Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: March 2018 Books 1 - 4 - Кэтти Уильямс, Cathy Williams - Страница 18

CHAPTER EIGHT

THEY SAT BENEATH a canopy of tangled green leaves as the Mediterranean sea glittered in a blue haze in front of them. The waiter had just brushed away the remains of the seafood platter but Nicole could see a shiny pink piece of prawn shell he must have missed, which sat on the tablecloth like a picked-off piece of nail varnish. She leaned back in her chair, knowing she couldn’t keep staring at the table or distracting herself with the amazing view for much longer. Wishing there were somewhere else to look than at Rocco’s ruggedly handsome face.

Yet there was nowhere else she would rather look. She could have feasted her eyes on him all day—on those fiercely intelligent eyes and lips which smiled so rarely, but, when they did, it was like the sun coming out from behind dark cloud. She wondered what he was trying to do to her. To beguile her with a glimpse of how life could have been as his wife, if he’d loved her rather than being programmed to hurt her?

Today they had played tourist in his adopted city where he’d shown her the Monaco which was hidden behind the façade of glitzy shops, exploring narrow streets which felt as if they were full of secrets. They walked through the beautiful Saint Martin gardens and the Byzantine cathedral and the Place du Palais, where they joined all the other sightseers watching the daily changing of the guard. Side by side they stood, their bodies close but never quite touching while Nicole’s skin tingled with unwilling frustration.

And they’d ended up in this beautiful restaurant where the waiter had just placed two leather menus in front of them and Rocco was still studying her with those mesmerising eyes, which spoke of his distant Greek ancestry.

‘Would you like dessert?’

She shook her head. ‘Not really. How about you?’

His gaze became speculative. ‘What I want isn’t on the menu.’

‘You want them to make you something special?’

‘Like what?’

She opened her eyes very wide because suddenly she realised they were flirting. ‘Oh, I don’t know—a soufflé maybe, or some crepes suzette?’

He leaned forward and lowered his voice, even though nobody could possibly overhear them. ‘After what we were doing last night, I’m amazed you can ask those questions with such an innocent look on your face,’ he said. ‘Which makes me wonder whether it’s real or whether it’s feigned. Or whether it’s an invitation for me to acknowledge the heat which has been building between us all morning and won’t seem to go away. Is that what you’d really like me to do, Nicole?’

She met his gaze before turning her head away, afraid of what he might be able to read in her eyes, when she didn’t even want to admit it herself. ‘I don’t know what I want,’ she confessed.

‘Then perhaps I will make the decision for us. I think we ought to discuss this matter further, only in private.’ His words filtered over her skin. ‘So why don’t we leave the table and do just that?’

The sudden tightness in Nicole’s chest was making it very difficult to breathe. ‘You mean...you want to go back to the house?’ she croaked.

He shook his head. ‘No. That’s not what I mean. Who wants to waste time trailing back through the city?’

‘Well, what, then?’

‘We could get a room.’

‘Where?’

‘Right here. This restaurant serves some of the best food in the city, but it also has rooms.’ He paused as he looked at her. ‘But you might not want that.’

Nicole shifted uncomfortably beneath his searching expression. Of course she wanted to. She’d wanted nothing else since they’d left his house that morning when the world had seemed to blur so that Rocco had become her only real focus, no matter how detached she had been when studying the architecture of the city or how many paintings she’d looked at. When just having him that near had been like electricity firing over her skin—making her long for them to get properly close. She’d told herself sex wasn’t going to happen again. That she’d emerged from that passionate bout last night with her heart just about intact and she wasn’t sure she’d be so lucky if there was a next time.

But her body was hungry and her desire was strong—and maybe Rocco had picked up on that. She licked her lips, trying not to be affected by his raven-dark glint of his hair in the sunshine, or the pure muscular power of his body. If she was being sensible she would say no. She would suggest he call for the bill and take her back to the house while she whiled away a few blameless hours by the pool, before getting ready for cocktails on his yacht. She would play at being his wife in public and for the rest of the time she would do her best to avoid him, just as she’d originally planned.

