He drew in a sharp breath, half appalled at what he’d just admitted. He watched as Katie’s skin was burnished with the most beautiful blush.
But she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and didn’t take her shy but hungry eyes off him. ‘So why are you all the way over there?’
Because he couldn’t seem to move.
Because he couldn’t quite process the depth of this.
She walked over until she was a mere breath away. ‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘You asked me to say what I wanted. Now I’m asking you.’
His tongue was tied.
Her expression softened. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’
He swallowed. ‘Harder than you’d believe,’ he huffed in a lame quip.
‘I’m not going to help you with that unless you speak up.’ She smiled and leaned that little bit closer. ‘It’s only fair, Alessandro.’
She’d turned his own tease on him—except he didn’t want it to be a tease any more. The threat of denial—of her leaving him aching—felt like a whip over his heart. He curled his hands into fists. It was too intense.
‘Tell me what you want from me.’
He just wanted her. Not to forget, or escape, or soothe all his aches... He just wanted to hold her close. But it seemed he’d lost his words.
‘I...’
‘What?’
He could hardly think. He felt too hot, too broken. Her flecked eyes flashed with confusion, compassion, heat. He dropped his gaze and stared at her mouth because he couldn’t continue to drown in her eyes.
‘You want me to kiss you?’ she breathed. ‘Where?’
He didn’t care. Anywhere. He just needed her touch. ‘Accarezzami...’
She understood. She was there already. Sensations swept over him as her hands caressed him and she kissed him with her soft, sweet mouth. For one last second he stayed still, trying to hold it all back. But then it was too late.
Almost savagely he scooped her into his arms and stormed towards his bedroom to have it all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KATIE DIDN’T JUST say yes. She demanded more. And he didn’t let her down. He sent her into a world she’d known existed but had never dreamed she’d step into. A world of freedom and choice.
Each morning Alessandro took her to a different market—they’d scoped them out together online, part of the research he reckoned she needed to do. Laughing, but loving it, she chose ingredients, tools.
On their return to the apartment he’d shut himself in his study to work while she tested her new finds in the kitchen. A few hours later he’d emerge and taste what she’d been working on.
By then their sensual tension was too fraught to ignore. Beneath his ministrations Katie had unleashed a hidden, long-denied side of herself—the demanding side. And she had more than accepted it—she indulged it. Again and again.
Alessandro was intense, passionate and insatiable. And he held nothing back from her now. It was so intense, so physical...it was almost frantic. And it always felt fantastic.
He refused to let her cook dinner. Instead they worked their way around the finest restaurants in the city. More market research, according to Alessandro. Sometimes then they went straight home. Sometimes they went to the gilt champagne bar half a block from his apartment and met up with Vassily and Nina and a few other of his friends. It turned out that Nina owned a leisurewear company. And now Katie had pushed past her own insecurity she realised the glamorous woman was really nice—and helpful.
As the days passed she grew increasingly comfortable in her clothes, in her conversation, and with her lover. She even teased him as they talked. But the more she settled in to his lifestyle the edgier Alessandro seemed to become. More attentive. More protective. Almost possessive.
‘You guys should still be in Italy on honeymoon,’ Nina teased her suddenly as they sat together in the bar one evening.
Katie looked at her in surprise.
‘I just intercepted that look Alessandro sent you from across the room and you should definitely still be on that island, away from everybody else.’ Nina laughed. ‘Uh-oh, he’s headed this way and looking at you like you’re some tasty morsel he’s going to swallow in one mouthful.’
Katie glanced over and her gaze instantly collided with his. Electricity arced—and it wasn’t his dangerously handsome good-looks, it was the intensity in his whole demeanour, that aura of something unleashed. Tingling awareness shot to her toes as he strode over and held out his hand.
‘Bye, Nina.’ Katie shot the woman an embarrassed smile as she laced her fingers through Alessandro’s and left with him.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked him once they were out on the pavement.
Waves of emotion rippled from him. ‘You can’t look at me like that and not expect me to react,’ he muttered.
‘You were looking at me like that!’ she laughed.
He smiled, but she still sensed tension within him. Ripples of sensuality swept through her as they walked.
‘I was jealous,’ he said gruffly.
‘I was talking to Nina!’ Katie laughed again.
‘Nina enjoys the company of attractive people, male or female. She’s fascinated by both...’
Katie laughed again, hugely amused. ‘Well, Nina is not fascinated by me. We were talking about running a business. She has a lot of experience. I can learn from her.’
‘You can learn from me,’ he pointed out with roguish arrogance as he held the apartment door for her. ‘I too have a lot of experience.’
‘As a woman in enterprise?’
He chuckled, but then his sensuality simmered over again. ‘I don’t like it when other people look at you. When other people interest you. When other people make you laugh,’ he said, pure seduction. ‘You’re my wife.’
‘So only you can advise me? Only you can make me laugh?’ she teased, placing her palm against his roughened jaw.
‘No. But only I can do this.’
He pulled her closer and kissed her.
It was no longer solace, no longer an escape. It was all ecstasy.
Katie closed her eyes and drowned in desire, denying the edge of desperation still sharpening within...
* * *
He should have known she’d surprise him. In the last week she’d blossomed. She held her own with the likes of Vassily and Nina and his other friends. She saw through their banter for what it was and threw equally teasing barbs and brilliant smiles. She’d come alive as they explored the city, trialling all kinds of creations in the kitchen...
Yet why should any of that be a surprise? She’d made a success of her sauces. She’d made those recipes. She’d picked the fruit, sold to customers. She was outstandingly capable. Just because she’d barely travelled more than twenty-miles from White Oaks, it didn’t mean she was going to be shy and socially inept.
She just hadn’t had the chance before. And now she was taking to it like a duck to water.
Yet he still felt oddly protective of her, knowing that she’d do anything for those she barely knew and everything for those she loved. Knowing that, though her smile came more readily, that rosy flush still swarmed over her skin at his touch.
She was a sweet woman who burned hotter than any other and he didn’t want her to change. But she hadn’t. She wasn’t. She’d just become more herself. She shone—beautiful, proud, confident. Part of him enjoyed the way she glittered when they were out together, and yet part of him wished he’d kept her hidden, so she was all just his.
But that wouldn’t have been fair. She’d been hidden most of her life. Kept on that old estate, starved of true freedom by a foster father determined to control her. And Alessandro couldn’t keep her for ever—life didn’t work like that.
The next night Katie spoke at length to Nina again. Alessandro watched from a distance, knowing she wa
s aware of his scrutiny. She smouldered at him from across the room. He let her tease him until he had to hustle her out before he lost control altogether.
He saw Vassily’s arched eyebrow as he whisked her away. He didn’t damn well care.