by Kim Lawrence
He was her dream, Anna thought. She held tight as he carried her at breakneck speed up the same staircase she had taken very recently.
The door of his bedroom was already open. The room was lit by a single lamp that burned on a low table beside the window. The yellow light was supplanted by the moonlight that shone in through the mullioned windows.
Cesare took her directly to the big four-poster bed that dominated the massive but relatively sparsely furnished room. Anna had no eyes for the décor, just for the man who held her. Holding her eyes, he laid her on it, pushing a pile of cushions away with his hand as he came to kneel over her.
He stroked his fingers down her cheek, spread the shiny mass of curls around her face and very slowly bent his head and kissed her.
Her chest lifted with the fractured sigh that locked in her chest. She moaned when he lifted his head. She was literally burning up with lust. She had never imagined feeling this much...wanting this much.
‘This is why people who aren’t crazy get pregnant.’
She wasn’t aware of having voiced the discovery until he cupped her chin in his hand and said fiercely, ‘I won’t let that happen to you. Just relax. I’ll look after things.’
It required no effort to do as he suggested because crazily she trusted implicitly the man she had spent every waking moment hating since they had met. Somewhere in all that hating she had fallen in love.
The words that she knew she couldn’t speak were in her head. She grabbed his head, framing it between her hands and kissed him hard to stop herself. ‘I know you will, but I need...don’t stop touching me, Cesare,’ she begged thickly. ‘I really need...’
‘Tell me,’ he urged, watching his control leave the room. She was just too tempting, too gorgeous, too hot for him. His powerful chest lifted as her deep drowning blue eyes opened.
‘I just need you.’ She reached up and began to unfasten the buttons on his shirt, pulling the fabric back as she worked her way upwards to reveal the defined slabs of muscle on his washboard-flat belly and the hair-roughened triangle on his otherwise smooth chest. His skin was like silk. She spread her fingers and let them glide with gloating pleasure over the warm surface, revelling in her first experience of sexual female power as Cesare sucked in a painful breath and groaned.
She was reaching for the belt of his trousers when he grabbed her hand, and, taking possession of her free hand planted them above her head.
He only stayed there suspended above her for a few moments but that was long enough for Anna to make a shattering discovery: surrender was a turn-on.
Trusting another person enough to surrender control was wildly exciting. Before she could properly explore the amazing possibilities of this discovery she found herself lying face to face, lips to lips, chest to chest, thigh to thigh with Cesare, whose long, lean, gorgeously hard length was lying beside her.
His heavy hand lay in the indent of her waist. The other sliding up under her nightshirt, along the smooth skin of her thigh and higher to her bottom, caused her to gasp.
She closed her eyes. His were burning too bright. The aching thickness in her throat made it impossible for her to articulate her feelings even had she known what they were, but it turned out it didn’t matter. He knew, he knew where to touch and how. He touched her everywhere until she simply couldn’t bear it any longer. It was then she realised that she was naked.
‘You’re perfect.’
Anna felt the tension drain from her shoulders. She was. She really was. She could be anything Cesare said, anything he wanted.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Looking at her sleek and slender body was everything he imagined and more. Hardly able to breathe, he cupped one plump, perfect breast in his hand even though he knew it threatened his already shaky control. The simple act of tasting the tight rosy bud, watching her face as he drew it into his mouth, was more erotic, more arousing than anything he could remember. For a long time sex had been an exercise, something he could do well, the moves planned and mapped. He was able to stand back, predict his partner’s response, even congratulate himself because he knew the beautifully choreographed coupling was visual perfection.
Satisfaction guaranteed every time, mocked the voice in his head, because Cesare knew the moves and he got ten out of ten for artistic interpretation, and so as a rule did his partner. Smooth, slick and satisfying—so what if he felt empty later? It looked good.
Anna was beautiful, but this was not about perfection, it was about raw, visceral feeling. He growled his rampant, throaty appreciation before he lifted his head and moved his thumb across the tight centre, drawing a shocked gasp that became a hoarse groan as his lips and tongue replaced the digit. This was no show-house coupling. It was raw and urgent and gloriously messy. Cesare had discovered chaos and he loved it!
Even in the midst of chaos he retained the knowledge that this was her first time, and it was his duty, his privilege, to make this experience a good one for her. But, God, she made it hard. How was a man meant to hold back when those hands, that mouth, they were everywhere?
As he stroked her stomach, his touch leaving hot trails on her skin, Anna could hardly bear it. Then he slid down her body and parted her thighs. The first touch of his fingers between her thighs made her stiffen in shock.
Then it was all right because he was feeding her hand onto his body, letting her feel him and then a moment later unzipping his pants to give her access to his erection.
‘Oh, yes...’
‘Absolutely,’ he agreed, kissing her as he slid his hand between her thighs. ‘That’s right,’ he encouraged as she parted them for him.
The heat flooding her face prickled like a dark tide under her skin as he separated the protective folds and touched the tight nub, rubbing his finger across the sensitised flesh until she couldn’t breathe, until she protested.
‘I can’t do this.’
