‘Each to his own.’ She shrugged again, refusing to take the bait he was offering her.
He smiled. He watched her watch the smile materialise with the kind of concentration that set his juices flowing. ‘He fancied you like hell,’ he inserted softly. ‘And had to gulp champagne to stop himself making a grab for you.’
Her blue eyes began to flash a warning of anger. ‘If you noticed that, then you should also have noticed that I didn’t take him on,’ she pointed out.
‘With a face and a figure like yours, Miss Deyton,’ he derided, ‘you should never need to take any man on because they will do all the running for you.’
‘With cynicism like yours, Mr Cardinale,’ she countered, ‘I am not surprised that you hold that opinion.’
‘Giancarlo,’ he said, making those amazing eyes blink. ‘My close friends call me Giancarlo…’
He sat back to watch lazily the way her spine began to straighten and the glass came carefully down upon the table—most effective body language, he determined.
‘I’m an employee, not a friend,’ she asserted, glancing pointedly at her gold wrist-watch as she did so.
She was preparing to back off again. He took his chance and snaked his hand out to capture one of hers as it began to slide away from the glass. Like a butterfly struggling in his palm, he felt her fingers flutter, then go perfectly still.
‘You will call me Giancarlo from now on,’ he repeated. ‘And I will call you Natalia—you understand me?’
Yes, he saw that she understood very well what he was saying, but he also saw by the guard she’d placed on her eyes that she was never going to admit that. So he explained it more fully. ‘I don’t mind doing all the running when I am interested. In fact I rather enjoy it,’ he admitted. ‘But I mean to catch. So be prepared, mia cara,’ he warned with smooth, sensual emphasis, ‘for the time when I drink champagne with you. For it will not be to drown out my desires, but to inflame them. And you will drink and be inflamed also.’
Her cheeks were growing warm, her eyes darker. He watched her lean towards him over the table, and waited to see what she was going to come back with.
‘It is not going to happen, signor, so forget it,’ she said in hot rejection. Then she snatched her hand away and rose to her feet and, without another word, simply walked away from him.
He let her do it too! Natalia could feel him sitting there, burning mocking darts into her back as she wove her taut body between the restaurant tables on her way to the door.
Outside she paused for a moment to suck in some deep breaths of cold February air. Her cheeks were burning but her flesh felt like ice. And why not when she hadn’t even got a coat on? The way she was shivering had nothing to do with him and what he’d dared to say to her! she told herself crossly.
But she had to get away from here, she decided, taking a few jerky steps before she pulled to a stop again. No coat, she repeated. No purse either. When he’d hurried her out into the taxi to come here, she hadn’t given a thought to her personal items all still waiting where she had left them, in her fifth-floor office, which had been such a haven to her for the last six months—until Giancarlo Cardinale had decided to invade it!
Or invade her, she then amended with a squeezing sensation deep down in her body. An arm looped around her waist. She almost groaned in frustration. He stood at least six inches above her and was crowding her like a great grizzly bear!
Only he was no bear—grizzly or otherwise. He was smooth and sleek and tormentingly masculine. ‘I don’t want you to want me,’ she told him in a thin, tight little voice.
‘Too late,’ he said. ‘I already want you. All we need to do now is get you to admit that you want what I want, then we can place this affair on an even footing.’
‘I don’t have affairs,’ she threw back. And affair just about said it for Natalia. Not relationship or even emotional involvement, but an affair of the body. Physical, basic.
She thought she heard him huff out a sound of scorn, though she could have been mistaken because he was hailing down a passing black cab at the time. But even the suggestion that he was scorning her statement was enough to keep her tense and distant as he hustled her into the taxi.
Long, lean, and as lithe as hell, he sat down beside her, then proceeded to stretch his body so he could fish in his pocket for something while her body went into tension overload as she watched him, and the cabby waited for him to say where they were heading for next.
A piece of paper appeared. She recognised it as the same one he had been scrawling something down upon after his girlfriend had telephoned this morning.
If he’s intending to take me to meet her, she thought hysterically, then he really is as crazy as I’m beginning to suspect!
He relayed an address on the other side of the City, then settled back beside her while the driver began feeding the cab into the traffic.
‘I would prefer to go straight back to the office,’ she told him frostily.
‘We will, later,’ he replied. ‘We have things to do first…’
Which instantly shot her to pieces. ‘I don’t want to do anything with you!’
He looked at her, she looked at him, lightning flashed—and they fell on each other. It was that quick, that hot, and that torrid. Mouth straining against mouth, breathing fast and fevered. It was shocking, a terrible dive into absolute abandonment…
Giancarlo couldn’t believe this was actually him! But he wanted her—badly—and he wanted her now! And it had to happen in the back of a London black cab, of all places, with no privacy and no hope of taking it where he desperately needed it to go!
But her mouth really did taste of heaven, as his senses had been telling him it would from the first moment he’d set eyes on her. The sheer exquisite I-can’t-get-enough-of-this pleasure of it was completely taking him over. And while he devoured she let herself be eaten, denying him nothing—nothing.
