Handing Gianni back the crash helmet he had insisted she wear, Kelly was suddenly deflated that the evening was almost over. She looked up at the house and then back to Gianni. Should she ask him in? But it wasn’t her house, and she had only just met him. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ she began formally, but Gianni solved her problem by placing the helmets on the seat of the bike and drawing her slowly into his arms.
‘The pleasure was all mine,’ he husked softly, ‘and, if you will permit me, I have a few days’ holiday and I would like to spend them showing you around the lake.’
‘Yes, please,’ she agreed breathlessly, completely bemused by the slumbering sensuality in his dark eyes, and when he bent his head and kissed her her fate was sealed. He was everything she had ever wanted, dreamed of, she realised, and nothing else mattered in the world but to be in his arms, where she just knew she belonged.
CHAPTER TWO
THE next four days they spent touring on the motorbike to some of the lesser-known beauty spots. Places that only the locals knew, according to Gianni.
Kelly was fascinated and thrilled in turn; they laughed and teased, and talked. She discovered he lived on the other side of Desenzano, with his mother; his father had been dead for some years. It made sense because Kelly knew that the other side of the marina was the old town, so obviously Gianni was a local, and it was quite usual for an Italian male to live at home until he married.
Every day that passed her passion for Gianni grew, until finally she admitted to herself she was in love for the first time in her life.
Kelly lay flat on her back on the blanket Gianni had provided for their picnic. It was a beautiful spot—a small grassy clearing on the edge of the lake. They’d had to ride the bike through the trees to find it. But Gianni had assured her they were not trespassing. Slipping off her shorts and shirt to reveal a tiny blue bikini, she’d run into the cool water of the lake with Gianni chasing her. She could still feel the imprint of his large nearly naked body against hers as he had wrapped two strong arms around her and his firm mouth had closed over hers to kiss her breathless.
She turned her head slightly. Gianni was lying beside her, one arm outstretched and the other loosely curved around the top of her head. She watched the slow rise and fall of his mighty bronzed chest with helpless fascination. They had eaten lunch, fresh bread, a whole roast chicken, and fruit and cheese. Now he looked as if he was asleep and she could admire him to her heart’s content.
Her eyes wandered with awe over his sinfully sexy body—tanned, with a smattering of soft black body hair over his chest arrowing down beneath the wicked black trunks that cupped his sex and not much more. She was beginning to regret not asking him into the house that very first night, because the next day Marta had returned and so now she couldn’t, and she ached for him with fervour she could barely control.
Restlessly she sat up. Judy had called this morning—they were coming back the next day, Saturday, and her freedom to meet Gianni would be seriously curtailed. Helplessly her eyes strayed back to the man at her side and she frowned.
‘Why the frown?’ Gianni queried lazily, lifting heavy-lidded eyes to hers.
She had thought he was asleep and, catching the dark gleam in his slumbrous eyes, she knew he had been aware of her watching him, and liked it. Her heart jumped, and her nipples tightened against the brief cotton covering in unwitting response.
Drawing her knees up to her chin, and wrapping her arms around them, hiding as much of her body as she could, she fixed her eyes on the lake and said, ‘The family are coming back tomorrow.’ She had no real reason to be afraid their relationship would end simply because her brief holiday was ending. But she was… ‘This is the last day of my holiday, I suppose,’ she said with a brief attempt at a smile.
‘Then we must not waste it,’ Gianni drawled huskily, and, reaching up, he caught her shoulders and tumbled her round and down on top of him, his mouth finding hers with unerring accuracy. ‘Open your mouth,’ he husked against her lips, but he did not need to ask as she was more than willing.
Gianni’s strong hands swept down the length of her slender body, shaping her waist and hips, her thighs, and trailed back up, one to settle on her buttocks, the other to inch up over her breast. His fingers slipped beneath her bikini top, his thumb grazing over one pert nipple, and she gasped into his mouth as her breast hardened at his touch. She felt his great body’s instant reaction, and instinctively she straddled him, wanting his masculine hardness at the most sensitive part of her. She squirmed on top of him, only two bits of cloth separating her from the possession she ached for.
