THE fierce riot of the storm seemed suddenly to fade to some strange distance, leaving behind a silence that was almost tangible, and twice as scary.
Laura swallowed. ‘Cut off?’ she echoed. ‘But we can’t be.’
He shrugged again, almost laconically. ‘It happens.’
‘But how long are we going to be—stuck here like this?’ she demanded defensively.
‘Until the storm passes, and we can reassess the situation.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Don’t you even care?’
‘Why? There is nothing I can do, mia cara.’ He smiled at her. ‘So, I shall let you be agitated for both of us.’
Well, she could manage that—no problem, Laura thought grimly.
She picked up her glass, and drank again, aware that her hand was shaking, and hoping—praying—that he wouldn’t notice in the uncertain light. She said huskily, ‘There’s the Jeep. We could—drive somewhere—some place with lights and a phone.’
‘In this weather, on that road?’ he queried softly. ‘You are suddenly very brave, mia bella. Far braver than myself, I must tell you. So, do you wish me to give you the keys, because I am going nowhere.’ He paused. ‘You can drive?’
‘I’ve passed my test,’ she said guardedly.
His smile widened. ‘Then the decision is yours. But you may feel it is safer to remain here.’
There was a silence, then Laura reluctantly nodded.
‘Bene,’ he approved lazily. ‘And now I will make a deal with you, Laura mia. In the morning, when this weather has cleared, I will drive you anywhere you wish to go, but only if—tonight…’ He paused again, deliberately allowing the silence to lengthen between them.
Laura’s mouth felt suddenly dry. She said, ‘What—what about tonight, signore? What are you asking?’
He said quietly, ‘That you will again play the piano for me.’
‘Play the piano?’ Laura was genuinely taken aback. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I am most serious. You played the first night you were in my house. Why not the last? After all, you are going back to your own country. I may never have the opportunity to listen to you play again.’
Laura looked down at the table. ‘I’d have thought that was a positive advantage.’
He clicked his tongue in reproof. ‘And that is false modesty, mia cara. I have heard you practising each day. And once I found Emilia weeping in the hall, because your playing brought back memories of my mother for her also.’
‘Oh, no.’ Laura glanced up in dismay. ‘Lord, I’m so sorry.’
‘No need,’ he said. ‘They were happy tears. She loved my mother very much.’ He rose. ‘So, Laura mia, you will indulge me?’
Reluctantly, she followed him to the salotto, waiting while he carefully positioned more candelabra on top of the piano.
‘There,’ he said at last. ‘Will that do?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose…’ She sat down at the keyboard, giving him a questioning look. ‘What do you want me to play?’
‘Something calming, I think.’ Alessio sent a wry glance upwards as thunder rumbled ominously once more. ‘That piece you have been practising, perhaps.’
“‘Clair de Lune’’?’ She bit her lip. ‘I’d almost forgotten it, and it’s still not really up to performance standard.’
‘But very beautiful,’ he returned. He sat down in the corner of a sofa, stretching long legs in front of him. ‘So—if you please?’
Swallowing nervously, she let her fingers touch the keys, searching out the first dreamy chords, only too conscious of the silent man, listening, and watching.
But, somehow, as she played her confidence grew with her concentration, and she found herself moving through the passionate middle section with barely a falter into the gentle, almost yearning clarity of the final passage. And silence.
Alessio rose and walked across to the piano, joining her on the long padded stool. He said softly, ‘Grazie,’ and took her hand, raising it to his lips. He turned it gently, pressing his mouth to the leaping pulse in her wrist, then kissed the palm of her hand slowly and sensuously.
Her voice was suddenly a thread. ‘Please—don’t do that?’
He raised his head, the dark eyes smiling into hers. He said, ‘I am not allowed to pay homage to your artistry—even when it has conquered the storm?’
The lightning was barely visible now, she realised, and the thunder only a distant growl.
‘It—it does seem to have moved away.’ She tried to retrieve her hand, and failed. ‘Perhaps the electricity will come on again soon.’
‘You don’t like the candlelight?’
Laura hesitated. ‘Oh, yes, but I wouldn’t want to read by it, and I was really hoping to finish my book before tomorrow,’ she added over-brightly, aware that his fingers were caressing hers, sending little tremors shivering down her spine. It seemed as if she could feel every thread in her dress touching her bare skin.
‘Then we will have to think of some other form of entertainment that may be easier on the eyes.’ Alessio paused. ‘Do you play cards?’
She shrugged. ‘The usual family games.’
‘And poker?’
‘I know the value of the various hands,’ she said. ‘But that’s about all.’
‘I could teach you.’
