by Annie O'Neil
Giuliana’s hand jerked as she spoke. The treat went flying. As it arced up so, too, did Edison’s snout, his jaw opening wide as he jumped up to catch it.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Luca was thundering across the patio, his face dark as midnight.
By the time he arrived Edison was contentedly swallowing the treat he’d caught, with no detriment to Giuliana whatsoever.
“We were just—” Fran began, then she stopped as memory swept her back to her sixteenth birthday. The one her father had forgotten because it had been the same day his first car had rolled off the production line.
All day she had stayed at the factory. Doing homework...idly peeking into the kitchen at the canteen to see if anyone was secretly whipping up a birthday cake. Wandering through the advertising section on the off chance that someone had made a little—or an enormous—birthday banner to mark the day. Hanging around in the mailroom on the pretense of helping to sort the large bundle of post, only to discover that her mother had, as usual, neglected to send anything.
When at long last the first car had come off the assembly line—that first amazing vehicle—she had been so excited she’d run up to touch it, to press her face to the window. The second her hand had touched the car her father had seized her wrist and pulled her away so hard it had hurt for a week.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her. She knew that. But it was in that instant that she’d forced herself to take her first significant emotional step away from him.
That same week she had been signed up for her first round of finishing school in Switzerland. And then another and another, until the thick wedge of her self-protection had been permanently driven between them.
The flash of ire lighting up Luca’s eyes was near enough identical to the one she’d seen in her father’s eyes when she’d dared lay her hand on something that wasn’t hers.
In Luca’s eyes she’d just crossed the line.
His patient. His clinic. His future.
Her mistake.
* * *
“Dr. Montovano! Did you see that?”
Luca could just hear Giuliana’s voice through the static roaring in his ears. He was still reeling at how careless Fran was. Reckless!
“Scusi, Giuliana. See what?” Luca forced himself to turn to his new patient, hastily removing from his eyes the daggers he’d been shooting at Fran.
This was a clinic for people with spinal injuries, for heaven’s sake. Had she no respect for what he was trying to do here? No understanding that the slightest mishap could shut him down?
“The dog!” Giuliana said, the smile so broad across her face he hardly recognized her as the same girl captured in the glowering, unhappy photos her parents had sent. “Did you see how when I threw the treat he caught it?”
“He was catching a treat?”
“Si, Dottore. Of course. What did you think he was doing?”
Fran turned to him, arms crossed defensively across her chest, with a look that said, I’d certainly like to know what it was you thought Edison was doing.
The dog had been jumping, its mouth wide-open, teeth bared. It had looked as if it had been launching himself at the girl’s hand. Which—on went a lightbulb—of course he had. She had been throwing a treat.
Another lightbulb joined the first.
“I thought you didn’t have any movement in your arm.”
“I didn’t...” Giuliana replied, her expression changing as she, too, began connecting the dots of an enormous puzzle.
“Mind if I have a quick feel?” Luca knelt, and with his young patient’s consent he took her arm in his hands and began to run his fingers along the different muscle and ligament groups in her forearm. Her fingers responded to a few of his manipulations. Fingers that were, according to her physio at home, completely atrophied from disuse.
“Shall we get you into one of the treatment rooms? See what may have happened there?”
“Si. Can Edison come, too? And Francesca? She massaged my arm before I fed Edison.”
A flash of ire blinded him again for an instant.
Why couldn’t Fran keep to herself?
He hesitated for a moment before looking up, forcing himself to take a slow breath. She was a trained physio. This was meant to be a place of innovation. And now that he was repainting the scene into what it had actually been, it was very likely Fran and Edison had each played a role in eliciting movement in Giuliana’s arm.
By the time he lifted his eyes to offer an invitation he saw that none was necessary. Fran and Edison were disappearing through an archway leading to the wildflower meadows.
A sour twist of enmity tightened around his heart. He didn’t need to push Fran away. She had already gone.
CHAPTER NINE
A KNOCK SOUNDED on the door frame of Fran’s cottage. It was so unexpected she nearly jumped out of her skin. And she was half-naked. More than half-naked, really.
The baby-doll nightgown had been a spontaneous, lacy gift to herself when she’d gone bridesmaid-dress shopping with Bea. A nod to the femininity she knew lurked somewhere inside her but that she’d never quite had the courage to explore.
“Scusi, Francesca, do you have a moment?”
Little frissons of awareness tickled up along her neck when she heard Luca’s voice. Sprays of goose bumps followed in their wake when she turned the corner and saw him. One hand flew to cover her chest and the other stupidly groped for and tugged at the bottom-skimming hemline.
“Yes, of course. What can I help you with?”
“I think I owe you an apology.”
“Ah, well...”
Please quit staring at my half-naked body.
“No need. I understand—”
“No. I was too sharp. The truth is...” Luca paused and looked up toward the stars just beginning to shine out against the night sky.
The truth is what? An icy chill spread through her. Was he going to send her away?