‘Oh, yes, you can, cara,’ he promised, pulling away, but only to kick off his pants. Then, naked, he rejoined her. ‘You’re brilliant at this.’
Her awed glance slid down his long, lean body, trying not to linger too obviously on his arousal. He was breath-takingly perfect and obviously, even to her inexperienced eyes, very well endowed. ‘I am?’ Her fingers curled around his erection, drawing a deep groan. ‘Oh yes, I am.’
When he slid a finger into her, a long, low, feral moan emerged from her parted lips. Desperate now, Anna reached for him. Cesare was breathing soft, soothing, sexy words into her ears. It didn’t really matter she understood not a word of Italian, the hypnotic sound had a hypnotic effect.
The sense of eerie calm lasted as he slid into her. The pain much less than she had anticipated as her body stretched to accommodate him. Loving him hot and hard inside her, loving his weight pressing her down. Then, as he slid deeper into her slick, tight wetness, a switch flicked on in her brain. No longer calm, Anna was consumed by a frantic wild desperation to take all his hot velvet hardness into her.
‘More!’ she gritted, bucking beneath him, her nails digging into his shoulders, and he responded to her urging.
The end came so abruptly, so strongly that she saw black dots dance before her eyes as the pleasure of that final release drove her to the brink of consciousness. But she didn’t fall, she flew, feeling his hot release as she reached the stars.
‘Well, it’s obvious why you were a virgin. Like the man said, you’re frigid.’
Anna opened one eye and stretched languorously. ‘I’m laughing inside.’ Actually inside she was feeling muscles she hadn’t known she had.
He stroked her body. ‘So what’s the story? There must have been men.’
Anna raised herself up on one elbow, feeling weirdly comfortable with their naked states and his interested stare...
‘You never seen a naked woman before?’
�
�I’ve never seen a naked you before. Good God, Anna, what were the men in your life thinking of?’ How was it possible for this innately sensual creature to be untouched? It was as if, like a fairy-tale princess, she had been asleep. Hell, he was no prince. ‘You do know that this is just sex?’
‘I mentioned that I had a romance. It wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be—I was engaged.’ The hand on her bottom stilled. ‘The computer matched us. It was a celibate relationship, more a meeting of minds, but he respected me,’ she mocked with a laugh. ‘Though not, as it turned out, as much as he respected the underwear model he ran off with a week before the wedding.’
‘What a loser!’
Anna rolled on her back, his automatic scorn healing the unacknowledged wounds the rejection had inflicted on her pride. ‘I like to think so.’
‘His loss, my gain.’ Expression intent, he paused, his hand halfway to her plump breast. ‘You do know that—’
‘You want me for my body? No problem. I want you for yours.’ The lie came easily. She’d have done anything, said anything, to have this last a bit longer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TWO WEEKS LATER the lie came a lot less easily.
Over that time the sex stayed incredible but Anna was tortured by the knowledge that, for him at least, it would burn itself out and she was constantly alert to the signs, preferring to jump before she was pushed.
That way she would be left with memories and a modicum of pride. The decision made her feel mature and in control.
In the end she wasn’t prepared at all. Anna didn’t see the end coming until it was thrown on her bed, shiny and sparkling in the guise of diamonds. Her reaction was neither mature or controlled.
* * *
‘I miss you so much when you’re not here. I wish...I really wish...love...’
As the sleepy words translated in his head ultra-controlled, fearless Cesare experienced a moment of sheer gut-wrenching alien panic, followed a second later by utter rejection.
* * *
He might not have even heard the sleepy confession or the wistful addition had he not been too exhausted to move her after a wild and lengthy session of love-making. He did now, disconnecting their damp bodies as he slid off her. The sex these past weeks had been nothing like anything he had ever experienced, but it was just sex. She knew that. Feeling his resentment rise, he looked at her sleeping face with a mingling of messy emotions. Anger, fascination, compulsion.
And, oblivious, she lay curled up, her head tucked into the angle of his shoulder. Part of him, the cowardly part, desperately wanted to ignore what he had heard. The seemingly innocent words were not the problem but the response they required was.
He did not miss her.
Missing required a need, and Cesare did not need anyone.
* * *
The night before had been incredible so when she woke to find him fully dressed and announcing that he would be in London for the rest of the week she didn’t know how to respond.
Ruling out grabbing his leg and begging him not to go, she pulled the sheet up to her chin and struggled to sound okay with the idea of not seeing him for the next five days...and nights!
‘I-I didn’t realise.’ She swept the tangle of curls from her face, glanced at the clock and saw it was still only five in the morning. ‘I’ll make you coffee.’
He shook his head, the stammer always melted him. ‘No, I’m fine.’
A furrow pleated her brow. He didn’t look fine or sound fine. Distant was the word that came to mind when she looked at him.
‘Angel is back on Tuesday?’
She nodded.
‘I don’t know if you’ve discussed it, so when you leave is obviously between you two.’ He saw the look of shock on her face, the hurt reflected in her blue eyes and told himself this was the right thing to do, easier in the long run.
He couldn’t give her what she wanted.
‘But if I don’t see you...’
Another man would give her what she wanted.
