Читать книгу Pregnant with His Baby! - Ким Лоренс, Laura Iding - Страница 14

BREATHING hard, but not, it would seem, from the exertion of running up two flights of stairs carrying her—Gianfranco had taken them two at a time and not shown any signs of fatigue—he kicked open the door to this huge bedroom dominated by a large four-poster.

Probably the rest of the furnishings were just as impressive but Dervla was not actually interested in the décor. Her entire attention was focused on the man who laid her down carefully in the middle of the vast bed, before switching on a lamp.

He was still breathing hard as, kneeling on the bed, he tugged his shirt from his trousers and fought his way out of it.

Dervla’s gasp was audible. Desire clutched low in her belly as she stared at him in silent awe.

He was hard and sleek, his golden streamlined body carrying not an ounce of flesh to blur the perfection of the muscle definition in his chest and ridged, hair-roughened stomach.

She wanted to touch him, feel his bare skin against her own; she wanted to taste him, and feel his hands on her body. She wasn’t aware that she had expressed her growing desperation to fulfil these ambitions until he slipped the buckle on his belt and promised in a throaty drawl, ‘You will, cara, you will …’ His eyes didn’t leave her face for a second as he slid his trousers down over his narrow hips and kicked them away. He stood there for a moment wearing just a pair of boxers that did little to disguise the strength of his arousal.

Propped up on one elbow, he arranged his long lean length alongside her. He trailed a line of kisses down the curve of her jaw as he reached for the hem of her top.

Dervla gave a sensuous little wriggle to assist him as he lifted it over her head and flung it across the room.

Feeling the air on her overheated skin and enjoying the sensation, she laid her hands flat on his belly and felt the convulsive contraction of muscles underneath his silky, hair-roughened skin.

‘You have bruises,’ she whispered, her eyes darkening as she traced the uneven outline of one of the livid areas of discolouration along the crest of his right hipbone. ‘It must have been agony!’ she accused, thinking of how he had maintained his silent vigil.

‘No,’ he said, taking her hand in his and moving it lower. ‘This was agony,’ he contradicted thickly. ‘This is agony,’ he rasped throatily as he pulsed hard and hot against the constraints of her hand.

He didn’t just fill her hand but her mind and soul, stretching her emotional capacity to the limit and onto a new, mind-expanding level.

‘You’re the only medicine I needed, or wanted. I knew that I would find the comfort I needed in your body.’

There was dark colour scoring his jutting cheekbones as he held himself above her, staring with hot, hungry eyes at the rapid rise and fall of her straining breasts inside their lacy covering.

‘Virginal white,’ he murmured, his smile inviting her to share the joke as he reached for the front-fastening clasp.

Some joke!

The unintentional reminder made Dervla tense, but then his hands were cupping her bare breasts, weighing them in his big hands. The incredible sensation left little room in her pleasure-soaked brain for misgivings.

Her eyes drifted closed as she listened to his accented voice, telling her she was perfect and sounding flatteringly shaken about the discovery.

Any residual qualms totally vaporised when his thumb began to tease first one straining peak and then the other into burning life before he applied his lips and tongue to the same task.

Convulsed with pleasure, her entire body responding to his lightest touch and caress, she was barely aware of his stripping away first her jeans and then her lacy-edged pants until she felt his fingers slide into the bright curls at the apex of her legs, searching for the slick, hot centre of her.

Dervla shuddered with a nameless need as he pressed soft kisses to her closed eyelids and touched the tight, throbbing, sensitised flesh at her centre. The shockingly intimate invasion drew a keening cry of startled pleasure from her tight, aching throat. His caresses took her to the brink of something outside her experience but he pulled back quite literally before she crested the peak.

‘Oh, God, I’m …’

‘You’re perfect; we’re perfect,’ he told her before he slid down her body, kissing his way down the gentle curve of her stomach. ‘This,’ he added, kneeling between her parted thighs, ‘will be perfect too.’

Dervla sighed as she stared greedily at his magnificent glistening naked body. She didn’t doubt for a moment his ability to deliver perfect in many forms. It was only her doubts concerning her ability to fulfil his apparently pretty high expectations of her that brought a faint frown to her damp brow.

