by Penny Jordan
Annie. She was invading his thoughts and his senses more deeply and more intensely than he had been prepared for. But that wasn’t her fault.
It had been obvious to him that she was devoid of the least idea of how much it had aroused him to feel her body trembling so wildly just because he had caressed her. A reaction like that could go to a man’s head far too easily, and could make her far too vulnerable.
His body was aching. It had been a long time since he had had a relationship. The effect of too many women throwing themselves at him rather too often and too hard during his twenties had left him picky about the women he dated, and cynical about the likelihood of actually finding love and the right kind of wife in one woman. On a practical level it was important that his wife understood his commitment to his people, and that she was willing to share that commitment with him. But it was equally important to him that his marriage should be one in which husband and wife were faithful to one another. His father’s affair had left him with an abhorrence of marital infidelity. His brothers were lucky. They had had the good fortune to fall in love and be loved in return.
He, on the other hand, had to balance his own needs with the needs of the Leopardi name and its people. Passion and practicality. Could they ever go together? Or must one always be sacrificed in order to have the other?
If so, he must favour practicality for the benefit of others over passion for the benefit of himself.
His body still ached with unsatisfied need.
If he closed his eyes it would be all too easy to picture Annie—not as she had been in the garden, but far more intimately, here with him now, clothed only in moonlight, silvering her breasts and dipping shadows between them, turning her nipples as dark as olives, stroking silken pathways along her body. She would taste of night air and warm skin, her breathing shaken by tremors of desire. She would cry out to him as he kissed her and held her. And he would...
He would do nothing other than remember what his role was in her life, Falcon told himself harshly.
* * *
‘I thought this evening we would concentrate on the small things a man might do to show that he is attracted to a woman.’
They had finished dinner. Ollie was asleep—Annie had been up to check on him—and her nerves were so on edge she was sure that Falcon must notice. It was five days since he had kissed her. Five whole days. And there hadn’t been a single one of them when she hadn’t relived that kiss over and over again.
‘The small things?’ Annie repeated. She must not feel disappointed. She must not wish that he would kiss her again. She must not!
‘Yes,’ Falcon confirmed. ‘Such as the way a man might hold the gaze of a woman he admires for that little bit longer, looking at her like so.’
His hand under her chin gently turned her face towards his own and slightly upwards, so that his gaze fell directly onto her upturned face and she could see the slow, concentrated way in which he allowed it to almost physically caress her skin.
Tension prickled along her nerve-endings; her heart started to race. She could almost feel the heavy weight of his concentration on her mouth. It was impossible for her to stop her lips from parting, and impossible not to look helplessly into his eyes. He was looking at her in a way that made her catch her breath. The blood was pounding in her ears and a mixture of weakness and excitement was pouring through her.
Falcon knew he had to break the spell he himself had woven, which now trapped him within its sensual mystery. Just looking at Annie’s mouth made him want to feel it beneath his own—to feel too the sweetness of her previous response.
This wasn’t what he had planned. The object was to encourage her to explore and enjoy her sensuality—not for him to become aroused.
Somehow he managed to drag his gaze away. Although there was nothing he could do about the powerful thumping of his heart.
Annie watched him, torn between disappointment and relief as she saw him win his battle for control.
‘I can see how...how erotic something like that could be,’ she told him, striving to sound calm and businesslike—after all, what they were doing was a sort of businesslike venture.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it, that something so...Well, something that’s just a look really can have such a powerful effect?’ She hesitated, and then told him honestly, ‘You make it all seem so natural and...and that it’s all right to feel...to want...’ She couldn’t risk putting into words exactly what he had made her feel, so instead she finished quickly, ‘It’s not shameful and wrong, like Colin used to say it was.’
‘No man worthy of the name would ever make a woman feel ashamed of her sensuality.’ Falcon’s voice was constricted with the force of his feelings. Her trusting admission had reminded him of the role he had elected to play. His hand dropped away from her face. It might be better in future if he conducted at least some of her lessons in public, where he would surely not be in so much danger from his own reactions.
* * *
‘Bring swimming things,’ Falcon had said to her yesterday, when he had asked her if she still wanted to see a little more of the island. But it had simply not occurred to Annie that he would bring her and Ollie somewhere as achingly smart and exclusive as this hotel where they had had lunch, after a drive during which Falcon had not only driven at a safe and comfortable speed but had also given her an expert commentary on their surroundings and their architectural past.
She should surely be getting used to the intimacy of being around him now? she told herself. And to all those small touches that came when he pulled out a chair for her, or helped her in any way—the smiles that accompanied the compliments he paid her. All were designed, she knew, to boost her confidence in herself as a woman.
She was getting used to them, and she did feel comfortable in his presence—but at the same time she also felt confused by the way she herself so often felt. The way she ached inside for him to kiss her again, and her sense of loss when he didn’t.
Today, though, they were having a day out with Ollie.