Cesare closed his eyes and breathed through a blast of white-hot jealous fury and reached into his pocket as he cleared his throat.
‘If I don’t see you before...’
* * *
Her brow furrowed. Anna didn’t immediately realise what it was he had casually tossed onto the bed, then as she picked it up and recognised what it was her expression froze. The warmth drained from her body; she was ice.
‘What is this?’ she asked, no discernible expression in her flat voice as she stared at the sparkling diamond bracelet she held between her fingers.
‘You don’t like it?’ He shrugged. ‘No problem—you can return it and exchange it for something more to your taste if you prefer.’
No problem? No problem being treated like some sort of call girl paid for services rendered? Her chest tight with the emotions clenched like a fist there, Anna exhaled a long, slow, shaky breath and in one motion swept back the sheet and got to her feet. She was naked, every pale inch of her shivering with fury.
She tossed back her hair and took a step towards him, arching a haughty brow as she pinned him with a frosty, iridescent blue stare.
Unable to retain eye contact, Cesare looked downwards, his darkened eyes greedily caressing every inch of her pearly, sleek, quivering body. She was the living, breathing embodiment of his darkest fantasies.
‘And if I prefer the money?’ she challenged, baring her white teeth in a parody of a smile.
The comment enabled Cesare to drag his rampant stare back to her face. His dark brows flattened into a disapproving straight line as he rasped, ‘Do not be stupid.’
‘Why stupid?’ she asked, affecting elaborate surprise. ‘Isn’t this a payment for services rendered?’ Her lips twisted with distaste as she stared at the bracelet.
He swore and wondered if one day he might be able to appreciate the irony—the one time in his life he had ever felt compelled to walk into a jeweller’s because something in the window had made him think of her.
‘Do not act like a call girl. This is not you.’ He clenched his teeth and struggled for a level of calm. ‘If you do not like it—’
‘And if you don’t like me acting like a call girl don’t treat me like one!’ she yelled, flinging the bracelet at him.
Without taking his eyes from her face, he reached out and caught the glittering projectile.
‘Like it!’ she all but screamed. ‘I hate it and I hate you. How dare you insult me with your crappy bracelets? If you’re bored just say so, that’s fine, but don’t you dare try and pay me off!’
His jaw clenched, Cesare let the bracelet fall to the floor from his lax fingers and dragged a hand through his dark hair.
This was not going well.
And you really expected this to end well, Cesare? asked the wry voice in his head.
She was being unreasonable, shrill, emotional. She was being all the things he hated and he wanted to hold her, he wanted to take her in his arms and lay her on the bed...
She was being Anna.
‘I cannot do this.’
Anna blinked back the tears filling her eyes. ‘Oh, yes, you can. You’ve had a lot of practice. This is a first for me.’
Did she think he needed reminding?
She swallowed past the restriction in her throat. ‘So, sorry if I’m behaving like a human bloody being.’ With a sob she flung herself on the bed face down.
Anna thought she felt his hand on her hair, but she must have imagined it because later when she rolled over the room was empty and her eyes were red and puffy.
* * *
Anna, her eyes still puffy and swollen from the crying jag, pushed away the memory of the monumental fight—she supposed the moment your heart broke was bound to linger—and strugg
led to focus on what Angel was saying.
‘So what time is your flight tomorrow?’ Tomorrow she would be effectively surplus to requirements and it looked as though Cesare had already moved on, which was no shock. It might have been what she had anticipated, but he could have waited until she had packed her bags; he might have waited around to say goodbye.
‘Actually I...is Cesare around?’
Anna shook her head, and then, remembering that Angel couldn’t see her, dropped the fake smile and said, ‘No.’ She watched him on the screen, stalking down the red carpet and distracting the bubbly female presenter from her designated Hollywood targets and using the minor royal on his arm as an excuse to shove a microphone in his face and touch his arm...repeatedly.
Cesare, looking dark and enigmatic, produced a curt monosyllabic response to the woman’s gushing questions but this did not seem to throw her at all.
‘That’s something.’
‘I don’t suppose...do you have your passport with you?’
‘I think so,’ Anna confirmed dully. The minor royal, looking visibly amused, seemed content to stand back and watch as the interviewer became increasingly flirtatious. And why not? She could afford to smile; she knew that behind closed doors he was all hers.
Jealousy, Anna discovered, was not just a state of mind. It involved physical pain.
‘That’s great.’ The relief in Angel’s voice was tangible. ‘I have the most enormous favour to ask.’
Anna half listened, growing more attentive when Cesare and his partner walked into the theatre and escaped the media scrutiny. Angel got Anna’s full attention when she realised the favour involved her getting on a plane and putting several hundred air miles between her and Cesare. She was more than happy to agree to Angel’s plan and, Angel being Angel, she had everything organised down to the last detail.
Anna was so happy it didn’t even cross her mind to ask why Angel’s plans had changed.
‘Your tickets will be at the airport and probably best not to give Jas anything heavy to eat as she’s not the greatest traveller in the world. I’ll meet you at the airport and take you back to the hotel. I’ve booked you into one of the garden bungalows for a week.’