He drew a breath, inhaling slowly, never letting go of her eyes, his fingers tightening on hers, the thumb lying across her palm moving slightly, so very slightly, across its surface. His voice, when he spoke, was lower than hers, and still more husky. His gaze was intense, holding hers.
‘Here...now...our marriage is very far away. And why we married—the reasons for it, so particular only to ourselves—are very far away too. Do not think about them—they have no place here. No relevance. They have nothing at all to do with what is happening between us! What has been there from the start. You have always known it—you know it now. What is here now has always been here. It is between us, you and me, the attraction we have felt for each other every day!’
A smile, half-rueful, half-sensuous, played about his mouth.
‘Had we never married we would still be here, in Italy, under the stars,’ he said. ‘I would have come back for you even if I hadn’t needed to do anything about Giavanna and her father! I would have come back, Lana.’
She felt him lift her hand...lift it and graze it softly, sensuously, with his mouth. It was like the touch of silk velvet.
‘For you.’
His eyes were pouring into hers like wine she could not resist, and nor did she wish to. She could feel her blood singing in her veins, the breath catching in her throat.
‘I would have come back, my most bellissima Lana, to make you mine. As I do now.’ His eyes were holding hers...a silken noose. ‘If you will have me,’ he said.
He leant towards her and she caught the scent of his masculinity, potent and seductive...oh, so seductive...as his mouth found hers. Her eyelids fluttered shut. She gave herself up to the sensation. Could not help but give herself to it, so gentle, so arousing. It melted something within her. Something that had been knotted tightly...that confusing, complicated mesh that had bound her, trapped her, since the moment she had agreed to undertake their strange marriage.
Was she confusing money with desire?
But the money goes with the marriage. The desire is only within ourselves—
She heard his words in her head again—saying that even had he not needed to make their strange marriage he still would have come back to her. To make her his.
And I would have gone to him—I know that. I would have lain down my burden of endless work to try and pay my mortgage—would have thrown in the towel, accepted the loss Malcolm has imposed on me. Accepted, too, what flared between me and Salvatore from the very first time I set eyes on him.
She felt her mind move, her thoughts taking her to the place she knew she was meant to be.
I accept it now.
He drew away from her, but only a fraction, his eyes in the dim light warm and intimate.
‘So will you?’ His low voice was a question. ‘Will you have me? Just as I am—just as you are? Here, now, under the stars? In this quiet and private place?’
He smiled, warm and intimate, like his eyes still holding hers, searching hers.
‘It is so very, very simple. That we desire each other—’
His mouth found hers again, as softly sensual as before, tasting her lips for longer this time, not releasing her. And she did not want him to. Did not want to do anything but give herself to the moment, to the sensuous arousal he was inciting in her. She tried to think why it was that she should not be kissing him, but it was impossible. Impossible to do anything but yield to him, to let him part her lips, deepen his kiss, tighten his clasp on her hand pressed between them.
A million nerve-endings were firing in her, and the sweetness of his touch was melting her again. And then he was lifting his mouth away, gazing down at her with a rueful half smile playing on his lips.
‘So what are we going to do, Lana? We’re here, in this beautiful space, alone together, under the night. We desire each other. It is truly as simple as that.’
He held on to her hand, their fingers still meshed, as he drew back from her.
‘This is a simple place, Lana, for simple truths.’ He gestured all around him. ‘It’s why I brought you here. Away from anything that’s complicated. That you think is complicated.’
He smiled an inviting smile, meeting her eyes, now lifted helplessly to his.
‘This has been waiting to happen right from the first. We have both known it. And now...here...is the time.’
He brushed her lips with his again, lightly, softly, then drew back, taking her empty glass from her nerveless fingers to place it beside his own. Then he drew her to her feet.
As his eyes held hers, never letting them go, she felt the pulse at her throat thudding, the haze in her mind filling it. Beyond him, the dark waters of the lake stretched to the unseen forest beyond. It was so quiet, so far away from everything.
Just us—just here. Together.
And suddenly out of nowhere, rippling through her like the night breeze in the conifers all around, she knew that that was what she wanted. She heard his words again—‘So simple...so very simple...’