Far From Perfect (19 page)

And yet he could sense her overwhelming desire to please him. It was genuine. It was open.
Per Dio
, he thought, momentarily, it was loving…

He shouldn’t allow that. He shouldn’t encourage it, but for the moment he was helpless in the thrall of her enchantment. When he slid his fingertips between her thighs and she bucked against him, gasping and clutching at his back, his heart leapt and his sex hardened almost to agony.

She was molten. Like liquid silk that flowed and invited. Releasing her nipple, he rubbed his face against her breasts, twisting his head this way and that against their warm alabaster-smooth slopes, caressing and yet at the same time clenching his teeth in an effort to contain the rolling tide of his famished hunger for her.

Control. Control. Not yet!
he chanted in his head, fighting to remain master of his own body so he could give pleasure, pleasure and more pleasure to hers.

But it was so difficult. He was drowning in the scents of her body. His senses were drenched by the light, fresh fragrance of her perfume and the darker and more dangerous aura of her arousal. Summoning a supreme effort of will, he curbed his body’s surge and applied himself to increasing Anna’s delight.

Kissing her silky throat, he circled his fingertips delicately against the very quick of her, teasing and playing with her sensitive flesh, exploring and inciting. Her cries became hoarse, almost feral, completely without inhibition—and he gloried in them.

The more raggedly she whimpered and the harder her slender body thrashed against him, the more determined he became to raise her up to the highest peak.

And suddenly, almost without warning, he felt her reach it. Arching like a bow, rigid with sensation, she uttered a high, shocked wail, and then called out his name, over and over again, like a mantra. Against his caressing fingertips he felt a deep and powerful ripple, and in some dim periphery of his mind, he experienced the pain of her fingernails digging deeply into the flesh of his back and shoulder.

After several long, timeless moments, he felt her come down, descend slowly from the high bright place and return to reality. His name was still on her lips, but it was softer now, a warm, sultry yet wondrous evocation of gratitude.

“You are beautiful, Anna,” he heard himself murmur, “There’s no one like you.”

It was true, but it filled him with a shock of sudden foreboding. A fear…

“I could say the same about you,” she replied softly, in a voice that sounded both awed and unexpectedly determined. Holding her against him, Nick had let his eyes close, to relish the moment of her climax and crystallize it somehow, but now they snapped open and he looked down into her perfect face.

It was a face full of many fleeting emotions. Some were familiar—like pure, sexual satiation. Others were more obscured, passing too quickly across her pale features for him to categorize. Disquiet gripped him. She was hiding things—even at a moment like this—but he sensed he knew what was beneath the veil and wished that he had not encouraged it. For her sake.

A second later though, analysis was blasted away, as she stirred sinuously in his arms, and then drew away from him, pushing him determinedly onto his back against the mattress.

“My turn now,
ragazzo
,” she purred, the Italian endearment intoxicating on her kiss-swollen English lips, “My turn to pleasure you in return for pleasuring me.”

He tried to protest, to tell her it was not necessary and that his turn would come when they joined. But she was strong, regal with a sudden female power that side-swiped him, and after one abortive attempt to rise up and embrace her, he sank back against the sheets, his heart pounding like a drum and his sex almost thudding with renewed desire.

And it was his turn to groan as she began to kiss his shoulders, his chest and finally his lower abdomen, where she nuzzled the dark-gold nest of hair that clustered there. Her soft cheek brushed his hardness and he had to clench every muscle in his body to retain control of himself.

She was a miracle. A goddess. A sorceress. And just when he thought he could bear the delicate teasing no more, she rewarded him with ultimate gift, the caress he’d been longing for, yet almost fearing.

The sweetest, silkiest heat engulfed him. The delicate flicking tongue drove him to madness. The pale sheets ripped in his tearing, gouging hands as the control he’d maintained so long began to slip…

It had been the most incredible afternoon of her life, long, golden, precious beyond measure. She would never forget it, no matter what lay ahead.

