He slowly removed his boxers. He regretted not having turned some lights on because he would have liked to really appreciate the expression on her face as he watched her watching him. He strolled towards the side of the bed and stood there, then he touched himself lightly and heard her swift intake of breath.
‘I just think you’re a caveman in general,’ Lesley feasted her eyes on his impressive erection. When he held it in his hand, she longed to do the same to herself, to touch herself down there. Her nerves were stretched to breaking point and she wished she was just a little more experienced, a little more knowing about what to do when it came to a man like him, a man who probably knew everything there was to know about the opposite sex.
She sat up, crossed her legs and reached out to touch him, replacing his hand with hers and gaining confidence as she felt him shudder with appreciation.
It was a strange turn-on to be fully clothed while he was completely naked.
‘Is that right?’
As she took him into her mouth, Alessio grunted and flung his head back. He had died and gone to heaven. The wetness of her mouth on his hard erection, the way she licked, teased and tasted, his fingers curled into her short hair, made him breathe heavily, well aware that he had to come down from this peak or risk bringing this love-making session to an extremely premature conclusion, which was not something he intended to do.
With a sigh of pure regret, he eased her off him.
Then he joined her on the bed. ‘Would I be a caveman if I stripped you? I wouldn’t...’ he slipped his fingers underneath the tee-shirt and began easing it over her head ‘...want to...’ Then came the jeans, which she wriggled out of so that she remained in bra and pants, white, functional items of clothing that looked wonderfully wholesome on her. ‘Offend your feminist sensibilities.’
For the life of her, Lesley couldn’t find where she had misplaced those feminist sensibilities which he had mentioned. She reached behind to unhook her bra but he gently drew her hands away so that he could accomplish the task himself.
He half-closed his eyes and his nostrils flared with rampant appreciation of her small but perfectly formed breasts. Her nipples were big, brown, circular discs. She had propped herself up on both elbows and her breasts were small, pointed mounds offering themselves to him like sweet, delicate fruit.
In one easy movement, he straddled her, and she fell back against the pillow with a soft, excited moan.
She was wet for him. As he reached behind him to slip his hand under the panties, she groaned and covered her eyes with one hand.
‘I want to see you, my darling.’ Alessio lowered himself so that he was lightly on top of her. ‘Move your hand.’
‘I don’t usually do this sort of thing,’ Lesley mumbled. ‘I’m not into one-night stands. I never have been. I don’t see the point.’
‘Shh.’ He gazed down at her until she was burning all over. Then he gently began licking her breast, moving in a concentric circle until his tongue found her nipple. The sensitised tip had peaked into an erect nub, and as he took her whole nipple into his mouth so that he could suckle on it she quivered under him, moving with feverish urgency, arching back so that not a single atom of the pleasurable sensations zinging through her was lost.
She had to get rid of her panties, they were damp and uncomfortable, but with his big body over hers she couldn’t reach them. Instead she clasped her hand to the back of his head and pressed him down harder on her breasts, giving little cries and whimpers as he carried on sucking and teasing, moving between her breasts and then, when she was going crazy from it, he trailed his tongue over her rib cage and down to the indentation of her belly button.
His breath on her body was warm and she was breathing fast, hardly believing that what was happening really was happening and yet desperate for it to continue, desperate to carry on shamelessly losing herself in the moment.
He felt her sharp intake of breath as he slipped her underwear down, and then she was holding her breath as he gently parted her legs and flicked his tongue over her core.
Lesley groaned. This was an intimacy she had not experienced before. She curled her fingers into his dark hair and tugged him but her body was responding with a shocking lack of inhibition as he continued to taste her, teasing her swollen bud until she lost the ability to think clearly.
Alessio felt her every response as if their bodies had tuned into the same wavelength. In a blinding, revelatory flash, he realised that everything else that had come before with women could not compete with what was happening right now, because this woman had just seen far more of him than anyone else ever had.
This had not been a simple game of pursuit and capture. She hadn’t courted this situation, nor had he anticipated it. Certainly, there had come a point when he had looked at her and liked what he had seen; had wanted what he had seen; had even vaguely planned on having her because, when it came to him and women, wanting and having were always the same side of the coin.
But he knew that he hadn’t banked on what was happening between them now. For the first time, he had the strangest feeling that this wasn’t just about sex.
But the sex was great.
He swept aside all his unravelling thoughts and lost himself in her body, in her sweet little whimpers and her broken groans as she wriggled under him, until at last, when he could feel her wanting to reach her orgasm, he broke off to fumble in the bedside cabinet for a condom.
Lesley could hardly bear that brief pause. She was alive in a way she had never been before and that terrified her. Her relationships with the opposite sex had always been guarded and imbued with a certain amount of defensiveness that stemmed from her own private insecurities.
Having been raised in an all-male family, she had developed brilliant coping skills when it came to standing her ground with the opposite sex. Her brothers had toughened her up and taught her the value of healthy competition, the benefits of never being cowed by a guy, of knowing that she could hold her own.
