Giancarlo was more than aware of both those things. The powerful scent of lust made his nostrils flare. He realised that this was exactly what he wanted. Her lush, sexy body combined with her wide-eyed innocence had set up a chain reaction in him that he hadn’t been able to control.
‘And as for getting away from it all …’ Some of her long hair blew across his face. She smelled of sun and warmth. ‘I have a place on the coast.’ From nowhere sprang such a strange notion that he barely registered it. He would like to take her there. He had never had any such inclination with any woman in the past. That was purely his domain, his private getaway from the hassle of everyday life, always maintained, waiting and ready for those very rare occasions when he felt the need to make use of it.
‘You have the most amazing hair.’ He captured some of it, sank his fingers into its untamed length. ‘You should never have it cut.’
Caroline knew that he was going to kiss her and she strained up towards him with a sigh of abandon. She never knew that she could want something so much in her life. She lifted her hand and trembled as her fingers raked through his fine, dark, silky hair.
With a stifled groan, Giancarlo angled down and lost himself in a kiss that was hungry and exploring. His questing tongue melded with hers and, as the kiss deepened, he spanned her rib cage with urgent, impatient hands. They were out in the open but visible to no one. Other boats, dotted on the sparkling, still water, were too far away to witness his lack of control.
The push of her breasts as she curved her body up to him was explosive to his libido and he hooked his fingers under the straps of her swimsuit. He couldn’t pull them down fast enough, and as her breasts spilled out in their glorious abundance he had to control the savage reaction of his throbbing arousal.
‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he growled hoarsely.
‘Beautiful’ had never been one of those things Caroline had ever considered herself. Friendly, yes. Reasonably attractive, perhaps. But beautiful?
Right now, however, as she looked at him with a fevered, slumberous gaze, she believed him and she was infused with a heady, wanton feeling of total recklessness. She wanted to bask in his open admiration. It was a huge turn-on. He looked down and her nipples tightened and ached in immediate response. Her ability to think and to reason had been scattered to the four winds and she moaned and arched her back as his big hands covered her breasts, massaging them, pushing them up so that her swollen nipples were offered up to his scorching inspection. The sun on her half-naked body was beautifully warm. She closed her eyes, hands outstretched on the railing on either side of her.
It was a snapshot of an erotic, abundant goddess with her hair streaming back, and Giancarlo lowered his head to close his mouth over the pulsating pink disc of a surrendered nipple.
Reaching down, Caroline curled her fingers into his hair. She felt like a rag doll and had to stop herself from sinking to the floor of the boat as he plundered her breasts, first one then the other, suckling on her nipple, drawing it into his mouth so that he could tease the distended tip with his tongue. She felt powerful and submissive at the same time as he feasted on her, licking, nipping, sucking, driving her crazy with his mouth.
When his hand clasped her thigh, she nearly fainted. The swimsuit was pulled lower and he trailed kisses over each inch of flesh that was gradually exposed. The paleness of her stomach was a sharp contrast to the golden colour she had acquired over the summer months.
Giancarlo found that he liked that. It was a real body, the body of a living, breathing, fulsome woman, unlike the statue-perfect, all-over-bronzed bodies of the stick insects he was accustomed to. He rose to his feet and pushed his leg between her thighs, moving it slowly and insistently which made the boat rock ever so slightly. Caroline, with her phobia of water, barely noticed. She was on a different planet and experiencing sensations that were all new and wonderful.
She only surfaced, abruptly and rudely, when the sound of an outboard motor broke through her blurry, cotton-wool haze. She gasped, shocked at her state of undress and mortified at her rebellious body, which had disobeyed every law of self-preservation to flirt perilously with a situation that instinctively screamed danger.
Struggling to free herself, she felt the boat sway and rock under her and she stumbled to rebalance herself.
‘What the hell are you doing? You’re going to capsize this thing. Stay still!’
