CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCA WOKE IN a panic.
The reason came back to him before he opened his eyes.
He’d spent the night with a woman.
The whole night.
In his bed. In his home, where he never brought anyone.
Admittedly, more than half the night had been spent having sex. Wild, abandoned, selfishly indulgent sex. After the first time when they’d barely made it through the door they’d graduated to the rug on the floor, his luxurious shower and finally the bed where each had exhausted the other until they’d fallen asleep wrapped around each other.
Wrapped around each other…
Drenched in panic, he was about to spring from the bed when he realised it was empty and that Taylor was stumbling round the room, snatching up her clothes like a woman running for her life.
Distracted by the urgency in her movements, Luca forgot his own panic and absorbed hers. ‘Is Etna erupting and we have just minutes to escape? Should I call the emergency services?’
‘Go back to sleep.’ Dragging open a drawer, she locked her hand around the first item of clothing she encountered. Dressed only in her panties with her trademark hair clouded and tangled from a night of wild sex, she was still the hottest woman he’d ever seen.
Realising that for the first time in his life he was witnessing a woman who was even more panicked about relationships than he was, Luca relaxed slightly.
She pulled on the T-shirt without bothering with a bra, a decision Luca supported wholeheartedly.
‘This is like a strip in reverse but it’s surprisingly erotic.’ His own panic fading, he hooked his hands behind his head and watched as she yanked on jeans in such haste she almost fell. ‘Where exactly are you going in this much of a hurry? This is Sicily. No one rushes in Sicily. You’re not on New York time now, dolcezza.’ But he knew her frantic rush to get dressed and escape had nothing to do with a desire to get to work and everything to do with her need to escape from a situation that terrified her. It would have terrified him too, except that she was panicking enough for both of them.
‘I’m going out—’ she snapped the words and zipped her jeans so violently he flinched ‘—out…somewhere. Anywhere.’
She dressed with no thought and yet she looked effortlessly stunning. It occurred to him that women would break down and cry if they knew how little effort Taylor Carmichael put into looking as good as she did. She was thought of as an actress but she could just as easily have modelled, especially now with her expression as moody as Etna on a bad day and her hair pouring over her shoulders in wild disarray.
There was something oddly vulnerable about her panic and, because he understood it, he took pity on her. ‘There’s no need to run. I’m not about to declare undying love and try and put a gold band on your finger. You’re probably safer with me than any other man alive.’
‘This isn’t about you.’ She bent down to retrieve her shoes, the movement so fluid and graceful he immediately wanted to haul her back to bed.
‘So why are you running?’
She came upright and scooped her hair away from her face, her eyes fierce. ‘Because I don’t do this. I—I just can’t.’
‘Do what? Stay and eat breakfast? Because that’s all that’s on offer.’
‘I don’t eat breakfast.’ Her foot shot out and she kicked at the pile of clothes they’d torn off each other the night before, searching for something. ‘And I can’t do this whole morning-after touchy-feely crap. It’s not me. Damn—have you seen my watch? I was wearing it last night.’
‘It lacerated my back at one stage so now it’s by the bed. And I don’t do touchy-feely either.’ His words didn’t appear to penetrate because she glared at him as she strode across the room and snatched up her watch.
‘Do you know how many years I’ve stopped myself doing this?’
‘Quite a few if your wild response last night was anything to go by. Next time you might want to shorten your periods of abstinence. Your she-wolf act could kill a regular guy. I think I have teeth marks in my shoulder.’
The look she shot him speared right through him. ‘So I suppose now you think you’re a sex god.’
Luca discovered he was enjoying himself. ‘You moaned, dolcezza. Despite everything you said, you definitely moaned.’
‘So? It’s a long time since I had sex.’ Head down, she jammed her feet into her shoes. ‘Don’t read anything into it.’
‘So you’re saying any man would have made you moan?’
If looks could have killed he would have been a rotting corpse. ‘I thought you didn’t enjoy morning-after conversations.’