‘I have to have you … Dervla, you are driving me out of my mind.’

She responded by looping her arms around his neck, arching her back and pressing her bare breasts provocatively to his chest.

She was conscious of his breath hot on her neck as he pushed his way past the swollen lips of her resisting flesh and into her.

Her body arched under him and a sigh of amazement was wrenched from the very depths of her being.

‘Per amor di Dio!’

Barely even conscious of his stricken exclamation, Dervla wrapped her legs around his hips and clung onto his sweat-slick shoulders. At some level she did register the tremors that shook his big body as he held himself in check, but there were so many other incredible things happening that mostly she just registered how unbelievable it felt to have him hard and thick inside her.

‘This is incredible, you’re … oh, my—!’ she gasped as he sank a little deeper.

She cried his name over and over like a litany as he filled an emptiness she hadn’t known existed inside her, sinking deeper into her silken tightness, coaxing her towards the moment of total fulfilment, his own body shaking with the effort his restraint cost.

Then in the final moments as she hovered on the brink he ditched that restraint and with a cry plunged into her until they both reached the splintering climax simultaneously.

As he shuddered into her in the final convulsions of release she gave herself to him without reserve.

‘Oh, Gianfranco!’ she gasped, taking his face between her hands and pressing a fervent kiss to his lips. ‘You have no idea how glad I am I stayed. You are totally perfect.’ He actually looked like a man who had just been hit by a thunderbolt, but what did she know? That was probably normal. With a sleepy sigh she curled up in his arms and gave a contented sigh.

‘We are here.’ The chauffeur consulted his watch. ‘The ferry is due in five minutes. Would you like me to meet Alberto?’

Dragging herself kicking and screaming back to the present, Dervla struggled to escape the power of the erotic recollections. There was a tinge of guilt to her smile as she shook her head and touched a shaky hand to her hot, flushed cheeks.

She cleared her throat, struggling to regain her composure as she replied, ‘Thanks, Eduardo. I’ll meet him myself.’

A cold shower not being an option, she could really do with some fresh air!

As she was stepping out of the car Gianfranco was consulting his watch as he pulled into the fast lane of the motorway. His private jet had got him into the country before his son and by his calculations, barring any major snarl-up on the way, he ought to be in London a full thirty minutes before his runaway wife and son reached the house.

His expression hardened as he contemplated the inevitable confrontation that lay ahead.

She had behaved badly. Gianfranco was consumed by coruscating anger every time he considered her crazy conduct. But even while he condemned her he knew that his own actions might not stand up to strong scrutiny.

In his more rational moments—pretty few and far between over the last couple of days—he knew some might consider he was a more legitimate target for the anger he directed towards Dervla.

He had married her when he knew she wanted more than he was able or willing to give. Hadn’t something like this been inevitable?

But she knew the ground rules … and he refused to acknowledge what he felt for her was more than lust. Strong lust certainly, but nothing more. He repudiated the sly suggestion from the argumentative voice in his head that he’d been selfish to marry her.

Selfish? He’d given her everything she’d asked for—not that she had ever asked for anything except his support and advice in getting the hospice off the ground.

So if she asked for her freedom you’d let her go? Let her find a man she deserves, because she deserves better than you!

What, and let her loose to be the target of the first unscrupulous bastard with slick patter and a hard-luck story? His jaw tautened as, with an aggressive snort of disgust, he treated the ridiculous idea with the contempt it deserved.

At least with him she was safe.

The problem was she was so damned giving.

And she had given it all to him, held nothing back.

He would never forget that moment when he had realised he had seduced a virgin.

Sure, you were so traumatised you only paused to catch your breath before trying to do it again!

Ignoring the sardonic interjection of the critical voice in his head, Gianfranco recalled the primitive surge of male satisfaction tinged by a tenderness that had followed his initial blank shock.

When he had held her in his arms and told her that the possibility that she would be a virgin had never even crossed his mind she had confirmed her naivety by saying with a rueful grimace, ‘You noticed, then. I was wondering if you would.’

