Coercion to Love (12 page)

The money still lay in a crumpled heap in his outstretched hand. His dark eyes were alight with humour, and he was having some difficulty keeping the amusement from his lips. Cass felt her cheeks begin to warm all over again, and wondered crazily why she had actually bothered when all he could do was mock her for her trouble. Then suddenly the ridiculousness of the situation got to her also, and her slow smile acknowledged it.

'He thought I was going to strangle him,' she laughed. 'He was frightened to death.'

'I know the feeling,' Carlo drawled, studying her in a way that set her pulses throbbing all over again.

Flustered, she walked out on to the small balcony, suddenly in desperate need of some fresh air.

The silence between them stung at her ears. She might be inexperienced where men of Carlo Valenti's calibre were concerned, but she wasn't a fool. Each time he looked at her the messages he was sending were becoming more obvious, less easy to deny.

She heard him move, and crossed her arms protectively across her breasts.

'A Spartan room,' he said quietly from just behind her, 'but with a priceless view. It is no wonder you linger, il dolce campionessa...'

'W-what does that mean?' she demanded warily, sensing a nasty taunt.

His laugh was low and husky, setting off warning signals all over Cass's trembling body as his breath warmed the back of her neck. 'It means—my sweet champion, nothing even vaguely offensive.' Then, calmly, with his body almost but not quite touching her own, he stretched a hand out over her shoulder and began pointing out recognisable landmarks.

It was just for show, an excuse for what was really happening between them, the tingling sense of awareness growing to an acute sharpness, aided and abetted by her burst of temper, followed quickly by their mutual humour. She could sense him actually having to fight the urge to touch her, and she had to fight her own desire to lean back into that hard-packed frame standing so close behind her.

'You see the yacht, anchored furthest out into the bay?' The long pointing finger directed her where to look. 'She is called Amante di Mare—Mistress of the Sea.'

Cass's eyes flickered into dim focus on the gleaming white yacht rocking gently on its anchor. It was easily the largest and most luxurious one in the bay.

'Yours?' she guessed, sounding husky-voiced. Every sense she possessed was honed exclusively on him.

'Si,' he confirmed. 'I use her to take me from resort to resort as a more—favourable way of visiting my hotels. And also for—divertimento...' his English was deteriorating for some reason, and Cass found it difficult to breathe suddenly '... a place to entertain my more important clients. One day,' he went on deeply, 'one day I will take you cruising with me, cam, and we will sail right around the coast from here to Nice, or maybe Monte Carlo...'

The gap between their bodies was diminishing with each word he spoke until the heat of his skin burned her through the thin cotton of her dress, and Cass closed her eyes, her breathing unsteady, dreadfully aware that she was in danger of becoming completely beguiled by this man. Her every sense was throbbing to the husky pitch of his voice, the soft brush of his breath against her cheek, his height and width and undeniable machismo...

'And in the evening...' At last he touched her, his hands coming to gently mould her shoulders, and Cass jumped as if she'd been stung. 'Easy, amore,' he murmured soothingly, and completely closed that gap between them so that she was trapped between him and the balcony wall.

'Please!' The plea escaped her on a husky groan as she twisted around with the intention of pushing him away from her.

'Please, what?' His dark eyes lowered to watch the way her hands trembled against his broad chest. 'You know what is happening between us, Cassandra,' he sighed impatiently. 'We are violently attracted to one another, so stop trying to fight it, for it only adds to the agonising frustration.'

'No!' She tried to push him away, arching her back in an effort to avoid the slow lowering of his mouth. He looked fierce and hungry, suddenly frighteningly eager. 'No, I don't want this!'

And she didn't! she told herself hectically. It was just the madness of the moment, and the difficult situation between them that was making them super-sensitive to each other!

His hands moved to her back, sliding down her slender body until they met at her arching waist, where her muscles felt as tensely stretched as piano wire. He murmured something deep in his throat, then pressed her closer, bringing a shocked gasp from her trembling lips when she recognised just what was happening to him.

