If it had been just the once, it might have been forgivable, but they’d kept going, orgasm after orgasm. He’d stripped her naked, kissed and licked every inch of her, not letting himself think of anything but owning her in every possible way.
She’d been a greedy sensualist, deliciously uninhibited, biting his shoulder, legs like a vise around him, so wet and tight and insatiable he’d almost died.
Perhaps he should quit wondering how she could be pregnant and consider how she could not be.
He glanced at her, thankful her back was to him and she couldn’t see he was sweating and having trouble controlling his breathing. Desire drummed like an inexorable march inside him: want, want, want.
All he had to do to kill it, however, was remember the self-loathing that had filled him when he’d woken with her naked body entwined with his, her hair spilled like a dark stain over his chest and stomach. She’d been equally appalled, sitting up, moving away. Silent. Neither of them had said a word, only departed for separate showers.
What kind of people behaved so dishonorably? Paolo hated both of them, himself for regressing into the man who succumbed to the desire of a moment, Lauren for not stopping him. She possessed the power to make him disregard consequences and seize something he never should have touched in the first place. It infuriated him. She made him edge toward being the irresponsible man he used to be and he couldn’t have it.
He glanced at her again, suspecting by the way her head lolled and her arms had loosened that she was fast asleep. So much for scenery gazing.
Completely misplaced protectiveness moved in him. She would be the instrument of another downfall if he didn’t handle this with absolute care and clear thinking.
Dio! The woman had a tongue, though, and the things she said provoked the most elemental reactions in him—emotional, difficult-to-temper reactions.
He couldn’t allow it. Rent a car and go wherever she wanted. Like hell she would. She could have her Italian holiday if she insisted, but not under his mother’s nose. Not a chance.
CHAPTER FOUR
PAOLO’S WARM FINGERS stroked the side of her face in a tender caress. Lauren sleepily turned her lips into the skin at the inside of his wrist.#p#????#e#
He jerked his touch away and a curt profanity hit her ears.
Lauren blinked her eyes open, disoriented and aghast by her instinctive nuzzling. She’d known it was Paolo, so why...?
Hot with mortification, she looked down to find herself fully dressed in the passenger seat of his car. Beside her, he was turning away to make room for her to exit, leaving the door open. A crisp wind swirled around her, eager to sweep the cobwebs from her mind.
“Where are we?” she managed to stammer as she swung her feet to the ground.
She was dizzy from his touch so she stayed sitting, taking in the sculpted landscape of winter-stunted grass and bare shrubs. In the middle of the well-kept grounds a charming stone house rose in peaceful, old-world charm, its rock walls twined with dried vines. Wrought iron balconies jutted out here and there and behind it, across the valley, blue sky and snowcapped mountains formed a backdrop.
Curious, Lauren stood and the intensely blue lake, marbled with restless licks of white, opened below her, stretching an expansive arm into a stunning view that magnanimously stated Welcome.
“Oh,” she sighed in awe. Wrapping her fingers over the top of the car door, she drew in the crisp, clean wind and wondrous serenity. Alongside the house, stone steps led down to a glittering turquoise swimming pool that steamed on a terrace halfway to the beach. Cushioned loungers sat invitingly next to it, angled toward the view.
“You’ll enjoy your stay here, then?”
Lauren hitched her elbow over the car door and regarded him. He stood in profile to her, facing the water, fists in his pockets. He was so compelling yet remote. His wall of aloof detachment held her off, giving her a sense of irrelevance. She had the impression she was something he wanted filed away and forgotten.
Balming lips that felt dry and nerveless, she questioned, “Stay?”
“I’ve arranged this villa for your use while you’re here.”
So arrogantly conscientious. It would be funny if it weren’t so annoying. And indicative of his great desire to make her disappear.
Ignoring a pinch of childish insecurity, she shut the car door and moved to the top of the steps. “That’s very generous of you, Paolo, but if I’d wanted to stay in a villa miles from civilization, I would have arranged for it myself. I could, you know,” she told him with a boastful glance. “My grandmother made a fortune in real estate. My step-siblings think that’s why I moved in with her, to secure an inheritance. I didn’t, but she left everything to me anyway.” She couldn’t help grinning at that. Mamie was the only one who’d treated her decently and Lauren revered her for it.