But no one had been able to help her during those teenage years when the lines of distinction between boys and girls were drawn. She had watched from the sidelines and decided that lipstick and mascara were not for her, that sport was far more enjoyable. It wasn’t about how you looked, it was about what was inside you and what was inside her—her intelligence, her sense of humour, her capacity for compassion—did not need to be camouflaged with make-up and sexy clothes.
The only guys she had ever been attracted to were the ones who’d seen her for the person she was, the ones whose heads hadn’t swivelled round when a busty blonde in a short skirt had walked past.
So what, it flashed through her head, was she doing with Alessio Baldini?
She sighed and reached up to him as he settled back on her, nudging her legs apart, then she closed her eyes and was transported to another planet as he thrust into her, deep and hard, building a rhythm that drove everything out of her mind.
She flung her head back and succumbed to loud, responsive cries as he continued to fill her.
She came on a tidal wave of intense pleasure and felt her whole body shudder and arch up towards him in a wonderful fusing of bodies.
The moment seemed to last for ever and she was only brought back down to earth when he withdrew from her and cursed fluently under his breath.
‘The condom has split.’
Lesley abruptly surfaced from the pleasant, dreamy cloud on which she had been happily drifting, and the uncomfortable thoughts which had been sidelined when he had begun touching her returned with double intensity.
What on earth had she done? How could she have allowed herself to end up in bed with this man? Had she lost her mind? This was a situation that was going nowhere and would never go anywhere. She was Lesley Fox, a practical, clever, not at all sexy woman who should have known better than to be sweet talked into sleeping with a man who wouldn’t have looked twice at her under normal circumstances.
On every level, he was just the sort of man she us
ually wouldn’t have gone near and, had he seen her passing on the street, she certainly would not have been the sort of woman he would have noticed. She would literally have been invisible to him because she just wasn’t his type.
Fate had thrown them together and an attraction had built between them but she knew that she would be a complete fool not to recognise that that attraction was grounded in novelty.
‘How the hell could that have happened?’ Alessio said, his voice dark with barely contained anger. ‘This is the last thing I need right now.’
Lesley got that. He had found himself tricked into marriage by a pregnancy he had not courted once upon a time and his entire adult life had been affected. Of course he would not want to repeat that situation.
Yet, she couldn’t help but feel the sting of hurt at the simmering anger in his voice.
‘It won’t happen,’ she said stiffly. She wriggled into a sitting position and watched as he vaulted upright and began searching around for his boxers, having disposed of the faulty condom.
‘And you know that because?’
‘It’s the wrong time of month for that to happen.’ She surreptitiously crossed her fingers and tried to calculate when she had last had her period. ‘And, rest assured, the last thing I would want would be to end up pregnant, Alessio. As it stands, this was a very bad idea.’
In the process of locating a tee-shirt from a chest of drawers, he paused and strolled back to the bed. The condom had split and there was nothing he could do about that now. He could only hope that she was right, that they were safe.
But, that aside, how could she say that making love had been a very bad idea? He was oddly affronted.
‘You know what. This. Us. Ending up in bed together. It shouldn’t have happened.’
‘Why not? We’re attracted to one another. How could it have been a bad idea? I was under the impression that you had actually enjoyed the experience.’ He looked down at her and felt his libido begin to rise once again.
‘That’s not the point.’ She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, conscious of her nudity, gritting her teeth against the temptation to drag the covers off the bed and shield herself from him.
‘God, you’re beautiful.’
Lesley flushed and looked away, stubbornly proud, and refusing to believe that he meant a word of that. Novelty was a beautiful thing but became boring very quickly.
‘Well?’ He caught her wrist and tilted her face so that she had no option but to look at him.
‘Well what?’ Lesley muttered, lowering her eyes.
‘Well, let’s go back to bed.’
‘Didn’t you hear a word I just said?’
‘Every word.’ He kissed her delicately on the corner of her mouth and then very gently on her lips.
In a heartbeat, and to her disgust, Lesley could feel her determination begin to melt away.
‘You’re not my type,’ she mumbled, refusing to cave in, but his lips were so soft against her jaw that her disobedient body was responding in all sorts of stupidly predictable ways.
‘Because I’m a caveman?’
‘Yes!’ Her hands crept up to his neck and she protested feebly as he lifted her off her feet and back towards the bed to which she had only minutes previously sworn not to return.
‘So, what are you looking for in a man?’ Alessio murmured.
This time, he drew the covers over them. It was very dark outside. Even with the curtains open, the night was black velvet with only a slither of moon penetrating the darkness and weakly illuminating the bedroom.
He could feel her reluctance, her mind fighting her body, and it felt imperative that her body win the battle because he wanted her, more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life before.
‘Not someone like you, Alessio,’ Lesley whispered, pressing her hands flat against his chest and feeling the steady beat of his heart.
‘Why? Why not someone like me?’
‘Because...’ Because safety was not with a man who looked like him, a man who could have anyone he wanted. She knew her limits. She knew that she was just not the sort of girl who drew guys to her like a magnet. She never had been. She just didn’t have the confidence; had never had the right preparation; had never had a mother’s guiding hand to show her the way to all those little feminine wiles that went into the mix of attraction between the sexes.
