‘I’m not playing.’
‘But you are. You’re like a kitten with a cotton reel. You haven’t yet learned that life can be cruel and bitter, and God forbid that you should learn it through me!’
‘But you said you wanted me. Why can’t we—?’
‘Becky, my grandfather was your grandmother’s carpenter. I’m still a carpenter. Sometimes I make a little money repairing cars, getting dirty.’
‘Oh, nobody cares about that any more.’
‘Ask your father if he cares about it.’
‘This has nothing to do with my father. Just you and me.’
Suddenly he lost his temper. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ he shouted.
‘Don’t call me stupid.’
‘You are stupid. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t come down here and be alone with a man who desires you as much as I do. If you called for help there’s nobody to hear you.’
‘Why should I need help against you? I know you and—’
‘You know nothing,’ he said, in a rage. ‘I spend my nights lying awake, thinking of you in my bed, in my arms, naked. I have no right to think these things but I can’t stop myself. And then you come here, smiling and saying “Luca, I want you”, and I go insane. How much do you think one man can take?’
Out of all this only one thing made any impact.
‘You desire me?’
‘Yes,’ he said curtly, turning away to stare out of the window. ‘Now go.’
‘I’m not going,’ she said softly, almost to herself. It was more than a decision. It was a declaration that she had chosen her path and would follow it.
She went close behind him, slipping her arms about his body. As she had known he would, he turned instantly, and fell straight into her trap. She had removed her upper clothing and he found himself holding her bare skin, her arms, her shoulders, her breasts.
He made one last, agonised effort.
‘No, Becky—please—’
But the words were drowned by her lips on his, and then it was too late. It had always been too late.
He kissed her tenderly, then with increasing urgency, while his hands explored her and hers explored him. He was wearing a shirt, the front partly unbuttoned. It took her only a moment to rip open the remaining buttons so that she could press her breasts against his body. Inexperienced though she was, she knew at once that the sensation was too much for his self-control. When she moved to pull the shirt right off, he did it for her.
She was completely trusting, without caution or defences, and he seemed to know it even through his passion, for his movements were as controlled as he could make them.
At first all she felt was his tenderness, leading her forward gently. She was already in a fever for him, helping him remove the last of her clothes, then his, following his every move, trying to anticipate, so that he gave a shaky laugh, saying, ‘Don’t be in such a hurry.’
‘But I want you, Luca, I want you.’
‘But you don’t know what you want, piccina,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I have no right—we must stop—’
‘No! I’ll thump you in a minute.’
‘Little bully,’ he whispered.
‘You’d better let me have my own way, then, hadn’t you?’ she teased.
That was the end of his control. After that, no power on earth could have stopped him exploring her, enchanted by her sweetness and her young, blazing passion for himself.
As soon as he entered her she gave a little cry of excitement and began to move against him, urging him on. Her frank eagerness to make love and her lack of false modesty delighted him, and he gave everything without holding back.
It was a swift, unsubtle mating which came to a climax almost at once. Becky felt dizzy. One moment she was simply enjoying herself, and the next moment something tossed her up to the stars in a fine frenzy of pleasure, before sending her swooping back to earth, wondering which planet she’d landed on. Because it wasn’t the same one that she’d started on.
‘Oh, wow!’ she said breathlessly. ‘Oh, wow!’
The next moment she leapt on him again, ignoring his laughing protests. This time he loved her more slowly, or at least as slowly as she would let him, teasing her breasts with lips and fingers, until she wrapped her legs about him, demanding fulfilment, and he could do nothing but yield.
Afterwards they lay entwined while they drifted down from the heights, rejoicing to find each other still there.
‘Why did you try to warn me off?’ she whispered. ‘It was beautiful.’
‘I’m glad. I want everything to be beautiful and wonderful for you, always.’
‘It is wonderful, and you’re wonderful, and everything in the world is wonderful, because you love me.’
‘I didn’t say I loved you,’ he growled.
‘But you do, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ He tightened his arms, pulling her naked body hard against his. ‘I love you, piccina. I love you with my heart and soul, with my body—’
‘Yes, I know that.’ She giggled, letting her fingers run races over his skin.
‘Don’t tease me,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t endure it.’
‘I don’t want you to endure it, I want you to give in.’
‘Don’t I always give in to you?’ he asked with a touch of sombreness in his voice.
But that mood couldn’t last. She wanted him to make love to her again, and he could never deny her anything.
On the day of Frank’s return Becky drove to Pisa Airport to meet him in her own car, delivered as an early birthday gift during his absence.
‘I thought you wouldn’t want to wait,’ he explained now as she thanked him.
‘You spoil me, Dad.’
‘That’s what daughters are for,’ he said cheerfully. He was on a ‘high’ of success, as he told her during the drive home.
‘Got everything I wanted at less than I expected to pay. Yessir!’
Becky had heard him talk like this many times before, but now the memory of the Englishmen, and their desperation, made it sound different.
‘Will anyone be put out of work?’ she asked.
‘What was that?’
‘If you’re making such a profit, someone has to lose out, don’t they?’
‘Of course. Someone always loses out, but they’re the wimps, the people who deserve to lose because nature made them losers.’
‘But is it nature that makes them losers, or you?’
‘Becky, what is this? You’ve never had such ideas before.’
The thought flashed across her mind, Or any ideas at all! But all she said was, ‘You closed down a place in England, and some of the people who lost their jobs came out here to find you.’
‘The devil they did! What happened?’
‘They found me instead. I was out riding alone and three men appeared from nowhere.’
‘Did they hurt you?’
‘No, but only because a man appeared and saved me. His name’s Luca Montese and he lives