He tried to hold her arms as she frantically endeavoured to pull up her swimsuit and hide the shameful spectacle of her nudity.
‘How could you?’ Caroline was shaking like a leaf as she cautiously made her way back to the centre of the boat. Her huge brown eyes were wide with accusation, and Giancarlo, who had never in living memory experienced any form of rejection from a woman, raked his hand impatiently through his hair.
‘How could I what?’
‘You know what!’
He took a couple of steps towards her and was outraged when she shrank back. Did she find him threatening?
‘What I know—’ his voice was a whiplash, leaving her no leeway to nurse fanciful notions of being seduced against her will ‘—is that you wanted it, and it’s no good huddling there like a virtuous maiden whose virginity has been sullied. Snap out of it, Caroline. You practically threw yourself at me.’
‘I did no such thing,’ Caroline whispered, distraught, because she had, she really had, and she couldn’t for the life of her understand why.
Giancarlo shook his head with such rampant incredulity that she was forced to look away. When she next sneaked a glance at him, it was to see him preparing to sail back to shore. His face was dark with anger.
With agonising honesty, Caroline licked her lips and cleared her throat. It was no good letting this thing fester in simmering silence. She had had a terrible moment of horrifying misjudgement and she would just have to say something.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said bravely, addressing his profile, which offered nothing by way of encouragement. ‘I know I was partly to blame …’
Giancarlo glanced over to her with a brooding scowl. ‘How kind of you to rethink your accusation that I was intent on taking advantage of you.’
‘I know you weren’t! I never meant to imply that. Look.’ With urgent consternation, Caroline leaned towards him. ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t even like you! I disapprove of everything about you.’
‘Everything, Caroline? Let’s not labour that statement too much. You might find that you need to retract it.’ Not only was Giancarlo furious at her inexplicable withdrawal, when it had been plain to see that she had been as hot and ready for him as he had been for her, but he was more furious with himself for not being able to look at her for fear of his libido going haywire all over again.
‘You took me by surprise.’
‘Oh, we’re back to that old chestnut, are we? I’m the arch-seducer and you’re the shrinking violet!’
‘It’s the heat,’ she countered with increasing desperation. ‘And the situation. I’ve never been on the water like this before. Everything must have just been too much.’ She continued to look at him earnestly. ‘It’s impossible for me to be attracted to you.’ She sought to impose an explanation for her wildly out-of-character behaviour. ‘We don’t get along at all and I disapprove of why you decided to come here to see Alberto. I don’t care about money and I’ve never been impressed by people who think that making money is the most important thing in the world. And, furthermore, I just don’t get it with guys who are scared of commitment. I have no respect for them. So … so …’
‘So, despite all of that, you still couldn’t resist me. What do you think that says?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t say anything!’
Giancarlo detected the horror in her voice and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it. He would have made love to her right there, on the boat, and he certainly couldn’t think of any other woman who wouldn’t have relished the experience. The fact
that this woman was intent on treating it as something she had to remove herself from as quickly as possible was frankly an insult of the highest order.
Caroline felt that she was finally in possession of her senses once again. ‘I think you’ll agree that that unfortunate episode is something we’d best put right behind us. Pretend it never happened.’
‘You’re attracted to me, Caroline.’
‘I’m not. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve just been saying? I got carried away because I’m here, on a boat, out of my comfort zone. I don’t go for men like you. I know you probably find that horribly insulting but it happens to be the truth.’
‘You’re attracted to me, and the faster you face that the better off you’ll be.’
‘And how do you figure that out, Giancarlo? How?’
‘You’ve spent your life thinking that the local lad who enjoys the barn dance on a Saturday and whose greatest ambition is to have three kids and buy a semi-detached house on the street next to where your parents live is your ideal man. Just as you tried to kid yourself that never leaving the countryside was what you wanted out of life. Wrong on both counts. Your head’s telling you what you should want, but here I am, a real man, and you just can’t help yourself. Don’t worry. Amazingly, it’s mutual.’