Waking from a light sleep, she felt refreshed. Both she and Nick had dozed more than once between repeated bouts of lovemaking, and he was still asleep now, stretched naked on the tangled sheets, one arm flung above his head in a beautiful attitude of complete repose.

He looked like an angel to her. But not one of those sentimental images from old-fashioned Christmas cards. Instead he was the very embodiment of a mighty warrior archangel. Powerful. Vigorous. Magnificent.

“Niccolo,” she breathed, masking her own voice with a hand across her lips, reluctant to wake him after his breathtaking efforts.

As if energized by
her
passion, he’d returned to power again and again, each time lifting her to new and more unimaginable levels of bliss. He’d seemed inexhaustible, and she felt that even now, if she were but to just breathe on him, he’d wake once more and roll towards her, reaching for her body.

The temptation to reach for him in return was almost irresistible.

His skin gleamed like molten gold, and in sleep his mouth was soft and lusciously kissable. His limbs were relaxed and his sex quiescent for the moment. But she knew that it would take nothing more than the slightest hint of her interest to bring it to life again.

Roiling heat surged through her at the shock of her own boldness earlier.

It had been only the third time she’d ever made love, yet her instincts had driven her into daring. She’d taken the initiative in a way that caused her gasp, even now in the quiet aftermath.

And yet, confronted with a body as gorgeous as that of the man who lay before her, what woman who breathed could prevent herself from worshipping it?

Especially if she loved him.

I am in so much trouble
.

Chills feathered down Anna’s spine as she acknowledged the fact.

I love him. He doesn’t love me. He might not even be capable of the sort of love I want him to feel for me.

She wished for a moment that he’d never come back into her life, and then snatched back the wish almost immediately. These last few hours had been worth all the months of pain ahead. Perhaps years of it.

Outside, a bird began to sing in the lemon grove downhill from the villa. Its soaring cry lifted her heart. There might not be pain after all. Nick hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to settle down so far, but any man could change, couldn’t he? Even the most diehard of players.

For a moment she returned to the dream she’d had a few days ago. She saw herself and Nick, living together in that pink house by the Thames. With their children.

It was so seductive. So real. She looked down on him, sleeping like a temporarily vanquished god, and imaged him dreaming the same dream. Wanting the same life.

The trill of his mobile phone was like a dash of cold water thrown in her face, and the beautiful fantasy vanished.

Even as she watched Nick snap to instant, complete wakefulness, she was aware that the joyous bird out in the lemon tree had fallen silent.

“
Pronto
?”

Nick’s voice was crisp. Sitting up, he raked his fingers through his tousled hair and frowned as he listened to the voice at the other end of the line. Anna couldn’t make out what he was hearing, but she could tell that the conversation was in Italian. And that the person he was speaking to was in a state of high agitation. Hysteria even.

Maria Rossi
.

As Anna listened to Nick’s swift, idiomatic answers, she could make out only bits and pieces. He was trying to calm the other woman. To ascertain where she was and what she wanted. His brow crumpled as he tried to get a straight answer out of the distant Maria, then he rose to his feet and began to pace the room, heedless of his own nakedness.

He’s forgotten I’m here
. Anna felt as if she was invisible as the quick, terse Italian exchange continued. Nick’s expression was intent, frowning yet clearly concerned.

She’s
the one he really cares about. I was just a convenient diversion—on hand and available because I’m part of his plans to lift his father’s spirits.

Moving as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, she gathered her few clothes and slipped into them.

But as her head popped out of the neck of her vest, she finally met Nick’s eyes. His frown deepened, and he put his hand over the phone.

“What are you doing?” he queried in a soft but terse voice.

“Getting dressed and getting out of here,” she shot back.

What on earth did he think? That he could have his cake and eat it? Maintain an intense lover’s conversation with his Italian mistress, and then return to the bed he’d just shared with his English one?

“Wait!” His eyes flashed with real irritation.

But at that moment there came the harsh, tinny sound of a protest from the mobile phone and his attention switched back to the unit, his voice quieter, more mellifluous as he replied.

