Taming the Notorious Sicilian

That deep masculine taste and scent filled her senses, blocking out all her fears, blocking out everything but him. Francesco.

Just five days away from him, and she had pined. Pined for him. Pined for this.

She practically melted into him, winding her arms around his hard body, clinging to him, pressing every part of her into him.

And he clung to her, too, his hands roaming over her body, bunching her hair, his hot lips grazing her face, her neck, every available bit of flesh.

Being in his arms felt so right. Francesco made the coldness that had settled in her bones since she’d returned from Sicily disappear, replacing it with a warmth that seeped through to every part of her.

In a melee of limbs her T-shirt was pulled over her head and thrown to the floor, quickly followed by Francesco’s. Braless, her naked breasts crushed against his chest, the last remaining alarms ringing in her brain vanished and all she could do was savour the feel of his hard strength flush against her.

His strong capable hands playing with the buttons on her jeans, her smaller hands working on the zip of his leathers, somehow they managed to tug both down, using their feet to work them off to join the rest of their strewn clothing, in the process tumbling off the sofa and onto the soft carpet.

Only when they were both naked did Francesco reach for his leathers, pull out his wallet and produce a now familiar square foil.

In a matter of seconds he’d rolled it on and plunged inside her.

This time her body knew exactly what to do. She knew exactly what to do. No fears, no insecurities, just pure unadulterated pleasure.

The feel of him, huge inside her, his strength on the verge of crushing her, Hannah let all thoughts fly out of the window, giving in to this most wonderful of all sensations.

Later, lying in the puddle of their clothes on the floor, Francesco’s face buried in her neck, his breaths hot against her skin, she opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling. Hot tears burned the back of her retinas.

‘Am I squashing you?’ he asked, his breathing still ragged.

‘No,’ she lied, wrapping her arms even tighter around him.

Francesco lifted his head to look at her. There had been a definite hitch in her voice. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Stop lying to me.’

To his distress, two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I’m so confused. You confuse me. I’d told myself I would never sleep with you again and look what’s happened. You turn up and I might as well have succumbed to you the moment I let you in the door.’

Rolling onto his back, taking her with him so she rested on his chest, he held her tightly to him. ‘All it proves is that we’re not over. Not yet. Neither of us wants anything heavy,’ he continued. ‘For a start, neither of us has the time for anything heavy. But we enjoy each other’s company, so where’s the harm in seeing each other? I promise you, your patients will not suffer for you having a life.’

There was no room for Hannah in his life. Not in any meaningful way. The more he got to know her, the more he knew that what they shared could never be anything more than a fling.

Ever since he’d reached adulthood he’d assumed he would never meet a woman to settle down with. Even before he’d discovered his mother’s diaries and learned of his father’s despicable behaviour towards her, he’d known how badly she struggled to cope with his father’s way of life.

His mother had been a good woman. Kind and loving, even when she was doped to her eyeballs on the drugs his father fed her by the trough. Not that he’d known his father fed them to her—back then he’d believed his father to be as despairing and worried about her habit as he was.

Elisabetta Calvetti had no more fitted into his father’s world than Hannah fitted in his.

The women who did fit into Francesco’s world and thrived were like poison. The rarer women—women like Hannah who did not fit in—he’d always known should never marry into such a dangerous life. To marry into it would destroy them, just as it had destroyed his mother.

Deep down, he knew he should have accepted her rebuffs and left her alone, but the past few days...

How could he concentrate on anything when his mind was full of Hannah?

The wolves, in the form of Luca Mastrangelo, were circling the Mayfair casino and Francesco needed to be on the ball. Otherwise the deal that would symbolise above all others that Salvatore Calvetti’s empire was over, his legacy shrivelled to dust, would be lost.

He wasn’t ready to let her go. Not yet. Knowing Hannah was in his life meant he could focus his attention entirely on the purchase of the casino and not have his mind filled with her.