IT MIGHT be over now, but Charley had had the most wonderful evening ever. The conversation had been every bit as intoxicating for her as the wine that had filled her glass. To be amongst people who were so knowledgeable about their craft, so filled with passion for all that it represented, and who treated her as their equal, had made her feel so complete and comfortable with herself that every minute of the evening had been a joy. The whole evening had been the most exhilarating and wonderful experience. Antonio and Niccolo were both in their early fifties, and their wives, Charley guessed, in their late forties, mothers of grown-up families. They had treated Charley with kindness, complimenting her on her appearance and asking her about her own family circumstances, issuing invitations for her to join their own family get-togethers whilst she was working in Italy, so that she would not feel alone. And Niccolo had assured Raphael that he was interested in the project, and would be willing to have his teachers and students involved in it. A coup in which Charley hoped she had played her part.
Now, though, they were back at the apartment, and Raphael hadn’t said a word to her—his silence on the drive back a continuation of his behaviour towards her during the evening. Because he had been watching her? Assessing her? Testing her to see if she was up to the job of managing his project?
With her new-found confidence, instead of giving in to her anxiety she met it head-on.
‘Something seems to be wrong. If it’s because of the garden and my job, and you’ve changed your mind…’
She was not allowed to get any further. Raphael swung round and told her harshly, ‘It isn’t because of the garden, or your job. It’s because of this.’
If he’d been fighting his desire for her only this evening he would have been able to control it. But he hadn’t. He’d been fighting it for day after aching day, night after sleepless night, minute by minute, second by second, until the sheer weight of what he was trying to hold back was such that all it had taken was that one small extra burden of her question to tear down the walls he had built against her effect on him. In the few seconds of time it took him to reach for her a whole world of sensual images and longings flashed through him—an unstoppable avalanche of self-destruction he was powerless to stop.
Charley could hardly believe it. She was where she had so longed to be: in Raphael’s arms, in his hold, his mouth hard on hers, her senses bursting into life. For a brief handful of seconds she was sharply aware of the soft darkness of the hallway, the smell of Raphael’s cool cologne-scented skin contrasting with the heat they were generating, the rustle of their clothing, the soft sounds of pleasure she herself was making under Raphael’s kiss and the sharp click of her heels touching the floor, because she’d raised herself up on tiptoe in order to get as close to him as she possibly could. And then she was aware of nothing other than the feel of Raphael’s mouth on her own, the thrust of his tongue between her lips, and the surge of delight that invaded her body speared through her with a fierce urge to respond to him, to match him touch for touch and breath for breath.
This surely more than anything else was what she had been born for—what her senses had been designed for, what her inhibitions wanted to yield to. Curling her tongue against Raphael’s in sensual pleasure, she pressed closer to him, feeling her breasts flatten against the hard muscular wall of his chest, knowing that her legs trembled as she leaned into him, knowing that inside herself she was softening and aching and wanting.
Her body’s goal was Raphael’s possession of it, and hedonistically, recklessly, perhaps even dangerously, she was welcoming every single sensation and thought that took her closer to that goal.
Lost in the heavy, pulsing need to give everything that she was, everything that she had, to the urgency driving through her, the sudden raw sound of Raphael’s ‘No!’ as the harsh denial was ripped from his throat shocked her into frantic disbelief.
When Raphael released her and stepped back she swayed towards him, barely able to stand, her body shivering with rejection and the piercing, throbbing ache of denial, totally unable to comprehend why, having aroused her desire for him, he had now plunged her into such an aching agony.
‘No? You can’t say that. Not now—not after you’ve shown me that you want me and…and made me want you.’
She was so untutored in guile, so honest in what she thought and felt. Her words ripped into him, tearing apart the barrier he had tried to put between them.
‘Want you?’ Raphael laughed bitterly.
Until tonight, until he had seen her standing on the landing earlier, he had thought he had won, that he had subdued his desire for her—but all he had done was damp it down, and over the course of the evening, as he had watched her, it had leapt into fresh life like a wild fire, devouring everything that stood in its way.
‘No, I do not want you,’ he told her with brutal honesty. ‘What I feel for you is no mere wanting. I wish to God that it were. I hunger for you. I ache for you and I crave you. But, since I have a rule of never mixing my business and my personal lives, those needs shall have to go unsatisfied. We will return to the palazzo in the morning, and then I shall leave for Rome.’
He was walking away from her, heading for the stairs. Charley licked her suddenly dry lips, and then, before she could change her mind, she ran after him, pushing past him on the stairs. She stood in front of him, spreading her arms so that he couldn’t get past.
‘Sometimes rules have to be broken,’ she told him breathlessly. ‘Sometimes things happen that we shouldn’t try to control—things we are meant to experience, even if their pleasure is short lived.’ She looked up at him. ‘I want you to make love to me, Raphael. I want to know your hunger and your ache a
nd your desire, because I feel them too.’
In the half-light of the hallway the shadows lent his face a haunted harshness, giving him the look of a man who belonged to another age, tormented and driven beyond his own limits.
‘There can be no future for you with me,’ he told her harshly.
‘I am not asking you for a future.’
‘Then what are you asking me for?’
‘Tonight,’ Charley told him softly. ‘Tonight and nothing between us—nothing to stop us sharing the honesty of what we feel. When you said what you did earlier today, about my clothes and about my…my elegance, you started a process that has set me free to be myself. I want you to complete that process, Raphael.’
Charley could hear the increased pressure of his breathing even though he hadn’t moved.
Holding his dark, unreadable gaze, she continued. ‘I want you to take me and hold me. I want you to complete what you have begun, Raphael.’
His breathing had become a harsh sound of constraint, his chest openly rising and falling with the pressure he was exerting over himself.
Charley let her own voice drop and soften to a husky, sensual whisper.
‘I want us to break your rules, Raphael. I want us to have what we can have together tonight.’ She took a step towards him and waited, her heart pounding. Never in a thousand lifetimes had she imagined herself behaving like this with such sexual boldness, but now that she knew Raphael shared her desire she was prepared, whatever she had to risk, her whole body thrilling at the thought of what they could share.
When he reached out and circled her wrists with his hands, his fingers long and strong as steel when they snapped around her flesh, Charley’s anticipation turned to dread. He was going to deny her—move her out of his way and step past her. His grip forced her arms down to her sides and held them pinioned there.