She stared at him. ‘But don’t you need more people?’ she asked. ‘Also it’s a gambling game, and I—I haven’t any money to lose.’
‘It is possible to play for other things besides money, carissima. And one learns to make use of whatever is available. Sometimes that can be far more enjoyable than playing for mere cash.’ He reached out, his fingers deftly detaching one of the small silver spheres on a chain that hung from her ear. He put it down on an ivory piano key, where it flashed in the candle flame. ‘You see? Already you have something to stake.’
Strip poker, Laura thought numbly. Dear God, he’s suggesting we should play strip poker…
She wrenched her hand away from his. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice bitterly cold. ‘And, no doubt, I’d have a great deal to lose, too. That’s the problem with all your lessons, signore. They come at much too high a cost.’
He smiled at her, unruffled. ‘How can you price the value of a new experience, bella mia?’
‘Oh, you have an answer for everything—or you think you do.’ She turned fiercely to face him. ‘Why do you do this?’ she demanded with sudden huskiness. ‘Why do you—torment me like this?’
‘Do I torment you, mia cara?’ he countered harshly. One hand swept aside the silky fall of her hair to cup the nape of her neck, his thumb caressing the hollow beneath her ear, sending a sweet shiver along her nerve endings. ‘Then why do you continue to deny what you know we both want?’
She could feel the heat rising in her body, the sudden, terrifying scald of yearning between her thighs, and was bitterly ashamed of her own weakness.
‘I can’t speak for you, signore,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘but I just want to get out of here. Out of this house—this country—and back to where I belong. And nothing else.’
She paused, her chin lifting defiantly. ‘And now that the storm’s over, the telephone could be working again.’
He withdrew his hand with a faint sigh, letting one smooth russet strand of her hair slide lingeringly through his fingers. ‘I think you are over-optimistic, Laura mia,’ he told her drily.
‘But could you find out for me—please? I really need to know the times of tomorrow’s flights.’
He was her host, she thought with a kind of desperation. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—refuse her request, however stupid he might think it. She’d asked him to check something. Innate courtesy would take him from the room to do so.
And that would be her chance, she told herself feverishly. Because she needed to get away from him on a far more personal level—and tonight. The door to her room had a lock and key, she knew, and the window shutters had that bolt mechanism she’d used once before. She couldn’t risk going through the house, of course, because he might intercept her, but she could cut across the gardens, and be safely locked in her room before he even realised she was missing.
Because she could not trust herself to be alone with him any longer. It was as simple and final as that. The necessity to go into his arms and feel his mouth on hers was an agony she had never experienced before. A consuming anguish she had not dreamed could exist.
And she dared not risk him touching her again. Not when the merest brush of his fingers could turn her to flame.
For a moment, she found herself thinking of Steve, and wondering if this was how he’d felt about her.
I hope not, she thought. I hope not with all my heart.
She watched Alessio walk to the door. Heard his footsteps receding, and his voice calling to Guillermo.
And then she ran across the room, tugging at the windows and their shutters to make a gap she could squeeze through.
She knew the route. She must have used it twenty times since her arrival. But always in the daytime. Never at night. And she had not bargained for the absolute darkness outside. The pretty ornamental lamps that dotted the grounds were out of commission, of course, but there wasn’t a star showing, or even a faint glimmer of moonlight.
And, because the storm had passed over at last, she’d assumed the rain would have stopped too, but she was wrong. It was like walking into a wall of water, she thought, gasping.
Before she’d gone fifty yards she was completely drenched, her soaked dress clinging like a second skin, her feet slipping in her wet shoes, and her hair hanging in sodden rats’ tails round her face.
She tried to peer through the darkness to get her bearings, but she could see nothing. She could only hope that she was going in the right direction—that somewhere ahead of her was the sanctuary she so desperately needed. She wanted to run, but her feet were sliding on the wet grass, and she was afraid of falling.
She was never sure of the precise moment when she realised that she was being followed. That Alessio was coming after her, running silently and surely in pursuit like a lone wolf from the hills.
She stumbled on, gasping, her heart pounding against her ribs, the words, ‘No—please—no,’ echoing their frantic rhythm in her brain.
But to no avail. He was suddenly beside her, taking her hand in an iron grasp and pulling her along with him as he ran, head bent.
She tried to drag herself free. ‘Leave me alone…’
‘Idiota,’ he snarled breathlessly. ‘Do you want me to carry you? Avanti!’
At last the sodden grass gave way to paving stones, and she saw a dim glow ahead of her and realised they must have reached her courtyard. Alessio dragged back the heavy glass doors, and pushed her inside ahead of him.
