Gracie could hardly believe her ears. She shook her head slightly. ‘Thailand?’
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sp; ‘It’s a country in South-East Asia.’
‘I know that,’ she said impatiently, too afraid to believe this for a second. It had to be a joke. ‘But … why?’
‘Because I have to go on business and I want you to come with me.’
Her heart was thumping like a piston. ‘As … what, exactly?’
He put his hands on his desk, spread wide. A feral look was in his eye and he smiled the smile of a consummate seducer. ‘As my lover, of course.’
Gracie was still in a mild state of shock hours later, when she was in the back of Rocco’s car with his long legs spread out beside her. She was clutching her passport in her hands and staring out of the window as London whizzed past and they entered countryside. Rocco’s jet was at a private airfield. Private jet. Gracie felt a bubble of hysteria rising.
Suddenly her passport was taken out of her hands. Her head snapped around. ‘Hey!’
She’d been avoiding looking at Rocco since he’d arrived back at the apartment to pick her up. He’d given her a scathing look up and down and muttered something about suitable clothes before making a call on his phone. Then he’d hustled her out of the apartment, leaving George behind, and into his car. And now he was perusing her passport. He looked up with an arched brow. ‘You haven’t travelled much?’
Gracie grabbed for her passport but Rocco held it aloft, and the motion of the car made her land awkwardly against his rock-hard torso. Cheeks flaming, Gracie scrabbled back, but Rocco snaked out an arm and captured her, holding her against him easily. Her breasts were crushed against him and her nipples were already peaking into tight stinging points.
Their faces were so close that Gracie could feel his warm breath. Her gaze slid to his mouth. She ached to touch it, to trace it with her finger. To feel the cushiony firmness.
Rocco’s arm moved up and his hand speared into her hair, cradling the back of her head. ‘Gracie …’ he said roughly.
She ached for him to kiss her. The tension had been spiralling through her since she’d woken that morning, aching for him to touch her again. And she’d been in a state of near arousal since his provocative words in his office.
It was a few moments before either one of them heard the discreet knocking on the window beside Rocco. Gracie sprang apart from him, mortified by how ready she was for him to make love to her in the back of a car.
Gracie scrambled out, all but landing on the tarmac in an undignified heap. Rocco just looked at her with a bemused expression and Gracie scowled at him. She didn’t need to suffer his look to know that he must be bemused by this attraction.
He set out across the tarmac to the plane, which was glinting in the setting evening sun. Gracie stumbled slightly and Rocco stopped and held out a hand. She’d expected him to walk autocratically ahead of her, not even checking to see if she followed, and she looked at his hand for a long moment and then put her hand in his. His much bigger hand curled around hers, and her belly was swooping dangerously all the way to the plane with their fingers entwined.
For some reason, and she hated to admit this to herself, the moment felt significant.
Rocco looked at Gracie, sitting in a plush seat across the aisle from him. She was staring out of the window, fascinated, as if she’d never seen an airport before. He shook his head. This was a novelty for him: to be with a woman who didn’t feel as if she had to give him her undivided attention and who also didn’t seem to care one bit for the fact that she wore no make-up and such unflattering garments in front of her lover.
The few occasions he had ever taken a woman away with him for whatever reason had been like military operations, with an extra vehicle just to carry their luggage. He’d put up with it because he’d assured himself this was his world now, but he had to admit that it had always disgusted him a little bit.
He was getting irritated now by Gracie’s extreme absorption in everything around her. The plane was starting to taxi down the runway and he spotted her open belt. That irritation laced his voice as he called to her, and something inside him clenched when he saw her flinch minutely before she turned her face to him.
He gestured to her lap. She looked down dumbly.
‘Your safety belt.’
‘Oh.’ She found the two ends and clumsily tried to put them together.
Rocco had a flash of realisation when he remembered her brand spanking new passport. That something inside him clenched even tighter as he leaned across and made quick work of securing her belt, tightening it.
‘I could have done it.’
Rocco sat back and looked at her. Now she was looking at him. ‘You’ve never been on a plane before, have you?’
She flushed under his gaze. He could see her warring with the desire to blurt out, Of course I have! But after a moment she just shook her head, lips tight together. She was embarrassed, and Rocco’s belly tightened with some nameless emotion.
He asked roughly, ‘So why the brand-new passport? Were you planning on going somewhere?’
The second after he’d asked the question a cold trickle of realisation wound its way down his spine. His desire to trust her mocked him. How could he have been so stupid? Before Gracie could answer he laughed out loud. ‘Dio. Of course you were! You must have been planning a nice long overseas trip with your brother and the million euros he’d creamed off my clients.’