‘What are you doing here?’ she asked to fill the tense silence.
‘You can’t walk back to the house on your own at this time of night,’ Gaetano told her.
‘Well, I suppose you would think that way,’ Poppy remarked, inclining her head to acknowledge his bodyguards ranged across the pavement mere yards from them. Gaetano was never ever alone in the way that other ordinary people were alone. ‘Why didn’t you just send one of them to look out for me?’
‘I owed you,’ Gaetano breathed, unlocking the sleek sports car by the kerb. ‘I was out of line earlier.’
‘You get out of line a lot...but that’s the first time you’ve admitted it,’ Poppy said uncertainly.
Gaetano swung in beside her and in the confined space she stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat, heartbeat thumping very loudly in her eardrums. Black-lashed eyes assailed hers and she fell still, her mouth running dry. He lifted a hand, framed her face with spread fingers and kissed her. Her hand braced on a strong masculine thigh as she leant closer, helplessly hungry for that connection and the heat and pressure of his strong sensual mouth on hers. Her body went haywire, all liquid heat and response as his tongue delved and tangled with hers, and a deep quiver thrummed through her slender length. The wanting gripping her was all powerful, racing through her to swell her breasts and ignite a feverish damp heat between her thighs. In a harried movement, Poppy yanked her head back and forced her trembling body back into the passenger seat. ‘What was that for?’ she asked shakily.
‘I have no excuse or reason. I can’t stop wanting to touch you.’
‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this...with us,’ she mumbled accusingly through her swollen lips.
Long brown fingers circled over the top of her knee and roved lazily higher, skating up her inner thigh. ‘Tell me, no,’ Gaetano urged in a harsh undertone.
‘No,’ she framed without conviction, legs involuntarily parting because with every fibre of her being she craved his touch.
‘You’re pushing me off the edge of sanity,’ Gaetano growled, shifting position to claim her mouth again. With little passionate nips and licks and bites he took her mouth in a way it had never been taken and sent hot rivers of excitement rolling into her pelvis.
Long fingers stroked over the taut triangle of fabric stretched tight between her thighs, lingering to circle over her core. A warm tingling sensation of almost unbearable excitement gripped her and she bucked beneath his hand, helplessly, wantonly inviting more. Give me more, her body was screaming, shameless in the grip of that need. The fabric that separated her most sensitive flesh from him was a torment but he made no attempt to remove or circumvent its presence. She ground her hips down on the seat, nipples straining and stiff and prickling, the hunger like a voracious animal clawing for more inside her. That hunger was so terrifyingly strong and her brain felt so befogged with it she shivered, suddenly cold and scared of being overwhelmed.
‘This is not cool,’ Gaetano whispered against her lips. ‘We’re in a car in a public street. This is not cool at all, bella mia.’
‘It’s just lust,’ she tried to say lightly, dismissively, and she tried to summon a laugh but found she couldn’t because there was nothing funny about the power of the physical urges engulfing her or the nasty draining aftermath of blocking and denying those urges.
‘Lust has never made me behave like a randy teenager before,’ Gaetano growled. ‘Around you I have a constant hard-on.’
‘Stop it...stop talking about it!’ Poppy snapped, ramming her trembling hands into the pockets of her flying jacket.
‘That’s impossible when it’s all I can think about.’ With a stifled curse he fired the engine of the car. ‘But we have more important things to discuss.’
‘Yes. Rodolfo called your bluff,’ she breathed heavily, struggling to return to the real world again.
‘That’s not how I would describe what he did. I’ve been mulling it over all evening,’ Gaetano admitted grittily. ‘I’m afraid you hit the target last night when you accused me of ignoring the human dimension. I’m great with figures and strategy, not so good with people. But this afternoon looking at Rodolfo and listening to him talk I saw a man aware of his years and afraid he wouldn’t live long enough to see the next generation. All my adult life I’ve read him wrong. I thought all I had to do to please him was to become a success and be everything my father wasn’t but it wasn’t enough.’
‘How wasn’t it enough?’