Caroline went white at his brutal summary of everything she didn’t want to face. Her behaviour made no sense to her. She didn’t approve of him one bit, yet she had succumbed faster than she could ever have dreamt possible.
It was lust, pure and simple, and he wanted to drag that shameful admission out of her because he had an ego the size of a liner and he didn’t care for the fact that she had rejected him. Had he thought that he was complimenting her when he told her that, amazingly, he found her attractive? Did he seriously think that it felt good to be somebody’s novelty for five minutes before he returned to the sort of woman he usually liked?
Warning bells were ringing so loudly in her head that she would have been a complete idiot not to listen to them. She found that she was gripping the sides of the salty plank of wood sufficiently hard for her knuckles to whiten.
Glancing across at her, Giancarlo could see the slow, painful realisation of the truth sinking in. He had never thought himself the kind of loser who tolerated a woman who blew hot and then blew cold. Women like that were a little too much like hard work. But this woman …
‘Okay.’ Caroline’s words tumbled over one another and she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the fast-approaching shoreline. ‘So I find you attractive. You’re right. Satisfied? But I’m glad you’ve dragged that out of me because it’s only lust and lust doesn’t mean anything. Not to me, anyway. So there. Now it’s out in the open and we can both forget about it.’
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS after five by the time they were finally back at the villa. The outing on the lake had taken much longer than she had thought and then, despite its dramatic conclusion, Giancarlo had insisted on stopping somewhere for them to have a very late lunch.
To add insult to injury, he had proceeded to talk to her as naturally as though nothing had happened between them. He pointed out various interesting landmarks; he gave her an informative lecture on the Vezio Castle, asking her whether she had been there. She hadn’t. He seemed to know the history of a lot of the grand mansions, monuments to the rich and famous, and was a fount of information on all the local gossip surrounding the illustrious families.
Caroline just wanted to go home. She was bewildered, confused and in a state of sickening inner turmoil. As he had talked, gesticulating in a way that was peculiarly Italian, she had watched those hands and felt giddy at the thought of where they had been—on her naked body, touching and caressing her in a way that made her breathing quicken and brought a flush of hectic colour to her cheeks. She looked at his sensual mouth as he spoke and remembered in graphic detail the feel of his lips on her breasts, suckling her nipples until she had wanted to scream with pleasure.
How was she supposed to laugh and chat as though none of that had happened?
And yet, wasn’t that precisely what she wanted, what she had told him to do—pretend that nothing had happened? Sweep it all under the carpet and forget about it?
She hated the way he could still manage to penetrate her tight-lipped silence to make her smile at something he said. Obviously, she was the only one affected by what had happened out there on the lake.
‘Thank you for today,’ she told him politely as she opened the car door almost before he had had time to kill the engine.
‘Which bit of it are you thanking me for?’ Giancarlo rested glittering eyes on her and raised his eyebrows in a telling question that made her blush even more ferociously. She was the perfect portrait of a woman who couldn’t wait to flee his company. In fact, she had withstood his polite onslaught over an unnecessarily prolonged lunch with the stoicism of someone obliged to endure a cruel and unusual punishment and, perversely, the fiercer her long-suffering expression, the more he had become intent on obliterating it. Now and again he had succeeded, making her laugh even though he could see that she was fighting the impulse.
Giancarlo didn’t understand where his reaction to her was coming from.
She had made a great production of telling him just why she couldn’t possibly be attracted to a man like him—all lies, of course, as he had proceeded to prove. But she had had a valid point. Where was the common ground between them? She was gauche, unsophisticated and completely lacking in feminine wiles. In short, nothing like the sort of women he went out with. But, hell, she turned him on. She had even managed to turn him on when she had been sitting there, at the little trattoria, paying attention to everyone around them and only reluctantly looking at him when she’d had no choice.
