‘There’s a tarantula in the bathroom!’ They both spoke at the same time but her shriek was definitely a few hundred decibels above his.
‘Get up!’ Rose demanded frantically. ‘You have to go and kill it! Now!’
‘You mean before it kills us?’
‘It’s not funny, Gabriel!’ Rose felt close to tears. ‘I have a…real fear of spiders.’ She imagined it crawling out of the bathroom and scurrying across the wooden floor to her mattress and she broke out in nervous perspiration.
‘Okay. You wait here.’ He levered himself up, glanced around for something, finally settling for one of the glasses, and disappeared into the bathroom, taking care to close the door behind him.
In his absence, Rose huddled as tightly as she could in her sheet and tried not to think of small, furry creatures finding their way underneath it.
Where was the calm, practical secretary now? She groaned to herself. She could barely look at him as he exited the bathroom with a grin on his face. Not that she could actually see the grin, but she knew it was there from the lope of his walk.
‘Where is it?’ Rose asked in a small voice. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not being much help so far, am I?’
Gabriel lay down and turned to face her. ‘I put it through the window. It was more scared of me than I was of it.’ He lightly stroked her hair away from her face and Rose didn’t tense up as she normally would have. ‘I know you don’t like being the damsel in distress, but there’s no need to apologise for being afraid of a spider. You’re not the exception. Most people are afraid of spiders.’
‘Except you.’
‘I fear nothing.’
That drew a smile from her, but only for a second, then she sobered up and said quietly, ‘But that’s not why I’m here. To be a burden that needs looking after—scared of spiders, scared of thunder and lightning. I’m not functioning properly at the moment, I’m afraid.’
‘Why is that, I wonder? Maybe you’re homesick.’ Gabriel had never been so intensely aware of a woman in his life before. If he edged one inch closer to her, he would explode. ‘Maybe you’re missing what’s-his-name…’ He realised, with some surprise, that what’s-his-name had actually been on his mind. ‘What is his name? Did you ever say? Oh, yes. You did. Joe. Maybe you’re missing Joe. Being in love can do strange things to a woman.’
Rose, lulled into a cocoon of security, with the gale force winds gusting outside and the rain as clamorous as hailstones clattering down on a tin roof, was yanked back to reality by the mention of Joe. Joe, whom she had completely forgotten. Joe, perfectly nice and suitable Joe, who was supposed to be her passport to overcoming her feelings for the very inappropriate Gabriel Gessi.
She pulled away, suddenly horrified by her compromising position.
‘Can it? Yes, I suppose it can.’
Not the answer Gabriel was hoping for. Not when he was in the process of freely admitting to himself that he wanted this woman, for reasons beyond his comprehension.
‘What does that mean?’ he found himself asking.
‘It means that this conversation is inappropriate.’
‘Nothing that’s going on here at the moment is appropriate, or hadn’t you noticed? We’re halfway across the world. We’re being buffeted by a hurricane outside. We’re sharing a mattress on a floor. I’m all but naked and so are you.’
‘I…I…’
‘Yes?’ Gabriel prompted silkily. ‘You…what? Want to disagree with something I’ve said?’
‘I don’t think we should be having this conversation!’ Rose heard the panic in her voice and wondered whether he had detected it as well.
‘Why? We could talk about work but somehow…I don’t think the circumstances are quite right for that.’
‘We should go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day. Lots to do.’
‘I was sleeping until you jumped on me.’
‘For a reason!’
‘But now I’m fully awake and so are you. So let’s discuss this sudden love you think you’ve discovered. I’m curious how it can all happen so quickly.’
‘And I’m curious as to why you’re curious in the first place!’ Desperation was beginning to lace itself in between the panic but the option of returning to her room was now non existent after the tarantula episode.
‘Because it’s out of character,’ Gabriel told her. ‘And anything that out of character can’t be right.’
‘You think you know me, but you don’t,’ Rose muttered, half truthfully because he sure as heck didn’t know how she felt about him.
‘You mean you’ve always hopped into bed with men you’ve only known for a couple of hours?’
‘I haven’t hopped into bed with anybody!’ Rose objected and immediately regretted her talent for telling the truth when she saw him smile smugly.
‘Now, that’s more like my Rose.’ Some men knew women and Gabriel was one of them. Women loathed being stereotyped. Rose might be sharper, cleverer, funnier and a damn sight more on the ball than the women he had always dated in the past, but she was still a woman. And a woman he wanted. Increasingly. Everything about her had been getting to him recently and lying on a mattress next to her, admittedly under some pretty weird conditions, was not conducive to his attraction abating.
Every primitive instinct in him reared into ferocious life. He had never felt anything like it before. His need to have her, right here and right now, was overwhelming. Accustomed as he was to being in control, the sensation of suddenly being swept along on a roller coaster ride of desire was strangely erotic.
‘Because I’m dull?’ Rose snapped.
‘Anything but.’
‘I haven’t slept with Joe because we’re still in the process of getting to know one another.’ She wondered how this situation fitted in with her getting to know another man. And, never mind the situation, how her feelings of suppressed excitement at lying next to Gabriel fitted in with her plans for moving forward with her life, trying on a bit of healthy dating for size. How was she ever going to progress any relationship with a man if her body was still so stubbornly and frantically aware of her boss? How? ‘I don’t believe in rushing into things. Not if they’re to last.’