‘Dio, I want you,’ Gianni rasped. ‘I have to have you.’ He swallowed a groan.
She was all fire and light in his arms; the provocative sexiness of her incredible body moving against him made him dizzy with a raw, primitive desire he could barely control. It was years since he had made love to a girl out in the open, and he knew he should not do it now. He was a well-known man, the lake was full of boats, perhaps even paparazzi, which was the last thing he needed. He’d never realised until the last few days how difficult it was for lesser mortals to find somewhere to take a woman to bed. He should stop this now. But as he felt her breast swell into his hand, the soft, slightly tentative stroke of her tongue on his throat, he was lost.
Gianni rolled h
er over onto her back and nudged her thighs apart to settle himself in the cradle of her hips, his hands seeking the halter-neck of her top. He wanted to feast on her beauty, to touch and taste every delectable inch of her. But first his mouth angled over her pouting lips in a kiss of wild, hungry passion. Then he heard it…
Suddenly Kelly found herself staring up into the bright sun glinting down from a clear blue sky. Gianni had leapt up, a string of what had sounded very like curses escaping from his mouth in a low, furious undertone.
She sat up. Gianni was striding to the edge of the trees, where a much older man stood with a shotgun over his arm. She couldn’t hear what was said, and in any case she was too embarrassed. She hadn’t heard the other man approach. Thank heaven Gianni had or the poor old fellow might have got the shock of his life.
Horribly embarrassed by what had nearly happened, she jerked to her feet. Never mind what Gianni had said, she just knew they must be trespassing, and they had been caught. Panic-stricken, she began bundling everything together, visions of languishing in an Italian jail leaping into her mind.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Gianni muttered furiously under his breath, swinging around and striding back to pick up his shorts and shirt and pull them on.
‘We are trespassing, aren’t we?’ Kelly demanded, her face flushed, her hair disheveled. She had no notion of how wonderful she looked to Gianni as she struggled into her own shorts and top.
A wry smile parted his firm mouth. He’d just been caught by the security guard he employed to keep an eye on the grounds and hunting lodge he owned. At least the man was doing his job properly, but it was no consolation to Gianni, who was aching in actual pain with frustration. Not for the first time in the last few days he wondered if the pretence was worth it. But he was so used to women throwing themselves at him because of his wealth and name that it made a refreshing chance to be treated like a regular guy. But if he had told Kelly who he was, and taken her to his house and his bed, he would not now be suffering the burning torment of frustration her delectable body had aroused in him.
‘Sorry, Kelly. But I will make it up to you tonight, I promise.’ His mind was made up: tonight he would tell her the truth. Bending down, he picked up the blanket and the food box in one hand and held the other one out to her.
He glanced down at her silver head, her hand so trustingly in his, and he felt a bit of a bastard. She was a truly lovely girl, both inside and out. He knew she wanted him; she could not hide her reactions. Neither could he, he thought drily, willing his body to subside. But he was not into denial so it would have to be tonight, because tomorrow he was leaving. He had work commitments piling up around his ears, never mind the fact the Bertoni family were returning.
Gianfranco was a sophisticated, experienced man of the world and Kelly, at twenty-one, was obviously no innocent. She was incredibly responsive and went wild in his arms, though sometimes she actually looked surprised at her own reactions. He knew without conceit that he could have had her the first day he’d met her.
He stopped, puzzled for a moment at his own restraint. He was not a man who went in for one-night stands—he usually took a woman out three or four times before taking her to bed. He had to like the woman he was sleeping with, and he certainly liked Kelly. He was looking forward to a new affair as it had been three months since the end of his last relationship. Plus, he wanted to discover if she was as much a gymnast in bed as she was out of it!