Picture of Innocence

Lorenzo was a highly-sexed man, and they rarely got further than the bed—though a desk and the shower and on one memorable occasion a chair outside on the balcony had all figured in their sex-life.

Yet Lucy knew him little better now than she had the first time they’d met. He was for the most part a reserved, emotionless man, who gave little away except in the bedroom, where sometimes, with his dry wit and humour, he made her laugh. Other times he could be incredibly tender, and kiss and caress her as though he adored her. He always called her to arrange their meetings, but occasionally he called just to talk, and she could almost believe they were a normal couple. But maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part. Alone in her own bed at night, aching for him deep down, she knew for her it was more than just sex.

One thing she had learned about him and liked best was that he wore gold-rimmed glasses when working. Somehow they made him look younger and even more attractive, softening his hard face.

Well, maybe not best—because she could not deny the sex was fantastic. He had, with skill and eroticism, taught her more about the sensual side of her nature than she had imagined possible. She no longer made any attempt to resist, but welcomed him with open arms, and she knew when it was over between them there would be no other man for her. She could not imagine doing with any man what she did with Lorenzo … didn’t want to.

The flight attendant—a handsome young man about her age—appeared, and offered to fasten her seat belt as they were about to begin their descent to the airport. She refused and fastened it herself, because there was something about the way he looked at her she didn’t like. But then he was probably accustomed to ferrying women around the world to meet up with his boss, so she could hardly blame him for thinking the worst.

Lucy walked down the steps from the plane, blinking in the bright light, and smoothed the skirt of the red suit she wore down over her hips. A suit Lorenzo had bought for her the one day he had taken her out for lunch in London on what could pass for a date. Afterwards he had insisted on taking her shopping in Bond Street. She had tried to refuse, but he’d reminded her he was the boss and he wanted to see her in fine clothes and lingerie.

She looked up to see Lorenzo striding towards her, as immaculately dressed as ever in a grey suit, his hair as black as a raven’s wing gleaming in the midday sun. Her heart turned over. He stopped in front of her and she glanced up through the thick fringe of her lashes, suddenly feeling too warm.

‘Good—you made it,’ he said coolly and, taking her arm, added, ‘This is a private airfield and Customs are a mere formality.’ He led her across the tarmac.

No greeting or kiss, Lucy noted. But then sadly they did not have that kind of relationship.

Ten minutes later she was sitting in the back of another chauffeured car, her nerves jangling as Lorenzo slid in beside her, his muscular thigh lightly brushing hers. She could sense the tension mounting in the close confines of the car as the silence lengthened, and finally found her voice. ‘How long does it take to get to Lake Garda?’

He turned his head, his dark eyes meeting hers. ‘We are going to my apartment in Verona first.’

Lifting a hand, he swept a tendril of hair that had escaped from her severely styled chignon behind her ear, and she felt the touch of his fingers down to her toes, a flush of heat staining her cheeks.

‘I think you need to relax before travelling further. I know I do,’ he said with a predatory smile that left her in no doubt as to what he had in mind.

To her shame, she felt an immediate physical response. Hastily she looked away, and heard him chuckle.

Lorenzo’s apartment was a shock. Lucy stood in the huge living room, eyes wide in surprise. She had expected something formal—and it was. Elegant blue and cream drapes hung at the tall windows of the main reception room, and two huge blue silk-covered sofas flanked a white-veined marble fireplace. The bookshelves either side were stuffed with books—hardback and paperback, shoved in haphazardly—and in front stood a big leather captain chair in scarlet! A large low glass table had papers and magazines scattered all over it. The room was a bit of a mess.

But a fabulously expensive mess, she realised. An antique bureau had a bronze statue of a naked lady—pure Art Deco—standing on it, along with an incredible yellow and blue glass sculpture of a fish and a carved wooden statue of what looked like a Native American Indian. But it was the walls that really captured her attention. She recognised a Picasso from his Blue Period, a Matisse, and what she was sure was a Gauguin, along with some delicate watercolours and a huge Jackson Pollock that almost filled one wall.

She turned to Lorenzo and saw he had shed his jacket and had tugged his tie loose so the knot fell low on his chest. ‘This is nothing like I imagined.’ She waved her hand around, grinning delightedly.

‘I know it looks a bit untidy, but Diego, my houseman, is on holiday, and I am not in the least domesticated,’ he said wryly.

‘I had noticed,’ Lucy quipped, recalling the way he stripped off and dropped his ruinously expensive clothes anywhere, without a second thought, every time they met. ‘But what I meant was I love the room—it is so colourful, and the art work is incredible. Some of it I would never have expected you to like.’

He reached for her then, his dark eyes holding hers and his hands closing over her shoulders ‘Not quite such a staid old banker as you thought?’ he queried, his hands slipping beneath the lapels of her jacket to peel it off her shoulders and drop it on the back of the sofa.

‘I never think of you as old,’ Lucy murmured, and the tension between them thickened the air as a different silent conversation took place. She was braless, and the white camisole she wore suddenly felt like a strait-jacket.

He glanced down at her breasts, knowing he would see her nipples jutting against the silk. He raised his eyes, reaching for her hair and pulling out the pins. ‘I love … your hair.’ He ran his long fingers through the silken length. ‘The colour is incredible—tawny like a lion is as near as I can get,’ he murmured, and closed his arms around her. His dark head bent and the smouldering flame of desire glittered in his eyes as he touched his mouth gently against hers.

It was what Lucy had been waiting for from the moment she had stepped off the plane, if she was honest. The moment she’d set eyes on him he had excited her like no other man ever had or ever would. One look, one touch, and she wanted him—craved him with an intensity of emotion she could not d

eny. And the more she saw him the worse it got. He filled her every sense until nothing else existed but the consuming need to feel him take her to that magical place where for a few incredible moments they became one explosive entity. However much she tried to pretend it was just sex, deep down she knew she had fallen in love with Lorenzo.

His mouth was like silk, his tongue teasing and easing between her eagerly parted lips, but the gentleness swiftly gave way to a kiss of mutual desperate passion. His hands reached down to the hem of her skirt and tugged it up over her hips. Lucy grasped his shoulders as she felt his long fingers slip between her thighs and rip the lace briefs from her body and she didn’t care. She was lost to everything but her hunger, her need for him.

He lifted his head, his face flushed and his black eyes holding hers as he zipped open his pants. ‘I want you now,’ he grated, and found her mouth again.

Lucy met and matched his demand instantly, totally, pushing her hands beneath his shirt, digging her fingers into the muscles of his back as he gripped her hips and lifted her. Wantonly she gave herself up to the fierce desire driving her, locking her legs around him. His tongue stoked deeper into her mouth and she cried out as he thrust up into the slick, heated centre of her.

The incredible tension tightened as he stretched her, filled her with deep plunging strokes, twisting, thrusting faster, building into an incredible climax that sent her mindless into a shuddering, shimmering wave of endless satisfaction. Then against her mouth Lorenzo groaned her name as he plunged one last time, his heart pounding out of control against hers, his great body shaking.

The silence afterwards was not restful but strained, Lucy slowly realised, shakily dropping her legs from his body, letting her hands fall from his shoulders. He stepped back and zipped up his trousers, and she smoothed her skirt down over her hips. She spied her ripped briefs on the floor. She glanced up at Lorenzo. He was watching her, and had seen the direction of her gaze. Then he spoke.

‘Your briefs are finished, Lucy, and your luggage has already gone on to the house. You will have to go commando for a while—but that is probably nothing new for you,’ he said with the arch of a brow, before adding, ‘I could use a coffee—how about you?’