She'd driven him out of his mind.
He looked at her expectantly, feeling the charged atmosphere, waiting for her to fight back. Wasn't that what they'd always done? Fought and argued? He was used to women who fawned and agreed with him and Stasia had never done either. She'd challenged him. Had driven him crazy. Had infuriated him as much as she'd excited him.
But tonight it was as if the fight had been sucked out of her.
She stood by his pool, wearing his shirt, looking very young and very lost. 'I didn't come to fight with you.' She raked a hand through her gorgeous, fiery mane in a gesture he knew painfully well. She sounded tired and more uncertain than he could ever remember her sounding before. 'I heard a noise and I wanted to check who it was. And when I saw it was you I wanted to ask you about Chiara. You said you'd be staying at the hospital.' Her voice sounded dull. Strangely devoid of emotion. 'Has there been any change?'
'No change.'
And he realized that since Stasia had appeared on the terrace he hadn't given his sister a thought.
What sort of a man did that make him? he asked himself bitterly.
Disgusted with himself, he turned away from her and strode into the spacious villa, suddenly overwhelmed by the ever-building tension of the past two weeks. He hadn't had a full night's sleep in all that time and his normally sharp brain was definitely seeing the world out of focus.
He sprawled on to the nearest sofa and closed his eyes, feeling less in control than ever in his life before and deciding that it was not a feeling he relished.
'Rico—'
He felt the sofa dip next to him, felt the tentative touch of her ringers against the hard muscle of his shoulder.
This was a different Stasia.
A soft, gentle Stasia and this new side of her slid under his skin and increased the torment, like grains of sand in a raw wound.
Her light, subtle perfume teased his senses and he turned to face her, intending to dismiss her concern, to send her back to bed with a few cold words.
But something in her incredible green eyes held him silent.
'This must be terrible for you,' she said quietly, 'and maybe it's time to admit that you have feelings too.
Everyone leans on you. What they forget is that you need someone to lean on, too.'
He wished she'd move her hand from his shoulder. The gentle touch of her ringers seemed to connect to every male part of himself and he suddenly realized just how much he'd missed her touch.
He suppressed a groan and tried to drag his
wayward libido back under control. 'I'm just tired. I've been at the hospital for over two weeks—'
'Being strong for everyone. Making decisions for everyone. You need to think about yourself, Rico. About your own needs.'
It was the wrong thing to say. At the moment only one need filled his mind and as he lifted his eyes to hers he remembered just how much this woman knew about his needs.
Mutual desire, dangerous and destructive, flared hot between them and he fought the urge to bury his face in her neck and taste her soft skin. She was all female. All temptation to the male in him, and suddenly he wanted her so badly it was like a fire inside him.
It wasn't clear who made the first move. Wasn't clear when her gentle grip on his arm turned from comfort to something else entirely. Something sexual. Either way, one moment they were apart, locked together in a visual intimacy which stirred all the senses, and the next his mouth was on hers—hot and demanding, taking, stealing, robbing her of breath and protest.
Or maybe there never was a protest. He felt her slender arms wind round his neck, responded to the scrape of her fingernails down his back with a violent shudder. It was primitive and basic, a primal expression of sexual desire that seized them both.
Needing to dominate, he pressed her back on the sofa, staking his claim, satisfying the clawing, greedy beast that had been devouring him since she'd opened the door of her cottage and glared at him with those daredevil don't-mess-with-me green eyes. He forgot the fact that he was torn with worry, that he was mentally and physically exhausted. He forgot everything except the thundering, driving force of his own libido and the fact that he was with the only woman he'd ever wanted to be with.
Without lifting his mouth from hers he swiftly dealt with the buttons of the shirt she was wearing. His shirt. Or was it her shirt now? His usually sharp mind was no longer working properly. Certainly it smelt of her. That subtle, floral, feminine scent that teased his nostrils and other more distant parts of him. That scent that was totally Stasia.
He stroked a possessive hand over the swell of her breasts, her gasp of pleasure sending another thud of answering desire straight to his groin. Then he dragged his mouth away from hers so that he could look, his eyes feasting on the pale softness of her skin that seemed even paler set against the bronze of his own flesh. He'd always been fascinated by the contrast between them. Fragility against strength. English pallor against Mediterranean dark. Soft woman against hard male.
Her dusky-pink nipples jutted upwards, tempting, begging, and he bent his dark head and answered her silent plea, sucking her into the moist heat of his mouth, flicking with his tongue until he felt her arch her hips and sink her fingers into his hair. Lost in a sensual feast, he refused to release her and he heard her sob his name and arch again as his tongue flicked with relentless skill and expertise, driving her higher and higher.
And he knew this woman so well.