In a Storm of Scandal

by Kim Lawrence

  Poppy, one hand thrown above her head, lay still, her eyes glued to the sleek hard lines of his bronzed torso, watching the play of muscle gliding under smooth skin. Her throat tightened and tears prickled the backs of her eyes as deep down inside her things shifted—he was so beautiful it hurt!

  She had wanted this for so long!

  Luca watched her, his eyes so dark and hot she couldn’t breath. She could feel them burning a path over her skin through her clothes … too many clothes.

  Maybe he read the thought or maybe he just knew what women wanted—either way he reached for the hem of her sweater and tugged it up her body and over her head.

  ‘That looks a lot better on,’ he said, looking at the tartan bra.

  He slid a hand under her back and found the catch. ‘Dio mio,’ he breathed reverently as her full breasts sprang free of their confinement. ‘But I like this even better.’

  He touched one rosy tipped peak and felt her gasp.

  A predatory glow of satisfaction shone in his eyes. ‘You’re so sensitive,’ he marvelled. ‘Just relax, let me …’

  Poppy opened her mouth to respond and forgot what she was going to say, she forgot everything as he began to touch her, everywhere, his fingers and mouth gliding over her skin with a skill that awoke every single nerve ending in her body. And all the time he touched her she was aware deep down inside of something building, something dark and hot.

  A little sliver of anxiety slid into her mind. He was so perfect—would he find her beautiful? She wanted to be beautiful for him.

  He nuzzled her ear, kissing, his warm breath sending delicious shivers through her body as he whispered, ‘Stop thinking, just feel, cara.’

  The pleasure seemed almost too much to bear as his fingers trailed fire as they slid up the smooth skin of her inner thigh. It wasn’t until his fingers moved higher into the heat and moisture of her arousal, parting the delicate folds to seek the throbbing nub, that she realised she was lying there totally naked.

  When did that happen?

  She smiled up at him and looked so wanton, sweet and almost shocked that he had to taste her. Gianluca brought his mouth down on hers and kissed her deeply as he fought to unfasten the buckle on the kilt.

  Poppy kissed him back with a fierce hunger, her tongue against his tongue, their hot breaths and sighs mingling in a hoarse chorus of excitement.

  ‘You’re incredible …’ Her passion and innate sensuality amazed and delighted him. Luca groaned when he was forced to reluctantly unwind her clinging arms from his neck.

  ‘One second, cara,’ he begged, kissing her hard before pulling back. ‘I need both hands for this unless I am to maim myself.’

  Poppy’s indignant pout of protest faded when she saw what he was doing. She watched as he successfully relieved himself of the restriction of the folds of heavy tartan fabric.

  As his erection sprang free and he knelt there naked and aroused she swallowed hard. Staring, she reached out, her fingers brushing the satiny tip before drawing back with a shocked gasp.

  ‘You do this to me,’ he said, taking her small hand and curving her fingers around the hard column.

  Poppy felt him pulse against the pressure and gasped. ‘Oh, God, you’re—’

  ‘Later,’ he growled, taking her hand and placing it on the pillow beside her face, doing the same with the other before he began to kiss his way down her body … slowly tasting every inch of her.

  Her skin burned where he touched, the pleasure came close to pain as Poppy bit her lip and gasped, her body arching as his hands caressed her thrusting breasts. When a moment later he lowered his body down onto hers the skin-to-skin contact sent a rush of pleasure through her body. Excited beyond bearing, she writhed beneath him, pushing up into his body, seeking to deepen the skin-to-skin contact.

  The force of Luca’s driving kiss pushed her head deep into the lavender-scented pillow.

  They kissed for several frantic moments before he pulled back. He brushed the hair back from her hot cheek with one hand, watching her face as he slid his free hand between her legs, letting his fingers slide into the slick heat, hearing her gasp his name over and over before he reached for the condom and arranged himself between her thighs.

