by Amy Andrews
‘Shh.’ She cradled his head and rocked slightly. ‘I know. I know.’ Because she did know. She knew what it was like to grieve the end of a relationship. To lose someone close.
He pressed a kiss to her belly and looked up at her. She was so beautiful. Her eyes were shimmering pools of empathy, her skin was glowing and her mouth was beckoning. He wanted to crawl into a nice, big warm bed with her and stay there for ever. ‘Nathalie.’
Nat shook her head. She knew that look in his eyes. Knew for damn sure it was reflected in hers. ‘Don’t call me that.’ Her voice shook. She hated how husky it sounded.
He rubbed his chin against her stomach. ‘Why? It suits you.’
Her abdominal muscles rippled beneath his stubble as if he had licked them and deeper down other muscles stirred deliciously at the way he’d sighed her name. Her hand drifted down from his hair to his face. She rubbed gently at the red mark on his cheek with the back of her hand. ‘Because I like it too much.’
They stared at each other for the longest time. They didn’t move. All that could be heard in the small office was the rain on the roof and the staccato rhythm of their breathing. It was Alessandro who made the first move, applying pressure through his arms, bringing her down onto his lap, their heads close. Their lips closer.
Nat didn’t protest, mesmerised by his eyes, by the desire that gleamed there. That they could be cold like black ice one moment and warm like sable the next. She wasn’t supposed to be here, doing this, but she also knew she was utterly powerless to resist. She could almost feel his mouth on hers, taste it, and she wanted it so badly anticipation hummed through her system.
Alessandro’s hand crept up, brushed against her shoulder and moving along the line of her collar bone until it was cradling her nape, four fingers lodged in her hair, his thumb stroking her jaw. He exerted slight pressure inching her closer. Their mouths nearer.
‘Bello,’ he murmured. He was past caring about restraint and all the reasons why kissing Nat, taking her clothes off and having her right here, right now, was a bad idea. All he knew was that in amongst all the bad things in his life at the moment this felt inextricably right.
That he suddenly felt more awake, more alive than he had in a long time. A very long time.
His hand drifted down to her neckline, coming to rest where the material scooped low on her breasts. She shut her eyes as her nipples responded to the blatant arousal. She watched fascinated as he dropped his head and kissed her not far from where the sauce had landed not even a week ago. His lips practically sizzled against her skin and she arched her back involuntarily.
‘Nathalie…’
She barely had a chance to whimper before his mouth brushed against hers. Light. Gentle. A whisper of what was to come. ‘Alessandro.’ She wasn’t sure if it was a warning or an invitation.
But it was definitely surrender.
Her hands snaked around his neck at the same time and their lips met again. Not gentle now. Not light. Deep. Deeper. Open mouths and questing tongues feasting on each other like starving beasts. She could hear his moan and felt its seductive stroke deep inside her before it travelled all the way to her toes.
Her head spun as the kiss spiralled out of control. She broke away for a second, dizzy and out of breath. Alessandro looked at her with a passion not even his hooded eyes could conceal. His lips were moist from her ministrations—full and beckoning.
She’d done that to him. Made this man look at her with eyes that devoured her, that branded her. She should be scared by this level of intensity but, God help her, she wanted more.
Alessandro rubbed his thumb across the soft swollen contours of her mouth. She had him on her lips. Them. And he wanted to be back there. Their mouths joined. To be joined even more intimately. To taste her more intimately. To be inside her. ‘You’re so sweet,’ he whispered.
‘So are you,’ she murmured, before slamming her mouth back on to his.
He met her ardour, surpassed it. His hands tangled in her hair, holding her captive, making escape impossible. Not that she wanted it. She could feel he was hard for her, his cotton boxers and her position on his lap giving his impressive arousal nowhere to hide.
She squirmed against it, wanting to feel it pressed against her more intimately, not just the back of her thigh. She wanted to touch it, damn it. Without breaking the kiss, she manoeuvred herself until she was straddling his lap, her nightdress riding up her thighs.