She nodded, tugging at the spaghetti straps of her nightdress as if the soupçon of flesh they covered would disguise the fact that the plunging neckline and tiny triangles of lace barely covering her breasts were advertising the fact she hadn’t had sex in... Oh...who was counting anyway? Celibacy was the “in” thing, right? Or did the nightdress say the opposite? That she was a floozy and had been hanging out with her front door open just waiting for him to—
Stop. Just stop. Act normal. Relaxed. As if gorgeous Italian doctors who can’t bear the sight of you are always popping by for a casual you’re-fired chat.
“I think I know why you’re here.” Fran decided to fill the growing silence. “Making sure we continue in the same vein as we started, right? Frenemies forever!”
Luca’s brows hitched closer together.
“Frenemies?” She tried again. “Friends who are enemies?”
He shook his head.
She shifted her shoulder straps again, trying to feel less naked.
This whole standing-here-in-silence thing was getting a little annoying. She had dignity. Brains. Self-esteem.
C’mon, Frannie. Pull it together.
“Luca, is there anything I can help you with? Some last-minute painting...?”
Still too chirpy. Dial back the cheerleader... Bring in the helpful canine-assistance trainer.
Tough when Luca was just standing there staring at her, refusing to engage in her inane one-sided conversation.
“I was not thinking frenemies. I was thinking employee.”
“What?” Unexpected. “You want me to work for you?”
He nodded—yes.
“One of my physios has returned to Rome. The rural location didn’t seem to suit him.”
“Is he nuts?” Fran was shocked. “I mean Ro
me is great, but this place is just about as close to heaven as it gets! I’d stay here forever if I could. I mean, not forever, forever...just...”
“Francesca. Per favore, will you just answer the question?”
“Of course. I’ll do anything to help.” She held up a finger. “On one condition.”
A crease of worry deepened the scar on his cheek—the one she was dying to ask about but already had a pretty good guess had something to do with his orphaned niece being in a car accident. They all added up to a picture no one would keep in their wallet.
But now wasn’t the time.
“Luca, listen. I would love to do the work—but only if you let me do it gratis.”
“Oh, no—”
Francesca held up a hand to protest.
“Don’t take it the wrong way. This would be helping me.”
Luca laughed, but not because he thought she was funny. “I hardly think not paying you is helping.”
“It would.” She reached out to the side table and wiggled her phone between them. “See...my dad and I have been having daily talks in advance of my return. I’ve been trying to convince him for years to let me do charitable work in the name of his company. If you’d let me work on the patients and make little video diaries of their progress as I went—with their permission, of course—I think it might be a way to persuade him to let me do more of the same when I get home.”
“I thought you were through with treating people?”
She shrugged. “Some people are worth changing your mind for.”
The words hit their mark. Luca’s dark eyes sought her own and when their gazes caught and cinched tight she could hardly breathe. She’d meant patients. But from all the tiny hairs standing up on her arms, something was telling her there had just been a shift between them.
As suddenly as the air had gone taut between them it relaxed. As if Luca had sought and found the answer to the questions racing through his eyes. She sucked in a breath of mountain air, her heart splitting wide-open. More than she’d allowed for anyone else.
He looked tired, his hair all helter-skelter, as if he’d been repeatedly running a worried hand through it. Though he wore smart attire, he still had on paint-stained, sawdust-covered work boots.
Her eyes were trained on his boots because she wasn’t brave enough to look up into those dark eyes of his again. And then she dared.
A flush of heat struck her cheeks like a slap when she realized the flash of emotion she’d seen in his eyes was the same one alight in hers.
Desire.
“I also wanted a quick word about Pia...” Luca began.
“Pia! Yes. Good. All’s going blue blazes in that camp.” She tried to strike a casual pose. Tricky when she was half-naked in front of a man whose mere presence made her nipples tighten. “I think Freda’s the dog for her. Those two seem inseparable.”
“Is that a good thing? Being so close?” Luca uncrossed his arms. “What about boundaries?”
Was he still talking about Pia and her dog?
“Well, boundaries are gray areas.”
Luca’s eyebrow arched. “Oh?”
“But they need to be clear. Boundaries definitely need to be very, very clear.”
“Clear enough so that each party knows exactly what they’re getting into?”
Luca reached up and rested a crooked arm along the wooden beam above her door frame. Where had stern-faced, humorless Luca gone? There wasn’t time to think. Sexy Luca’s sun-heated man scent was invading her senses, whooshing through her like a drug.
He definitely wasn’t talking about the dogs anymore.
Just as well. There was no room for any thought in her head other than the knowledge that she wanted him. She wanted to jump into his arms, wrap her legs around his trim waist and kiss the living daylights out of him. Touch his scar. Get stubble burn. Ache between her legs from hours of lovemaking. Hell! She’d dance around on tiptoe for the next three weeks if he would just scoop her up and have his wicked way with her.
“How does one establish these boundaries?” Luca asked, the tension between them thickening with each passing moment.
