The Italian's Future Bride

‘Then what do you call the woman I first met last night with the long straight hair and the couture dress?’

A cheat. He was right.

‘Well, this is the real me,’ she said as she took a step back from him. ‘The one with curls and jeans and—if you give me the chance—the one constantly fighting with dirt beneath her chipped fingernails…’She looked down at her nails, frowning now because they looked so different from what she was used to seeing: clean, well manicured and—pink. ‘I am not made to be afemme fatale , Raffaelle. I wasn’t even that good at it last night, only you didn’t notice it because you were seeing what you’d been conditioned to expect to see at a function like that.’

‘You were damn good at what came afterwards,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ll take a rain-check on thefemme fatale bit if I can have more of that.’

Her chin went up, blue eyes coolly challenging. ‘And the cheating face I’m supposed to show to the real world? Does it pop on and off according to what you require from me?’

To her surprise he let loose one of those lazy sexy smiles that melted the hardness out of his face. ‘I think I like the idea of that. I will keep the sensual curly-haired Circe all to myself while the rest of the world gets thefemme fatale .’

‘Complete with fake ring to go with the fake relationship.’ Rachel heaved out a sigh. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this at all.’

‘Too late for regrets,cara . We have been over this already. We are both into this up to our necks.’

‘Not the sex part.’

‘Yes, the sex part!’ he contended. ‘It is here. We have it. And since it is the area where you really do get to me, we keep it.’

‘If I say no?’

His laugh was derisive. ‘You would have to want to say no and you don’t.’ He lowered his head to toy with her lips again. Electrifying, seducing. ‘Do you—?’ he challenged her for an honest answer.

Since her lips were clinging and her hands had already found their way beneath his T-shirt to the satin tight warmth of his skin she could not very well give any other answer than a weak shake of her head.

‘Then say it so I can hear it.’

‘I want you,’ she whispered, swaying closer to him again, wanting,needing , body contact.

His hands on her waist held her back. ‘Say my name,’ he insisted.

Say his name…Alonso was suddenly looming up between them again. She tugged in a tense breath.

‘I did not think of any other man but you last night, Raffaelle.’ She felt she owed it to him to tell him that.

His murmur of satisfaction brought his mouth back to hers again with a full-on hot, deep, sensual attack. At last he was letting her have what she craved the most—skin-to-skin contact with him. Her fingernails curled into satin-tight flesh, then followed the muscular line of his ribcage across his chest, then around to his back so she could punish him at the same time as she arched even closer.

He shuddered, deserting her mouth. ‘You ruthless witch,’ he muttered as he took a moment to grip the edge of his T-shirt and rake it right off. Hers followed suit before he would allow her any more of his mouth.

Like that they strained against each other, exploring with their hands, tongues and lips. He was perfect. No man should possess a body like his. Rachel tasted his skin, her hands moving possessively over his hair roughened contours while he stood there and let her enjoy him, encouraging her with kisses and slow strokes of his hands.

Neither of them noticed that they were still standing in front of the window. Rachel with her back to it, Raffaelle with the sheen of the sinking sun painting his skin rich gold with a hot coral glow. He buried his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back to receive the full onslaught of his kiss.

Lights flashed, explosions took place. In the dizzying urgency of two lovers who needed to move this thing on to its next passionate stage, they missed that those explosive flashes came from outside the window.

The camera-toting paparazzo, who’d picked up their trail where others hadn’t, slunk off down the driveway back to his car parked in the lane. He was smiling, pleased with himself, while the two captured lovers continued what they were doing, Rachel reaching up her arms to wind them round Raffaelle’s neck as he lifted her up so her legs could cling to his hips. The bed was two steps away and he toppled her on to it, then bent to rid of her tight-fitting jeans.

He stood back. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he demanded as he began to strip.

‘You,’ she whispered.

‘And who am I?’

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‘Raffaelle,’ she sighed out—then sighed again as the full burgeoning thrust of him was arrogantly displayed.

He made her repeat his name throughout the long hours that followed. By the time they drove away from her home the intimacy between them had evolved into something beyond sex.