pressing much, much closer, winding arms and legs around every bit of him she could reach.

  ‘Saving you from drowning.’ His mouth was taut. The current here is deadly. As I would have warned you if you’d hung around long enough to listen.’ Treading water, he shook his head with a snap of impatience, water droplets scattering. ‘Head back. Now!’

  Shuddering, Milly became aware of the undertow she’d unknowingly been fighting for the last few minutes, dragging them steadily and inexorably towards the horizon.

  Frightened now, she struck out, fighting against the current, heading back to the distant shoreline, aware that Cesare was shadowing her, modifying his progress to hers, and she was more grateful than he would ever know because, strangely, she felt that nothing could harm her while he was with her.

  When at last they were clear of the undertow he powered ahead of her and, seconds later, it seemed, he stood up, finding bottom, the gently swelling water reaching his trim waist.

  Waiting. His features like a thunderstorm.

  Milly swam slowly towards him, her lungs still burning from her strenuous fight against the undertow, the calm surface water hiding the danger. As soon as she was within reach Cesare slid his hands beneath her arms and hauled her to her feet and bit out with blistering fury, ‘Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again!’ his eyes black with fury. His hands tightened on her slender shoulders. ‘Dio mio! You could have died, you bird-brained little fool!’

  And he could have died trying to save her, was her initial mortifying thought, fully aware that he would not have stood idly by and watched her put herself in danger. But his bellowed insult moved her to self defence and she raised her chin, her heart still pounding from her efforts, her breasts heaving, pushing against the clinging, useless scraps of fabric and snapped right back, ‘How was I to know? And you can stop yelling!’

  She shimmied her shoulders wildly, trying to loosen his punishing grip, but his hands just slid down to her waist, tugging her towards him with a bitten out, ‘You—’ Then his mouth was on hers with forceful, angry passion, one hand pressing her body into his until she could feel the imprint of every muscle, the shocking hardness of his arousal against the wet quivering flesh of her tummy, the other hand behind her head, holding her against any hope of escape.

  Not that escape entered her mind. She had never experienced anything like this—this hot searing passion, this crazy escalation of sensation, setting every atom of her flesh on fire.

  Milly’s arms wound up to coil around his neck, her lips parting in instinctive eager welcome and she heard him groan, low and deep, his mouth gentling, moving sensually as his tongue stroked hers for giddying moments before moving down and taking the hard crest of her breast after nudging the unresisting scrap of wet fabric aside.

  Cesare moved slowly towards the shore, taking her with him, bodies moving as one, clinging, lost in drugged pleasure, and his mouth explored now, gentle, awestruck by the sweet perfection of her, the soft hollow at her temples, the tender underside of her jaw, her throat where a pulse was beating madly. His hands moved, disposing of the flimsy scraps that were an insult to the pert glory of her peaking breasts.

  Bewitching.

  He was bewitched.

  His hands moved, shaped her breasts then the tips of his fingers explored her tight nipples and the air in his lungs felt hot and heavy as she threw her head back, her eyes closing, her soft pink lips parted as her hips moved with instinctive rhythm against his rampant arousal.

  Shock waves of sensation had him almost stumbling as his feet encountered the hot sand of the secluded beach. His mouth took hers with almost savagely passionate intent as he drew her down on to the sand and groaned with all male pleasure as she wrapped her lovely legs around his hips and trembled.

  Madness.

  Irresistible madness.

  She was open to him. And hot. Hot. Hot.

  ‘Bella, bella, bella—’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE DISTINCTIVE RING tone of his mobile phone had the salutary effect of a bucket of ice cold water. Cesare’s dark head shot up.

  Porca miseria. Had he run mad? He’d been controlled by lust for the first time in his life, forgetting who she was, who he was! It was demeaning and he didn’t like the experience.

  Her hands were clinging to his shoulders. He firmly detached them and, not looking at her for shame, he disentangled himself, jerked to his feet and strode over the few paces to where he’d left his rucksack before he’d turned insane.

  Noting with deep distaste that his hands weren’t steady, he extracted the slim mobile and ground out, ‘Che?’ And went still.

  Almost sobbing with a horrible mixture of shameful sexual frustration, blind panic and helpless mortification, Milly scrambled to her feet and stumbled over the soft sand and, all fingers and thumbs, began to struggle into her shorts and top.

  What must he think of her? Her eyes sparkled with scalding tears and her face burned hot and scarlet. That she was an out and out slut? His for the taking!

  And what was almost worse, the painful conclusion that she didn’t want him to think badly of her, that his good opinion mattered—more than anything else.

  How could she explain, tell him that she wasn’t like that, that this sort of thing had never happened to her before—and expect him to listen, let alone believe her? And that led to another conclusion she really didn’t want to have to think about.

  The final irony—he thought she was Jilly, his ex-lover. He wouldn’t have batted an eyelash at her frenzied response, naturally he wouldn’t, cynically putting it down to a resumption of past pleasures.

