A Sicilian Seduction

‘What—like a date?’ she asked, looking into his eyes with her own so wide and seductively vulnerable, he hated himself for the blast of heat he felt where he shouldn’t!

‘Yes, a date,’ he confirmed, gruffly and suggestively. ‘One where we get to know each other outside the work environment, and explore the—possibilities to what we know is already here…’ He touched her soft and crushable lower lip with a finger. The warm flesh pulsed in instant response. ‘Bring a change of clothes with you tomorrow, change at the apartment to save us some time…’ In a minute, he thought fiercely, she will be licking that finger, and Dio, but he was burning for her to do it! ‘It will be good, hmm?’

She knew what he was saying, the sultry look in her deceitful eyes told him so, as did the sensual pulse in the air surrounding them. And as his body throbbed and his anger roared and his eyes burned with his intentions, he felt that softly pulsing lip move on her answer.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Triumph sang in his blood. After tomorrow night she would not be

sleeping in Edward’s cosy little love-nest ever again! She was his for the taking, and he was going to take her! By the time this thing was over Natalia Deyton was going to belong to him body and soul, Giancarlo vowed.

Body and wretched lying soul…

CHAPTER SIX

BY SEVEN-FIFTEEN the next evening, Natalia was standing in the bedroom of Giancarlo’s apartment, hurriedly putting the finishing touches to her make-up before she found herself somewhere to go to wait for him that wasn’t so—thought provoking.

She couldn’t believe an apartment of this size and class had only one bedroom and bathroom in it! A bachelor pad, he had dryly described it. One with hardly any doors and no locks on the few that it did have!

He had not arrived yet, and her tummy was fluttering with a nervous anticipation that was making it impossible for her to put her lipstick on straight. Sighing, she grabbed a tissue to wipe it away, then tried again.

It had been a strange day all told, she reflected. Disturbingly quiet without him here, yet she’d been feeling his presence everywhere from the moment she’d stepped out of the lift this morning.

No, before that, she amended, recalling the private taxicab that had arrived at her front door early this morning, arranged by him, to transport her here with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of comfort. The man certainly knew how to make an impression, she mused dryly. First with the door-to-door transport, then with the concierge waiting in the foyer to hand her the necessary security access card so that she could activate the lift, and an apology from Mr Cardinale for not being here today. ‘I am instructed to inform you that he will be here to collect you at seven-thirty…’

Seven-thirty had seemed a comfortingly long way off then—but the man himself hadn’t. From the moment she’d stepped out of the lift she had felt him everywhere she went in the apartment. Here in the bedroom, for instance, where she’d come first to hang up the suit bag carrying her clothes for tonight. The first thing to hit her had been the clean-scented smell of his soap permeating out from the connecting bathroom. And the evidence of his occupation lay everywhere she happened to look, like the loose change on the bedside table and the black cotton robe tossed casually on the bed.

A bed she couldn’t so much as glance at without feeling her skin prickle as her mind shot off to places it shouldn’t.

‘Oh, heck,’ she cursed softly, and made herself finish the job she had started before her nerves completely got the better of her. It had been bad enough taking a quick shower in his bathroom, hurrying herself through the chore with her senses on edge, tautly aware of the lack of a lock on the door and listening out for the sound of him returning early, terrified he would catch her there naked yet wickedly turned on by the idea at the same time. In fact she’d shocked herself by how vivid that fantasy had been.

She ought to be ashamed of herself. The note he’d left her had invited her to feel free to use the apartment as her own—but it had not given her permission to weave fantasies about him in his shower!

But then, it had been a week for heightening the senses. Yesterday she had spent in a constant state of high anxiety not knowing what he was going to come at her with next. Today, even though he had been physically absent, he had hovered silently in the background of everything she’d done, like the warm breath of a prospective lover on her nape, making his desires felt.

Oh, stop it! she scolded herself and began feeding her cosmetics back into their bag with impatient fingers. It was the sheer volume of work he’d left for her to do that made it feel he were breathing down her neck! she told herself crossly.

So much work, in fact, that she decided he must have stayed up all night to produce it! Letters to type. Memos to create and wing off to all the separate departments in Knight’s, carefully spelling out his directives and what he expected back from each and every one. Then there was the pin number he had left her, to enable her access to the Cardinale Group computer mainframe. A long list of jobs regarding all his other business interests had given her a daunting insight into how powerful a man he actually was.

No wonder she had become so obsessed by his presence, she told herself. He’d even emailed her at precisely one o’clock, ordering her to stop and make herself some lunch!

Then, halfway through the afternoon, the package had arrived by special courier. Her fingers went still, her eyes flickering up to catch their darkened expression in the mirror as she replayed that moment when she’d been handed the glossy white garment box—with the Taylor-Gant name inscribed in gold on the lid—and instantly known what had been inside it.

‘Consider these homework,’ the accompanying note said, scrawled in his bold black mocking hand. ‘I trust your good judgement as to which set you choose to wear tonight.’

Inside the box had been no less than three different sets of underwear. A sheer black lace set, a flimsy white silk set and a daring set in come-and-get-me red. All of which were so sensually provocative that she’d actually blushed as she’d visualised him choosing these things for her to wear!

But she was wearing the white set, which was telling her something she had no wish to dwell upon right now.

A telephone began to ring. Almost jumping out of her skin as the sound pierced the silence, she turned rather dazedly to look for the nearest extension line. She found it next to the bed, and went to answer it warily, knowing somehow that it had to be him.

‘Did you carry out all my instructions?’ his low, dark, huskily intimate voice murmured enquiringly, and made her instantly aware of delicate white silk lovingly moulding her body.

‘I finished all the work you required me to do,’ she replied coolly, refusing to take up the bait.

He laughed softly and the sound sent her legs weak.

‘Where are you?’ she asked, glancing down at her watch to see that it was exactly seven-thirty.