She started. She had been so deep in thought that she hadn’t realised he was awake. The dark eyes were watchful and shuttered by the lashes, his long-limbed body as still as a tiger lying in the full heat of the sun. Outwardly, so relaxed, but with all that pent-up strength and power lurking just beneath the surface.
She affected a careless smile. ‘Was I?’
‘Mmm.’ Idly, he reached out and began to run his fingers through the rich satin of her hair. It had been an incredible night, but he had known it would be. He had been so hungry for her that it couldn’t have been anything else, but now with morning came a desire that was transmuted into a different feeling altogether, as inevitably as night followed day. Then it had been the excitement of the unknown and the undiscovered, the delicious anticipation of waiting to see if she would be his.
And now?
Now he was left with the familiar, and, no matter how wonderful it had been, there was a certain protocol to be followed. There were unspoken rules and he wondered if she understood them as well as he did. Rules about boundaries and expectations. He would not be owned. He had never been owned.
‘Come over here and kiss me,’ he murmured.
But Eve had seen something in his eyes which had made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickle in apprehension. There was something very controlled about him this morning, no matter that she could see for herself the evidence that he wanted her very badly. Physically, in any case. But emotionally? Wasn’t there a cool kind of distance in the black eyes which were studying her as one would a horse that had not yet been broken? Waiting to see what she would do next, how she would react.
Was he frightened that she was going to come on all heavy? Afraid that she would become clingy or needy or demanding or any of the other things which women sometimes instinctively did when a man had possessed and pleasured them? Well, he need not worry!
She curved her mouth into a smile, so grateful then to the job which had allowed her to make a living out of hiding what was going on inside. Why, even after the death of her mother, she had been back in the studio within the month, her heart breaking inside and yet able to keep a calm and controlled exterior.
True, a couple of the regular and more perceptive viewers had written in to ask if she was okay, and on the editor’s advice she had mentioned the death. Which had led to a whole programme on bereavement, after she’d been flooded with letters from people who had gone through exactly the same thing and were anxious to share their experience and the strength which had grown from it. Television taught you lots about controlling your emotions; very early on she had discovered that the camera could lie.
‘Why don’t you come here and kiss me instead?’ she suggested.
He rolled towards her, a lazy smile on his lips. So she was not one who would festoon him with kisses and tell him that he was the most marvelous lover she had ever had?
He lowered his mouth onto hers. ‘Like that?’
The sweet, aching beauty of that kiss threatened to take her breath away. Eve closed her eyes.
‘Exactly like that,’ she whispered huskily.
He made love to her for a long time, seeming to go out of his way to demonstrate his finesse as a lover, and twice she sobbed his name out loud. It had never been like this with a man. Never. But that was the kind of thing you should never admit to—especially to a man with an ego the size of Luca’s.
He relaxed as he noted her smile of dreamy contentment, smoothing a few stray strands of hair away from her damp forehead. ‘How long can you stay?’
‘I’ll go after lunch. When’s your flight back?’
‘At five.’ He very nearly offered to change it, but he smiled as he touched his lips to hers. It was a very clever woman who made no demands on a man—someone ought to tell them that that was what kept interest alive!
She didn’t leave until three and for the whole train journey home Eve was on a high. Her cheeks were rosy and flushed, her eyes bright and her hair very slightly mussed and she bore all the signs of a woman who had been very thoroughly made love to.
He was gorgeous. Utterly, utterly gorgeous, but she hadn’t been stupid enough to go all gooey-eyed on him. She recognised that he was that hard, rare breed of man who was essentially a loner, living life on his terms and his terms alone—and why shouldn’t he? Wasn’t that exactly how she lived her own life?
And as long as she remembered that, there was no reason why they couldn’t have a wonderful and mutually fulfilling love affair.
The green fields rumbled by and she closed her eyes, recalling the lazy morning they had had, not getting out of bed until just after noon, and then strolling to a nearby pub for lunch, where Luca had been engaging and amusing company.
It would be all too easy to fall for him, hook, line and sinker, and she knew instinctively that she must be on her guard against losing her heart to him. She would play it slow and careful. He had told her that he would ring, and she would be very patient and wait.
Well, no—that wasn’t quite true. She wasn’t going to wait—for what use was a life spent waiting as if that were the only thing which mattered? She would live her normal life, she reasoned. She would be ha
ppy and fulfilled, and look forward to his phone call when it came.
Her state of euphoria lasted for precisely three days, by which time he hadn’t rung and Eve fell into the age-old trap of feeling insecure and stupid.
Why had she launched straight into a love affair with him, when she had known nothing of his expectations of it, nor been given a chance to express her own? Though, how could she have done? Wouldn’t it have been the kiss of death to have quizzed him about what he wanted, or tell him what she wanted—especially when she didn’t know?
Why couldn’t she take it for what it was, and simply enjoy it? And maybe she could have done. If only he would phone.
It was nearly a week before she heard from him and when she picked up the receiver and heard his drawled and sexy Italian accent, her instinct was to slam it right down again or demand to know why he had taken so long, though she suppressed it.