She was his for the taking…
This shouldn’t be happening, Natalia was telling herself over and over. It made no difference. She loved the taste of him too much, the tight masculine domination with which the kiss was being sold.
He tasted of wine, and hot desire. She was dizzy on one and burning up on the other.
Oh, someone save me! She groaned when his hand came to curve over one of her breasts and the flesh beneath came alive in a burgeoning thrust that must have left him in no doubt as to what she was feeling.
This was it, the point of no return for her. She knew it and she suspected that he knew it. She either stopped him now or she surrendered completely.
It was the taxi pulling to an abrupt standstill that had them both breaking apart. They had arrived, apparently, though Natalia was too dazed to know where they were.
To give him his due, if the cabby had noticed what they’d been doing in the back of his cab he made no sign of it as Giancarlo paid him, adding a rather large tip, she suspected, going by the pleasant way the driver responded.
Opening the door, Giancarlo reached for her hand, then stepped out on the pavement trailing her with him as he went. Neither had looked directly at the other since the kiss. But she could feel its heat on her lips still and the hand he had folded round one of hers was very possessive.
He was gazing at the frontage to a large building built in stone which reminded her of just one of many Victorian office blocks that dotted this area of the City. But when they stepped into its luxurious foyer, she began to realise that this was no ordinary office block, but a block of highly exclusive City apartments, with a concierge who rose to his feet behind his workstation and smiled politely as they approached him.
Giancarlo gave his name and was handed a plastic card, then was directed towards the lifts and told to use it in the lift to gain access to the top floor. Natalia managed to take back her hand as they walked towards the lift. He said nothing. They still hadn’t looked at each other.
No surprise there, she thought tensely, when you think what happ
ened the last time.
The lift doors slid open, and Giancarlo waited politely for her to precede him inside. It was lined from ceiling to floor with tinted mirror glass, and she went to stand in the far corner and kept her face lowered because she just didn’t want to see what her reflection was going to tell her if she did dare look up and catch a glimpse of herself. The lift began to rise. Giancarlo had taken up a position in the other corner across from her. She sensed his brooding study but refused to meet it. The silence was stifling, the tension so fraught it began lifting the hairs all over her body. If something didn’t break it soon she had a horrible feeling she was going to burst out crying.
Maybe he knew it. ‘Natalia,’ he murmured, using her name with husky intimacy that ran through her blood like mercury. ‘You can look at me; I am in control now.’
Well, bully for you, she thought with acid satire. Now ask me if I am in control! But despite the inner quip, she found herself lifting her head with a defiance that burned in her eyes as they hit him.
‘Who owns this place?’ she asked, using the first nonprovoking question to pop into her head.
‘A—friend of mine,’ he answered with his voice—while his eyes most definitely brooded on other things. ‘He is into property development. This building has only recently begun letting its space.’
‘Office space?’ she sliced sweetly at him.
‘No.’ He shook his dark head—and her fingers itched to grab hold of it and pull it down until his mouth hit hers.
Oh, damn, she cursed…
Damn it… Giancarlo was cursing silently. If she continued to look at him like that it was likely he would stop this lift and show her how much it was costing him to remain this passive.
‘Apartments,’ he answered levelly. ‘I need a place to stay while I am in London as well as a place to work from, and this will be the ideal solution.’
‘You’ve been here before? Last night, for instance?’
Ah! He began to get an idea as to what was really eating at her. Not the serious risk of torrid sex in a rising lift—but the risk that she was about to be walked into his busy den of iniquity.
He allowed himself a small grimace, seeing that the hook he had used to concentrate her mind on him had now become a hindrance to the developing situation.
So, ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Last night I stayed with the property developer himself and his lovely wife—Serena Delucca,’ he placed succinctly, watching carefully as her expression began to show the slow dawning of full understanding.
‘Playing games, signor?’ she grimly mocked him.
‘Don’t we all, signorina?’ he dryly returned.
Her breasts began to ache. They had no right to do so when the conversation could not be even vaguely considered sexual.
No? a little voice inside her head scoffed. Every single thing the two of you do or say is so sexual it should be X-rated!
The lift stopped. They both straightened away from the walls. The doors slid open. They stepped out together into a wide, light, square inner foyer with shiny white-tiled flooring and magnolia walls, and no doors but wide, deep-set, angular openings that linked room to room in a way meant to convey the impression of space and light and freedom of movement.
It also came pre-furnished, in a style designed to complement its open planning. Nothing stood out, nothing glared back at you, just a clever blend of natural shades and fabrics that were so easy on the eye you could almost miss them.
‘Nice,’ she said, not sure if she liked it.
‘Bland,’ he replied, showing he felt the same as she did. ‘Serena’s choice, if I am not mistaken. Being a black-haired, black-eyed witch, she likes to make an impression in any given situation. And she would make an impression in here,’ he said.
Then he turned to look at Natalia.
‘No,’ she gasped when she saw his expression. But it was already too late. His hand snaked up, pulled the clasp from her hair, then stood back to watch the silken strands tumble in a glistening copper flow down her neck and over her shoulders until they settled like a caress to the curve of her breasts.