‘And you think what you and some man you’ve spoken to a couple of times have is going to last?’
‘Why not?’ Rose said defensively. She was finding it impossible to tear her eyes away from him and the soft, lazy drawl of his voice seemed to drown out the chaos of the weather outside. How was that possible? she wondered. And how was it fair?
‘All relationships have to start somewhere,’ she whispered. She turned away abruptly and lay on her back, staring upwards at the ceiling. He hadn’t laid a finger on her but he might as well have, because her body was responding to his proximity with a mind of its own. Her breasts ached and the moistness between her legs was a shameful reminder of how insanely attracted she was to him. She knew that she was breathing heavily and quickly but she didn’t care because it was a feat in itself to have broken the mesmerising spell of his gaze.
‘No truer word was ever spoken,’ Gabriel murmured.
The soft, feathery touch of his finger on her arm made her swivel to face him.
‘What…are you doing?’ she croaked.
‘Touching you. Do you like it?’
‘No.’ Rose felt faint.
‘Yes, you do.’ Gabriel’s voice was as soft as silk. ‘Every relationship has to start somewhere. You’re absolutely right.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gabriel.’ Her words were punctuated by the sound of the shutters being blown back as the gale force winds ferociously tried to attack the inside of the villa. Gabriel jumped up and even for him it was a struggle to secure them back into place. When he was finished he turned to her, arms folded, and walked towards where she was now half sitting up on the mattress.
‘I’m going to check on the rest of the place,’ he told her, ‘make sure that everything’s as secure as it’s possible to
be.’
‘I’ll come.’
‘No.’
‘But…’
‘If anything needs securing, you won’t be able to help with it. I’m no chauvinist, but even I have to acknowledge that I’m probably going to be better at doing something that requires brute strength.’ And besides, he thought to himself, he didn’t want her putting on her secretarial hat. He didn’t want her sticking on her jeans and gathering herself together. He wanted her warm and wide-eyed and lying next to him. He wanted…
He could feel his body responding to the thought of what he really wanted.
‘I’ll be half an hour. You stay here.’
Right, Rose thought, as soon as he had left the room. Time for a think. Time to get the brain processes into gear. Put some clothes on. Maybe even drag the mattress back into her room. She might be scared of errant tarantulas but how much scarier was the thought of Gabriel returning, touching her, talking in that low, husky voice that made minced meat of all her good intentions?
She groaned softly and her hand strayed to where her cotton underwear was mortifyingly damp. Just talking to her—that was all he had done—had left her body throbbing and on fire. One touch there and she knew she would fall helplessly off the edge into mindless orgasm.
No!
Before she could dwell on the heat coursing through her body and on her own craving to have him quench it with his touch, she sprang to her feet and began dragging the mattress towards the door. It was pretty heavy and cumbersome. He had made it seem lightweight when he had dragged it through, but then, as he had said, he was equipped for the heavy duty stuff.
She had her back to the door and was busily trying to get some sort of grip that would turn the unwieldy object into something more manageable, when he spoke and Rose jumped in shock.
‘What are you doing?’
Rose blinked in confusion. ‘I thought you were going to be gone for at least half an hour? Checking that everything was nailed down?’ She was still clutching one tip of the mattress and noticing that he was damp, probably caught out by the rain in one of the rooms. His black hair glistened.
‘Everything’s nailed down. What are you doing?’
‘I’m going back to my room,’ Rose mumbled. ‘I think it’s for the best.’
‘Mind if I ask why?’
Rose dropped the mattress and it thudded against the back of her legs, making her stumble. Unless she suddenly developed the secret of body displacement, there was no way she was going to leave the room, not while Gabriel was standing in front of the door, arms folded, as immovable an object as she had ever set eyes on.
‘Because the situation seems to be getting a little out of hand.’ Rose aimed for her usual crisp voice but it had deserted her. In its place, was something nervous and unsteady and her eyes skittered away from his face.
‘I didn’t come over here…to…for…’ Her words faltered and she cleared her throat. ‘The weather’s making us both behave out of character and…’
‘The weather has nothing to do with it,’ Gabriel said dismissively. ‘And we’re behaving perfectly in character…’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Rose said faintly.
‘You can scuttle back to your room, Rose. I’m not going to stand in your way, but make no mistake—we want one another. There’s no use you pretending that you’ve got the perfect man in the background. He might be perfect but he’s not perfect for you or else your whole body wouldn’t quiver when I touch you.’
‘How dare you?’ Rose said weakly. ‘That’s simply not true…’
‘No? Then you wouldn’t mind if I put it to the test…’
Rose’s mind shrieked a frantic, Yes, yes I would mind! But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Worse, her eyelids fluttered and, as his mouth touched hers, every bone in her body seemed to turn to water. That probably explained why she found herself leaning against him and why her hands curved upwards around his neck, drawing him down to her as she hungrily, greedily, returned his kiss.
