Either, or both. That was what she wanted. Or anything else he cared to offer her. But Kate knew that she badly needed to assert some kind of control over her behaviour. She had been wayward. Overly compliant. He was a proud and arrogant man, who, so far, had only to snap his fingers for her to accede to his will. And wouldn’t that only make him prouder, more arrogant still?
She sat up, as much to escape that horizontal scrutiny as to assert herself. ‘I need to take a shower,’ she said crisply, conveniently neglecting to mention that she had been soaking in a long bath just before his arrival. But that had been before he…before he…
He saw her sudden, swift rise in colour and knew that he could make her change her mind. He sat up, too—so that he was facing her.
‘Together?’ His voice grew husky. ‘I could do with a shower myself.’ He felt the urgent throb of need, and looked down at himself, peeling the spent condom off his renewed hardness. ‘See what you do to me?’ he questioned ruefully.
Oh, yes, she saw. Just what was he planning? she wondered angrily. Another frantic bout of sex in the shower before he disappeared from her life again? She supposed that she should be grateful he hadn’t left immediately, and then wondered whether that was why she had kept watch over him—to ensure that he didn’t.
No. The reason had been much more fundamental and primitive than an urge to check that he didn’t desert her. She had wanted nothing more than to drink in his beauty and to revel in the power of a strong, virile body—which had moved her in a way that no man ever had done before.
She met the provocative taunt in his eyes. ‘Boasting, Giovanni?’
She looked proud at that moment, he realised. Proud and defiant as she tilted her chin at him, the green eyes flashing emerald fire. The ache grew. ‘I don’t need to boast, Kate,’ he mocked. ‘And if there is any boast to be made then it should be yours, not mine—for you are the one responsible for my growing desire, cara.’
‘Because I’m here?’ she challenged, deliberately averting her eyes from just how much his desire was growing. ‘Would any woman do if I wasn’t?’
‘Much as I do not wish to pander to your ego,’ he retorted softly, ‘it might flatter you to know that I have never been unfaithful before.’
‘Flatter me?’ She let out a short laugh. ‘Isn’t flattery supposed to include terms of endearment? And you’re a little short on those, Giovanni.’
‘I never say anything I don’t mean,’ he answered insolently. ‘And extravagant compliments aren’t paramount in my mind right now.’
Kate was unprepared for the sharp tang of pain which contracted her heart. ‘Thanks a bunch.’
Giovanni looked at her thoughtfully. He had angered her—and what point was there in angering her when he still wanted her so badly? He had put his own anger on hold for that very reason. His disbelief, too—because if he stopped to think about how he had detonated the whole structure of his life because of his inexplicable need for this woman…
No, not need, he told himself fiercely. Desire was not the same as need. ‘I told you that you had very beautiful eyes,’ he remarked, with a slow smile.
He had also said some fairly comprehensive things about her breasts and her long legs—but shuddered comments about her physical attributes at the height of passion did not constitute endearment. Not in Kate’s book. ‘Quickly! Let me go and write it down before I forget!’ she said sarcastically, and then her senses flared into life again as he reached his hand out to cup her chin.
‘Kate,’ he said softly. ‘Why are we arguing after what we have just shared together?’
She bit her lip. Should she be silent and passive? Or let him know what was really on her mind? Thinking that she didn’t have a lot to lose, she said quietly, ‘We’ve shared very little except for sex, Giovanni—’
‘Exceptionally good sex,’ he demurred.
The best. The very best—but sex wasn’t what she was talking about. She wanted more than that, unrealistic though it might be. ‘Sex isn’t everything.’
‘No, but it’s a pretty big part of everything.’ And it had taught him just what he had been missing… ‘What else did you have in mind?’ he countered coolly.
She saw his face close and heard his voice become remote. The very last thing she wanted was to come over as some clinging vine. She had given herself to him freely, so she had no right to play the blushing virgin now.
She gave a shrug, as though she hadn’t really thought about it, as though she didn’t really care one way or the other. ‘To sit and have talked over dinner some time might have been nice.’
He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but her use of the past tense both intrigued and tantalised him. He had come here today wanting this. Knowing that she would give him this. And had thought that one more time in her arms would be enough. That afterwards he would be able to think of her as nothing more than a bitter-sweet memory. But he had been wrong. It hadn’t been enough—no way near enough. ‘You’re making it sound as though it’s over, Kate.’
‘Over?’ She stared into his blue eyes with genuine surprise. ‘Oh, come on, Giovanni—it never really began, did it?’
‘Not in the most conventional of ways, no,’ he agreed, and Anna’s pain swam uncomfortably into the forefront of his mind. ‘But surely that doesn’t rule out it carrying on?’
‘But you live in Sicily, and I live in London,’ she pointed out, even as some kind of delirious kind of hope flared into life inside her.
His eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Surely she couldn’t be that naïve? She was an independent woman who was clearly at ease with her own sexuality; surely she must know how these things worked?
‘I wasn’t talking about dating,’ he said roughly.
The flare of hope was extinguished, but she kept her expression of interest quite steady. ‘Oh? Then how are we supposed to “carry on”, as you put it?’