‘Now that,’ he drawled, ‘is what I call making an impression.’
Copper-fire hair, white skin, rose-coloured lips, wide, shock-darkened lover-blue eyes, he listed covetously. Long black suit hugging a slender body, breasts that wanted to feel his touch again—and a pair of amazing legs which were taking her backwards in a useless bid for escape.
She’d missed her only chance, he saw, as her wary reversing took her right away from the open lift. Which left her with nowhere else to go but deeper into the apartment, treading bright white tiles on slender heels that made tiny tapping sounds as she went.
He began to track her, his hand snaking out to flick the button that would send the lift away. Watching him do it, she realised her mistake, her lips fell open and began to tremor, and his chest began to beat to the drum of the chase.
‘Th-this isn’t funny,’ she stammered on a constricted flow of air.
‘I am not laughing,’ he pointed out, lifting his hand up to the knot of his tie to slowly begin pulling at it.
If it was possible her eyes grew wider, flickering from his fingers to his eyes in a slightly wild stare of disbelief.
He said nothing else. He didn’t need to. The tie came loose and he began sliding it leisurely from around his throat. He let it fall in a snake-like slither to the floor, then began unhooking shirt buttons.
She went stock-still—then jerked a hand up to press it against her upper chest, and he smiled as he came to a standstill, because he knew she had picked up the same beat he was feeling.
‘Going to stop me?’ he taunted softly while his fingers continued slowly slipping open buttons. ‘All you need to do is say the word, and it stops right here…’
The big test. The acid test. Natalia knew she was hovering on the edge of a rather large precipice. She either backed herself right off it, or she held her ground. It was her choice. He was giving her the choice.
Her mouth was dry, her throat tight, her body pulsing to its own hectic rhythm. There he was, standing there, no longer looking quite so razor-sharp any more, with his tie gone and his shirt buttons half open down his front so she could see tantalising glimpses of golden skin and dark body hair—and even smell that illusive scent she recognised on an another level of consciousness as utterly seductive.
Pheromone, they called it. The sexually aroused male putting out messages to the sexually aware female.
But this male and this female—? She lifted her gaze to his dark, compelling eyes and saw the capital red letters DANGER gleaming warningly there. Think of the complications, she told herself. Think of Edward—the lies! Think what you could be risking here!
Think of that mouth fixed on your mouth, her foolish heart suggested, sending her eyes flickering again on a downward path over a face she didn’t seem to be able to look at enough. Then onto his hands, which made her flesh tingle with excitement, and his body, which filled her with such clamouring hunger.
And what was it but sex? she tried telling herself. I can do that! I can live with that! I can enjoy this man then let him go when it’s time to call a stop to it before it has a chance to hurt other people! I can do it, she insisted, and felt her heart give a heavy thump at the decision, then start racing furiously as if it knew something she didn’t…
What was she thinking? What was going on inside that beautiful head to make her stand there looking at him like that? Indecision? Uncertainty?
Loyal thoughts of Edward?
The very suggestion made something violent wrench inside of him, and in angry response to it he began striding forward. He didn’t want to hear Edward’s name falling from her trembling lips, so he was going to make damn sure it didn’t happen!
Reaching for her, he fed his fingers into her glorious mass of hair, used his thumbs to cup her chin so he could keep that exquisite face turned up to his—then lowered his head and kissed her. The sheer he
at of her response reached right down to the very core of his manhood. He heard himself groan. She let out a little whimper that told him she was experiencing exactly the same as he. The knowledge soared like a phoenix rising out of the fire of his anger to consume him with the need to make her catch fire too.
He altered his stance, inviting her closer. She came without hesitation, sinking into him and lifting her hands to fold them around his neck while he sent his sliding slowly downwards. Over her shoulders, down her back, feeling the hectic pulse of her heart as he passed over her ribcage, then on down until finally they settled against the curving firmness of her hips.
And through it all their mouths strained against each other. Warm and hungry, soft and deep. He was back in control. The seduction was on. They had only one place to go from here.
Yet—what did he do?
He broke the kiss, looked deep into her passion-glazed, most definitely sultry blue eyes which held all the promises of life’s rarest pleasures just waiting for him to tap into them—and he changed his mind.
‘No,’ he said, quietly and very calmly.
She began to frown, her softly parted, gently pulsing mouth still feeling his mouth against it. ‘No?’ she replied in sweet confusion.
‘No,’ he confirmed, but kissed her again to soften the blow before he added huskily, ‘We will not do this now. The timing is bad. We have an apartment to view. I have an important meeting to attend in less than an hour. I should be ashamed of myself. You deserve better than a quick roll on the nearest bed we can find. I beg your forgiveness. Next time I will show a little more—finesse, I promise you.’
‘Finesse,’ she repeated, seeming to register only that one word out of everything he had said. Her eyelashes fluttered down, making the tip of his tongue tingle with a desire to reach out and follow their gently curving spread against her cheekbones. Her body drew back, her fingers trailing very slowly from his nape to his chest, where his gaping shirt proved no barrier against the burning touch of her palms as she flatted them against him—then pushed him away.
A Sicilian Seduction Page 6