'I have to kiss you,' he muttered, and, with her still trying to pull away from him, brought his mouth down on to hers with a kind of fiercely gentle passion that took her skimming back through the hours to that other kiss in the darkness when they had responded to each other with something completely detached from the physical.

Whatever it was, it had her melting against him, an arm going up and around his neck to hold on for dear life while senses she was only just beginning to realise she possessed heightened into full, ardent life.

'You feel it too!' he murmured triumphantly as he dragged his lips from hers.

'Yes,' she admitted on a shaken whisper. She felt it too; it was no use trying to deny it any longer. His body pulsed against her own, and she could barely think through the whirl of feeling tumbling inside her. 'But I don't want to!' she added on a choked little cry.

'I know,' he sighed, and took her mouth again with a kiss so devastating that her knees buckled beneath her, and Carlo had to tighten his grip to maintain his mastery over the kiss.

Above them the sun burned down upon their heads, and below them San Remo sat shimmering in her afternoon siesta. Nothing seemed to move but the hectic throb of their hearts where they pressed against each other.

'Giuseppe,' she gasped out thickly, remembering the garage owner's habit of taking his siesta in the shade of his scrappy old awning. He had to be able to overhear everything!

Carlo growled something deep in his throat, then caught her up in his arms to take her into the apartment.

The cool feel of cotton against her burning skin was the moment she realised that he had laid her down on the bed and was coming to lie beside her.

'No.' She put up a struggle in a last ditch attempt to salvage herself from what was threatening to take place between them.

'Open your eyes, and tell me you don't want this,' he challenged, taking her face in his hands and forcing her to look at him. 'Tell me that to my face, Cassandra, and I vow I will never touch you again!'

Oh, he was so clever! she thought wretchedly as she stared into the passion-hardened planes of his lean, dark face. Unlike her, he was no novice to this kind of thing. He knew she wanted him, he knew exactly what was happening inside her pathetically struggling body, and the mere idea of him never touching her again was enough to send her still.

Her eyes closed, copper-tipped lids fluttering down as her fingers went snaking up the heaving tautness of his chest, and her lids opened in helpless invitation to the sensual beauty of his mouth.

Her surrender brought a lusty growl from his throat. Then the words began pouring from his practised tongue—soft, gruff, seductive sounds in a language tailor-made for love. He kissed her brow, her closed eyes, her small straight nose. His lips brushed lightly across her cheeks to her temples, then down her jawline to the corner of her quivering mouth. And all the time he played this exquisite game with her senses, his beautiful voice swirled around them, shrouding her in such a haze of pleasure that she didn't even notice that his hands had drawn the bodice of the sundress down until she felt his hands close around the silken swell of her breasts, and she whimpered as his thumbs found and began to tease the pale pink buds.

'You like that?' he murmured encouragingly. ‘You like to feel my touch upon your naked skin? Skin like silk and as warm as honey. You have a beautiful body, mi amore,' he continued his seduction with his voice, 'made for loving—made for my loving!'

His mouth came down on hers again, staking claim just as his words and hands had done, and she moaned under his passionate onslaught, moving restlessly beneath him, her fingers clinging to his hair, running in agitation down to his shoulders, then scraping in excited agitation down his spine.

'Remove my shirt,' he commanded against her mouth, and her fingers automatically went to obey, fumbling with the buttons, eager, fretful, desperate to feel and touch him as he was touching her.

The shirt came open, and she tugged it from the waistband of his trousers, sighing as he came right over her, pressing her down into the old mattress so that the bed-springs creaked under their weight. And she didn't care, didn't care if Giuseppe could hear them and would know what they were doing, because her hands were suddenly in touch with sleek, tight skin, feeling the hard ripple of muscle, the deep shudders of pleasure her touch incited in him. His chest heaved, the mat of crisp black hair rasping against her breasts. His mouth was fixed on hers, moving her lips to his own command, his tongue warm and moist and seductive.