Thank God for quality Italian furnishing.
The big leather chair accommodated her most adequately and she wasted no time grinding down against him, seeking the pleasure, the relief she knew he could give her.
He broke off the kiss on a groan, his breath outdrumming the rain. ‘Nathalie.’ She was beautiful, bits of her blonde hair wisped free from her ponytail and somehow, despite the experienced movements of her hips, she looked down at him with a wide-eyed wonder that could almost border on innocent. ‘I want to see all of you.’
Without asking, his hands snagged the hem of her nightdress, lifted it up and dragged it off over her head. She was totally naked apart from a very inadequate scrap of lace. Her breasts fell free and he was mesmerised by them. They were as beautiful as he’d imagined, and God knew he’d imagined them often enough. Full and firm with nipples the colour of mocha.
He brought his hands up from her waist until they were full of her. They felt heavy in his palms and her peaked nipples dragged deliciously across the sensitive skin there. ‘Inferno! I want to taste you.’
And then, with one arm around her back, he swept her close, his mouth latching onto the nearest offering. He sucked hard on her nipple and Nat cried out, clutching his shoulders as her world tilted and spun.
His tongue rasped against her peaked flesh. It lapped and licked and sucked and rolled around the entire elongated peak. And just when he thought she could take it no longer he released her and she almost fell against him. But he steadied her with his arm and opened his mouth over the other one.
‘Alessandro!’ She wasn’t sure if she was begging him to stop or egging him on further—all she knew was she was swirling like an autumn leaf in the wind and they hadn’t even got to the main event.
Alessandro released her nipple, satisfied to see it wet and puckered from his ministrations. ‘I want you.’
Three little words. Not the three words most women want to hear but Nat couldn’t have cared less. She’d heard those words and they’d been an empty promise. Right now she needed this. Alessandro. A man who wanted her with an intensity she doubted she’d ever known.
But even so. There were some logistics that needed sorting. She battled with her breathing. ‘Condoms?’ she panted.
Alessandro shook his head. ‘Are you on the Pill?’
She nodded. She could feel the ridge of his erection pressing against her and she was desperate to feel it inside. ‘Of course. But it’s about more than that, Alessandro.’
His arms tightened around her. Damn it. He knew that. ‘I’ve had sex with one woman in the last five years.’
She looked into his eyes, warm like sable still, and saw the yearning and desperation that had got her into this chair in the first place. He wanted her. But he was telling her he was safe and, God help her, she’d die tonight if she had to leave this room unsatisfied. ‘Same with me.’
‘Good.’ Alessandro returned his attention to her breasts and she grabbed his shoulders as lust slammed into her gut.
Barely thinking straight, she reached down for him, finding him bigger and harder and thicker than even she’d imagined. He moaned into her mouth and she felt a surge of warmth between her thighs as her body prepared to take him.
Alessandro pulled away as she manoeuvred him out of his material prison and her hand finally found bare skin.
‘Nathalie…’ he groaned, leaning his forehead against her chest. ‘I don’t think I’ll last very long if you touch me like that.’ He looked up into her face. ‘It’s been a long time.’
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nbsp; Nat squeezed his girth, her hand luxuriating in the velvety glove sheathing the core of solid rock. He snatched in a breath and expelled it on another groan and she smiled down at him. ‘Good. We can do slow later.’
And she lowered her head, opening her mouth over his, feeling him surge in her palm as his tongue thrust inside her mouth. She felt his hands squeezing her buttocks, dragging her closer, and she rubbed herself against his naked length, aroused beyond all rational thought.
There was no planning now. She was just moving to a rhythm as old as time. She needed to feel him inside her and without conscious control she was lifting over him, pushing the crutch of her knickers to one side, and then his head was nudging her entrance and she didn’t even pause before her hips moved instinctively down as his moved instinctively up.
