Читать книгу The Italian Next Door - Anna Cleary, Anna Cleary - Страница 9

HER legs might have been unwilling, but Pia would have made them work even if all their bones had been broken. She dragged herself from the car and walked with Valentino across the leafy grass, barely even faltering when they approached the lookout.

The air was dry, hot in the sun, and aromatic with rosemary and other wild scents.

She gripped the stone balustrade with gratitude, though her throat was dry. The view was indeed spectacular, and when the solidity of cement and earth under her hands and feet had worked to settle her vertigo stole the breath from her lungs. Rugged cliff faces and blue, blue sea, misting into infinite sky. Deeper, more intense blue than the human mind could fathom. Indigo into cobalt, aquamarine and turquoise at the edges.

She could do this, she reasoned with herself. Even though they were up so high at least her feet were on solid ground and she had a big strong man beside her who wasn’t wearing a ski mask.

Oh, God, why think of that now?

She concentrated on breathing in the blue, allowing its healing qualities into her soul until her heart slowed its irrational racing and she felt herself start to relax. Valentino was leaning on the balustrade, his white shirt-opening cutting a bronzed V, his sleeves rolled up a little, forearms naked to the sun, the image of cool, sexy masculinity.

Cool, but if she could have painted him, the colours would have seared the page.

‘You see those little isles out there?’ She followed his gaze to where jagged fingers pointed from the sea, piercing the blue haze. ‘Remember Ulysses and the sirens who lured the sailors?’

‘That’s the place?’ She cleared the croakiness from her throat.

‘Yes. And just poking out from that corner of the cliff you see Capri.’

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, her voice back to natural. ‘It’s beautiful.’ And she truly meant it. It was beyond beautiful. It was heaven.

He angled himself to gaze at her and the sun found gold and amber glimmers in the depths of his eyes. ‘Better now?’ There was concern in his voice, and the lines of his chiselled, sensuous mouth were grave.

‘I’m fine, truly. I don’t know what happened. You shouldn’t have worried.’ She hardly dared look at him for fear of seeing the curl of contempt she’d once surprised on Euan’s mouth when she’d revealed her nervousness. ‘You were white.’

She shrugged it off. ‘Oh, well, I’m probably overtired. I have been travelling for thirty-six hours. It’s only natural I should be a bit pale.’

His eyes flickered to her mouth. ‘Not that pale. But you’ve improved a little. Now your lips are pink.’ He moved closer, touched them with his knuckle. ‘Like cherries.’

Her heart made a deep lurch in her chest, and he bent and touched her lips with his, a gentle, exploratory friction. It took her by surprise, in truth. Her mad, pounding pulse took off, and she would have stopped the tingling kiss, she really would, except that her lips fell into a sort of divine enchantment. He pulled her close and her hands reached for his shoulders, his ribs, his thick black hair.

Oh, the bliss of being held gently by a hard man. His peppery spice filled her head, and the taste of him, so masculine yet in some way unique, ignited her senses until she was drunk, and for seconds she came close to abandoning herself to his possession.

He gathered her close to his lean solid body and kissed her with a sizzling, sexy, melting heat, titillating the insides of her mouth with his tongue, drugging her brain with the sexual narcotic and razing her to the ground.

She sank into him, stroking him, her body thrilling to his arousing touch.

His smooth hands slid to her breasts and a wild flame of desire flared up in her. Instantly she felt conscious of losing control. At the same time awareness of the implacable power of his big, steel-hard physique sent a choking panic jackknifing through her insides.

She shoved at his powerful chest and broke free from his arms.

‘No, don’t,’ she said hoarsely, panting. ‘Not this.’

‘Cosa?’

He was staring at her with a strange expression, as though seeing something unexpected in her face. It was infuriating, and she hastened to cover up whatever it had been.

‘I—I don’t want to be kissed, do you understand?’ She was breathing fast. Anger and arousal seethed with equal potency in her bloodstream. For God’s sake, what was she doing? Here she was with a perfect stranger on a hellish road in the middle of what looked and smelled like heaven on earth, and for a moment she’d actually come close to getting carried away and letting herself go.