‘How is this possible? You are twenty-six. I thought I was a late starter,’ he muttered under his breath.

With feline grace that fascinated him, she rolled over and snuggled with a very un-virginlike lack of self-consciousness up to him. She trailed a finger down his sweat-slick hair-roughened chest, insinuating the feminine curve of her hip into the hard angle of his as she threw one slim thigh across his legs.

‘So how old were you?’ she asked, adding with a sigh of voluptuous pleasure and a sexy shimmy of her soft body against his, ‘God, this is good and you are totally and absolutely beautiful.’ Her exuberance was contagious.

‘Are you going to fall asleep?’

‘No, I am not going to fall asleep,’ he promised, laughing.

He had never associated laughter with sex before, but then it was not his habit to indulge in teasing banter or snuggling in the post-coital aftermath.

The romantic boy in him was long dead. For him sex was about satisfying a mutual primal need. Modern society felt the need to dress it up and talk of spiritual, emotional connections, but he did not buy into the self-deception.

And if on occasion, no matter how great the sex had been, he was left with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, not being a man inclined towards introspection, he didn’t analyse it or feel he was missing out on anything.

‘So how old were you?’ she persisted.

‘You seem fascinated by my sexual history.’

Tongue caught between her teeth, she trailed a finger down his chest, her green eyes teasing him from under the flirtatious sweep of her lashes. It amused him to see her discovering the power of her female sexuality and taking such obvious delight from it—so was he!

Her questing hand slid lower and she gave a deliciously throaty chuckle as he shuddered, his body stirring lustfully.

‘I’m fascinated by lots of things about you,’ she admitted. ‘But I did have you down as a very early starter.’

Very conscious of the small hand that now rested palm down on the flat of his belly, he retorted, ‘I was not twenty-six.’ He avoided whenever possible thinking of his idealistic nineteen-year-old self.

‘How is it possible that a woman who looks like you has never had a lover?’

‘Thank you. That’s a very nice thing to say. You’ve got lovely manners.’

‘Manners? Dio, you say the oddest things. It’s not nice; it is a fact—you are beautiful.’ He caught her softly rounded chin in his hand and tilted her heart-shaped face up to him and looked deep into her emerald eyes.

Dervla didn’t look away, but looked steadily back at him, though there was a touch of shyness in her direct gaze. When he touched his thumb to her lips, still swollen from his kisses, and traced the cushiony softness, her lashes had swept downwards, brushing against her smooth flushed cheeks.

He kissed the delicate blue-veined eyelids and murmured, ‘Very beautiful and desirable. I thought so from the moment I saw you.’

Her eyelashes lifted and there was a sparkle of teasing wickedness in her eyes. ‘Do you want to know what I thought when I first saw you?’ Before he could respond she shook her head and with a rueful grimace said, ‘On second thoughts, don’t ask. It wasn’t very professional.’

He watched her expression grow sober, a furrow appearing between her feathery brows as she touched the sutures that had closed the healing wound that lay close to the hairline at his right temple and ended at his jaw.

He caught her hand and raised it to his lips.

‘Come to think of it, this isn’t very professional,’ she said huskily as she curled her fingers around his jaw. He watched the clear green of her marvellous eyes cloud as, with a distracted expression, she began to stroke her thumb across the light dusting of stubble on his cheek.

‘But what you lacked in expertise you made up for in enthusiasm.’

It took her a second before she digested his comment; in the next second her eyes widened as she loosed an indignant, ‘You know what I mean!’ before she rolled away from him and in one seamless motion pulled herself into a sitting position. Then, balancing on her heels, she lobbed a pillow at his chest.

Gianfranco had been too absorbed by the gentle and incredibly erotic quiver of her small pink-tipped breasts to block the missile.

Pleased that he had succeeded in driving the self-recriminatory frown from her face, he grinned, removed the second weapon from her hands and pushed her back against the mattress. Supported above her by one hand, he curved the other over her delectable bottom. As he dragged her to him he heard her sharp intake of breath and felt the vibration as the husky little whimper got trapped in her throat.