The hotel he had brought them to was close to the town of Taormina, famous for its historical buildings—including the ruins of a Greek theatre—and for its proximity to Mount Etna. Before lunch they had had time to walk down the main street, Falcon insisting on pushing Ollie’s buggy, whilst he pointed out various sites of interest to her—including the glamorous Caffè Wunderbar, where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had sipped cocktails.
Falcon had even told her, leaning closer to her to murmur the words in her ear that, ‘D.H. Lawrence holidayed here with his wife.’ He had based Mellors the gamekeeper in Lady Chatterley’s Lover on a boatman from the town, whom Lawrence’s wife had seduced. ‘Taormina was famous at one time for the effect it had on visiting Englishwomen. You must tell me later if there is any truth in that rumour.’
He had been smiling at her as he spoke, a lazy smile of such intimacy that she had quickly forgotten the small pang of aloneness she had felt earlier, glimpsing a couple ambling along the street totally wrapped up in one another. In fact, having Falcon’s concentrated attention fixed on her had made her feel she was in so much danger of becoming dizzy that she had reached out to steady herself, placing her hand on the handle of the buggy, only to have it immediately covered by Falcon’s hand closing around it.
It was strange, the effect such small gestures could have. She had wanted to pull her hand away—if only to stop her heart from pounding so heavily—but she had reminded herself that Falcon was trying to teach her what it felt like to experience all those things she should have experienced naturally as she grew from a teenager to a young woman.
Because he’d still had his hand over hers, Falcon had been forced to move closer to her as they’d walked along together, and that had meant that she had been acutely conscious of his thigh brushing hers and of his closeness to her. When they had had
to cross a road he had released her hand, but her relief had been short-lived because instead he had placed his arm around her waist, guiding her politely across the road.
‘You look terrified,’ he had told her once they were safely across. ‘This kind of physical intimacy is supposed to be a pleasure. When a man takes every opportunity he can to be close to you, in mundane everyday matters of life and in public, it signifies not just his physical desire for you but also his desire to claim and protect you. If you want his attention then the way to show him would be to lean in a little bit closer to him.’ His arm had urged her closer as he had spoken.
‘And relax your body so that it moves with his. Then he will probably do something like this.’ His hand had moved to the curve of her waist, discreetly caressing it.
Discreet so far as any possible onlookers were concerned. The effect his touch had had on the internal workings of her body had been anything but discreet. Warmth from his hand had spread all over her body, making her breasts grow heavy and her nipples tighten and ache. It had pooled with devastating effect low within her, and her mind had created mental images and physical longings that had made her face burn with self-consciousness.
Was that physical desire? She had felt as though Falcon had unlocked a place within her—the turning of its key unleashing almost frighteningly powerful urges. Like the urge she had experienced during lunch, when Falcon had put his hand on her knee to attract her attention whilst she had been spooning baby food into Ollie’s eager mouth, so that he could tell her something. It had been an urge that had meant she would gladly have turned to him in silent invitation for him to slide his hand along the bare length of her thigh.
And he had known what she had been feeling. She was sure of it, Annie thought now, from the shelter of their private tented poolside cabana at the same exclusive hotel where they had had lunch.
Annie had seen photographs of such places in the glossy magazines she’d flicked through in doctors’ and dentists’ waiting rooms, but she’d never expected to experience the reality of one of them for herself.
Their lunch had been served at a private table under the shade of an umbrella, on signature china with heavy designer cutlery, crystal glasses and beautifully laundered linen.
In the baby changing room provided for guests she’d found everything the most fussy and spoiled mother and baby could ever want—although she had noticed that the two other babies in the changing room were accompanied by uniformed nannies and not their mothers.
Now, having changed into her swimsuit whilst Falcon minded Ollie, she was lying in the shade on the most comfortable lounger imaginable, whilst Ollie played happily within her watchful view.
Falcon had gone for a swim—which was perhaps just as well, she admitted, given the effect the constant sight of him clothed in a pair of admittedly perfectly respectable brightly coloured shorts of the type most of the other men also seemed to be wearing had been having on her.
Her swimsuit and its matching prettily embroidered kaftan had been chosen by the personal shopper. Annie hadn’t so much as tried them on, convinced that she would never wear any of the clothes the shopper had selected, never mind something as revealing as the swimsuit, but she was forced to admit now that it might have been wiser if she had.
In its elegant box the pewter-coloured swimsuit had looked innocuous enough, even a little dull, but once on it had wrapped itself around her curves in a way that, whilst covering her very respectably, had somehow or other managed to create the most sensual of body shapes—and surely a greater length of leg than she really possessed. It had been a relief to slip on the matching pewter kaftan, which thankfully covered her from her throat to her knees.
Now, though, the privacy of the cabana and the relaxing effect of her lunchtime glass of wine had combined to coax her into removing the kaftan and luxuriating in the wonderful warmth of the sun—easily felt despite the shade.
Tired out after his busy day, Ollie was starting to close his eyes. Smiling at her son, Annie got up off her lounger and picked him up, hugging and kissing him before settling him in his buggy for a sleep.