  It just went to show that she’d been so lost in wanting him, needing him, that she’d totally forgotten who she was supposed to be to the extent that she’d been frantically wondering how she could convince him that this sort of behaviour wasn’t normal for her and what had happened had only happened because, for her, he was special.

  Squirming inside with sickening embarrassment, she had to concede that she’d come within a whisker of giving herself away—in more senses than one.

  If there had been no interruption their steamy encounter would have reached an inevitable conclusion. He would have known then; he wasn’t stupid. She was a virgin, Jilly certainly wasn’t!

  Finally the top was in place, the tie ends more or less securely fastened and, her head downbent in mortification, she peered up at him through her lashes. He was speaking in his own language, his tone questioning, terse. Then he closed the phone with a snap, tossed it into the ru
cksack and dragged on his jeans.

  The belt buckle swiftly dealt with, he scooped up the rucksack, slinging it over his shoulder, then turned to her as if he had only just recalled her existence, his brow clenched in a black frown. Milly hung her head in a vain attempt to hide the renewed flush of humiliation that burned on her face.

  His voice harsh, he imparted, ‘Nonna had a bad fall this morning. That was Rosa to tell me they’d just returned from Casualty. We leave for the mainland immediately.’

  He was striding away and, just as he reached the cliff pathway, she caught up with him, her own troublesome problems forgotten in her anxiety for the old lady she’d liked immediately. ‘Is she hurt? What happened?’

  Brow clenched, he spared her a glance. ‘Broken collar bone and cracked ribs. Nothing life threatening but at her age the shock—’ His voice clipped on his last word and Milly impulsively laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Try not to worry,’ she murmured sympathetically. ‘We’ll soon be with her. Look,’ she suggested firmly and calmly, ‘you go on ahead, do what you need to do—rev up the helicopter, or whatever. I’ll follow, quick as I can. And the stuff I brought with me, I’ll leave it. It’s not important, so I won’t need to waste time packing.’

  Cesare’s eyes dropped first to the small hand that lay consolingly on his forearm and then lifted to her face. There was concern in those beautiful eyes, determination writ large on her exquisite features. His heart jerked with something indefinable and his voice was thick as he countered, ‘You come with me. I don’t want to have to fly you to hospital because you fell off a cliff!’

  Common sense, Milly told herself as he took her hand and helped her along every step of the tortuous track. Of course he wouldn’t want her to miss her footing and fall; he wouldn’t want the delay of scraping her up off the rocks, she decided, determined not to read anything more into his care for her.

  The way he strode rapidly ahead the moment they reached the safety of the cliff top gave credence to her assessment. He was waiting for her outside the little stone cottage when she arrived, out of breath. He had slung a casual, well worn light denim jacket over his naked torso and he enquired briefly, ‘Did you mean what you said about not packing?’

  ‘Of course. I left stuff back at the villa. I won’t have to walk around naked.’ And what had led her to say that she had no idea, especially when the throwaway remark earned her the glimmer of a quirky smile and a pointedly raised eyebrow before he set off across the island to the landing pad, leaving her to trot along in his wake, hot and bothered, wondering if what she felt for him was actually love. Wondering how she could be so stupid to even give that thought headroom.

  The journey back to the villa was swiftly accomplished by helicopter and car, mostly in silence. Milly was aware of his impatience, the evidence of it written all over him as he braked the car to a gravel-splattering halt, slid out and strode into the villa where Rosa was waiting for him.

  There was no way Milly could make head or tail of the rapid Italian conversation, but she picked out the word dottore and when Cesare headed for his grandmother’s ground floor bedroom she followed, anxious to know how the old lady was.

  The room was exactly as she remembered it from the previous time she’d come here. Tall windows opened to the warm air, gauzy curtains filtering out the harshness of the sunlight, fluttering gently in the slight breeze. The delicate tester bed with Filomena propped up against the white embroidered pillows, one arm strapped in a sling.

  Cesare strode towards the old lady, lifting the hand that wasn’t confined by the sling to his lips, his voice hoarse as he murmured what Milly, hovering uncertainly in the doorway, could only suppose to be reassurances.

  Then he turned to the short stout man who was packing a stethoscope into a square black bag and fired questions at him in Italian.

  Feeling out of place, still in turmoil over what had taken place between her and Cesare this morning, Milly was about to turn and go to her own room when Filomena registered her presence in the doorway.

  ‘My dear—come, sit with me!’ And in the same breath, ‘Cesare! English only as usual—to please me.’

  Going to Filomena, Milly’s legs felt unsteady and almost gave way beneath her when she saw Cesare swing round, dark colour slashing along his angular cheekbones as his glittering eyes bored into her quaking body.

  Once again he had forgotten all about her and definitely didn’t like being reminded that she was still on the same planet, she decided miserably, knowing that she would never be the centre of his thoughts and wishing she could be.