She cried out as he filled her more than she’d ever been filled before. She vaguely heard him calling her name but a pounding in her blood, like jungle drums, was taking over and she moved to their beat.
Alessandro groaned, hearing the drums too, and moved again, pulling her close, one arm still around her back. He kissed her lips, rained kisses down her neck, took a puckered nipple in his mouth, all the time obeying the throb in his blood, the rhythm in his head.
Nat held Alessandro’s head to her breast, hanging on for dear life as the beat became a canter and then a gallop. ‘Alessandro!’ she cried.
Alessandro barely heard her above the tempo pulsing around him. It was inside, thickening his blood, and around them, pressing them closer with invisible hands. His loins moved to its beat, surging and thrusting into her hot, tight core.
Nat felt the drums rise to a crescendo and she knew she was going over the edge. ‘Alessandro, I can’t…Oh, God, I can’t stop it.’
‘Nathalie,’ he roared, throwing his head back against the leather headrest, clutching her hips. He thrust one last time as the rhythm peaked and he along with it.
For a moment neither of them moved as the drums crashed to total silence and they both became airborne. And then Nat moaned and bucked, her nails digging into his shoulders as pleasure, so deep, so profound, rained down on her.
And Alessandro joined her, thrusting his hips, pumping up into her, riding the wave of his own orgasm, driven by the echo of the drums still spiking his blood and milked by her wild abandon as she bucked and rode him to completion.
And when it was over she collapsed against him and he gathered her close and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that having Nat Davies come to stay was the best thing he’d ever done.
Chapter Seven
AFTER not knowing the pleasures of a woman’s body for a long time, Alessandro was insatiable. They’d made love another twice that night before Nat had slunk back to her own bedroom. And then every night since. Alessandro would put Julian to bed, read to him and then he would pounce again, no matter where she was. The kitchen, the shower, the laundry, the lounge. A week later there were very few places in the house they hadn’t done it.
Thank goodness Julian slept like the dead.
It never crossed Nat’s mind to refuse Alessandro. She’d been around long enough to know that the magic they’d made that first time didn’t come along very often. And, anyway, her body betrayed her at every single turn. All he had to do was look at her and she practically self-combusted.
Why deny herself this little oasis of pleasure? As long as she took it at face value, remembered it was about two convenient bodies finding a little mutual gratification for a finite period of time, she’d be fine. She was an adult. There was nothing wrong with that.
For once in her life she was making a decision with her head and not her poor, easy heart.
And it felt liberating.
Plus there was something compelling about Alessandro’s love-making that was addictive. He was so…driven. Intense, like the rest of him. Desperate, almost. When his body covered hers it felt like he was trying to absorb her into him. He wasn’t satisfied with quick and easy and rolling over and going to sleep. They made love for hours each night until sheer exhaustion took over.
And his attention to detail was amazing.
Nat doubted she’d ever been so thoroughly bedded in her life. It was like by reaching for the maximum level of pleasure he was hoping to purge the grief. Not just sideline it. He was still hurting and it was if he’d found the perfect antidote for it—her body. And that was okay too. If her gratification helped him heal, who was she to argue?
And then there was the flow-on effect to Julian. The sex was making Alessandro more relaxed. He didn’t seem so grim. He was more…laid-back. He smiled more. Laughed. And Julian was slowly becoming less serious, less wary in return.
They were careful, of course, to keep their relationship from Julian. Nat was always back in her bed by five a.m. It was hard and getting harder, especially when Alessandro was so warm and vital, his big arm tucked around her waist, his bigger body curled around hers.
And at that hour of the morning he was usually raring to go again with another treacherous seduction muddling her senses.
‘Stay longer,’ he’d whisper. His accent always seemed more pronounced when he was sleepy and it stroked seductive fingers along her pelvic floor.
Nat would smile as his lips nuzzled her neck, his hands kneaded her breasts and his erection brushed her belly. The temptation to stay was great. ‘Julian,’ she’d murmur.
‘He never wakes before seven, bella.’