But being sensible wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. When was the last time she’d been reckless? When she’d thought about what she really wanted rather than what she needed? Next week she would be back in Cornwall with damp clay underneath her fingernails and bills to pay, but today she was on a sunny Mediterranean terrace and the only man she had ever really wanted was asking her to go to bed with him. Surely only a fool would turn down an opportunity like that.

‘They might not have a room,’ she said.

His eyes gleamed. ‘We could try.’

Of course, they did have a room and Nicole felt like a naughty schoolgirl as Rocco handed over his credit card and was given a key. And crazily, she found herself wishing she were wearing her wedding band, which was the only piece of jewellery she’d kept from her marriage. She wondered what the staff thought of customers who came for lunch, then booked themselves a room. Did they think she was Rocco’s mistress and he was about to spend an illicit afternoon with a woman who wasn’t his wife? And wasn’t it ironic that somehow she seemed to fit that role much better? She’d made a much better mistress than she had a wife, she reflected.

The ride in the elevator was conducted in a breathless kind of silence, mainly because of the presence of a middle-aged woman who was decked in diamonds and carrying a small white dog in her handbag. But Nicole honestly didn’t think she would have dared go anywhere near Rocco even if the elevator had been empty. She was in such a heightened state of excitement that she suspected a single touch would have had her clawing at him like a wildcat. Greedily taking what she could from him in the certain knowledge that after Sunday she would be saying goodbye for ever.

After what felt like an eternity, the lift came to a halt and Rocco swiped the key card with a hand which wasn’t quite steady. Their room was opulent, with silken drapes and Persian rugs. The walls were decorated in soft shades of grey and the air heavily scented with freshly cut crimson roses. But the décor was nothing but a secondary feature because the moment the door closed behind them, they started pulling at each other’s clothes.

‘Rocco...be careful,’ she breathed as he tugged impatiently at the zip of her sundress. ‘If you tear it, I don’t have anything else to wear—’

‘Then I’ll send out for a replacement,’ he drawled as the white dress pooled to her ankles and he briefly lifted her up so she was free of it. ‘There are plenty of shops close by.’

It was an arrogant assertion and Nicole’s heart sank as she acknowledged that this was the way he operated. You ripped a woman’s dress off and then you bought another. And she realised something else, too. That whatever his love-life had been since their marriage ended—Rocco wouldn’t stay celibate forever. Of course he wouldn’t. One day he would be renting a post-lunch room with someone else like this and ripping off her dress.

But that uncomfortable realisation was banished by the practised touch of his fingers as they skated over her quivering flesh. With one-handed dexterity he unclipped her bra and let the lacy garment fall to the ground, his lips immediately locking around her nipple and making her moan softly. He was undoing the belt of his trousers as Nicole began unbuttoning his shirt, her fingers sliding eagerly over the silken warmth of his bare chest. The only sound she could hear was the growing intensity of their laboured breathing until the final piece of clothing was removed and they were both naked.

Impatiently, he threw aside the silken cushions and laid her on top of the bed, stretching her arms above her head as if she were some kind of ancient sacrifice. And didn’t it feel a bit like that, as he licked at her nipples before turning his attention to the hollow of her navel? It felt primitive and exciting and somehow inevitable. Nicole held her breath as his tongue traced a sinuous path to her parted thighs, at last flickering over the gloriously aroused bud until she was brokenly pleading for him to stop teasing her. She wanted him. All of him. She wanted him inside her.

‘Can’t you wait, piccolo?’

‘No!’ she gasped.

‘So I see.’ His laugh was low and exultant as he stroked on a condom and his hard body came down on top of hers.

‘Rocco!’ she moaned, tilting her hips towards him, and suddenly he was making that first deep thrust which filled her and the lips she’d opened to cry out her pleasure were being silenced by the hungry pressure of his kiss.