  He heard her voice muffled against his neck murmur, ‘I can do this,’ and paused. It sounded as though she was convincing herself.

  ‘Has it been a long time?’

  ‘Oh, yes, long … very long …’

  ‘It’ll be good … just relax …’ Every sinew, every cell in his body ached with the driving need to possess her, it went bone deep, so strong he could taste it, but Luca fought the temptation to enter her in one powerful thrust. Instead he pushed slowly with infinite care a little at a time feeling her soften and tighten around him until she had almost taken him all, then he sighed and sank all the way.

  She moaned his name and buried her face in his shoulder, her hands sliding over his sweat-slick shoulders before moving to his back.

  How could she be that tight?

  She jerked beneath him, her limbs plastic as he wrapped her long legs around his hips before repeating the process in reverse, pulling out and sinking back in, each time a little farther, each time a little harder.

  The effort glossed his skin with perspiration that made it glow while beneath him Poppy, her eyes closed her lips parted, her face a mask of concentration, arched her back and clung, her fingernails digging into his shoulders. He used the pain, concentrating on it to help him cling to his control.

  ‘Oh, Luca, that is so … you … I can’t …’ Poppy moaned and clung, letting herself move with the rhythm he had built. She could feel him everywhere, hot and hard, the sensual friction as he moved intensifying the wild excitement inside her. She felt so hot she was on fire. She had never imagined such pleasure existed.

  Gianluca could feel her climax building. He let himself ride it with her, holding back, sharing the pleasure she was experiencing as the spasms and tremors of her body heightened his own pleasure to the point of pain.

  He held on until her climax burst. He let her cry wash over him and felt her body tighten in a series of paroxysms of pleasure before he let himself go.

  Panting, he rolled off her and removed the condom before rolling onto his back and waiting for his heart to slow.

  Poppy turned her head on the pillow and forced her heavy eyelids apart. ‘Thank you, that was … you are incredible …’ She touched his sweat-slick chest, tangling her fingers in the damp hair. ‘I never knew it would be so …’

  Luca stiffened and knew … never knew because she never had.

  How was it possible?

  He covered her hand with his and rolled on his side, breathing hard. As he looked at her lying there, her hair spread out on the pillow around her face, the flush of desire still giving her skin an almost opalescent sheen, he waited for the guilt to hit. She had been a virgin and he had slept with her—he ought to feel guilty.

  He didn’t. He felt a fierce primitive satisfaction that incredibly he had after all been her first.

  ‘So are you going to tell me how this is possible?’ His bewilderment was genuine. Poppy was the most innately sensual creature he had ever encountered; it made no sense that she had never had a lover. Unless …?

  The muscles along his jawline tightened as the idea took hold. ‘Did you have a … bad experience?’ The images that flashed through his head filled Luca with fury and a masculine frustration.

  The object of his protective instincts remained utterly oblivious to his agony.

  Poppy gave a luxuriant yawn and, stretching sinuously like a kitten, groaned. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’ Why spoil a perfect moment with explanations. Her brow puckered. ‘Bad experience … what do you mean …?’ Another yawn. ‘Is it possible to be drunk without actually drinking alcohol?’ She had never felt this high in her life. ‘I wasn’t very terrible, was I? No, that sounds needy. I was actually pretty great … I … Say something …’

&nbs
p; A little of the tension left his face as he smiled. ‘Yes, you were great.’

  ‘I really wanted to lose it, you know.’

  Luca inhaled deeply. ‘When you commit to something you do it very wholeheartedly,’ he breathed.

  ‘It had become a real … nuisance.’

  ‘Glad to be of help,’ he murmured faintly. Never expect Poppy to say what you expected. He should not, he realized, have forgotten that.

  ‘So it’s all right with you if I just enjoy the moment … my first time, the only one I’ll get to—’

  Luca collapsed onto the bed laughing in defeat. ‘All right, have your moment.’

  ‘And you’re not mad? Not that you have any right to be mad.’

