For a minute Willow let him caress her nipple and her eyes fluttered to a close as he began to nuzzle at her neck. She could feel the renewed rush of heat to her body and she wondered how long it would take. Whether they would have time to do it properly. But what if it hurt? What if she bled? Pulling away from him, she met the frustration in his eyes.
Was she about to lose her mind? Of course they wouldn’t have time. She’d waited a long time to have sex—years and years, to be precise—so why rush it and then have to go downstairs in an embarrassing walk of shame, to face her judgemental family who would be assembled in the drawing room like a circle of vultures?
‘We’ve got to go downstairs,’ she said. ‘For...for coffee.’
‘I don’t want coffee,’ he growled. ‘I want you.’
There was a pause before she could summon up the courage to say it and when she did it came out in a breathless rush. ‘And I want you.’
‘So?’
‘So I’m going to be a bridesmaid and I have to get my hair and make-up done before the ceremony.’ She swallowed. ‘And there’ll be plenty of time for that...later.’
Knowing he was fighting a losing battle—something he always went out of his way to avoid—Dante walked over to the window, trying to calm his acutely aroused body before having to go downstairs to face her frightful family.
He wondered what had made her so surprisingly compliant when her sister had come up here snooping around. He wondered what had happened to the woman who had flirted so boldly with him at the airport. The one who had demanded he be her escort as the price for returning his bag. He’d had her down as one of those independent free spirits who would give great sex—and her going-up-in-flames reaction every time he laid a finger on her had only reinforced that theory.
Yet from the moment he’d driven up the long drive to her impressive but rather faded country house, she had become ridiculously docile. He stared out at the breathtaking view. The magnificence of the distant landscape reminded him of his own family home, back in the States. Somewhere he’d left when he’d gone away to boarding school at the age of eight, and to which he had never really returned. Certainly not for any great length of time. His mouth twisted. Because wasn’t it something of a travesty to call the Long Island place a family home? It was nothing but a grand house built on some very expensive real estate—with a magnificent facade which concealed all kinds of dirty secrets.
He turned back to find Willow watching him, her grey gaze wary and her manner slightly hesitant—as if she expected him to say that he had changed his mind and was about to leave. He suddenly found himself thinking that she reminded him of a delicate gazelle.
‘Why are you suddenly so uptight?’ he questioned. ‘Is something wrong?’
Willow stilled and if she hadn’t fancied him so much she might have told him the whole story. But it was precisely because she fancied him so much that she couldn’t. He’d start treating her differently. He’d be overcautious when he touched her. He might not even want to touch her. Because that was the thing with illness—it did more than affect the person it struck; it affected everyone around you. People who were mature and sensible might try to deny it, but didn’t they sometimes behave as if the illness she’d once had was in some way contagious?
And why shouldn’t she forget about that period in her life? She’d been given the all-clear ages ago and now was her chance to get something she’d wanted for a very long time. Something as powerful and as uncomplicated as sexual fulfilment, with a man she suspected would be perfect for the purpose, as long as she reminded herself not to read too much into it. For the first time in her life, she had to reach out for what she wanted. Not the things that other women wanted—because she wasn’t asking for the impossible. She wasn’t clamouring for marriage and babies—just a brief and heady sexual relationship with Dante Di Sione. But she had to be proactive.
She smiled into his hard blue eyes. ‘I think it’s because I’m the youngest, and they’ve always been a little protective of me. You know how it is.’ She began to walk across the room towards him, plucking up the courage to put her arms around his neck. This close she could see into his eyes perfectly. And although she was short on experience, she recognised the desire which was making them grow so smoky.
And if she detected a flicker of suspicion lurking in their depths, then surely it was up to her to keep those suspicions at bay.
‘I don’t want to do it in a rush. I want to savour every single moment,’ she whispered, trying to sound as if she made sexual assignations with men every day of the week. ‘And don’t they say that the best things in life are worth waiting for?’
He framed her face in his hands and there was a split second when she thought he was about to bend his head and kiss her, but he didn’t. He just stared at her for a very long time, with the kind of look in his eyes which made a shiver trickle down her spine.
‘I hear what you’re saying and I am prepared to take it on board. But be very clear that I am not a patient man, Willow—and I have a very low boredom threshold. Better not keep me waiting too long,’ he said roughly as he levered her away from him, in the direction of the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
DANTE GLANCED AROUND at the guests who were standing on the newly mown lawn drinking champagne. He risked another glance at his watch and wondered how soon this would be over and he could get Willow into bed—but like all weddings, this one seemed never-ending.
The place had been a hive of activity all afternoon. The faded grandeur of Willow’s vast home had been transformed by legions of adoring locals, who had carried armfuls of flowers from the nearby village to decorate the house and gardens. Hedges had been trimmed and Chinese lanterns strung high in the trees. Rough wooden trestle tables had been covered with white cloths before being decked with grapes and roses and tiny flickering tealights.
It quickly dawned on him that the Hamiltons were the kind of aristocratic family with plenty of cachet but very little cash. The ceremony had taken place in their own church—he found that quite hard to believe—a small but freezing building situated within the extensive grounds. The bride looked okay—but then, all brides looked the same, in Dante’s opinion. She wore a white dress and a veil and the service had been interminable. No change there. But he’d found himself unable to tear his eyes away from Willow as she’d made her way up the aisle. He thought how beautiful she looked, despite a deeply unflattering dress and a smile which suggested that, like him, she’d rather be somewhere else.
Before the ceremony he had endured a meet-and-greet with her family over some unspeakable coffee, drunk in a room hung with dusty old paintings. Flora and Clover he’d already met and the remaining sibling was called Poppy—a startlingly pretty girl with grey eyes like Willow’s, who seemed as keen to question him as her sisters had been. Their attitude towards him had been one of unrestrained suspicion. They were curious about where he and Willow had met and how long they’d been an item. They seemed surprised to hear he lived in Paris and they wondered how often he was seeing their sister. And because
Dante didn’t like being interrogated and because he wasn’t sure what Willow had told them, he was deliberately vague.
Her parents had appeared at one point. Her mother was tall and still beautiful, with cheekbones as high as Willow’s own. She was wearing what looked like her husband’s old smoking jacket over a dress and a pair of wellington boots and smiled rather distractedly when Dante shook her hand.
But her attitude changed the instant she caught sight of Willow, who had been over on the other side of the room, finding him a cup of coffee. ‘Are you okay, darling? You’re not tiring yourself out?’
Just what was it with these people? Dante wondered. Was that a warning look from Sister Number Three being slanted in his direction? He got that Willow probably didn’t bring a lot of men home and he got that as the youngest daughter she would be a little overprotected. But they seemed to be fussing around her as if she was some kind of teenager, rather than a woman in her mid-twenties. And she seemed to be letting them.
But now the wedding was over, the photo session was finished and he was standing on a warm summer’s evening with a growing sense of sexual anticipation. He felt his mouth dry as he glanced across the lawn, to where Willow was listening to something her mother was saying, obediently nodding her blond head, which was woven with blooms and making her look even more ethereal than before. Her dress emphasised the razor-sharp slant of her collarbones and the slenderness of her bare arms.
Maybe her intrinsic delicacy was the reason why everyone seemed to treat her with kid gloves. And why her gaggle of interfering sisters seemed to boss her around so much.