One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents (91 page)

Although there was a lot to be said for watching her luscious breasts in that sexy, low-cut lacy bra. As if reading his mind, or maybe reading his mind was just something she could do, she raised herself up, dangling her breasts over him and smiling when, with a little growl of impatience, he scooped them out of their constraints so that he could lower one pouting nipple into his mouth.

‘Kinda sexy making love to a semi-clothed business woman,' he murmured roughly and Francesca made a noise halfway between a laugh and a moan as his mouth continued to circle her tightened bud.

He sucked on the moistened circle, pulling it deep into his mouth, and ran his hands along her thighs and up her skirt until he could loop his fingers over the elasticated waist of her underwear, which he proceeded to pull down, allowing her to squirm her way out of them completely.

He was bare-backed but still in his work trousers and he could feel his throbbing erection pushing against the zip. Anticipation soared through him. He pulled down the zip of her neat grey skirt and watched as she stood up and completed the job of divesting herself of the last piece of clothing covering her.

‘Shall we go upstairs?' Francesca glanced back towards the door, then looked at Angelo, comfortably sprawled on the sofa, his eyes fastened on her.

He had been right.
They
had been right. Right to acknowledge the power of their mutual sexual attraction, right to eliminate all the frills and fuss of possible emotional ties that would never happen. He wanted her, she wanted him, and his invitation was to indulge their joint desires until such time as they presumably became bored with one another. Of course, he would be the one to grow bored with her. That was just a reality she would have to accept and deal with because without any emotional ties whatsoever boredom followed hard on the heels of predictability and her initial allure would soon become tarnished around the edges. She would deal with that when the time came. She, too, would indulge her desires and her love which could never amount to anything, not with a man like him. It would be better than nothing—which, frankly, was what she had had for the past three long years.

‘This sofa is big enough for the both of us,' Angelo said thickly, devouring her naked body with his eyes and restraining himself from leaping up and dragging her down to the ground like an animal on heat. ‘Unless advancing middle age has made you lose that exploring edge of yours.'

Francesca laughed, picked up the nearest cushion from one of the chairs and threw it at him. ‘Middle age indeed! I'm twenty-seven!' She approached him, knelt down by the side of the sofa and cupped his beautiful face in her hands, sighing as he stroked her back. ‘You should be the one to be careful, Angelo. You're an old man compared to me. No need to prove your virility by pretending that you're still capable of making love in unusual places.' She giggled and kissed him on the mouth, stifling his immediate protest. With one hand, she slowly fiddled with his belt, finally unhooking it and setting to work on the button of his trousers and the zip. She could feel the hard bulge that told her how much he wanted her and was fired by a wild, giddy passion.

‘Prove my virility? You realise that you've laid down a gauntlet and, like any self-respecting red-blooded male, I'm going to have to take it up?'

He did. On the sofa and, later on, in his massive king-sized bed. It was only when the sunlight began to mellow behind the gauze curtains that Francesca glanced at her watch and let out a little yelp.

‘It's after five!'

‘So what?'
So what?
He had missed a string of appointments. A first for him. His mobile phone had probably been going mad in the pocket of his jacket downstairs. He didn't care. For the first time in weeks he felt liberated and in control. He had acknowledged his feelings, acknowledged that the woman lying next to him, rather making a show of getting up, was the woman who still turned him on. He had wanted her and not simply to even scores or salve the ego that had been blasted to hell three years previously. He had just wanted her.

And now he could have her. He was a free man and he could have her without any uninvited feelings getting in the way of his enjoyment. He had told her just how it was, had left it up to her to decide whether she wanted to have a relationship with a man whose only feelings towards her were ones of lust and desire, had been more than prepared to shrug and walk away if she had turned him down. No questions asked, no blinding rages, no backward glance. Those times were long gone. He was a man utterly in control and it brought a smile of satisfaction to his lips.

‘Where are you going?' he asked lazily, dragging her back down on to the bed and propping himself up on one elbow to stare at her.

‘The day's practically gone, Angelo! I had no idea how long we'd spent…I had stuff to do…'

‘So did I,' Angelo pointed out. He feathered a kiss on her mouth and his satisfaction went up a couple of notches as she helplessly responded. Really, she should have stormed out on him the minute he told her that he had deliberately kept her in the dark about the broken engagement for no better reason than he had wanted to see just how much she wanted him. She should even now be at home, breathing fire at his arrogance. But here she was, proof that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. The past had blinded him to what was really a very simple truth, which was that had he still had any feelings for her he would never have forgiven her and had her back. That would have been weak and sad and he was neither weak nor sad. No, his only weakness was sex and that was entirely acceptable. He felt deliriously happy in a way he had not felt for a very long time, not even when he had been engaged to Georgina and heading down a path that had seemed entirely sensible and fitting.

Francesca groaned. ‘Your meetings! Wouldn't your secretary have called? To remind you?'

‘She probably did, on my cellphone, which is conveniently located out of hearing. She wouldn't have got through on this number. It's ex-directory and barred to everyone but a handful of close friends and relatives. This is the one place where I don't allow work to intrude if I don't want it to.'

‘I never realised there was such a place,' Francesca said dryly. ‘Anyway, I've got to go. I have things to buy and if I don't hurry I won't get to the shops in time.'

‘What things?' He ran his hand along her thigh and felt her suppressed sigh. ‘A few olives and some tomatoes? It can wait until tomorrow.'

‘I have to get back and start doing what I should have been doing today. Lord, Jack must be wondering what's happened to me!'

‘Let him wonder. Today we celebrate.'