Nicole had never experienced anything quite so intense. Was that because for the first time she really felt like his equal—a lover who knew how to please him? Who could meet him on his own terms instead of being the unlikely mistress or the doormat wife? Her head thrashed wildly against the pillow as he drove into her and very quickly tipped her over the edge. Her body started convulsing and almost immediately she felt Rocco bucking inside her as he gave that shuddered groan she recognised so well. His body warm and spent, he collapsed against her, his heart pounding against her damp breasts, and her fingertips automatically moved up to stroke the ruffled tendrils of his hair.

In silence they lay there and must have fallen asleep, because when Nicole’s eyes eventually flickered open it was to find her lips pressed against Rocco’s neck. The tip of her tongue edged out so that she could taste the saltiness of his damp skin. If only they could stay like this for ever, she thought dreamily. If only all the stuff which had kept them apart didn’t exist. But it did. Because this was sex. Nothing but sex. He hadn’t dressed it up or cloaked it in promises. He’d booked a room and she’d gone there willingly. And if at this moment they were equals—then maybe she should capitalise on that. Because they hadn’t quite finished that conversation of earlier, had they?

‘Rocco,’ she said, her finger tracing a slow path along the darkened stubble at his jaw.

‘Mmm?’

‘Can I ask you something else?’

There was a trace of post-coital indulgence in his voice but also the merest note of warning. ‘If I say no, will that stop you?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t think so.’ He rolled away from her. ‘So what is it now, Nicole?’

If only she’d had time to prepare—like when you went to see the doctor and were supposed to write down all your symptoms on a piece of paper in case you forgot them. As it was, the words came stumbling out in an unplanned rush. ‘When you told me earlier that you are the kind of man who hurts women, I wondered...well...’ She stared at the stillness of his profile. ‘Do you know why?’

‘I don’t hurt them,’ he corrected, his voice growing cool. ‘I am simply unable to meet their expectations, which are always predictable.’

She arched her brows but deep down she knew what was coming. ‘Oh?’

‘Women want love,’ he said softly. ‘And I don’t do love.’

‘Why not?’

He flexed and unflexed his fingers, the burnished skin looking very dark against the rumpled white sheet.

‘Because I can’t,’ he said at last. ‘I’m like someone who was born with no sense of smell—wave a rose underneath my nose and you’d be wasting your time. I don’t feel the stuff which other people claim to feel. That’s just the way it is. Blame it on the way I was brought up, if you like. Perhaps you have to witness something in order to experience it and there was no real love in our house—at least, not between my parents. Their marriage was based on duty, rather than joy.’

‘I see,’ said Nicole slowly, trying to absorb what he’d told her. Had he fallen into a familiar pattern when he’d married her, because that too was based on duty? Was that why he’d written her those letters insisting she came back—because he’d felt he had to? ‘So they weren’t happy?’

‘Not with each other, no.’

‘But they never considered divorce?’

‘With three children to consider?’ Rocco’s mouth hardened. ‘No way. And divorce at that time would have been frowned on, especially in that part of Sicily. I guess all their simmering resentment had nowhere to go and was one of the reasons why they lived life so dangerously.’

She shifted her weight slightly, so that she was propping herself up on her elbow. ‘What do you mean, dangerously?’

He turned to look at her and Nicole thought she caught a flash of vulnerability in his eyes, but it was gone so quickly she might have imagined it.

‘They got their kicks out of high-risk stuff,’ he said. ‘I gather it’s a guilt-free way of getting your adrenal buzz, rather than breaking your marriage vows. They opted for dangerous sports rather than infidelity. You know, the kind of activities which make your insurance premiums shoot up. Sky-diving, heli-skiing, free-diving—you name it, they did it. When my father crashed the speedboat it was profoundly shocking but, on some level, I realised I’d been waiting for something like that to happen for a long time.’

