‘Why not?’
‘You know damned well why,’ he gritted out. ‘Unless you are denying the chemistry between us?’
She blushed. She actuallyblushed. ‘Wouldn’t acknowledging it be a teeny bit presumptuous, Corso?’
‘So you feel it, too?’ His words were a silken challenge.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ she admitted and pulled a face which made him think of a younger Rosie. ‘I find you extremely attractive. Along with every other woman with a pulse, no doubt. It’s a pity really. All those years of not understanding what anyone saw in you seem to have come to nothing—which is annoying to say the least. Happy now?’
Happy was the last adjective he would have used to describe his current state of being. Frustrated? Yes. Aching? Certainly. Resentful? Possibly. ‘I agree, it’s...annoying.’ He paused. ‘But you do realise that nothing is going to happen.’
Her brow clouded. ‘So you just said, although you haven’t made yourself very clear.’
Afterwards he would justify his next remark by convincing himself she’d goaded him into it. ‘We’re not going to have sex.’
‘Have sex?’ she echoed, the cadence of her voice rising in disbelief. ‘Have you taken leave of your mind, Corso? I don’t want to have sex with you!’
‘Oh, really?’ he challenged, but deep down he knew his challenge was layered with provocation. ‘You’re either distorting the truth or deluding yourself if you think that, Rosie.’
She flew at him then—and wasn’t that exactly what he wanted? Her blonde hair was streaming like a banner behind her as she hurled herself against him, her balled fists drumming uselessly at his chest, and he felt a jolt of something he didn’t recognise as he stared down at the pale gleam of her head. He suspected she wanted a physical outlet for her rage, and couldn’t decide whether to let her just get it out of her system, or capture one of her wrists before telling her to calm down. But her fists were no longer drumming, they were kneading at his flesh in a way which was distracted yet inciting, and he was no longer trying to decide how to react. Because suddenly he couldn’t help himself. He could battle with himself no longer. Or maybe he had just surrendered because he was no longer thinking, justfeeling.
Heeding nothing but the siren call of her body, he pulled her into his arms, her breathless gasp of assent reinforced by the way she was reaching up to cling to his shoulders, as though he wasn’t the only one in need of an anchor. Impatiently, he brushed her hair aside and began to kiss her. His tongue teased her lips apart and she was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted—coffee and toothpaste and something else, something which was uniquely her. Something which made him grow even harder. Her breasts were pushing against his chest—their tips like diamond bullets pushing against the delicate fabric of her gown. He made one last attempt to resist—at least, that was what he tried to tell himself—but her soft moan of incitement made resistance impossible. He felt like a man who’d been lost in the desert, stumbling upon a deep well of cool water and being told he wasn’t allowed to drink. As he deepened the kiss, he found his hand straying towards her breast and she gripped his shoulders even tighter. Was that his name she was whimpering?
He cupped her breast, his thumb circling the thrusting nipple, and never had he wanted to lick and suck an area of skin so badly.
‘Corso,’ she gasped.
‘You want this?’
‘So much. I can’t... I can’t tell you how much.’
And neither could he. It was because it had been so long since he’d had sex that his heart felt as if it were on fire. It must be. His hands skated hungrily over the contours of her body—firm curves covered by the soft silk which defined them. She writhed as he stroked her, the subtle, almost indefinable scent of her desire filling the air and reminding his starved body of everything he’d been missing. He knew if he touched her she would be wet. Just as if she touched him, she would find him rock-hard. He swallowed. He had to have her. It seemed as inevitable as the sun which rose every morning over the red mountains of Monterosso. Yet surely to do so would be the height of recklessness?
He didn’t care. The only thing he cared about right then was the pressure of her lips as they kissed frantically. He could never remember a kiss like this—so deep, so drugging, so unbelievablyerotic. His fingers were tangled in her hair. He pressed his body against hers and she whispered his name. He pushed her up against the wall and felt her thighs part. And he knew then that he could take her. That she wanted him to take her.
‘Rosie,’ he husked.
‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘Yes.’
It was an answer and an incitement melded into one delicious word and Corso bent to clasp the hem of her dress. The fabric trickled like liquid silk over his hand as he began to ruck the gown up, eager to tease his finger against her molten heat until she pulsed helplessly beneath him. But he tried to pace himself. To spin it out for as long as possible in order to luxuriate in these long-forgotten feelings of lust.
And then, just as abruptly, he stopped, his hand coming to a halt on the jut of her knee which caused her to make a slurred objection. His heart was crashing against his ribcage as the unwanted voice of reason began to clamour inside his head, asking if this was how seven years of denial were going to end.
He let the hem of her dress fall back down. ‘We’re not going to do this,’ he ground out.
Her eyes looked huge and troubled and disappointed. ‘We’re...we’re not?’
‘No.’ He saw she was trembling and appeared unsteady on her feet and Corso convinced himself it was simply courtesy which made him lift her up and carry her towards the large bed he had avoided looking at when he’d first entered the room.
She was lighter than he had expected and he missed her warm weight as he laid her down against the snowy white counterpane. But this was the right thing to do. They weren’t teenagers and there was no reason for them to behave that way—fumbling at each other’s clothes, then having sex because they couldn’t stop themselves. He had called a halt to it just in time and he should commend himself for his steely self-control.
But her pale hair was spread like moonlight over the pillow and he wanted to stroke it. And her lips were parted and he wanted to touch them with his own.
‘I should go,’ he said.
With the tip of one finger, she reached up to trace the outline of his mouth and never had such a simple gesture felt so powerfully hypnotic. Damn you, Rosie Forrester, he thought resentfully.Damnyou.
‘Go, then. If that’s what you want.’