There were candles burning here too on the chest of drawers and the night table, and Emilia had also turned down the bed.
Laura stood, head bent, water running down her face and neck, and dripping off the hem of her skirt to form a forlorn puddle on the floor.
Alessio went past her into the bathroom, his sodden shirt adhering to his body like a second skin. He emerged, barefoot, carrying two towels, one of which he threw to her, using the other to rub his face and hair.
Laura stood motionless, the breath still raw in her lungs from that headlong dash. She held the towel against her in numb fingers, watching as he stripped off his shirt and began to dry his chest and arms. Her heart was beating wildly again, but for a very different reason.
He glanced up, and their eyes met. He said harshly, ‘Don’t just stand there, little fool. You are soaked to the skin, as I am. Take off your dress before you catch pneumonia.’
Her lips moved. ‘I—can’t…’
Alessio said something impatient and probably obscene under his breath, and walked over to her, his long fingers going swiftly and ruthlessly to work on the sash, which had tightened into a soggy and almost impenetrable knot. When it came free at last, he peeled the silver dress away from her body, and tossed it to the floor.
Laura made a small sound that might have been protest, but he ignored it anyway. He took the towel from her unresisting grasp and began to blot the chill dampness from her skin. Not gently. She gave an involuntary wince, and felt his touch soften a little. His expression, however, did not, even though the scraps of lace she was wearing were hardly a barrier to his dark gaze.
There was no sound in the room except their own ragged breathing. The shadows dancing on the walls seemed to reduce the room to half its size, closing them into the small area of light provided by the candles.
At last, Alessio threw the towel behind him, and stood looking down at her.
‘So,’ he said quietly. ‘What in the name of God, Laura, did you think you were doing?’
‘Running away.’ Her voice was barely audible.
‘Well, that is plain,’ he said with sudden harshness. ‘So eager to escape me, it seems, that you could not wait until tomorrow. That you were even prepared to risk damaging your health by this folly tonight. But why, Laura? Why did you do this?’
‘You—know.’
‘If I did,’ he said, ‘I would not ask. So, tell me.’
If there were words, she could not think of them. If there were arguments, she could not marshal them. There was her body’s need roused to the brink of anguish by the rough movement of his hands on her skin as he’d dried her.
And there was candlelight and the waiting bed…
Oh, God, she thought with desperation. I want him so much. I never knew before—never realised that this could ever happen to me. And I—cannot turn back. Not now. I must have—this night.
Her throat was tight as she swallowed. As she lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss him shyly and rather clumsily on the mouth.
For a heartbeat, he was still, then his arms went round her, pinning her against him with a fierce hunger he made no attempt to disguise. He said her name quietly and huskily, then his lips took hers, exploring the soft, trembling contours with heated, passionate urgency, his heart lifting in exultation.
She was his, he thought, and she had offered herself as he’d once promised she would. Not that it mattered. The only essential was Laura herself—here at last, in his arms, her lips parting for him eagerly as their kisses deepened into sweet, feverish intimacy, allowing him to taste all the inner honey of her mouth.
He began to caress her, his fingers lightly stroking her throat and neck, then sliding the straps of her bra from her slender shoulders, so that when he found and unclipped its tiny hook the little garment simply fell away from her body. He caught his breath as he looked at her, his eyes heavy with desire, then pulled her closer, so that the tips of her small, perfect breasts grazed his bare chest with delicate eroticism.
He recaptured her mouth, burying his soft groan of pleasure in its moist fragrance, teasing her tongue with his as his hands continued their slow quest down her slim body.
When he reached the barrier of her briefs, he eased his fingers inside their lacy band, gently pushing them down from her hips to the floor.
He’d expected to feel her hands on him, discarding what remained of his clothing, wanting to uncover him in her turn, but, to his faint surprise, she made no such attempt. So he allowed himself a hurried moment to strip naked, before lifting her and putting her on the bed.
He followed her down, taking her in his arms, murmuring husky endearments, glorying in the cool enchantment of her quivering body against his.
He kissed her again, his hands cupping her breasts, stroking the nipples gently until they stood erect to his touch, his inward smile tender as he heard her small, startled sigh of pleasure. He bent his head and caressed the hard, rosy peaks with his mouth, the tip of his tongue drawing circles of sweet torment round the puckered flesh.
He was hotly, achingly aroused, but even in the extremity of his desire for her some remaining glimmer of sanity in his reeling mind warned him that, apart from her kisses, her response was more muted. That she still maintained some element of that reserve that had always intrigued him. Was it possible that, even now, when she was naked in his arms, she could be shy of him?
