‘Hello?’ Her voice broke the spell and he blinked and swore again in his head. What was it about this woman that grabbed him by the throat and demolished his brain?
‘Bella. You are beautiful and took my breath away.’
She laughed. Softly, and to him like the musical bells of his favourite chapel. Everything she did entranced him. ‘Thank you.’ she said. ‘The men around here would be far too embarrassed to say that out loud.’
He frowned. ‘I speak the truth.’ He glanced around the inside of her house. A welcoming room, evidence of a family and very clean. But he wanted her in the dark, beside him in the close confines of the car, somewhere he could inhale her scent and absorb the vibrations her body caused in his. With no distractions. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Did you manage to get a table in the restaurant?’
He frowned again. Why would he not? ‘Of course.’ She glanced away and shook her head slightly, and he was teased by the tiny smile she tried to hide. ‘I amuse you?’
‘Very much so. But it’s nice because you are so very different from the men around here.’ She walked past him onto the veranda, the hint of roses she left in her wake teasing him almost more than her words, and then she handed him her house keys. ‘I’m guessing you want to lock the door?’
‘Grazie. You learn.’ Her profile against the lights from the veranda made his eyes gleam. Did she have no idea how seductive she looked in those trousers? He had changed his preferences already.
‘I’m a smart woman.’ She tossed her head teasingly.
The movement exposed her throat to the light. ‘And very beautiful.’
‘I could get used to this.’ He heard the whispered words but was sure he’d not been meant to. How could this woman not have a hundred men beating a path to her door? It was a tragedy he went home tomorrow or he would have shown her what she deserved—or maybe it was a good thing. Either way he could introduce her to the way she should be cared for tonight.
As Gianni followed her down the path and under the rose arch he had the sudden urge to reach out and halt her progress, turn her beautiful face toward him and taste the promise he saw while the heady fragrance drifted around them, but he held back. Something he would regret later. No doubt the scent of roses would remind him of this moment that could have been.
This time she’d waited beside the car for him to open the door and the sleeping animal inside him growled complacently at securing her compliance. That beast had been dormant for a very long time and he’d forgotten the taste of cosseting a woman.
When she was seated he bent to lift a swathe of material from the hem of her trousers that had fallen outside the door and the material cascaded across his palm and fell like liquid around her tiny feet. All sensory input that teased him more. He clenched his fingers as he moved back to shut the door before he trod with restrained haste to join her. Still he could feel the material, cool and seductive like the woman who awaited him. She had him entranced.
Gianni’s door closed quietly as he was seated and Emma felt the car shrink to only the space between them. Yet not claustrophobic. Different. It felt intimate and exciting, and every nerve in her body seemed to be waving its receptors at the man beside her. Strange feelings for a woman who thrived on control and organisation.
He glanced across before he started the engine and it was as if he touched her. A slow caress. Hurriedly she did up her seat belt.
He smiled, and his eyes seemed to glow like a browneyed tiger, and her belly kicked. ‘I could have helped,’ he said.
She rubbed her arms. Not likely, buddy. The thought of his hand at her waist gave her more goose-bumps.
‘Do you live in your house all alone?’
She raised her eyebrows at him but doubted he’d see that in the dashboard light. ‘Not something I should tell a man I barely know.’
‘Good,’ he said, and she laughed again. He was funny. And old-fashioned, and yet she had the feeling that his moral code might bend dramatically when it was his own desires that were at stake. She didn’t think he realized how at sea she was. Luckily.
She looked out the window and back again. ‘I live with my daughter. My father comes sometimes to stay when he can and my brothers used to live there but the last of them has just married. They’re all shift workers so they used to come and go a lot anyway.’
‘In my country, alone in a house is not good for a woman and her daughter. It is different here?’
She frowned. Now he’d annoyed her. Though, if she was honest, maybe a little of her response was due to the fact she didn’t want to think about the example she was setting to her daughter by going out with a man who made her feel sexy for the first time in her life. ‘Yes,’ she said shortly. ‘My daughter is safe. Lyrebird Lake is a safe place. We have very little crime. I know everyone in town.’
His heavy brows drew together. ‘And people don’t drift through?’ His voice was dry. ‘I’m sure Angus said there is a working mine? A transient miner population only up the road.’
She tilted her head at him. Defiantly. ‘Where I live is fine. And not your concern.’ His interest had become too pointed. ‘In this country customs differ. Did you say we would eat?’
He sat back, and then nodded. ‘My apologies. It is none of my business.’ He started the car and of course now she felt guilty…But then she shrugged in the dark. He could get over it. Get used to the way women could look after themselves in Australia. Had to look after themselves. She thought with amusement about Tommy and her brothers, and the way she more looked after them. They should fly a women’s independence flag for her at Lyrebird Lake.
No conversation occurred until they drove into the cobbled courtyard of the Lakeside and the restaurant lights spilled into the car park and reflected back off the water.
She stayed in her seat, very tempted to open her own door just to tease him, but that would be petty. Was she bored with his old-fashioned manners already? Her door swung away and he held his hand out to help her.
‘May I assist you?’ His voice was low and courteous, no hint of assertiveness as it curled around her like a tender scarf. It was interesting he hadn’t presumed this time.
No, she wasn’t bored with being spoilt, she thought as she shivered in the sensations and hugged them to herself. His fingers were warm and strong when she took his hand, just like last time, and she felt the same burning sensation up her arm and the tightening of her breasts.
‘Are you cold?’
He was genuinely attentive. She didn’t know how to deal with the unfamiliarity of his concern. ‘A little,’ she prevaricated, more to hide her embarrassment, and instantly he slipped his jacket off and the warmth of man-heated silk caressed her shoulders.
Like an unexpected gift the subtle wash of his aftershave mixed with the scent of male bombarded already overloaded senses and her heel slipped on the cobbles under her feet as she actually felt faint for a second.
His arm came around her. ‘Are you well?’ He frowned down at her. ‘It has been an emotional day. Perhaps I should take you home.’
‘No, I’m fine. Really.’ She straightened out of his embrace and stepped back. ‘I just slipped in my heels.’ Her heart was thumping in her chest like a drum and she took a long cool breath of the night air into her lungs and stood tall. Or as tall as she could with her height. Despite the pinching in her toes she definitely needed high heels with this guy. ‘I’m fine,’ she said again. ‘Just a silly slip. Let’s go in.’
His brows remained creased, but he nodded reluctantly. ‘As you wish.’ He glanced over her attire again with a tiny glint in his eyes. ‘It would be a shame not to share