‘Because you care,’ Alessandro muttered against her hair. ‘It’s complicated. He raised you...part of you might always want his approval, might always love him. Even when he’s let you down.’
Katie lifted her head and gazed into Alessandro’s eyes. How was he so compassionate and insightful and complex...and so right? Was it because he knew something of how she felt?
‘Did it feel as if your father had let you down when he married Naomi?’
He froze for a moment, but then nodded. ‘I wanted him to be happy, but I couldn’t understand how he could be happy with her...’
Katie smiled sadly. ‘Was any woman going to live up to your mother?’
He sent her an equally sad smile and admitted it. ‘Probably not. But he could have done better. He could have found someone kind. She wasn’t. And he wasn’t strong enough to move, to work all those hours... But he wanted to please her—he wanted to be loved.’
Katie’s heart curled in. ‘I can understand that,’ she said softly. ‘Most of us want to be loved.’
Alessandro shook his head. ‘No. Some of us don’t want that at all.’ He smiled at her. ‘Too much drama.’
She knew he was deliberately making a joke, but she couldn’t smile back. ‘Too much hurt?’
He paused. ‘That too.’
The truth hovered between them—an invisible, impenetrable wall.
He pressed his palm to her cheek. ‘Katie—’
She didn’t want to talk any more. She didn’t want to think any more.
‘Don’t be nice to me,’ she whispered.
He could never give her what she really wanted but she didn’t care about that. She just wanted to feel better.
‘What should I be, then?’ he asked with a remnant of that old teasing glint. ‘All mean and horrible like him?’ He cocked his head and the glint brightened into something fiercer and his smile faded. ‘I don’t care if that’s what you’re used to—you’re not getting it from me.’
A fierce bubble of emotion fizzed in her chest. ‘What am I getting, then?’
‘What do you want?’
Pure emotion pulsed. Hurt, angry, aching for something, she gazed at him. ‘Solace.’
His chest rose and fell, and she snatched a glimpse of turmoil reflected in his eyes. But then he bent and kissed her gently. Too gently.
‘Why have you stopped?’ That wasn’t what she wanted.
With a rough groan he kissed her again—and the floodgates were opened.
Katie clung to him, pouring her need into his kiss. She lost everything in that one searing kiss—all reason, all hurt, even her footing. She was literally swept off her feet. But somehow he was with her, pressing so close on the warm summer grass. And there was nothing smooth or practised in this. It was simply a kiss—soul-deep, urgently seeking to satisfy a longing so intense neither could stop.
She shook, unwilling and unable to break the seal of their kiss. And he was too. As their mouths clung their hands moved the clothing necessary and suddenly he was there—all there—right where she was hot and wet and hungry and needing his fierce, hard strength.
She sobbed into his kiss as he gave her what she needed. Locked together, their connection was deep and intimate, and somehow their physical closeness became an exposition of something else altogether. A welter of emotions tossed within her—and warmth of a different kind radiated over the intense heat of pure passion.
But she couldn’t stop to define it because she’d already exploded, her body radiating that desperate, devastating delight.
But even as she struggled to recover, struggled to stand and walk with him back to the car, she knew the difficult truth. It still wasn’t enough.
* * *
‘We’ll come back soon. We won’t tell him when. You’ll see Susan, I promise.’
‘I know.’
Alessandro glanced at her quickly, then turned back to the road. He was struggling not to speed, not to get them the hell out of there as fast as possible—away from what had just happened.
Not Brian and his petty meanness. But Katie and him.
He’d done the one thing she’d asked him not to. And while she’d been willing at the time that was only because she’d been emotional. Vulnerable.
His emotions churned—want, pain, denial. He’d wanted to reach out to her. He’d been desperate to see her smile again—to hold her close and comfort her. Yes, to offer solace.
But holding her close had led to other things. The need to connect with her had been primal and he’d done it the one way he knew best. Physically. He’d meant only a kiss, but passion had overtaken him. All he’d wanted was to heal the bruise on her heart, but what he’d done was put her at risk.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said tightly. ‘I shouldn’t have—’
‘I wanted it too,’ she interrupted quietly.
‘No, I lost control. I didn’t use anything’ He’d had unprotected sex for the first time in his life. He’d never lost control like that before. ‘You might—’
‘I’m on birth control,’ she said softly.
He was so stunned he almost slammed on the brakes. That flash of a future, that wisp of an image of Katie cradling their baby, wasn’t the shocking possibility it had been a second ago.
‘Since when? You were—’
‘I’m on it for other reasons,’ she mumbled. ‘But it means that what just happened won’t...’
‘Have long-term consequences?’ he finished for her.
But it felt like a lie. When he ought to feel instant relief, he felt a sinking inside instead. Surely not disappointment? What was wrong with him?
That hadn’t been escape he’d sought to offer her. It hadn’t been solace. Hadn’t he taken advantage because it had eased his own demons to hold her? Because he’d been desperate to touch her? He’d ached for her softness, her surrender.
He’d hated the exclusion and isolation from her in these past days. He’d hated the restrictions she’d put on them. He’d assumed his fascination with her would fade, whether they burned out their desire or not. He’d thought that if it were starved it would die. It hadn’t. And even sated again it still hadn’t.
Could he really blame this on old habits? The other day he’d recoiled from her suggestion that there was something emotionally needy in his liaisons. But wasn’t it exactly that? Yes, he used sex as an escape—for fun, to alleviate boredom or stress...but he also used it to hide from his hurts.
The trouble was that now he’d recognised that those hurts were still there... But, even so, what he’d done with Katie hadn’t just been about using sex to assuage their pain. It hadn’t be
en just rampant libido either. Those weak justifications minimised what had happened.
The truth was that too-quick moment under the trees had been the most intimate experience of his life. Never had he wanted to feel as close to someone, to give to someone. And in the aftermath he ached.
Grimly he parked the car in the basement garage of his London apartment and escorted her into the elevator. He’d have to remove himself—temporarily shift into another apartment. He walked through the lounge, tossing the keys on the table as he went. He’d call the building manager and see if there was a unit free.
‘Alessandro.’
Reluctantly he glanced at her. She stood in the middle of his lounge. Her face was pale and tear-stained and her pretty dress was crumpled. She’d never looked as beautiful. If he was going to leave, it had to be now.
‘I’m taking you to bed, Alessandro,’ she said, with that quiet boldness he loved to see in her.
‘Are you?’ He swallowed and felt his self-control slip. He tried to joke. ‘I thought you didn’t want to make things any more complicated?’
‘I think it’s a little late for that.’
‘No, it’s not.’ It couldn’t be.
‘You like control. Are you afraid that if you give too much away you’ll lose control altogether?’
‘Katie—’
‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ She stepped towards him.
As if that was the issue! ‘You’re no longer afraid that I might hurt you?’ he growled.
She shrugged carelessly. ‘I want that escape. Just for a while.’
‘Is that really all it is, dolcezza?’ It didn’t feel like it to him any more—and suddenly he was angry. ‘It’s always been an escape for me,’ he said harshly. ‘It wasn’t always about the woman I was with—more about the thrill of the chase, the orgasms.’
She flinched—then froze.
‘I get off on seeing my partner get hers too. I always like doing that for her. But you...it’s different.’ Somehow it mattered more. ‘I don’t just get off from making you climax,’ he muttered, almost malevolently. ‘It’s an imperative. I ache to taste you. To make you shake. To hear you scream. I want nothing more than to render you mindless...so that all you can do is beg for me. Because that’s how much I want you. I don’t get off from that. I live for it.’