‘Hi,’ he responded.
‘Everything okay?’ she asked warily.
‘A few fallen trees, rocks—nothing major. The path is blocked halfway up, so no more volcano visits for you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You look pale.’
‘I’m just tired,’ she lied, forcing an over-bright smile to her face.
He studied her thoughtfully and then shrugged, as though her answer satisfied him. After all, they hadn’t got a lot of sleep the night before.
‘I’m starving. I could eat a horse.’ He pulled the fridge door open and peered inside.
Tilly moved behind him. ‘Rio?’
He lifted out the platter they’d picked at the night before, still full of olives, cheese, grapes and grissini.
‘Si, cara?’
‘I need to talk to you about something.’
He placed the platter between them, peeling off the plastic wrap, his eyes probing hers. ‘Go on.’
‘I...’
I’m not who you think. I’ve been lying to you. I’m not Cressida Wyndham. You know nothing about me.
She groaned inwardly, her mouth unable to form the words she needed to say.
‘I have to go back as planned.’ She cleared her throat, and spun away from him, so that he wouldn’t detect the grief in her features.
She stared out of the large window, but her eyes saw nothing. Nothing. A bleakness, an emptiness, was settling in around her.
His arms around her waist were delirium and despair.
‘Then I will come with you,’ he said, the words husky.
It was a promise that she wrapped in her hands and held close to her heart for a moment.
But only a moment, because reality made that impossible. How could she risk seeing him again? It wouldn’t take long, back in London, for him to realise that she was not Cressida, and then the secret would be out anyway.
Her smile was weak.
He spun her in his arms and kissed her, first on her mouth and then on her temples. He kissed her as though he understood that she was broken in that moment, as though he wanted to glue her back together.
‘Ti amo,’ he said gently, lifting her up and cradling her against his chest, carrying her until they reached his bed, where he laid her down with the same reverence with which he’d kissed her.
His mouth took hers and his hands reached under her dress. His fingers hooked into the waistband of her underwear and slowly he glided them down her legs, his palms teasing her flesh as he removed the scrap of fabric and dropped them to the floor.
‘Whatever it is that worries you, I will fix it.’ He crouched at her feet and kissed her ankle, rolling his tongue over the round bone before dragging it higher, flicking just behind her knee, and higher still to the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs.
She groaned when his tongue connected with her womanhood, teasing her and driving all thought from her mind. His fingers dug into her thighs as he parted her legs, giving him access to her core.
She trembled.
The power of emotion and need he stirred washed over her and she was both powerless and empowered. It was an ancient act—one that they had made uniquely their own. She tilted her hips and he kissed higher, trailing a line to her belly button, his fingers wrapping into the fabric of her dress, pushing it up with him.
He was gone then, and she groaned, her body unable to exist without his nearness, his touch, his attention. He pushed out of his shorts, and then he was back. She almost cried with relief. His mouth sought her once more, his tongue whispering against her folds. She felt her blood pressure was about to burst.
‘Rio!’ she cried out, rocking on the bed as orgasm broke around her. She tangled her hands in his hair, pulling at it, fire and flame ravaging her. A sheen of sweat glossed her pale flesh.