But bigger than her fear of involvement with him was her fear of not getting involved, not taking the chance.
‘You’re just not the sort of person I ever imagined having any kind of relationship with, that’s all.’
‘We’re not talking marriage here, Lesley, we’re talking about enjoying each other.’ He propped himself up on one elbow and traced his finger along her arm. ‘I’m not looking for commitment any more than you probably are.’
And certainly not with someone like you; Lesley reluctantly filled in the remainder of that remark.
‘And you still haven’t told me the sort of man you would call “your type”.’ She was warm and yielding in his arms. She might make a lot of noises about this being a mistake, but she wanted him as much as he wanted her, and he knew that if he slipped his fingers into her he would feel the tell-tale proof of her arousal.
He could have her right here and right now, despite whatever she said about him not being her type. And who, in the end, cared whether he was her type or not? Hadn’t he just told her that this wasn’t about commitment and marriage? In other words, did it really matter if he wasn’t her type?
But he was piqued at the remark. She was forthright and spoke her mind; he had become accustomed to that very quickly. But surely what she had said amounted to an unacceptable lack of tact! He thought that there was nothing wrong in asking her to explain exactly what she had meant.
His voice had dropped a few shades.
‘You’re offended, aren’t you?’ Lesley asked and Alessio was quick to deny any such thing.
Lesley could have kicked herself for asking him that question. Of course he wouldn’t be offended! To be offended, he would actually have had to care about her and that was not the case here, as he had made patently clear.
‘That’s a relief!’ she exclaimed lightly. ‘My type? I guess thoughtful, caring, sensitive; someone who believes in the same things that I do, who has similar interests...maybe even someone working in the same field. You know—artistic, creative, not really bothered about the whole business of making money.’
Alessio bared his teeth in a smile. ‘Sounds a lot of fun. Sure someone like that would be able to keep up with you? No, scrap that—too much talk. There are better things to do and, now that we’ve established that you can’t resist me even though I’m the last kind of person you would want in your life, let’s make love.’
‘Alessio...’
He stifled any further protest with a long, lingering kiss that released in her a sigh of pure resignation. So this made no sense, so she was a complete idiot... Where had the practical, level-headed girl with no illusions about herself gone? All she seemed capable of doing was giving in.
‘And,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘In case you think that Italy is off the agenda because I’m not a touchy-feely art director for a design company, forget it. I still want you there by my side. Trust me, I will make it worth your while.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
EVERYTHING SEEMED TO HAPPEN at the speed of light after that. Of course, there was no inconvenient hanging around for affordable flights or having to surf the Internet for places to stay. None of the usual headaches dogged Alessio’s spur-of-the-moment decision to take Lesley to Italy.
Two days after he had extended his invitation, they were boarding a plane to Italy.
It was going to be a surprise visit. Armed with information, they were going to get the full story from his daughter, lay all the cards on the table and then, when they were back in the UK, Alessio would sort the other half of the equation out. He would pay an informal visit to his emailing fr
iend and he was sure that they would reach a happy conclusion where no money changed hands.
Lessons, he had assured her, would regrettably have to be learnt.
Lesley privately wondered what his approach to his daughter would be. Would similar lessons also ‘regrettably have to be learnt’? How harsh would those lessons be? He barely had a relationship with Rachel and she privately wondered how he intended ever to build on it if he went in to ‘sort things out’ with the diplomacy of a bull in a china shop.
That was one of the reasons she had agreed to go to Italy with him.
Without saying it in so many words, she knew that he was looking to her for some sort of invisible moral back-up, even though he had stated quite clearly that he needed her there primarily to impart the technicalities of what she had discovered should the situation demand it.
‘You haven’t said anything for the past half an hour.’ Alessio interrupted her train of thought as they were shown into the first class cabin of the plane. ‘Why?’
Lesley bristled. ‘I was just thinking how fast everything’s moved,’ she said as they were shown to seats as big as armchairs and invited to have a glass of champagne, which she refused.
She stole a glance at his sexy face, lazy and amused at the little show of rebellion.
‘I came to do a job for you, thinking that I would be in and out of your house in a matter of a few hours and now here I am, days later, boarding a plane for Italy.’
‘I know. Isn’t life full of adventure and surprise?’ He waved aside an awe-struck air hostess and settled into the seat next to her. ‘I confess that I myself am surprised at the way things unfolded. Surprised but not displeased.’
‘Because you’ve got what you wanted,’ Lesley complained. She was so accustomed to her independence that she couldn’t help feeling disgruntled at the way she had been railroaded into doing exactly what he had wanted her to do.
Even though, a little voice inside her pointed out, this rollercoaster ride was the most exciting thing she had ever done in her life—even though it was scary, even though it had yanked her out of her precious comfort zone, even though she knew that it would come to nothing and the fall back to Planet Earth would be painful.
THE UNCOMPROMISING ITALIAN Page 10