Nothing had prepared her for this. That first kiss had been a taster but this was the real thing. He had told her that he wanted her and, just in case she was in any doubt, his kiss was putting paid to that.
His tongue invaded her eager mouth and his hand was on her waist, making sure that she was pressed against him so that she could feel the hardness of his arousal.
Rose whimpered and, when he drew back slightly, she moaned, wanting him back.
‘Do you still want to go back to your room?’ Gabriel murmured. ‘Because, if you do, then tell me now, right now. And I’ll take the mattress in for you. But if you stay, then…’ He left his sentence unfinished but Rose knew exactly what he meant. If she stayed, then there would be no turning back. They would make love and to hell with what came afterwards, to hell with reality waiting just around the corner. He was giving her the opportunity to change her mind.
‘What about…tomorrow…?’ She had to ask the question and she didn’t mean tomorrow in the literal sense. He understood immediately.
‘For me, tomorrow is a bridge to cross. But not now. Too much planning for tomorrow dilutes the chance of enjoying today. But that’s me. For you…decide now, Rose.’
Rose realised that she knew him too well to escape his meaning. Strip away all the waffle about bridges and enjoying todays…he was telling her to either give in to lust and enjoy the moment because there would be nothing else forthcoming, or else abandon the exercise while he was affording her the chance.
Rose met his eyes steadily and then smiled ruefully. ‘But I’ll always blame it on the weather,’ she murmured before reaching up to touch his face against the palm of her hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WORLD WAR THREE could have been happening outside. In terms of the weather, World War Three probably was happening outside, but Rose was unaware of it. Gabriel pushed the mattresses back together and then turned to her.
‘Don’t take anything off. I want to undress you. It’s been my fantasy for a while.’
‘Has it?’Now that, Rose thought, was a truly sexy remark and not one she had ever thought she would hear, least of all from Gabriel, the object of her own fantasies for as long as she could remember.
‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured. ‘You have no idea how erotic some of your buttoned-up suits can be.’ He circled her waist with his hands and then, slowly, oh, so slowly, pushed up her T-shirt, savouring every minute of her gradual exposure. First her stomach, silky smooth and flat, then, he drew his breath in swiftly, her breasts, full and perfectly formed with big rosy nipples that begged to be taken into his mouth.
He thought of her, sitting in front of him in his office, legs crossed, notepad on her knee, the epitome of sensible efficiency. When he equated the image with the woman standing in front of him, half naked now as he carelessly tossed the T-shirt on the ground, groaning as he took her breasts in his hands, he had to will himself to go slowly.
He led her towards the makeshift bed, wishing that he could make love to her in his own king-sized bed in his house. Then he thought that there were lots of other places he would like to have made love to her, not all of them feasible, so a couple of mattresses on the ground was no big deal.
And the storm outside lent a certain something to the ambience.
He got undressed when she was lying on the mattress, gazing up at him. He had never been the sort of man who gloried in his good looks but it was a hell of a turn-on to be performing a strip tease of sorts in front of her.
She was still wearing her panties, white cotton ones. He liked them. In fact, he preferred them to the raunchy, lacy numbers he had encountered in the past, the sort of knickers that left very little, if anything, to the imagination. For the first time ever, he wondered why women seemed to think that obvious won over simple when it came to underwear.
He lowered himself gently on to her. He would take this very slowly. He would savour every leisurely minute of it. And he would start with her mouth, her fu
ll, inviting mouth.
Under him, her breasts were soft. He would get there later. The anticipation was excruciating.
Having him lie on her, feeling him hard against her thighs…Rose knew, without a doubt, that she was doing the right thing. At least for the moment. The years, she could now see, had tipped her infatuation into something much, much deeper, and while for him this would only be a physical act, for her it was everything. She moaned softly as his mouth found her neck and he trailed feathery kisses down to her shoulders. When he reached her breasts she squirmed and then sighed blissfully as he began suckling on one aroused nipple, drawing it into his mouth, tasting it the way someone would taste an exquisite morsel of food.
The storm inside her was raging. Even with the savage noise of rain and wind, she could hear herself groaning as she writhed under his exploring mouth.
He was in no hurry. He seemed prepared to linger over her breasts for ever. Rose had always been self-conscious about her body. Her face was average, which was something she could handle, but her breasts were too big. She had been an early developer and had never quite recovered from the shame of being the first in her class to get a chest, and a sizeable one at that. That she had been slim at the time had only made matters worse. So she had put on weight. What couldn’t be hidden could at least be camouflaged. Her weight had, in turn, made her self-conscious in front of men and she had never really relaxed or enjoyed sex with the partners she had had, all two of them.
She was making up for lost time. She didn’t feel an ounce of shame or modesty as Gabriel continued his attentions to her breasts and when he raised his head and told her that she had the most beautiful breasts he had ever seen, she felt heady with pleasure.
‘Fantastic nipples,’ he murmured, rising up to kiss her and at the same time pressing himself against her sensitised, swollen clitoris so that she shuddered in swift, immediate response. ‘I could lick them for ever. Did you like me doing that?’
Rose nodded and he nuzzled into her ear. ‘Then why don’t you tell me…?’
‘I did. Like it. You know I did.’
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