After all, she’d refused his invitation for intimacy and kept her distance all week.
That first day he’d seen the simmering awareness in each unguarded look, in the way her eyes tracked his movements when she thought he didn’t notice. But since then she’d closed up. Oh, she was perfectly friendly, though not gushing. Thoughtful yet companionable on the few occasions they spent any time together. But Renzo sensed she guarded her feelings closely.
She baffled him. He was used to women who enjoyed sex as much as he and weren’t afraid to reach for what they wanted. In Sonia he sensed a depth of latent passion overlaid by a hard shell of reserve.
Tonight though, she was different. The way she tilted her head to listen to that self-important journalist, as if every word were gold. The laugh that cascaded from her lips when that lawyer on her other side murmured some joke.
And then there was her dress.
When she’d stepped from her room in a halterneck dress of jade green silk Renzo’s heart had stumbled. She’d asked if it were suitable for the party and he’d wanted to herd her straight back to her bedroom and crowd her down onto the mattress. He’d wanted to slide the dress from her slender frame and acquaint himself with every tasty centimetre of feminine flesh.
But he’d backed himself into a corner, assuring her he wouldn’t pursue her unless she wanted to be pursued. Giving her space to ignore him. He’d meant every word but he hadn’t counted on his desire growing as she retreated from him.
Renzo was used to indulging himself with women. Why not, when there was such pleasure to be shared? But he’d never felt this proprietorial.
He scowled at the men surrounding her and felt a jab of feral possessiveness.
He was done with waiting for Sonia to realise they’d be perfect together. It was time to take action.
* * *
‘Here you are, cara.’ Suddenly Renzo was beside her and Sonia was torn between competing desires. To ignore everyone else but him, and to keep herself safe by pretending to be unaffected.
Then she looked up to find his eyes on hers and pretence flew out the window.
There it was again. The heat. The simmer of awareness that, as she watched, burned bright enough to arc between them till she felt the sizzle deep within. Conversation around them was obliterated by the whump of ignition, that physical judder inside. The sound of her body exploding into life.
His lips curled at the corners and that deep groove slashed down one lean cheek. He looked like a pirate with his dark hair and hungry eyes, spying some treasure he’d decided to plunder.
Far from being dismayed or outraged, Sonia felt a shiver of anticipation.
‘I thought you might want this.’
Something touched her fingers and Sonia looked down to the tall glass he pressed into her hand.
‘Prosecco. To wet your throat.’
How did he know she felt as dry as the Simpson Desert? She hadn’t a moment ago. But then she’d been trying hard to concentrate on the conversation around her, and not wonder where Renzo had gone.
Stupid, stupid, stupid to feel that gush of relief when he appeared beside her. To know he hadn’t taken up the invitation from the sloe-eyed beauty in red who’d been trying to monopolise him, or the blonde, parading in a nude-toned dress, designed to remind men of the body beneath the thin fabric.
‘Thank you.’ She lifted the glass to her lips and gulped a mouthful of fizzing white wine, feeling the sparkles on her tongue and the back of her throat. But they were nothing to the bursts of light detonating through her insides as Renzo’s gaze slid down to linger on her lips, then dropped to her throat, as if fascinated by the simple act of swallowing.
Not that it was simple anymore. Each movement felt exaggerated when he scrutinised her with that heavy-lidded stare. The thud of her heart grew ponderous. She was conscious of the way her throat worked, the growing tightness banding her chest and her nipples beading against green silk.
Why had she worn a dress that made a bra impossible?
Because you want Renzo’s attention.
You want him to look at you and want, the way you’ve been wanting him all week.
And he did. It was there in his searing stare. In the brutally hard line of his mouth and clench of his sculpted jaw.
‘The wine’s delicious, thank you.’
He raised a glass to his own lips and sipped, his eyes still locked on hers. That simple act felt so intimate, the heat in her belly unfurled and spread up past her breasts and down, arrowing to the juncture of her thighs.
Did he know? Was that why he smiled?