Looking into her eyes, he saw them dilate dramatically until just a thin ring of green remained. She aroused a hunger in him that threatened the control he prided himself on.

‘What you need, cara, is practice and lots of it.’

‘Which you will provide?’ Before he could assure her of his total willingness to do so she suddenly groaned. ‘No, this is all wrong!’

‘Wrong?’ It felt pretty right to him. Frustration clawed at his belly.

‘Patients are vulnerable,’ she explained solemnly. ‘Sometimes they get close to the people caring for them, imagine they have feelings.’ Her eyes slid from his. ‘It’s a well-documented fact. To take advantage of someone vulnerable is despicable … and I can’t even claim I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing.’

It took him a few seconds to interpret her convoluted and earnest explanation.

‘You think you are taking advantage of me?’ He had to bite back the laughter because she clearly took this very seriously. ‘If anyone could be accused of taking advantage it should be me. You were the virgin.’ She brushed aside the reminder with a wave of her hand. ‘And today you were upset because you lost your patient.’

‘I’m a nurse and I work on a unit where people are very ill, patients die.’

‘And you stay objective—you expect me to believe that?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I’ve watched you.’ He actually couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘You ooze empathy.’

She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘Not for the lonely old man you visited on your day off.’

‘Mr Chambers had no family here. His daughter had emigrated, she was coming and—’

‘You do not need to explain your actions to me, Dervla. I am not your patient.’

‘No, but your son is.’

‘Not for much longer.’ If Alberto threw off the infection that had slightly delayed his progress, the medics said he ought to be fit enough to be transferred to a hospital within half an hour’s drive from their Florence home to convalesce.

She nodded. ‘You’ll be home soon.’

He watched as without warning tears started to leak from Dervla’s glorious eyes. ‘My God,’ she groaned, flashing him a mortified look as she brushed them away. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Why are you crying, Dervla?’ he asked, sitting upright.

Normally tears were his cue for recalling he needed to be somewhere else. Gianfranco had a cynical take on female tears, being of the opinion they were more to do with manipulation than sentiment.

Only it was fast dawning on him that unlike other lovers in his past, this redhead didn’t know the first thing about manipulation or, for that matter, self-preservation.

His hands clenched into fists as he thought of her walking like an innocent lamb into the clutches of some bastard who would take advantage of that trusting nature.

Some might say she already has. Gianfranco dismissed the thought. Men took advantage of a woman when they pretended to feel something they didn’t. He did not play those games.

‘I’m not. I don’t cry. Oh, God!’ she snapped, rounding on him angrily. ‘Can’t a girl sniff without a full-scale interrogation?’

‘You’re upset and I want to know why.’ He had felt a slight twinge of unease, recognising that he genuinely did want to know.

In previous relationships the most personal details he had felt it necessary to learn about the women in his life were their preferences in designer labels. He was not an ungenerous lover, but he was not one who was interested in emotionally high-maintenance women.

‘Are you regretting this?’

‘Regretting?’ she echoed, looking startled by the suggestion and then wryly amused as she told him, ‘Nothing could be farther from the truth.’

He was relieved but perplexed by the odd inflection in her voice. ‘Then why …?’

She shook her head mutely and rolled away, presenting him with her slim bare back. A hand on her shoulder, he pulled her back. ‘Look at me!’ he commanded.

After a moment she did. Their eyes meshed and the silence stretched until a small choking sound escaped her throat. In one single fluid motion she was on her feet at the side of the bed, red hair falling in a silken skein around her shoulders. She seemed oblivious to her nakedness as she stood there literally quivering, her pale skin glowing with an opalescent sheen.

Gianfranco had known at that moment that the image of her standing there would always remain in his memory.

‘I was trying very hard to be grown up about this, but if you want to know, fine!’ She flung up her arms, causing her small pink-tipped breasts to bounce in a way that sent a fresh distracting stab of lust slamming through Gianfranco’s aroused body.