She must have lost her senses.

Blinking as though stunned, he stared at her with eyes that blazed molten. ‘I did not—’ His voice was thicker and deeper than a Gulf Oil gusher. ‘I did not intend … This was just … I wanted to comfort you.’

‘Oh, to comfort me. Please.’

A flush touched his lean cheeks. He said something intense in flowing Italian accompanied by a proud gesture that made it clear he felt stung by her accusation. The trouble was, even in her anger, those lilting, lyrical words, so eloquent of denial, expressed in his deep voice seeped into her bloodstream and threatened to undermine her.

She hardened herself against them and said in a low voice, ‘I don’t need comforting. Anyway, this was not what I’d call comfort. This was a man taking advantage of a woman.’

His head jerked back.

The ferocity of her words surprised even herself. Since the bank incident, she’d taken care to avoid riling members of the opposite sex. As soon as her bold words escaped from her mouth her cowardly heart jumped into her throat and cringed.

He stared at her, frowning, his eyes glittering. ‘I am not the sort of man who takes advantage of a woman.’ All at once his accent was very pronounced. ‘Holding you, kissing you even, seemed like a—a—natural response to your distress. I was intending merely to—soothe you.’

The flush on his sculpted cheekbones deepened on those last words, as if he realised himself how lame they sounded.

‘Oh, that’s what they all say.’

His eyes flashed. ‘Mio Dio, what sort of guy do you think I am?’ He made a small move in her direction, and despite her bravado an involuntary lurch in her guts drove her back a step.

Shock smote his tense, handsome face and he held up his hands. ‘Pia … You have no need to feel afraid. I am a civilised man, perdio. I do not assault women. Far from it.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ she said sharply, though in fact her blood was thundering in her ears and she was trembling like an aspen. ‘Just—disappointed, that’s all. I have had a long, long trip. You’re a total stranger and I’m not in any mood to be kissing anyone.’ Her voice wobbled on the last word, to her utter shame.

But his assurances on the assault issue began to sink in. She started to feel less severely threatened, and as her confidence rose the strength of her anger intensified, and her need to express it.

‘You shouldn’t have assumed I wanted to kiss you.’

‘Okay, okay …’ He threw up his hands, muttering in melodic Italiano then switching to English. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

‘I’m not explaining.’ And she wasn’t, not really. It was just that she felt all wound up and needed to vent her feelings. ‘I’m—mortified that you think I’m the sort of woman who would encourage such … such … free and easy.’ She made a wordless gesture.

‘Kissing.’

‘As if any time a man finds a woman on a lonely road he should seize the opportunity. As if this is what I was cut out for. To be kissed by a man. Any man who feels like it, any old tick of the clock. All right, Pia, I like the look of you so I’ll kiss you. As if I should enjoy …’

He’d been listening with close attention, but at that his black lashes swept down to conceal a sudden gleam in his eyes. ‘And yet for a few moments there I had the distinct impression you did enjoy. You were so very, very responsive. When I held you in my arms I could feel the thrill rippling through your vibrant body. I can feel it still, in my arms, all through my body, all the way to my bones.’

It was her turn to flush. Her conscience pricked, and to make matters worse the very nature of the words he’d used were in some way arousing.

‘Oh, rubbish.’ She gave a cool, angry laugh and turned away to hide her burning cheeks. ‘There was no thrill. The only thing rippling through me was anger.’

She started to walk across the clearing towards the car. She felt all raw inside, as if she were in the wrong somehow and had treated him unfairly, when all the time he was the one who had kissed her. She supposed if the case made it to court he’d accuse her of flirting with him on the journey.

But what was flirting, after all? A binding contract?

He caught up with her and said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry to have distressed you, Pia. If I had realised when you were moaning in my arms—’

‘Oh, what, moaning? I was not.’ Blushing furiously, she turned away.

‘Sì, sì, I heard you moan.’ His voice thickened. ‘When you did that it made me so hot for you. Molto molto caldo.’