Shoving her feet into her sandals, Anna almost ran for the door, heart aching. She didn’t mean to look back, but she couldn’t help herself.

A horrible premonition gripped her. This might be the last time—ever—that she saw Nick under such intimate circumstances, the last ever chance to see his perfect male beauty.

As she turned, he gestured to her to stay, even as he murmured soothingly into the phone. But she grabbed the door handle, turned it fumblingly and this time she did run, almost stumbling from the room, racked with pain and mortification.

Chapter Nine

In the shower, Anna hugged herself and let the water stream down and down and down. But it didn’t wash away the bitter, churning emotions.

Maria Rossi
.

I should have known I didn’t stand a chance against her.

Pushing her wet hair back, Anna tilted up her face as if seeking clarity in the stream from the shower.

But hadn’t Nick assured her he was “just friends” with his former mistress?

“Just friends,” growled Anna, reaching for the shower gel, “We all know what that means to you, Nick, don’t we?”

And yet, it just didn’t seem possible. It didn’t seem like him at all. Yes, he was notorious as a connoisseur of glamorous women, and she accepted that he’d probably slept with a whole raft of the most stunning beauties in Europe.

But to sleep with one while still involved with another? Well, that just didn’t seem like his style. It went against everything she’d ever fundamentally believed about him. Even though she’d made mistakes with respect to Nick and his actions and motives, she did believe that at core he had values and decency. He couldn’t be a cheat, could he?

The thoughts turned over and over in her head as she toweled herself dry, but she couldn’t come up with an answer. Just more questions. Wrapping the large bath sheet around her body, she trudged through into her bedroom and then stopped short as her heart gave a great, hard leap.

Nick was sitting on the edge of her bed, bare-chested and barefoot, and wearing only a pair of weather-beaten old jeans. He sprang to his feet almost immediately, but dimly she registered that the instant before he’d been frowning and deep in thought.

And he was still frowning.

“Why did you run away like that?” Accusation made his eyes dark as indigo. “There was no need to.”

Sudden, acid anger boiled in Anna’s breast, but she controlled it carefully. No use behaving like a jealous shrew, even if he had been talking to “the other woman”. She had to affect a casual aura. Keep things light. No strings. Even if her heart was ripping in two.

“You were busy. I thought we were done.”

She manufactured a slight shrug, even an attempt at a nonchalant smile. But a band of fear gripped her as she watched the skin around Nick’s beautiful mouth grow tight and pinched. The darkness in his eyes flashed dangerously, like thunder.

“Do you think so little of what we did together this afternoon? Do you think so little of me, that I’d dismiss you so casually after what we shared?” His hands flexed, clenched, almost as if he too were fighting negative inner urges. Ones such as the desire to grab her and shake her.

Drawing in a deep breath, she fought for as much detached dignity as she could summon whilst clad only in a towel in the presence of a man who knew every single inch of her body.

“You were talking to Maria Rossi. A
friend
of yours. I was obviously surplus to requirements.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished them back again. She’d said exactly the sort of thing she’d told herself she wouldn’t sink to, and every fabulous line of Nick’s body seemed to vibrate with anger.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Anna.”

His coolness was far more ominous than any amount of sound and fury, and the sound of her name, heavy with emphasis, made the words doubly cutting.

“I’m an Italian. This is Italy. Do you seriously believe she’s the only person I’m likely to talk on the phone to in my native language?” He turned away and stalked towards the open window. The hard, taut line of his bare back told her that he saw nothing of the colorful, landscaped gardens that lay beyond.

“For all you know I could have been speaking to my father’s nurse…or to his doctor.”

Abject horror made Anna feel suddenly sick. What the hell was the matter with her? How could she have thought the worst of him? Even more horrible, what was the matter with Carlo? And yet the tone… You didn’t talk to a composed medical professional that way, did you?

“I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her voice low as if that might stop her from saying anything else stupid, “Is Carlo all right? There hasn’t been some setback, has there?”