  Trying to ignore that piece of insanity as Cesare saw the doctor out, Milly sank into the pretty pale lemon upholstered chair at the bedside and smiled with sympathy, ‘Poor you—how do you feel? A bit battered?’

  The old lady was pale but her eyes were smiling as she answered, ‘Only when I try to move! I was careless and now I pay the price.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ Milly stroked the frail hand that lay on the white coverlet, trying to ignore the tingling sensation at the nape of her neck which told her that Cesare had returned and his black eyes were boring into the back of her head.

  ‘Amalia and I were walking in the garden and I was so amused by her wicked gossip that I was not paying attention and missed my footing on the steps leading down to the arbour.’

  ‘Where is the Contessa now?’ Cesare had stationed himself on the opposite side of the bed. Milly was determined not to look at him.

  ‘She left when I was returned on a stretcher. Such a fuss! She was fearful that she would be in the way.’

  ‘I should not have left you here with her!’ Cesare pronounced on a grim note of castigation. ‘If you are not even to be trusted to look where you are going!’

  ‘Grandson, you speak as if I am a child!’

  Filomena was obviously growing distressed. Milly rose to her defence. Disregarding her intention not to look at him she glared across the bed, her green eyes glinting defiantly. ‘Your grandmother does not need to be grumbled at. If you can’t be gentle then I suggest you go find someone stronger to snipe at!’ She caught his look of stunned surprise and didn’t care.

  From what she already knew of him throwing his weight around was second nature. He had probably not been spoken to in such a way during the whole of his over-privileged life. In her opinion a reprimand was long overdue!

  Filomena reached for her hand and gave it a warm squeeze and Cesare, on his dignity, announced, ‘I apologise, Nonna. I have been anxious. Now I will go and arrange round the clock nursing care.’

  He turned, his shoulders rigid, but was held back by his grandmother saying, ‘I forbid it. I will not have strangers fussing around me and doing objectionable things to me! I am not ill. I simply need to rest until I am mended. Jilly and Rosa will tend me between them.’

  He turned back then. Slowly. His dark eyes sought Milly’s. ‘You are capable?’

  Her chin came up. She returned the pressure of the old lady’s fingers. ‘Perfectly.’ Her dark green gaze steady, she held her breath. Would he back down or would he, after her insubordination, insist on hiring nursing staff?

  They weren’t to know it but the real Jilly would run a mile rather than put a foot one inch inside a sickroom. She had no patience with what she perceived as weakness in anyone.

  He was watching her through hooded eyes, as if doubting her capability, and was about to offer up some argument that would allow him to get his own way. It was time for her to put her foot down again.

  ‘Please ask Rosa to fix a lunch tray for your grandmother. Something light.’ She turned to the old lady. ‘A little soup, perhaps?’ She received her amused nod and added firmly, ‘And then she must rest.’

  Did his savagely handsome mouth quirk? Milly wasn’t sure and was not about to let herself think about it, not while she was desperate to stop herself from having any thoughts about him at all, especially after what he had made her feel this morning. How he had made her behave
!

  ‘You handle him well,’ Filomena remarked as soon as the door had closed behind him. ‘He has the habit of authority. Though well deserved, I am the first to admit. He is always right.’

  She sounded tired and Milly wondered if she was brooding over his comment that she was not to be trusted to look where she was going. In her weakened state his snapped comment would have been upsetting.

  ‘He adores you,’ Milly was quick to console. ‘He was only grumpy with you because you’d given him such a fright. It’s a natural reaction.’

  Had that first hot, savage kiss been born out of anger at the danger she’d unknowingly put herself in? Had it been a question of kiss her or shake her until her teeth fell out? Probably. And, as for what had happened next, well, he believed she was her sister, his ex-lover, and the progression had also been completely natural, that first punishing kiss rekindling old flames.

  Nothing to do with her, Milly. Nothing personal.

  Thankfully, Rosa appeared with a tray, taking her mind off such dejecting, demoralising thoughts. Settling it on the old lady’s knees, murmuring in her own language, the housekeeper finally addressed Milly. ‘Would you also like tray? Keep the Signora company?’

  Breaking the soft bread roll that accompanied the broth and, buttering it, earning herself a smile of gratitude from her charge, Milly seized the offer. ‘Thank you, Rosa. I think I’ll take all my meals with the Signora, if it’s no trouble.’ That way she could avoid eating with Cesare. The less she could manage to see of him the better.

  ‘Di niente!’ The housekeeper beamed. ‘Much good plan!’

  In the event Milly saw hardly anything of Cesare except when he visited his grandmother at around ten each morning and again at ten in the evenings, or whenever the doctor appeared to check up on his patient. And on every occasion Milly made her excuses and left the room, only returning when she was sure the coast was clear. For the rest of the time Cesare was closeted in his first floor office, commanding his empire or occasionally visiting headquarters in Florence.