‘Too many memories, cara.’ Rising to his feet, he slanted her a heavy-lidded look. ‘But now we make new ones.’ And, striding across to Annalou, he picked her up in his arms. Kelly had the unenviable feeling she wished it was her.
It had been a lovely day, Kelly agreed with Annalou as she tucked her into bed. But, going down for dinner half an hour later, she was a bundle of nerves. She sat through the meal, making polite convers
ation with her husband and her mother-in-law, but underneath her emotions were in turmoil.
She heaved a sigh of relief when after the coffee stage Gianfranco said he had some paperwork to attend to and left.
Kelly’s relief turned to panic a couple of hours later when, walking out of the bathroom wrapped in only a bath towel, she stopped dead. Gianfranco was standing by the bed wearing a towelling robe. A bottle of champagne stood on the nearby table with two glasses.
‘A toast to our reunion,’ he drawled mockingly, and as she watched he opened the champagne and filled the two glasses, and then walked towards her with a glass in each hand. He held one out to her.
Her heart thumped erratically; it was a moment of truth, Kelly knew. If she took the glass and said nothing she was agreeing to resume being his wife in every sense. She lifted her head, her wary blue eyes scanning his harshly set features, and fleetingly the thought crossed Kelly’s mind that he was not quite as confident as he appeared. Quickly she dismissed the idea as wishful thinking. The decision was hers to take…true. But realistically she knew Gianfranco would have his way whatever…
She took it. ‘Thank you, I could use a drink.’ The slight quiver in her voice revealed her apprehension.
His brilliant dark eyes roamed over her with explicit sexual hunger, and then met and held hers. Suddenly the atmosphere crackled with electric tension.
Kelly felt her body heat as he raised the glass to his mouth. ‘To my wife, the mother of my child; our marriage starts here.’ And he drank it down in one gulp.
With a hand that trembled, Kelly lifted her glass to her lips and took one long swallow. Then spluttered and lowered her head as the bubbles went down the wrong way.
Gianfranco took the glass from her hand and moved to put them both on the bedside table. Then he turned back to face Kelly. ‘Come here,’ he commanded tautly.
She lifted her head. Her watering eyes collided with his smouldering dark gaze, and instantly she was swamped by her intense awareness of him. His sinfully sensuous mouth, the proud tilt of his dark head, his lithe, powerful physique poised and waiting…
Mesmerised by his male beauty, Kelly took a step forward and another… She felt her face flush, heaviness in her breasts, her nipples hardening. She hesitated and swallowed hard, before slowly moving forward again. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her…
‘You look nervous,’ he drawled softly. His hands reached out to her tense shoulders and drew her closer, his dark eyes black and knowing on her lovely face. ‘Yet there is no need; you are an experienced woman,’ Gianfranco said thickly, one hand curving around her throat and tilting her head back.
If only he knew he was the only man who had ever touched her, Kelly thought, but didn’t tell him. She had to keep some defence, even if false, she thought as she trembled with need as all her senses heightened to fever pitch.
His hand slid down over her breastbone, caught the towel, and with one deft movement she was standing naked before him. Tiny flames glinted in the black eyes that slowly ravished her shapely body with a long look, before his head bent and his mouth brushed surprisingly gently over hers until he felt her willing response, then his tongue delved sensually into the moist interior of her mouth.
‘Exquisite,’ Gianfranco groaned against her lips, and tipped her back onto the bed. For a moment eyes as dark as jet raked over her, then he shrugged off his robe.
It was what Kelly had been waiting for. Naked and powerful, he was sheer masculine perfection. Her blue eyes greedily surveyed his great body, the harsh glare of the artificial light gleamed on muscle and sinew, and she ached for him with a hunger so deep that she could not wait. She reached out her hand.
‘Soon, cara.’ He smiled in purely masculine promise as he came down to her and immediately ravished her mouth with his again.
Not another word was spoken over the next few hours. It was an erotic banquet of the senses.
Kelly had never experienced such an intensity of sensations as Gianfranco extorted from her, nor felt the incredible need to do the same to him. Finally, when he was buried deep inside her for the third time, her heart pounding, lost to everything but the explosive excitement she craved, she gazed wildly at him. She saw the skin pulled taut across his cheekbones and the savage satisfaction as he watched her shuddering on the painfully exquisite edge of release. Then with every thrusting stroke he drove her quivering body to a climax so intense she cried out in ecstasy, mindless to everything but the wonder of his total possession.
Wrapped in his arms, exhausted but fulfilled, she should have stayed silent, but she didn’t…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GIANFRANCO rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom again. Kelly groaned; her body aching but satiated, she lay on her back and waited for his return. Her dreamy blue eyes followed him as he walked back, lithe and naked, to sit down on the side of the wildly rumpled bed.
‘You will run out of those before long,’ she teased. It was a new experience for Kelly to have him wear a condom, though he had quickly taught her how to put them on. ‘I don’t know why you bother.’ She lifted her hand and stroked gently up his chest, her heart full of love.
‘Because, Kelly,’ Gianfranco’s dark eyes gleamed down with grim amusement into her own, ‘much as I want you, I am taking no chances with my health. The Pill protects only against pregnancy, not sexually transmitted diseases. I don’t know where you or Tom have been in the past three years,’ he drawled hardly.
As the import of his words sank in, Kelly stared at him, incapable of tearing her gaze away from his handsome but suddenly cynical features. Her hand fell from his chest, her fingers curling into fists at her sides. The last few hours meant nothing to him, nothing at all. She had been in danger of fooling herself yet again.
She lowered her lashes to hide the pain and fury in her eyes, and choked back the surge of anger constricting her throat. She wasn’t on the Pill—the supercilious swine had just assumed she was, and on top of that he thought she might be diseased. If ever the veil of love was torn from a woman’s eyes, it was in that moment for Kelly.
She could explain, maybe even convince him, but she was damned if she would. With a superhuman effort of will Kelly forced a smile to her love-swollen lips. ‘Whatever you say.’ Forcing a wide yawn, she turned away from him and pulled the coverlet over her shoulder. She felt the mattress depress as he lay down beside her, and she made no resistance when he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into the warmth of his body. What was the point? She loved him, wanted him, but some small part of her heart froze. That night set the pattern for the weeks ahead.