  ‘I’m not mad, I’m … blown away if you must know,’ he growled.

  ‘And the whole point of one-night stands is no talking, just wham bam and thank you—and I’m talking a lot—’

  ‘This is not a one-night stand.’

  Stroking his thigh, she missed the anger in his voice. ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘Unfinished business.’

  She rolled onto her stomach and looked up at him. ‘And now it’s finished business?’

  He curved a possessive hand over the soft curve of her bottom. His eyes glowed as if lit from within. ‘I have barely started.’

  She chewed her lip. ‘That sounds interesting …’ She was amazed at how easily the teasing came. How relaxed she felt, how natural … Could it have been this way with anyone but Luca?

  The answer in her heart made her glad she had waited.

  The corners of his incredible eyes crinkled in a way she found fascinating. ‘I think I can do better than interesting.’

  The arrogant boast made her smile. ‘Talk is cheap,’ she taunted.

  He bent his head and kissed her hard and long enough for the heat to start building again, long enough for Poppy to lose any desire to talk.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE next day dawned and a quick glance through the curtains confirmed that the storm still raged. The rain driven against the glass by a force-ten gale meant that she didn’t have to think about what came next, she could just enjoy what came now.

  And if it was anything like last night the now was going to be pretty incredible.

  Poppy twitched the curtain back and, struggling to hide her delight, turned back to Luca, who lay stretched out on the bed, his eyes half closed, his glistening chest rising and falling rapidly.

  She gave a voluptuous sigh of pleasure, her heartbeat louder just looking at him. She would never regret her decision. Luca had not been a good teacher, he had been incredible!

  ‘It’s still bad out there.’ When there was no response she poked him in the ribs, drawing an indignant sleepy, ‘Hey!’

  Luca opened one eye.

  ‘You’re so lazy!’ she reproached.

  ‘Me lazy!’ he exclaimed. ‘Easy for you to bounce around.’ Bounce in every sense of the word, he thought as his eyes followed the undulations of her firm full breasts. ‘I was the one doing all the work.’

  She gave a sultry smile. ‘I’m willing to give it a try if you want to lie back and think of Italy!’

  His lean face split into a wide grin. ‘You are a wicked woman, Poppy Ramsay.’

  Poppy loved the sound of it … Wicked woman—it made her feel sexy and empowered. ‘I’m trying,’ she told him, her prim manner a stark contrast to her state of undress.

  ‘I might die trying to keep up with you.’

  She gave a chuckle. ‘Oh, you do all right for an old man.’

  Lucas sat up in bed. ‘Who are you calling an old man?’ His hand shot out without warning, his fingers curling around her ankle.

  Poppy made a token struggle as he dragged her across the bed towards him until they both sat facing one another.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Good question. The humour in his expression faded. ‘You’ve got me there …’

  Poppy shuffled in closer, wrapping her arms around his neck and pushing the coral tips of her breasts against his bare chest. ‘God, this is perfect … you’re perfect.’ She felt him stiffen and pulled back a little to look him in the face.

  ‘I am not perfect, Poppy.’

  Luca was not aiming for perfection, he was aiming for getting through life without being the cause of serious casualties to innocent bystanders, which was why he surrounded himself with people as tough, selfish and self-centred as he was.

  Poppy was soft, gentle, the total opposite.

  The fact you did not intentionally set out to hurt someone was not in his opinion any mitigation. In fact not being conscious of how your actions might impact on others was an indictment in itself.

  People he knew fooled themselves that they could change—become a better person. Gianluca had never bought into this self-delusional claptrap.

  He did not believe in redemption; he did not believe that a person could change their personality—better to be aware of your own deficiencies, lead your life accordingly. He would never be a nice, caring, considerate person capable of putting others before himself, but he sure as hell would make sure he didn’t destroy anyone else the way he had destroyed Aurelia.

  An image of his dead wife’s face floated through his head; shamefully her features were indistinct.

