‘Not now that we’re married with a baby on the way, it’s not!’ Raffaele countered scathingly. ‘There’s enough attraction between us to light a bonfire.’
Vivi stiffened even more. ‘Speak for yourself,’ she parried.
Raffaele had never met such a stubborn woman and he crossed the room to stand in front of her, only then noticing the tiny, almost imperceptible tremors shaking through her slender body; only then reading the anxiety in her wide eyes as the fear it genuinely was. ‘Vivi... I would never ever hurt or harm a hair on your head,’ he muttered shakily, so unnerved was he by the sight of a woman regarding him with fear.
‘It was just...er...when you shouted,’ she whispered, not sure she was even telling him the truth at that moment. ‘I’m sort of programmed to run when men shout because when I was a kid it usually got violent and if you didn’t get out of the way you got hurt!’
‘I swear I’ll never shout again,’ Raffaele framed, lifting a not quite steady hand to smooth soothing fingers down the side of her flawless face to her soft, full pink mouth. ‘Ever. I had no idea that was your experience.’
‘It’s not something you share freely,’ she admitted brokenly, all shaken up by both the conversation and the manner in which their argument had gone downstairs. He had accused her of holding spite and judging him, constantly throwing up barriers between them, and she felt overwhelmed by the awareness that Raffaele was correct on every count. He had read her, she conceded guiltily, and called her bluff, refusing to allow her to continue hiding behind such empty excuses, and that had proved an utterly unnerving experience for Vivi. That was what had really sent her fleeing into retreat, she acknowledged in mortification.
‘But if it’s a trigger, it’s something I should know about you,’ Raffaele breathed, a long forefinger tracing her full, soft lower lip, the ever-ready pulse at his groin throbbing with helpless arousal. ‘Believe me, Vivi...dannazione, I have many flaws but you will always be safe with me.’
And the rigidity went out of her taut length as if he had punched a release button and she smiled tentatively up at him. ‘Sorry about the drama...and Amedeo heard you shouting and he looked so shocked.’
Raffaele’s lean, darkly mesmerising features slashed into a reluctant grin. ‘He’s never heard me shout before. I’m very even-tempered.’
‘Until you met me...’
‘Until I met you, bella mia,’ Raffaele husked, lowering his proud dark head.
And she knew he was about to kiss her and she told herself to step away but inexplicably she stayed right where she was, heat curling up in her pelvis at even the thought of that much contact.
RAFFAELE’S MOUTH CAME down on hers with the most earth-shattering sensuality she had ever experienced. It was everything her charged body needed even though she refused to admit that to herself. Desire shot through her as hot as the bonfire he had mentioned, her breasts swelling, her nipples tightening hard, her core growing slick and damp. All just from a kiss! She argued with herself while pushing instinctively into the hard, muscular heat of him. She wanted so much more, craved the most primitive of possessions, was completely shocked by the tide of sexual longing he could awaken in her.
‘Per l’amor di Dio... I ache for you,’ Raffaele husked thickly, tugging at the spaghetti straps of her dress and dragging the bodice down to reveal the pink pouting buds of her breasts while stalking her backwards, down onto the swan bed. He closed his mouth hungrily to a tantalising peak, dimly registering that he was aroused beyond belief and questioning the reality because sex had never done that to him before. Unfortunately for him, however, he was getting a real high out of it, so he repressed that nagging flare of dismay and ignored it.
‘I love your breasts,’ he growled.
Vivi lay back on the bed, belatedly disconcerted by what she was allowing to happen between them. She was being shimmied out of her dress by determined hands and she wasn’t doing anything to stop him.
I don’t want to stop him. The words stood out like some sort of brain Morse code she couldn’t ignore. Her fingers speared into his black cropped hair and she trembled, seduced by the lashing of his tongue and the nip of his teeth over her achingly sensitive breasts. She wanted more, she wanted so much more, not least the irksome ache at the heart of her sated. She was just using him for sex. That was all right, wasn’t it? Nothing scary about that, was there? Men had been using women for sex for centuries, so, there was no reason why it couldn’t occasionally be done the other way round, she told herself, pulling him up to her to claim his passionate mouth for her own.
Heavens, his kisses were addictive, she acknowledged helplessly, lifting her hips to facilitate the removal of her last garment, barely crediting what she was doing, but she couldn’t get enough of his mouth or the taste of him. And then there was the wonderfully solid weight and feel of him over her and the wickedly familiar scent of him, clean, musky man overlaid with a hint of sexy cologne. There was just something about Raffaele that got to her every time he got close. Her hands roved down his spine to his slim hips and back up again, tugging at his shirt when it got in her way. She found the buttons, doggedly released them, began to pull and he got the message, rearing up half over her to pull it off and throw it aside, looming over her to expose a mouth-watering display of well-toned pecs and abs.
Below those elegant suits he wore, he was all sleek bronzed flesh and lean, hard muscle. She loved his body, she realised, really, really loved his body, and that alien thought shook her into opening her eyes and blinking up at him.
‘Che cosa...what?’ he husked, staring down at her with stormy, dark golden eyes and lashes longer than her own.
‘Nothing.’ Not fair to bless a man with those lashes, she had thought the very first time she saw him. But his eyes were absolutely beautiful, his lean, dark features equally so. Raffaele hadn’t been standing behind any door when the gifts were handed out at birth. Her heart was banging inside her chest like a drum tattoo and when his hand roved across her inner thigh, her body sang in a chorus of anticipation that was as terrifying as it was thrilling. He stroked her, lightly, almost playfully, and her back arched and her hips rose, the hunger rising as demandingly as any bone-deep craving. And that was what it was, she conceded in a daze, a hunger so instinctive she couldn’t fight it, couldn’t control it, certainly couldn’t snuff it out and go back to the innocence that had once been hers.
‘If there’s something bothering you, you should tell me,’ Raffaele muttered, gazing down at her, enthralled by the pleasure of Vivi not fighting him for once, while, at the same time, suspiciously wondering what had brought about this miraculous change.
Vivi half slid out from under him to turn on her side and aimed her reddened lips at his. ‘You’re talking too much, taking too long,’ she complained, because no way was she ever going to tell him the truth: that sometimes he mesmerised her into being a woman she despised, a weak woman, a woman without proper self-discipline and strength.
‘No, tonight will be what our first time should have been but wasn’t,’ Raffaele declared with maddening resolve.
‘It was good...us...the first time,’ Vivi protested through compressed lips.
‘Good, but crazy and brief—like a couple of teenagers having sex for the first time,’ Raffaele reasoned, his pride clearly troubled by that reality.
‘You will just never do what I ask you to do!’ Vivi complained helplessly.
‘Probably not,’ Raffaele agreed smoothly, amusement gleaming in his dark eyes as he crushed her ripe pink mouth under his again, taking the easy way out of the disagreement. It went against the grain with him to accept that he had gone utterly out of control the first time he had been with her and in retrospect that performance shamed