Gone was the uptight, form-filling timekeeper. In his place was a sensualist. His shoulders shifted, rolling beneath the thick cotton of his shirt with the grace of a mountain lion, and his eyes were alight with need. With hunger.
Heat tickled and teased across Fran’s skin, swirling and pooling between her legs.
Per amor del cielo!
Luca let the door frame take some of his weight, bringing him even closer to her.
There was no disguising her body’s response to him. Goose bumps shot up her arms. Her breasts were taut, arching toward him as if they had a will of their own.
Did she really want this? Him? Maybe he was right. Clear-cut boundaries were exactly what they needed if either of them was to survive the summer. Then again, sex was an excellent way to cut tension...
No. They needed to talk this out. Like grown-ups. With clothes on.
“Did you want to...um...?”
She pointed toward the bedroom, where her bathrobe was hanging. It was a scrubby terry-cloth number covered in images of Great Danes wearing nerdy spectacles. Her gaze returned to Luca’s. As the hit of electricity that only seemed to grow each time their eyes met took effect she lost the power of speech. She’d meant “should she go get her robe and so they could sit down for a talk and a coffee.” Or a nightcap. Not “should they go for a roll in the hay”!
Before Fran’s brain could comprehend what was happening Luca had pulled her into his arms and was lowering his mouth to hers with a heated passion she had never felt before. There was an urgency in his kisses. A thrilling assurance in his touch. As if they were long-lost lovers separated by oceans, reunited by their unquenchable thirst for each other.
The ardor pouring from his body to hers began to flow between them in an ever-growing circle—floodwaters unleashed. There was nothing chaste about their kisses. They were needy, insatiable. Words escaped her as he tasted and explored first her lips and then her mouth with every bit as much passion as she put into touching and experiencing him. The occasional brush of stubble. The burr of a growl as she nibbled and then softly bit his lower lip before opening her mouth as he teased her lips apart with his tongue.
A soft groan escaped Fran’s already kiss-bruised lips as one of Luca’s hands slid to the small of her back and tugged her in tight to him; the other slipped around to the nape of her neck. She felt his fingers weave through the length of her hair, then tug it back so that her neck lay bare to him. It wasn’t cruelty or domination. It was unfettered desire. The same ache rendering her both powerless and energized in his arms.
Willing away the millions of thoughts that might have shut the moment down, Fran closed her eyes and allowed the sensations of Luca’s touch to spread through her veins. With the pad of his thumb he tipped her head to the side. His lips pulled away from hers. Before she had a chance to experience any loss she could feel their heated presence again, tasting and kissing the sensitive nook between her chin and neck.
His fingers moved from the back of her head to the other side of her neck, his thumb drawing along the length of her throat as his lips did the same on the exposed length of her neck. She could feel the pads of his fingers tracing from her shoulder to her collarbone, dipping down to the swell of her breasts. She couldn’t help it. She arched into his hands, her body longing for more.
Unexpectedly, Luca cupped her face in both his hands and tipped his forehead to hers, his breath coming as swiftly as her heartbeat, which was racing to catch up with what was happening.
“Scusi, Francesca. I’m so sorry.”
She heard the words but his body told a different story as his hands tugged her ever so slightly closer toward him. Her hands rose to his ch
est and confirmed what she’d suspected. His heart was racing as quickly as her own.
“I’m not...” she managed to whisper.
“This isn’t why I came here.”
“Stay.” The word was out before she could stop it.
“I have nothing to offer you.” Luca’s voice was raw, as if the words had scraped past his throat against his will.
“I don’t remember asking for anything,” Fran said, her feet arching up onto tiptoe, her lips grazing his as she spoke.
“I need boundaries.”
“So do I.”
Fran meant the words with all her heart. She felt as if her whole body was on fire, and without protecting her heart she’d never survive the summer.
Luca held her out at arm’s length, examining her face as if his life depended upon it.
“What did you say we were?”
Fran ran their conversation through her head at lightning speed, then laughed. “Frenemies?”
Luca nodded. “Will that do?”
“Colleagues by day, lovers by night?” she countered.
He nodded his assent. “No more talking.”
Their lips met again, to explosive effect. In just those few moments his touch had already changed. Where there had been tentative exploration now there was fire behind his kisses. Intimacy. As if each erotically charged touch was laying claim to her, physically altering the chemical makeup of her bloodstream. What had once felt heavy now became light. Effervescent, even. In each other’s arms they were no longer bound to the earth. They were in orbit—two celestial bodies exploring, teasing, coaxing, arousing.
Fran’s breasts were swollen with longing, her nipples taut against the sheer lace of her nightgown. As Luca’s hand swept across her bottom his fingers just grazed the sensitive pulsing between her legs, forcing her to bite back a cry of pleasure. He drew his fingers up and along her spine, rendering her core completely molten. She’d experienced lust in the past, but now she became vividly aware that she had never known desire. Not like this. She’d never craved a man’s touch as much as she yearned for Luca’s.
“Mio piccola passerotta...”