She had just finished tucking Ollie in when Falcon returned to the cabana from his swim, the sun catching shoulders surely as broad and powerful as those of any Olympic swimmer, tanned as his whole body was, in a beautiful golden brown. There was something about the close proximity of so much semi-naked masculinity that was making it very difficult for her to breathe, Annie admitted to herself.
Not wanting to be caught by Falcon gazing wide-eyed at his broad shoulders and powerful arms, she let her attention slide lower—only to realise her mistake far too late, when it became trapped in watching drops of water from the pool roll down his chest.
She couldn’t breathe properly, couldn’t move, couldn’t think—but she could certainly feel, and what she was feeling was telling her in no uncertain terms that Falcon had well and truly unleashed her natural instincts. The weight of the water had pulled his shorts low down on his hips, and the sight of the dark arrowing of his body hair was making her feel slightly light headed. Or was it the thudding pound of her heart that was doing that? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was her relief when Falcon reached for a towel and started to dry himself.
‘I saw you putting sunscreen on Oliver earlier. I hope you’ve put some on yourself,’ he said when he had finished drying his body and was rubbing at his hair.
‘Yes. Yes, I have,’ Annie told him quickly. She could feel her temperature soaring at the same speed with which her heartbeat was accelerating at the thought of having Falcon offer to perform that task for her.
‘Good.’ He reached down and picked up the sunscreen she had placed by her sun lounger and handed it to her, requesting, ‘Do my back for me, will you?’
What could she say? If she refused he was bound to want to know why—and besides, this was exactly the kind of thing that a woman of her age should be used to doing. Falcon would make allowances for her, she reassured herself as she nodded her head in acquiescence, her throat suddenly too dry for her to be able to trust herself to speak. He knew, after all, that she had no experience of this kind of personal intimacy.
He had presented his back to her now, and was standing with his hands on his hips, waiting.
Her hands were trembling so much she dropped the bottle of lotion, and then struggled to uncap it, causing Falcon to turn round and take it from her, telling her wryly, ‘Hold out your hand.’ He squeezed a small amount of the lotion into her palm, before turning his back to her a second time.
She started at the back of his neck, suffering the shock of the silky hot feel of his skin against her lotion-slick hands as she worked the cream into his skin as slowly and as carefully as though it had been Ollie’s baby skin she was protecting. Beneath her fingertips his shoulders were every bit as strongly muscled as they had looked, and it was hard for her not to give in to the unexpected temptation to trace the shape of his bones with her fingertip. How extraordinary and amazing and life-affirming it was to know that one day her son, her baby, would be like this—a man whom women would admire and desire and love, just as they must Falcon.
Her body stiffened. How many women had there been? How many had he loved back? Why was that sharp pain skewering her heart?
Falcon’s voce—‘Something wrong?’—brought her back to reality.
‘I’ve run out of lotion,’ she told him.
The cap was still off the bottle, but strangely she felt no inclination to point that fact out to him when he picked it up and tipped some more into her waiting hand.
‘I’m not Oliver, you know,’ he told her. ‘In a real man and woman situation there would be nothing wrong and a whole lot right in caressing me as a potential lover whilst you’re doing that.’
Immediately Annie stiffened.
‘I’m not used to things like this,’ she remind
ed him defensively. It hurt to know that he thought her touch too clinical to be arousing, even though she told herself that it ought not to.
‘Perhaps it would be better if I gave you a small demonstration?’ Falcon suggested.
Before she could say anything he had poured some of the lotion into his own hand and was turning her around.
She was wearing her hair up in a knot for coolness, and she could feel the warmth of Falcon’s breath as he leaned closer to her. Was he going to kiss her? Her stomach turned liquid with a longing that turned to disappointment when he didn’t. Only for that disappointment to go up in flames of fresh sensual excitement when he eased the straps of her swimsuit down. Frantically she clutched the front of it to her breasts, whilst Falcon began to slowly stroke and circle trails of hot desire on the vulnerable flesh of her bare back.
How could something as simple as putting on sun cream be so unbearably erotic? Annie felt as though she had entered a whole new world of sensation and discovery. What Falcon was doing was giving her a master class in the art of sensual massage, she recognized, as her body took fire and her inhibitions were burned away.
Long before he had reached the base of her spine her body was urging her to beg him to remove her swimsuit completely and take her in his arms. Surely it wasn’t possible for her to be feeling like this so quickly, so easily, and so...so intensely? Perhaps Colin had been right when he had warned her all those years ago that there was something about her that meant she needed protecting from her own too-sexual nature?
As though somehow her thoughts and fears had communicated themselves to Falcon, he turned her around to face him, his hands firm and cool on her upper arms, holding her safe, making her feel safe.
‘You are aroused and that is exactly what I intended to happen,’ he told her calmly. ‘It’s a completely natural reaction to my deliberately erotic stimulation of your body and your senses. It’s nothing to feel ashamed of or concerned about. Rather, you should feel proud of your inbuilt ability to be the woman nature designed you to be. No matter what your stepbrother might have told you, responding sensually to a man who has aroused your desire does not make you bad or promiscuous or any of the other things I suspect he said to poison you against yourself.’