He wanted her to match him in passion—to be equally enraptured. He longed for the incitement of her hands and mouth on his body, which, so far, to his faint bewilderment, she’d withheld.
Was she scared, perhaps, of the moment when all thinking ceased and the last vestiges of control slipped away?
If so, he would have to be careful, because he could not lose her now.
Very gently, he began to kiss her body, caressing every shadowed curve, each smooth plane as the sweet woman-scent of her filled his nose and mouth.
He rested his cheek against her belly as his hand parted her thighs, finding the scalding moisture of her need.
He heard her gasp, her breathing suddenly frantic as her body arched involuntarily towards him in surrender to the sensuous pressure of his fingers. But he would offer her another kind of delight, he thought, smiling, as he bent to pleasure her with his mouth.
Yet suddenly she was no longer yielding. She was tense—even struggling a little, her hands tangling in his hair, trying to push him away.
‘No—no—please.’ Her voice was small, stifled. ‘You mustn’t—I can’t…’
‘Don’t be afraid, carissima,’ he whispered as he acceded reluctantly to this unexpected resistance. ‘I will do nothing you don’t like.’ Or that I cannot persuade you to like, in time, mi amore.
Instead, his fingers sought her tiny hidden bud, stroking it rhythmically—delicately—while his mouth returned to her breast, suckling the engorged peak until she moaned in her throat.
‘Touch me,’ he breathed, starving for her. He took her hand and carried it to his body, clasping her fingers round his hardness while he moved over her, positioning himself between her thighs, waiting for her to guide him into her, to surrender to the first deep thrust that would make her his at last.
She was trembling violently, her movements almost awkward as she obeyed his silent demand, taking him to the heated threshold of her womanhood.
But as he began to enter her slowly, gently, prolonging the exquisite moment quite deliberately, he felt the sudden tension in her once again. Realised that the cry of pleasure he’d expected was one of pain instead, and that this time the resistance seemed to be physical.
‘Mi amore—my sweet one,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Relax for me.’
And then he looked down into the wide frightened eyes, and he knew.
The hurting—the shock of that tearing pain—stopped almost as soon as it had begun. Laura, her fist pressed to her mouth, was aware of Alessio pulling back. Lifting himself away from her altogether.
She turned away too, curling into the foetal position, her startled body shaking uncontrollably.
She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t shut out the sound of his harsh breathing as he fought for control. For an approximation of calm. The passing minutes seemed to stretch into eternity as she lay, waiting.
But for what?
Eventually, he said, ‘Laura, look at me. Look at me, now.’
He was sitting up in the bed, the edge of the sheet pulled across his loins. His dark face was a stranger’s as he looked at her.
He said, his voice flat, ‘This was your first time with a man.’ It was a statement, not a question, but he added sharply, ‘Do not attempt to lie. I want the truth.’
‘Yes.’ The single word was a sob.
‘You did not think to tell me?’
‘I didn’t know I needed to.’ She bent her head wretchedly. ‘It never occurred to me that it might—hurt…’ She swallowed convulsively. ‘I thought I could pretend—so that you wouldn’t know that I hadn’t—that I’d never…’
He said very wearily, ‘Dio mio.’ There was a long silence, then she felt him stir, and braced herself for the inevitable question.
‘Paolo,’ he said quietly. ‘You—and Paolo—you let me—you let everyone think that you were lovers. Why?’
‘Paolo and I decided—to travel together. To see how it worked out.’ Even now she had to try and keep the secret. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry.’
‘You have nothing to regret.’ His voice was expressionless. ‘The blame is mine entirely.’
She felt the mattress shift as he moved, looked up quickly to see him standing beside the bed, pulling on his clothes.
‘Alessio.’ She lifted herself onto her knees, reaching out a hand to him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To my own room,’ he said. ‘Where else?’
‘Please don’t go,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘What you ask is impossible.’ The back he kept turned to her was rigid, as if it had been forged out of steel.
She touched her tongue to her dry lips. Her voice was ragged. ‘Alessio—please. What happened just now doesn’t matter. I—I want you.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It ends here. And it should never have started. I had no right to—touch you.’
‘But I gave you that right.’
‘Then be glad I have the strength to leave you,’ he said.
‘Glad?’ Laura echoed. ‘How can I be—glad?’
‘Because one day you will come to be married,’ he said, the words torn harshly from his throat. ‘And your innocence is a gift you should keep for your husband. He should have the joy of knowing he will be your first and only lover.’
He took a deep raw breath. ‘It is far too—precious an offering to be wasted on someone like me.’
‘Not just—someone,’ she said in anguish. ‘You, Alessio. You, and no one else.’