Which was true, but Nat knew it was best not to be found together. Choosing to snatch these moments with Alessandro was fine—she was an adult. Julian was a boy who dearly needed a mother and who plainly adored her. And that wasn’t fair. What did four-year-olds know of adult games? Adult relationships? It wasn’t right to confuse him any more when his world had already been turned upside down.
So she dutifully dragged herself out of her lover’s bed, out of his possessive male embrace, every morning. And even when he looked up at her with a sexy half-smile and smouldering sable eyes that told her more than words what he wanted to do to her, she still turned away.
But it was getting more and more difficult…
Alessandro had tried to not let their chemistry spill over into their work and for the most part it was successful. She only worked two day shifts a week in the department and usually it was on the triage desk so it was easier to avoid direct contact.
But today, on this crazy, crazy Friday, she’d been allocated to the cubicles and they seemed to have giant magnets attached to their butts. Today it was simply impossible to ignore her and their attraction. Impossible to not be utterly distracted by her.
‘Twenty-year-old female, right lower quadrant pain, rebound tenderness, hypertensive, tachycardic, febrile.’
Nat pushed the chart at Alessandro, trying to be brisk and professional in her handover. Everywhere she’d moved today his incendiary gaze had been on her and she was about ready to combust.
Not to mention the fact that despite his dark trousers, dove-grey shirt and beautiful mauve tie, all she could see was the way he had looked last night on his way back from the bathroom gloriously naked, hands firmly on narrow hips, his arousal on proud display.
Alessandro smiled. He could see the simmer in her gaze and knew exactly where her brain was. ‘Which cubicle?’
‘Twelve,’ she said automatically, a vague part of her still clinging to professionalism while his rough command from last night to ‘Open your legs’ squirmed through her grey matter.
Nat felt her internal muscles twist firmly in a knot. His broad shoulders bobbed in front of her and she followed blindly, trying to catch her breath.
Alessandro greeted his patient. ‘Hi. Ellie? I’m Dr Lombardi.’ He held out his hand and the harried young woman shook it briefly, grabbing her side with a grunt as she let go. ‘Nat’s been telling me you have some pain.’
‘Yes,’ Ellie agreed. ‘The odd niggle the last day or two but worse this morning. And by the time I got to work it was unbearable.’
Nat watched as his attention turned solely to his patient. He questioned her closely before methodically examining her. Even in significant pain she could see how Ellie responded to Alessandro’s calm professionalism. She was scared but somehow he managed to reassure her.
Alessandro returned his gaze to Nat. She was looking at him with admiration and respect and even that went straight to his groin. ‘I’ll call for a surgical consult. In the meantime I’ll write up some morphine and let’s draw some blood, Nurse Davies.’ He handed back the chart and deliberately let his gaze fall to her mouth.
Nat’s lips parted involuntarily as she took the chart. It felt as if he’d physically touched them. She reached for the bed rail and cleared her throat. ‘Certainly, Dr Lombardi.’
And then he was gone from the cubicle and she was left staring after him, her lips tingling, her brain scrambled.
‘Do you think I can get that morphine now?’
Nat dragged her attention back to her patient. Ellie was grimacing and clutching the sheet tight. ‘Oh, sorry, of course. I’ll be right back.’
Nat exited the cubicle determined to keep her mind on the job. ‘Imogen,’ she called seeing her boss. ‘I need you to check some morphine with me.’
Imogen followed her into the room where the narcotics were stored. She inserted the key into the locked metal cupboard as Nat smothered a yawn.
‘Are you not sleeping well?’ Imogen asked as she reached for the boxes of morphine. ‘You yawned all the way through handover this morning and you look like you haven’t slept in a week.’
Nat busied herself with writing in the dangerous-drugs register to hide the sudden rise of heat to her cheeks. She was sleeping very well indeed. When she and Alessandro finally succumbed, they slept the deep sleep of the sexually sated. It just so happened that it only amounted to a few hours each night.