What was that about? Was his ego so inflated that he couldn’t abide the thought of wanting a woman and not having instant and willing gratification? It was not in his nature to dwell on anything, to be remotely introspective, so he quickly shelved that thorny slice of self-examination.
Instead, he chose to focus on the reality of the situation. He was here, dragged back to his past by circumstances he could never have foreseen. Although he had a mission to complete, one that had been handed to him on a plate, it was, he would now concede, a mission that would have to be accomplished with a certain amount of subtlety.
In the meantime, reluctant prisoner though he might be, he found himself in the company of a woman who seemed to possess the knack of wreaking havoc with his self-control. What was he to do about it? Like an itch that had to be scratched, Giancarlo found himself in the awkward and novel position of wanting her beyond reason and knowing that he was prepared to go beyond the call of duty to get her. It was frustrating that he knew she wanted him too and was yet reluctant to dip her toes in the water. Heck, they were both adults, weren’t they?
Now, faced with a direct question, she stared at him in mute, embarrassed silence.
‘I haven’t seen as much of the countryside around here as I would have liked,’ Caroline returned politely, averting her eyes to stare just behind his shoulder. ‘I have a driving licence, and of course Alberto said that I was more than welcome to use the car, but I haven’t been brave enough to do much more than potter into the nearest town. Before he fell ill, we did take a couple of drives out for lunch, but there’s still so much left to explore.’
Giancarlo smiled back at her through gritted teeth. He wanted to turn her face to him and make her look him in the eyes. It got on his nerves the way she hovered, as if waiting for permission to be dismissed.
He also hated the way he could feel himself stirring into unwelcome arousal, getting hard at the sight of her, her soft, ultra-feminine curves and her stubborn, pouting full mouth. He wanted to snatch her to him and kiss her into submission, kiss her until she was begging him to have his way with her. He almost laughed at his sudden cavemanlike departure from his normal polished behaviour.
‘Any time,’ he said shortly and she
reluctantly looked at him.
‘Oh, thanks very much, but I doubt the occasion will arise again. After all, you’re not here for much longer and I’ll be returning to my usual routine with Alberto from tomorrow. Do you need a hand taking anything in? It’s just that I’m really hot and sticky and dying to have a shower …’
‘In that case, off you go. I think I can manage a couple of towels and a cool bag.’
Caroline fled. She intended on ducking into the safety of her room, which would give her time to gather herself. Instead, she opened the front door to be confronted with a freshly laundered Alberto emerging from the kitchens, with Tessa in tow.
He paused in the middle of a testy row, which Tessa was enduring with a broad smile, to look shrewdly at Caroline from under beetling brows.
‘Been a long time out there, my girl. What have you been getting up to, eh? You look tousled.’
‘Leave the poor woman alone, Alberto. It’s none of your business what she’s been getting up to!’
‘I haven’t been getting up to anything!’ Caroline addressed both of them in a high voice. ‘I mean, it’s been a lovely day out …’
‘Sailing? I take it my son managed to cure your fear of water?’
‘I … I … Turns out I wasn’t as scared of the water as I’d thought. You know how it is … childhood trauma … long story. Anyway, I’m awfully hot and sticky. Are you going to be in the sitting-room, Alberto? Shall I join you there as soon as I’ve had my shower?’
‘Where’s Giancarlo?’
‘Oh, he’s just taking some stuff out of the car.’ The devil worked on idle hands, and a day spent lazing around had made Alberto frisky. Caroline could spot that devilish glint in his eyes a mile away and she eyed the staircase behind him with longing.
‘So you two got along, then, did you? Wasn’t sure if you would, as you seem very different characters, but you know what they say about opposites attracting …’ Inquisitive eyes twinkled at her as a tide of colour rose into her face. Next to him, Tessa was rolling her eyes to the ceiling and shooting her a look that said, ‘Just ignore him—he’s in one of his playful moods.’
The Truth Behind his Touch Page 9