His need for her was a raw, aching wound, but he could not allow himself to weaken now. Because, one day, he needed to be able to forgive himself.
He bent and picked up his damp shirt from the floor, schooling his expression into cynicism.
‘Your persistence forces me to be candid,’ he drawled as he faced her. ‘Forget the high-flown sentiments, signorina. The truth is that I was in the mood for a woman tonight, not an inexperienced girl.’ He added coolly, ‘Please believe that I have neither the time or the patience to teach you what you need to know in order to please me.’
He saw the stricken look in the grey eyes, and knew it was an image that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
He added, ‘In the morning, we will deal with your departure. I am sure you have no wish to linger. Goodnight, signorina.’ He inclined his head with cruel politeness, and left.
She watched the door close behind him, then looked down at herself with a kind of numb horror. It was the worst humiliation of her life—kneeling here naked—offering herself—pleading with a man who’d just made it brutally clear that he no longer desired her.
It had never occurred to her, she thought blankly, that losing her virginity would be anything but simple. She was a twenty-first-century girl, for God’s sake, not some Victorian miss. And it seemed to her bewildered mind as if Alessio, in spite of what he’d just said, had been gentle. Yet, it had still hurt her in a way that she’d found it impossible to disguise.
But that, she thought wretchedly, was nothing compared with the aching agony of his subsequent rejection of her, both physically and emotionally. Her body still burned from its unfulfilled arousal.
Worst of all, she had almost, but thankfully not quite, told him, ‘I love you.’
And in the morning she was going to have to face him somehow—with this nightmare between them. And she couldn’t bear it—she couldn’t…
With a little inarticulate cry, she dived under the covers, dragging them up to her throat, her whole body shaking uncontrollably as the first white-hot tears began to spill down her ashen face.
Alessio stood, shoulders slumped, one hand braced against the tiled wall of the shower, and his head bent against the remorseless cascade of cold water.
If he could manage somehow to numb his body, he thought starkly, then maybe he could also subdue his mind. But he knew already that would not be easy.
How many cold showers would it take to erase the memory of her eager mouth, her warm, slim body stretched beneath him in a surrender that should never have been required of her?
How could you not see? he accused himself savagely. You blind, criminal fool. How could you not realise that she was not merely shy, but totally inexperienced, when everything you did—everything she would not allow you to do—told you that more plainly than any words?
But that first sweet, awkward kiss offered of her own volition had wiped everything from his mind but the assuagement of his own need.
He paused and swore at himself. Was he actually daring to blame her, even marginally, when he had manoeuvred and manipulated her to a point when she had been no longer prepared to resist him?
The fact that his sense of honour had forced him to abandon the seduction in no way diminished his feelings of guilt.
He found himself remembering something his father had once said to him just as he’d been emerging from adolescence. ‘Like most young men, you will find enough unscrupulous women in the world, Alessio, to cater for your pleasures. So, treat innocent girls with nothing but respect.’ He’d added drily, ‘Or until your intentions are entirely honourable.’
It had seemed wise advice, and until now he had followed it. He had simply not dreamed that Laura could be still a virgin. At the same time, he was shamingly aware of a fierce, almost primitive joy to know that she had never given herself to Paolo.
But she did not belong to him either, he reminded himself with a kind of sick desolation. And, after that last act of necessary cruelty, she never would…
With a groan, he slid down the wall to the tiled floor of the shower, resting his forehead on his drawn-up knees, letting the water beat at him. He had done the right thing, he told himself. He had to believe that.
Yet, he had ignored his father’s other piece of worldly wisdom, he realised with a flash of weary cynicism—that a gentleman should never leave the lady in his bed unsatisfied.
Well, his punishment and his penance would be to drive her to Rome tomorrow, and watch her walk away from him at the airport, through the baggage check and passport control, and out of his life.
‘Laura,’ he whispered. ‘My Laura.’ He had not cried since his father’s funeral, but suddenly, at the sound of her name, he could taste tears, hot and acrid in his throat, and it took every scrap of control he possessed to stop him weeping like a child for his loss.
Swallowing, he lifted himself to his feet and turned off the shower. It was time to pull his life together, he commanded himself grimly, deciding, among other things, how he should deal with his aunt on her return. And, if she made good her threats, how he should handle the aftermath of her revelations.
I should have stood up to her at the start, he thought, his mouth tightening in cold anger as he reached for a towel. Told her to do her worst, then dismissed her from my life, together with Paolo.
But that I can still do, and I will.
It is the wrong that I have done Laura that can never be put right. And somehow I have to live with that for the rest of my days.