‘I was crying because I’ll miss you when you go back home.’ She screwed her eyes tight shut and shook her head before fixing him with a challenging glare. ‘And before you say it, yes, I do know how stupid that sounds and how ludicrous I’m being. I barely even know you. We have nothing in common and—’

‘You’ll miss me?’ He watched as dull colour ran up under her fair skin as she reached for a quilt that had fallen to the ground and wrapped it around herself.

‘I really don’t know what I’m saying. This has been a pretty emotional day.’

Was she referring to losing the patient she had cared for or losing her virginity? He patted the bed. It was an invitation she accepted after a moment, though to his regret the quilt stayed in place as she sat primly on the edge of the bed.

‘Come with me,’ he heard himself say.

Her expression mirrored the incomprehension he was feeling. ‘Come …?’

‘Come with us when we go back to Italy.’

‘That’s very nice of you, but I don’t have any annual leave left this year.’

‘For the record, Dervla, I am not a nice man, and I’m not talking about taking a vacation. You’d like Italy.’

‘Live there, you mean?’

‘Why not?’

‘A hundred why nots,’ she retorted, trying to laugh but sounding strained as she reminded him, ‘My work is here, Gianfranco.’

‘There are hospitals in Italy.’

‘I don’t speak Italian, it takes time to learn a language and I need to earn a living … God, will you listen to me?’ she exclaimed, clapping a hand to her head and rolling her eyes. ‘I sound as though I’m actually considering it.’

‘You don’t need to worry about earning a living straight away—I’m not exactly a poor man.’

Beside him she stiffened. ‘You’re suggesting I should pack in my job, leave my friends and come with you to Italy as your mistress?’

‘Not mistress precisely,’ he admitted.

But now that he thought about it he could see the very definite advantages to this plan. It wasn’t until she turned her head and he saw her expression that it dawned on him that Dervla was not warmed to the idea.

He continued to study her and thought about the women, he could think of several, who might manage to simulate a little enthusiasm at the prospect of the lap of luxury as his mistress.

‘Well, what else would you call a woman when a man pays her bills in return, of course, for certain favours?’ she enquired with withering contempt. Her bosom heaved as she choked. ‘I’ve never been so insulted in my life!’

Her anger seemed totally inexplicable to Gianfranco. ‘You are insulted?’

He wondered whether to inform her that the post that apparently filled her with such disgust was one that any number of women had angled for over the years.

‘Damn right,’ she ground through clenched teeth. ‘Do I seem to you like the sort of woman who would make herself reliant on a man? A woman who would give up her independence? Waiting until I’m twenty-six to discover sex might in retrospect make me a fool, but not that much of a fool.’

‘So is that it? Now that you have discovered sex, you are anxious to experiment.’ An image of the faceless men who would continue the education he had begun flashed into his head. The throbbing in his temples became a pulsating thud.

After staring at him in stunned silence for a moment, she threw back her head and laughed. Her eyes were sparkling with anger as she said in a flat little voice, ‘And I have you to thank for my sexual liberation.’

‘Do not confuse promiscuity with liberation,’ he counselled severely, still seeing that line of predatory faceless males.

‘You’re accusing me of being promiscuous? That’s rich! That really is rich! The way I hear, you change women the same way a normal man changes his shirt. If you were a woman and not filthy rich people would call you some very nasty names. And they might be right!’

‘Dio mio!’ he breathed wrathfully. The women he took to his bed were experts at pleasing a man; they did not go out of their way to insult him.

It turned out she hadn’t finished with him yet.

‘You know, you’re the sort of man who can’t talk about his feelings and thinks it’s a sign of strength.’

‘Suddenly you know an awful lot about men—and me,’ he observed grimly.

She glared at him through shimmering green eyes and tossed her head contemptuously. ‘I know enough about you to know I never want to see you again.’ Snatching up her scattered clothes, she ran from the room.

He told himself that the turn of events, while frustrating, was for the best in the long run. Dervla Smith was too high maintenance. He threw aside the covers and vaulted to his feet, his toe caught in the lacy strap of her bra.

He returned it a week later when he proposed.