Firecrackers of need exploded in her sex at the memory of his thick girth lodged deep inside her, stretching pain turning to blinding pleasure.
She writhed and he gave a harsh laugh. ‘I’m not one of the good guys, Eva. Remember that,’ he snarled, his erection grinding into the juncture of her thighs. ‘But I’m going to wait for you to come to me this time. So you know exactly what you’re getting into.’
He let her go.
‘But I already know,’ she said, the words shuddering out on a shocked sob.
‘No, you don’t.’ He ran his thumb down her cheek. ‘Because you’re way too sweet and naïve for your own good.’ Tucking his forefinger beneath her chin, he raised her gaze to his. ‘Sex is all I’m looking for. There aren’t going to be any hearts and flowers like in your book. Not with me. And I want you to understand that before we go any further.’ He placed a firm, possessive kiss on her lips. ‘Now go get me Leonardo’s journal.’
‘I… Why?’ she stammered.
‘I need something to help me sleep. And your girly porn isn’t going to cut it.’
She nodded, skirting around him, and then crossed to the antique dresser, her thoughts whirring at what he’d revealed. Why was he so convinced he was one of the bad guys?
She pulled the leather-bound book from her suitcase, handed it to him.
Her heart plummeted at the sight of his long fingers closing over his father’s diary. Reading the truth of that cruel, long-ago seduction would only make this trip harder for him.
‘I’m afraid I only have the original,’ she said and bit back the urge to snatch the journal
from him, knowing he would only scoff at her concern.
He flipped the book up, caught it one-handed. ‘That’s okay.’ He touched the spine to her cheek, trailed it down her throat, and traced the neckline of her gown, her bosom rising and falling in jerky spasms. ‘Get a good night’s sleep, Eva Redmond.’ A suggestive grin flashed across his handsome features. ‘Because it may be your last.’
She gave a nervous little laugh as he walked through the terrace doors, clamping down on the urge to call him back. To tell him to finish what he’d started, that she wanted him now, that she was ready.
The wrought-iron railing creaked as he jumped onto the balcony and disappeared into the night. She returned to her empty bed, climbed beneath the sheets, and turned off the bedside lamp.
Nick Delisantro wasn’t right about himself. He was a better man than he believed himself to be. And he wasn’t right about her either. She wasn’t naïve, she was only inexperienced. And just because she got a vicarious pleasure from reading about virile pirate captains and their beautiful captives, she did know the difference between fiction and reality—thank you very much.
But he was right about one thing. She needed time and space to analyse her feelings, to consider the situation rationally and sensibly before she did something wild and reckless again—and then discovered she couldn’t control the consequences.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The smell of her arousal makes me hard. She’s begging for it. Her husband is a fool, and as inexperienced as she is, he can’t satisfy her, so I will. And afterward she’ll always wish it was me between her thighs and not him.
NICK slammed the book closed and growled out a guttural expletive, his fingers digging into the worn leather.
What a creep.
He slung the journal onto the coffee table. If he’d learned one thing over the last two sleepless nights waiting for Eva to come to him, apart from the fact that he was his own worst enemy, it was that Conte Leonardo Vittorio Vincenzo De Rossi had been a lecherous, egotistical, misogynist jerk who had about as much restraint as a horny schoolboy and a lot less literary talent.
Nick levered himself out of the armchair and stalked across the bedroom to the balcony. The night air was still and silent but for the quiet chirping of some unknown insect. He took a deep breath into his lungs. The perfumed scent of the garden’s flowers mingled with the fresh scent of lake water and went some way to clearing away the stench that clung to him after reading Leonardo’s grubby little secrets.
The light spilling from Eva’s open terrace doors had the last of the grim thoughts clearing away to be replaced by a healthier frustration.
Shoving his fists into the pockets of his sweat pants, he leaned back against the balcony rail, and contemplated his own stupidity. And the miserable thought of spending another torturous night without Eva’s lush little body under his.
Why had he said he’d wait for her to come to him?
Then the image of her trusting blue eyes, wide with confusion, and her body trembling with arousal yesterday evening came back to him. And he knew he hadn’t had much of a choice.
She’d responded so beautifully, come apart so easily in his arms. After the smallest of touches she’d been wet for him, pleading for release. When she’d climaxed, he’d been so close to burying himself up to the hilt and satisfying both their hungers that it was making him hard just thinking about it.
But then she’d whispered that line about wanting him, but being scared of him too—and his conscience had as good as kicked him in the nuts.
She’d sounded so young and so impossibly vulnerable. And things had only got worse when she’d got some insane idea into her head about him coming to Italy to get her her job back, when his motives hadn’t been anywhere near that pure. And then started spouting loads more nonsense about him being a nice guy. Nonsense he could see she actually believed.