‘What exactly are we celebrating?'

‘What do you think?' He raised his eyebrows and treated her to an expression very much like the one worn by the cat that had got the cream. ‘We make great lovers and here we are, doing what we should have been doing all along.'

Francesca tried not to think too far ahead. Pondering on the destination of a road leading nowhere wasn't exactly going to put her in the perfect frame of mind and, having told herself that she would enjoy the present and not live beyond it, even in her darkest thoughts, she wanted to maintain her perfect frame of mind. And, yes, it
did
feel perfect. Right here, wrapped up with this man, the sunlight fighting a losing battle against the thickly bunched gauze curtains, the day lost in a haze of blissful love-making.

‘I'm a little hungry.'

‘That's a very pedestrian way to greet my remark,' Angelo complained, thinking how much he had missed her forthrightness. ‘Shall we go out for dinner? I know a very nice little restaurant just around the corner…'

‘You mean get dressed, walk somewhere, order food, wait for food, eat it, then drag the remainder of the evening out with coffee? That sounds a little long.' She grinned and nudged her leg along his. His body felt slick, as hers did, from the physical exertion of making love. ‘I could rustle up something from your fridge.'

‘I'm not sure that's such a good idea,' Angelo drawled.

‘Why not?' Francesca was genuinely puzzled. Once upon a time they had cooked together, or rather she had watched him while he cooked, lounging around in one of his shirts, in that little apartment in Venice. Now that she herself had become a cook, and one in demand, it made no sense to her that they should hunt out cuisine in any restaurants.

‘Because what we have now,' he told her dispassionately, ‘is all about sex. It's not about domesticity and cooking.' Never again would he go down that road with this particular woman. He could look back now at the past and in retrospect make a couple of very good deductions as to how she had managed to insinuate herself beneath his skin to the point where he had recklessly allowed himself to become vulnerable. It had been an easy enough road but a slippery one. The sex had turned into something warmer and more comfortable, and lazy, snatched evenings in his kitchen with the sound of some classical music wafting in the background while they played at being real partners had been the first step downhill.

‘Oh, right. Yes. I understand.'

‘I hope you do, Francesca, because if you don't then we might just as well call it off right now.'

He was deadly serious.

‘It would be a shame, considering how much pleasure we give to one another, but it would be life…'

The rush of hurt that followed his words, his casual indifference to anything intimate between them aside from intimacy of a purely physical nature, was intense. Why the hell should she be hurt? It wasn't, she reminded herself, as though she could ever,
ever
allow her relationship with Angelo Falcone to go anywhere. What he had offered was just what suited her, the only thing that
could
suit her, when it came to him. It was lunacy to get wistful about something as trivial as sharing the cooking.

‘Are you sure it's okay for us to even
be
here?' she asked ingenuously. ‘In your townhouse? Considering it's all about sex, wouldn't it make more sense for us to meet in a hotel somewhere? Maybe we should think about eliminating conversation completely.'

‘Now you're being ludicrous.'

‘If a No Cooking rule applies on the premises, then that's fine with me.' She hated herself for the desperation that kept her rooted to the spot, but if he was using her then wasn't she similarly using him? She loved him and wanted him and if she chose to indulge those feelings for a while, then what was wrong with that?

For the first time, she envied Jack his cavalier attitude towards members of the opposite sex, the blithe manner in which he could have passing relationships and be perfectly happy. It was a damn sight healthier than being hunkered down in a hole of her own making.

‘Just so long as you know that you'll never sample my fabulous cuisine now, even if you begged.' She kept her voice light as she slipped out of the bed and headed towards the
en suite
bathroom.

Angelo followed her. He had had to be frank with her but, still, it was a relief that she hadn't walked out. Not that it would have been the end of the world, but it would have been a tad disappointing when his expectations had been raised.

She wasn't aware of him pushing the door open and for a few seconds he stood there and stared as she stepped under the shower, catching her hair in her hands and raising her face to the shower head. She had the most exquisitely graceful body he had ever seen.

He entered the shower cubicle before she was even aware that he was in the bathroom and relieved her of the shampoo.

‘Stay still,' he ordered, massaging it into her hair. With her back to him, his imagination provided all the necessary details of her nudity, turning him on even as his fingers worked their magic on her scalp. He rinsed her hair, then took the soap and very thoroughly began soaping her, sliding his hands along her shoulders and then over her breasts.

‘I don't want to do a rushed job of this,' he murmured into her ear, as she arched back against him, ‘so you'll have to keep as still as possible.'

Francesca allowed the luxurious sensuality of the moment wash over her, just like the warm darts of the shower were washing over her body. When he was touching her like this there was no room in her head for thought and that was fine because thinking wasn't something she wanted to do. It was something she couldn't afford to do. She gasped as his fingers played with her nipples before travelling down across her belly, then between her legs, which she parted as his fingers probed places that made her want to squirm.

‘You're moving,' he warned.

‘And you're impossible.' She spun around, laughing, dripping, wanting him so much that it hurt. Her body felt alive and fired up and, without bothering to switch off the shower, he took her. She barely noticed the discomfort of the marble wall against her back as he thrust into her and they came together, a powerful explosion that had him panting and propping himself up, eyes shut, his body shuddering from the aftermath of his orgasm.

The last thing Francesca felt she needed was the bother of getting dressed and setting foot outside the heated cocoon they had created for themselves, but dress she did, blow-drying her hair until it gleamed. The only make-up she had was in her bag, and amounted to no more than some mascara and lipstick, but when she looked back at her reflection it was glowing. A woman in love and living dangerously. Not a good combination.