The words affected her against her will, coursing through her like a hot tingling aphrodisiac, and with a spurt of sudden anger she spun around to face him. ‘Stop this, Valentino. Please. There’s no use talking about it.’ Gazing at his gorgeous face, so dark and intense, so focused on her, all at once she felt breathless, furious, ready to strike. ‘Don’t say another word.’

He threw up his hands. ‘Okay, okay. Don’t be upset. I am not one of these guys who argue and force themselves upon women. You have said no more and no more is how it shall be. Nothing more. Niente.’

She strode on, wishing she weren’t so conscious of him behind her.

‘And don’t think you can arouse me by using Italian words, either,’ she tossed over her shoulder. She turned to reinforce the command with a glare and noticed a dark gleam in his eyes, but it might have been a trick of the sunlight.

With chillingly elaborate courtesy he opened the car door for her. Before she got in, in a last—ditch effort to calm things down, she paused. She drew a long deep breath.

‘Look, Valentino …’

His eyes glinted. ‘Sì?’

‘If for some reason you mistakenly thought …’

‘I thought nothing. You have every right to say no.’ There was a pride and dignity in his bearing that touched her, and she was so relieved to find him civilised and accepting of her rejection, she almost felt a rush of warmth towards him.

‘Oh, look. Thank you for being so …’ Her words dried up and she gestured instead.

He shrugged. ‘Forget it. Una bella ragazza ha il diritto cambiare pensiero.’

She had no idea what that meant, only that it slid down her spine like honey. But she could hardly beg him to stop breaking into his own language, especially in an emotional situation where it was only natural that it should spring first to his tongue.

The journey into Positano was short, thank the Lord, with Valentino grimly polite. That didn’t succeed in alleviating the undercurrents smouldering between them. With almost punishing kindness he pointed out things to her as they drove the single road that snaked back and forth in its descent through the town to the sea. He showed her the main square, the market and the shops crammed along intriguing little alleyways, in the most courteous voice imaginable, while, confusingly, his accent deepened and became even more appealing to the ear.

It was torture.

Even worse than the aftermath of the kiss, if possible, was her awareness of the exhibition she’d made of herself during the journey, freezing with fear like that in the car. Her delight in her first sight of the amazing old village cascading down the cliff, the terraces and villas built seemingly on top of one another, was all but ruined.

He drove her almost down as far as the sea, drawing up in a small square before the small church. Taking her bags from the car, he carried them up through a maze of narrow alleyways that here and there turned into steep stairs hewn from the rock face. Eventually he pushed open a gate that led into a terrace with a little courtyard.

There were several apartments of pale pink stucco in the row, each with a balcony under an arcaded roof. Pia followed the apartment numbers with her eye and found Lauren’s at the end. She hoisted the canvas bag onto her shoulder while Valentino hefted her suitcase upstairs to the balcony.

‘Do you have a key?’ he said, pausing.

‘Above the mantel, Lauren said.’ Constraint made her voice sound unnatural even to her own ears. She reached up to the beam but he was there before her, his cool hand colliding with hers on the ledge.

She drew hers sharply away.

He gave her the key and she unlocked and stood aside for him to carry in her things. She barely noticed the apartment’s interior, she was so intensely aware of Valentino and the brooding vibrations.

When her stuff was inside and he was outside on the balcony, ready to depart, she racked her brains for something to say to ease the strained atmosphere.

‘Where did you say you live?’ she enquired, in too much dismay to give the miraculous houses, apartment blocks and tiny terraced gardens crammed on the hillside above and adjacent to Lauren’s terrace more than a cursory glance.

‘There.’ He pointed below.

Her eyes jolted wide open. The dwelling he indicated was nearby, all right. It was on the next level down, an elegant white villa with a broad terrace at the rear and a small, cultivated garden, with grape vines, peach and lemon trees. Set into the terrace, an irregularly shaped pool sparkled in the midday sun like a jewel, and beyond the villa was the sea.