Vivi lifted her chin, mortified colour lying in bright bars across her triangular face as she walked down to the foot of the room, keen to put as much space as possible between them. ‘You don’t need to dress down for my benefit, then,’ she sniped.
Raffaele resisted the urge to heave a sigh and wonder why he always, always got it wrong with Vivi. He tried to be sensitive and he embarrassed her. He tried to be caring and she got sick as a dog. ‘I’m getting tired of your defeatist, negative attitude,’ he intoned with complete honesty. ‘I appreciate that you’re in a situation not of your choosing, but I am as well and at least I’m trying to make the best of it.’
Caught utterly unprepared by that raw condemnation, Vivi coloured to the roots of her hair. ‘That’s not true,’ she said stiffly.
‘It is true. You misread everything I do. You hold spite. You judge me.’
‘For living like a prince in a palace?’ Vivi shot back at him defensively.
‘I was born here...this is my life. You expect me to apologise for it?’ Raffaele shouted down the length of the room at her, the sound of his raised voice cracking like a stinging whiplash through her because in her experience Raffaele never raised his voice and it thoroughly unnerved her. Out of the corner of her eye she noted Amedeo hurriedly retreating from the doorway and, if possible, she felt even more humiliated.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Vivi told him, throwing back her slight shoulders and stalking back towards the hall.
Raffaele planted himself in her path like an immoveable rock. ‘No, for once in your life, you’re going to listen to me.’
‘Like hell I am!’ Vivi snapped back at him like a spitting cat. ‘The day I listen to you while you talk down to me there’ll be two blue moons in the sky and a flying pig!’
‘Listen to me,’ Raffaele ground out wrathfully, struggling to get a hold on a temper that he never usually lost.
Vivi told him very rudely where he could go and what he could do with himself when he got there and raced past him at the speed of a lemming ready to throw herself off a cliff. She climbed the stairs even faster, sped into her bedroom and just stood there breathing fast. Behind her the door opened and she spun round, as rigid as a stick of rock.
‘We can do better than this,’ Raffaele breathed in a driven undertone. ‘I’m sorry that I shouted at you but sometimes you push me too far.’
‘I have a habit of doing that with you,’ Vivi muttered, somewhat mollified by the apology and relieved he no longer seemed angry. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘Don’t you?’ Raffaele questioned, an eloquent ebony brow lifting, unimpressed. ‘You do it to keep me at a distance.’
Vivi was appalled that he could interpret her behaviour that easily, that he had picked up on her need to avoid any form of intimacy developing between them. ‘It’s safer that way,’ she mumbled in disconcertion.
‘Not now that we’re married with a baby on the way, it’s not!’ Raffaele countered scathingly. ‘There’s enough attraction between us to light a bonfire.’
Vivi stiffened even more. ‘Speak for yourself,’ she parried.
Raffaele had never met such a stubborn woman and he crossed the room to stand in front of her, only then noticing the tiny, almost imperceptible tremors shaking through her slender body; only then reading the anxiety in her wide eyes as the fear it genuinely was. ‘Vivi... I would never ever hurt or harm a hair on your head,’ he muttered shakily, so unnerved was he by the sight of a woman regarding him with fear.
‘It was just...er...when you shouted,’ she whispered, not sure she was even telling him the truth at that moment. ‘I’m sort of programmed to run when men shout because when I was a kid it usually got violent and if you didn’t get out of the way you got hurt!’
‘I swear I’ll never shout again,’ Raffaele framed, lifting a not quite steady hand to smooth soothing fingers down the side of her flawless face to her soft, full pink mouth. ‘Ever. I had no idea that was your experience.’
‘It’s not something you share freely,’ she admitted brokenly, all shaken up by both the conversation and the manner in which their argument had gone downstairs. He had accused her of holding spite and judging him, constantly throwing up barriers between them, and she felt overwhelmed by the awareness that Raffaele was correct on every count. He had read her, she conceded guiltily, and called her bluff, refusing to allow her to continue hiding behind such empty excuses, and that had proved an utterly unnerving experience for Vivi. That was what had really sent her fleeing into retreat, she acknowledged in mortification.
‘But if it’s a trigger, it’s something I should know about you,’ Raffaele breathed, a long forefinger tracing her full, soft lower lip, the ever-ready pulse at his groin throbbing with helpless arousal. ‘Believe me, Vivi...dannazione, I have many flaws but you will always be safe with me.’
And the rigidity went out of her taut length as if he had punched a release button and she smiled tentatively up at him. ‘Sorry about the drama...and Amedeo heard you shouting and he looked so shocked.’
Raffaele’s lean, darkly mesmerising features slashed into a reluctant grin. ‘He’s never heard me shout before. I’m very even-tempered.’
‘Until you met me...’
‘Until I met you, bella mia,’ Raffaele husked, lowering his proud dark head.
And she knew he was about to kiss her and she told herself to step away but inexplicably she stayed right where she was, heat curling up in her pelvis at even the thought of that much contact.
CHAPTER NINE
RAFFAELE’S MOUTH CAME down on hers with the most earth-shattering sensuality she had ever experienced. It was everything her charged body needed even though she refused to admit that to herself. Desire shot through her as hot as the bonfire he had mentioned, her breasts swelling, her nipples tightening hard, her core growing slick and damp. All just from a kiss! She argued with herself while pushing instinctively into the hard, muscular heat of him. She wanted so much more, craved the most primitive of possessions, was completely shocked by the tide of sexual longing he could awaken in her.
‘Per l’amor di Dio... I ache for you,’ Raffaele husked thickly, tugging at the spaghetti straps of her dress and dragging the bodice down to reveal the pink pouting buds of her breasts while stalking her backwards, down onto the swan bed. He closed his mouth hungrily to a tantalising peak, dimly registering that he was aroused beyond belief and questioning the reality because sex had never done that to him before. Unfortunately for him, however, he was getting a real high out of it, so he repressed that nagging flare of dismay and ignored it.
‘I love your breasts,’ he growled.
Vivi lay back on the bed, belatedly disconcerted by what she was allowing to happen between them. She was being shimmied out of her dress by determined hands and she wasn’t doing anything to stop him.
I don’t want to stop him. The words stood out like some sort of brain Morse code she couldn’t ignore. Her fingers speared into his black cropped hair and she trembled, seduced by the lashing of his tongue and the nip of his teeth over her achingly sensitive breasts. She wanted more, she wanted so much more, not least the irksome ache at the heart of her sated. She was just using him for sex. That was all right, wasn’t it? Nothing scary about that, was there? Men had been using women for sex for centuries, so, there was no reason why it couldn’t occasionally be done the other way round, she told herself, pulling him up to her to claim his passionate mouth for her own.
Heavens, his kisses were addictive, she acknowledged helplessly, lifting her hips to facilitate the removal of her last garment, barely crediting what she was doing, but she couldn’t get enough of his mouth or the taste of him. And then there was the wonderfully solid weight and feel of him over her and the wickedly familiar scent of him, clean, musky man overlaid with a hint of sexy cologne. There was just something about Raffaele that got to her every time he got close. Her hands roved down his spine to his slim hips and back up again, tugging at his shirt when it got in her way. She found the buttons, doggedly released them, began to pull and he got the message, rearing up half over her to pull it off and throw it aside, looming over her to expose a mouth-watering display of well-toned pecs and abs.
Below those elegant suits he wore, he was all sleek bronzed flesh and lean, hard muscle. She loved his body, she realised, really, really loved his body, and that alien thought shook her into opening her eyes and blinking up at him.