The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress

Angelo froze, dark eyes flaring angrily as he worked out who had called her.

Here she was in his bedroom and she was just chatting to the guy as though that was all right, acceptable, even normal. His perfect white teeth gritted when she gave him an apologetic glance and finished the conversation with the gentle assurance that she would be in touch soon. She smothered a yawn with a polite hand.

‘I don’t think you should be accepting calls from him.’ Delft-blue eyes met his in honest surprise. ‘Why not? Toby’s my oldest friend.’ ‘You’re in love with him,’ Angelo spelt out with stinging cool.

‘But nothing’s going to happen. Toby doesn’t think of me that way.’ Embarrassment and uncertainty, however, were claiming her. She always tried to be fair, always endeavoured to look at opposing points of view. It occurred to her that in the light of the fuss she had made about fidelity, Angelo probably thought he had every right to object to her friendship with Toby.

‘But I don’t like it,’ Angelo countered flatly.

Absorbing the smouldering aspect of Angelo’s intent gaze, Gwenna was surprised to feel an unexpected twinge of amusement. She dipped her head to hide it. He was so possessive, so incredibly passionate. He was not at all the cold, callous and insensitive guy she had once believed. ‘I can see your point,’ she answered with determined tact.

The savage tension in Angelo’s broad shoulders eased. He took her into a vasten suite bathroom and undressed her. Each garment was removed with subtle caresses and an exquisitely skilled sensuality that made her quiver and burn. The bright lights made her feel desperately shy but not even that could suppress the helpless tingle of arousal he roused. The lush, swollen heart of her ached but it didn’t stop her wanting him, didn’t stop the hunger rising to a torturous peak of need. He took her in the shower. She shut her eyes tight, surrendering to the melting ripples of slow burning erotic pleasure and the shivering, whimpering rapture of delirious relief. Afterwards, she just wanted to sleep and could hardly stand upright. He wrapped her in a fleecy towel.

‘I wish you would stay awake, passione mia , ‘Angelo complained.

‘Can’t…hardly slept last night,’ she mumbled, all the stresses of the past forty-eight hours finally taking their toll. Her eyelids felt as though weights were attached to them.

He eased her between cool sheets and she waited for him to join her. Instead she heard a door open and she peered sleepily across the room at him, noting that his sleek bronzed length was clad only in boxers. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘My room is through here.’He was poised on the threshold of the room next door.

Her pale brow indented. ‘But—’ The smooth brown breadth of his muscular shoulders shifted in a casual shrug. ‘I always sleep alone. I’ll see you in the morning.’ The door closed.I always sleep alone. She had spent a lifetime sleeping alone too and could not comprehend why she should now feel rejected by his withdrawal.

Exhaustion soon kicked in, however, to blur her troubled thoughts and sink her into a deep slumber.

She woke with a start, unsure of her surroundings and of what might have wakened her. In a rush she remembered that she was in Angelo’s house and she fumbled for the light switch by the bed. She was sitting up when she heard a disturbing sound from his room. A cry? Without further thought she slid out of bed and snatched up the shirt he had left in a careless heap. Hastily donning it, she opened the communicating door between their rooms.

In the dawn light filtering through the shutters she could see Angelo tossing and turning in the big bed. He was moaning something in his own language. The sheer terror in his voice grabbed her by the throat, shook her up and sent her flying straight to his side. She scrambled up on the mattress to get within reach of him and rested a soothing hand on his shoulder. His skin was as hot as fire.

‘Angelo…wake up!’ she whispered urgently, shaking him slightly.

Angelo wrenched himself up in a sudden movement that startled her. He was trembling, muttering in Italian. With a gruff exclamation, he raked rough fingers through his dishevelled black hair and he turned to study her with a frown that drew his sleek ebony brows together. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘You were having a bad dream—’ ‘I don’t get them—’ ‘You cried out and woke me up!’ ‘I couldn’t have,’ Angelo growled, dark eyes defensive, the fierce tension in his big powerful frame communicating itself to her.

Gwenna loosed a rueful sigh. Evidently, macho men didn’t have bad dreams. In the dim light he was a dazzling bronzed vision of raw masculine appeal. With his hair ruffled and blue-black stubble outlining the aggressive set of his jaw line he looked startlingly handsome, but it was the grim cast of his lustrous eyes that made Gwenna shimmy closer on her bottom and wrap her arms round him. ‘I get nightmares sometimes…’ ‘Really?’ Angelo said very drily, but she noticed he didn’t push her away.