Nicole held her breath, unwilling to say anything which might shatter the fragile atmosphere. She wondered why he’d never told her any of this before. Because they’d never had that kind of relationship. They’d been about to split up when she’d discovered she was pregnant—and after that, everything had been about the baby. Even after their marriage they’d never confided in one another because their compartmentalised lives had never seemed to overlap. It was only now, when their relationship was almost over, that Rocco seemed prepared to reveal something of the real man behind the successful mask he presented to the world. Too little, too late, she thought—but that didn’t stop Nicole’s heart from going out to him.

‘Oh, Rocco,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

His voice was dismissive. ‘I don’t want your pity.’

‘It isn’t pity. It’s compassion.’

‘Whatever you call it, I don’t want it. It all happened a long time ago and I think we’ve done this subject to death, don’t you?’ He stifled a yawn and glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better order a car to pick us up.’

Nicole registered the dismissive note in his voice and realised what he was trying to do. He was deliberately changing the subject. Telling her in no uncertain terms to keep her pity and her comfort to herself, but Nicole wasn’t done. Not yet. She licked her lips. ‘Just one more question.’

This time he made no attempt to hide his impatience. ‘This is getting tedious, Nicole.’

‘I need to know something else, Rocco, and this may be the last chance I get to ask it. Was salvaging your personal reputation the real reason you brought me out here?’

In the muted grey light of the upmarket room, his sapphire eyes looked very startling. ‘I could probably swing the deal without you by my side,’ he said slowly. ‘Let’s just say your presence was a precautionary measure.’

‘And that’s all?’

His eyes met hers. ‘Originally.’

‘And then?’

He shrugged. ‘Once you got out here I realised there was something unfinished between us.’

Her heart pounded. ‘You mean sex?’

There was a pause before he nodded. ‘Se. That’s exactly what I mean. It has been a long time since I’ve been intimate with a woman.’ He met the question in her eyes. ‘Not since the last time I had sex with you, if you’re interested.’

‘I’m not,’ she said breathlessly, and wondered if he could read the lie in her voice.

‘It seemed a pity to deny something we both wanted,’ he continued thoughtfully. ‘You were always the best lover I’d ever had and I wanted to know if you were as good as I remembered.’ He gave an odd kind of laugh. ‘And you are. But that’s all it was—lust, fired by curiosity.’

‘You certainly don’t pull your punches, do you, Rocco?’

‘Don’t ask questions if you can’t deal with the answers,’ he said as she got out of bed and turned her back on him.

But as he watched her getting dressed, Rocco was aware of a sudden feeling of frustration. He’d thought sex would mean closure—a satisfying finale to their doomed marriage. Yet somehow it hadn’t worked out like that. It had ended up being about more than the physical. It had given her the courage to ask him stuff and her questions had made him open up. Made him tell her things. Feel things. Things he didn’t want to feel. His mouth hardened as he reached down the side of the bed for his phone, closing his eyes to blot out the sight of Nicole pulling a pair of white panties up over her smooth, pale thighs.

Nicole hooked her bra in place, trying very hard to stop her hands from trembling and trying to ignore the fact that Rocco was speaking in rapid French on his phone and acting as if she wasn’t even there. She felt like some kind of hooker he’d brought to an anonymous hotel room, and even the revelation that there had been no other woman since their split wasn’t enough to calm her ruffled senses. She had been a fool. No two ways about it. She had been there for the taking and he had taken her. His unfinished business, as he had described it.

But for her?

For her it felt as if he’d picked her apart and left all the ends unravelled, so that she was left aching and wanting more. Pulling on her white sundress, she tried to smooth out some of the creases. More of him. Why hadn’t she realised that physical intimacy would take her to a place where it wasn’t safe to go? All that hard work she’d done on herself to try and forget him was all for nothing because right now she felt as vulnerable around Rocco as she’d ever been.

And she still had to endure some wretched cocktail party on his fancy yacht.

Nicole’s cheeks were burning as she walked through the lobby in her crumpled white sundress, aware of the doorman’s faint and knowing smile. And as she stepped out onto the sun-drenched pavement she realised that Rocco still hadn’t kissed her.