But she silenced him with a fierce shake of her wild curls. ‘I don’t want analysis or promises neither of us can keep,’ she said. ‘I just want you, Rocco. Now. That’s all.’
And wasn’t it ironic that by taking his line—by removing all the emotion from what was about to happen—she somehow increased her power over him? So that, for the first time in all the time he’d known her, it felt as if it was Nic who was taking charge. As if everything he’d ever taught her had crystallised into this one, single act. It felt as if they were doing it in slow motion. As if their bodies were glued together, with no space between them. He kissed her. And kissed her. His lips brushed over hers in a tantalising graze until hers eagerly parted and he licked his way over their trembling surface.
She gave a gasp as he entered her and he blotted out the sound with the slow caress of his lips. She wrapped her soft thighs around his bare back and he thrust. And thrust again. He made it last for as long as he could, until the little cry she gave sounded as if she might be in some sort of pain, and then he came too and all thought was temporarily banished from his mind.
But her smile was dreamy when he studied her afterwards and he could instantly feel himself hardening again. He leaned over her, his lips automatically seeking hers, but she wriggled away from him with a decisive shake of her head.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Why not?’
‘You know exactly why not, Rocco. We shouldn’t have done it once—and we’re certainly not going to do it twice.’
‘Because?’
‘Because... There are a million reasons, which you really don’t need me to articulate for you, but mainly because I have to go and see your grandfather and the nurse will be expecting me.’
He nodded. ‘Okay. Go and take a shower. I’ll use one of the other bathrooms and wait for you downstairs.’
Her words echoed round in his mind as Rocco stood beneath the jets of the gushing shower, and he reluctantly realised Nicole had been right. They shouldn’t have done it. Because what purpose had it served? Okay, it had fed his desire—and hers—but they were supposed to be over, and divorcing couples didn’t keep having sex.
He turned off the shower and towelled himself dry but once he’d dressed and gone downstairs he was surprised by a wave of emotion. He found himself thinking about the future and about what might happen when Turi died. Even if he survived this bout of illness, he couldn’t go on for ever. Nobody could. Rocco found himself asking what it was going to be like here once Turi had gone and why he’d never stopped to think about it before.
Because Turi had always been there. A man who was larger than life—and you imagined that those kinds of men never died.
But they did.
He wondered if his siblings would turn to him and expect him to slip into the replacement role of patriarch? What if he told them he wasn’t interested in such a role? That he had already given as much as he was prepared to give to ensure the survival of the family?
Was he in danger of overthinking matters because he’d been stirred up by Nicole’s presence here? And wasn’t he in danger of allowing her to skew his vision? Just because the sex had been dynamite, didn’t mean it couldn’t be as good with somebody else. His lips hardened with renewed resolve as he heard her light footstep on the stairs.
Once she had returned to England everything would shake down. He could stop looking at his life and questioning it. He could start bedding women who didn’t mess with his head.
He clenched his fists.
Once she had gone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘DO YOU WANT me to stay?’ Rocco questioned as he pushed open the door of the sickroom.
Nicole wasn’t sure what she wanted as she stepped into the shuttered room and gazed over at the inert body in the bed. Would Rocco be a comforting presence at her side, or a distraction? The latter, probably—especially after what had just happened back at the house. The sex which had just sort of happened and which had blown her away. Not because of his amazing technique, which had never been in question, but because of his unexpected tenderness which had made her heart want to burst with pleasure and break with sorrow, all at the same time. She was just about to politely tell him she’d be fine on her own when the figure in the bed spoke.
‘Leave us, Rocco.’
Turi’s voice wasn’t as strong as Nicole remembered but it still wasn’t the kind of voice you ignored and she watched as his grandson gave a terse nod.
‘The nurse will be in the room next door, if you need anything,’ Rocco said. ‘Don’t wear yourself out, Nonno.’
Turi lifted a wavering hand to indicate that he should cut short the lecture and leave. ‘Come,’ the old man said to Nicole, once the door had closed.
Nicole approached the bed. The quietness and the dimness of the room reminded her of nursing her adoptive mother and at that moment she missed Peggy Watson very much. As she grew closer she could see that although age and sickness had diminished him, the faded blue eyes, which must once have been so like Rocco’s, were unexpectedly bright as the elderly patriarch gestured for her to sit down.
‘Turi,’ she whispered as she perched on a chair next to the bed and squeezed his gnarled old hand in hers. ‘I wish I could say I hope you’re feeling better, in dialect.’