The kiss went on and on, their caresses becoming more urgent, more sure as they were dragged down deeper and deeper into a maelstrom of pleasure until, on an impatient growl, Carlo stripped the dress from her body then lay half across her, so that his hands could explore the newly exposed curves of her body.

He was on fire, the sleek, taut contours of his darkly tanned skin burning against her palms. Heat lay in two dark streaks across his cheekbones, his long nose flaring with the effort it took him to drag in air to his lungs. His mouth was parted, and trembling slightly, lips pulsing with the inflow of warm, sensual blood.

And the words kept on flowing between hot bursts of passionate kissing, reducing Cass to a quivering mass of pure exquisite feeling, until she was crying out with every caress he laid on her.

'Touch me,' he urged, the plea roughened with passion as be took her hand and placed it against the taut flatness of his stomach. As the warm muscles beneath her hand contracted in pleasurable response, he captured the throbbing tip of her breast with his lips, drawing it deep into his mouth, his tongue rasping hungrily over the pulsing nipple, making her arch in wild response.

Oh, God, she thought crazily, as new feelings began tumbling one on top of the other, I shouldn't be doing this! This man is Terri's father. The man who had deserted her sister. The man who !    

On a cry that was almost driven, she wrenched herself free, pushing him aside to roll off the bed and stand, swaying, staring in a kind of dazed horror at the place where she had just been lying, beneath his suddenly still frame.

'Liz,' she whispered; that was all—just 'Liz', in that awful pained way, and all hint of passion drained away from them both.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Carlo got up, his dark face averted from her. Shaking badly, Cass bent to retrieve her dress, pulling it back on with icy fingers.

He moved back to the window, his fingers slow as they straightened his own clothing, and, in a silence so heavy that it throbbed between them, Cass went back to her packing, forcing herself to move about the room, checking drawers, the tiny bathroom, placing everything neatly into her suitcase.

When she had finished, she snapped the case shut, and sat down on the bed, too drained to even find the energy to tell him she was ready to leave.

'I won't apologise this time,' he said without turning to look at her.

'I don't expect you to.' She was all too aware that they had both lost control. Sex was a new and bewildering phenomenon to her; she hadn't realised it could take such a violent hold on everything sensible.

He was leaning against the open framework, staring out at the bay, a hand lost in his trouser pocket while the other picked absently at the peeling white paint. Cass felt her heart make a swooping dive, and knew it did it for him. He was a man, and a passionate one at that. She was uncomfortably aware that she had left it too late to draw back. Men weren't used to that—not men of his kind, anyway.

'Why do you have to be back in England by next week?'

The question took her by surprise. It was the last thing she had expected him to say next. 'I...' shaking her head, she tried to gather her scattered senses together '... I start a new job at the beginning of the new school term,' she told him huskily.

'Which is—when exactly?'

"The second Monday in September.'

'Just under three weeks,' he murmured thoughtfully.

'But first I have to find Terri and I somewhere to live, and...' Her voice trailed off, her teeth pressing down on her bottom lip when she realised just what she had said. Even she was beginning to accept that there was every chance she would be leaving Italy without her niece. He turned to look at her at last, his expression under careful control.

'If I promise not to...' It was his turn to pause over his words, his mouth flickering slightly in a kind of self-meant contempt, then he sighed and began again. 'I cannot deny that I want you, Cassandra. I cannot even promise—as I was about to do—not to touch you again. Because if circumstances place us in a situation similar to this one...' A slow shrug completed what he wanted to say. 'But if I give you my word that I will— try to control my amorous instincts...'

She had to smile at his way of putting it, and so did he, which helped ease some of the tension out of the space between them.

'Would you consider staying on at my home until your September deadline?' he suggested. 'One week is really not long enough for me to get to know anyone,' he quite fairly pointed out. 'And I have contacts in England who could perhaps, with your approval of course,' he added quickly, being very careful not to offend her in any way, 'find the necessary accommodation for you. And I could perhaps show you some of the popular tourist spots on the Riviera, make this a real holiday—for all of us, perhaps, since I am not a man who takes time off from his work very often...'