  The warning in his voice was clear. Her lashes swept downwards. ‘Poetic licence,’ she said lightly.

  ‘You do know that this is sex.’ What does she know about sex? the voice in his head heckled. ‘Don’t fall in love with me, Poppy.’

  His concern was not for himself, it was for Poppy. He had disconnected his emotions from the physical needs of his body a long time ago. It would take more than candles and a pair of big green eyes to change that, he told himself. He was in control of this situation.

  As he spoke the self-deception she had worked so hard to maintain peeled away exposing the truth—she loved Luca. She had never stopped loving him; even while she had been hurting and hating him she had loved him.

  She looked away for a moment and from somewhere found the strength to produce a smile and joke, ‘I’ll do my best—hard, of course, you being so irresistible …’

  Some truths hurt more than others … Poppy wanted to lie in the dark alone to recover … a century might do the trick.

  A shade of wariness remained in his eyes as he studied her face. Poppy reached up and brushed a hank of dark hair from his brow.

  ‘Is it all right if I fall a little in lust, Luca?’

  Poppy watched the wariness fade away as his eyes darkened dramatically. He grasped her hand and pressed his lips to the blue-veined inner aspect of her delicate wrist.

  A hot charge scorched a path along the relevant nerve endings, dragging a shaky gasp from her throat.

  Relieved that she had said something she was permitted to, Poppy told herself there was no harm in continuing to say what he wanted to hear, though for the duration the subject of love would remain a no-go area.

  And the way she saw it, the longer this storm lasted, the more likely it was that Luca would see that he cared for her more than he was prepared to admit.

  It might make her a hopeless optimist, or it might make her utterly deluded, but Poppy stubbornly refused to believe that anyone could make love with such exquisite tenderness and passion if their deeper emotions were not involved—just because things seemed unlikely didn’t mean they didn’t happen.

  If anyone had told her this time a week ago that she would be living out her secret fantasy, that her first lover would be Luca, man, she would have laughed at them, but here she was.

  Anything was possible.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS midday when Poppy fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion; at that point they hadn’t left the bed.

  When she woke she lay there for a moment staring at the canopy overhead wondering where she was and why were muscles she didn’t know she had hurting?

  Then it all came flooding back.
/>   With a gasp she turned her head to the pillow beside her—it was empty.

  She might have thought she dreamt it all had it not been for the intimate aches. She reached out and felt the indentation where his body had been—it was still warm.

  Almost fearfully she pulled aside the curtains. Her eyes went straight to the window. The sight of the storm-lashed landscape sent a rush of relief through her body as she flopped back with a sigh.

  She knew that the reprieve was only temporary. The storm would end and they would leave … maybe bump into each other again in seven years’ time. Luca might be married then, with a brood of children … He might not recognise her because she had taken up comfort eating and had several double chins.

  Pushing aside this depressing image of the future—a person didn’t have to sit back and meekly accept their fate, did they?—she got out of bed, her jaw set at a determined angle. Meek was one thing she had never been accused of.

  Then hurriedly—despite the fire burning cheerily it was freezing—she pulled on her clothes from the previous night.

  Luca was breaking the seal on a bottle of whisky he had discovered when he heard a light footfall on the floor behind him.

  From where he was sitting he could see the staircase and anyone on it. Poppy, he realized, must have used the narrow secondary staircase that came out in the boot room.

  ‘Hello there, sleepy head,’ he drawled, angling his head to see her approach reflected in the mirrored door of a lacquered Chinese cupboard that looked totally incongruous set against the rustic stone wall.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ she grumbled.

  Her big eyes looked back at him—well, not at him, at the back of his chair. They looked like dark mysterious shadows in her pale heart-shaped face.

  Luca’s mouth went dry and he felt a pressure in his chest. She was beautiful. Despite the fact they had spent the night and half the day in bed making love he wanted her. He saw her smile and he felt as if his heart would stop.