Jo studied him in wonderment. She was hot and dirty and sweaty. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘You really don’t see yourself the way I do,’ Gianni whispered, scanning the swell of her firm breasts above the camisole top, her tiny waist, and the length of her shapely bare legs. The damp sheen across her cheekbones merely enhanced her bright sapphire eyes. There was even a smudge of flour on her face from her baking activities earlier that day. ‘Earthy and sexy...’
‘I’ll wash off the earth in the shower,’ she declared.
‘But not the sexiness,’ he quipped with a slow-burning smile.
That magnetic smile did something to her. It lit her up inside like a torch and she had never been more conscious of her body as she climbed the stairs.Hedid that to her, let her connect to the sensual side of her nature, the one she was only just learning about. She looked at him and she wanted him. It was that simple. It hadalwaysbeen that simple, she acknowledged belatedly. Without her ever admitting the fact even to herself, for years Gianni had figured as her perfect male fantasy figure. And with Gianni as her ideal, was it any wonder that she had never deemed another man worthy of serious interest? That awareness embarrassed her.
Even though she had never seriously believed that she would ever be with Gianni, even though she knew that their lifestyles were incompatible, she had cherished that secret fantasy of the bad-boy billionaire who could charge her up with the most wicked hunger with one electrifyingly casual smile. It shook her that she could have been so unaware of what went on inside her own head. Sybil had guessed.‘You’ve always wanted him,’her great-aunt had said bluntly when Jo had told her about Gianni’s proposal. Sybil had had no doubt whatsoever that Jo would marry Gianni.
She hadn’t married Gianni solely for her family’s benefit or for Ladymead, Jo appreciated guiltily. She had fallen back on convenient excuses to protect her pride. She had wanted him for herself. She had had a photo of Gianni on a polo horse on the inside of the door of her school locker. He had sent it to her when his team won a big match. But she hadn’t let the rest of the sixth form see it because she hadn’t been willing to share it or him.
As she stripped off her grimy clothes she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and wasn’t surprised that she looked hot and flushed. The lies she had told herself to save face!
She stepped into the shower. As she emerged from the glass cubicle again, a muffled squeal was wrenched from her when she realised that she was no longer alone.
Gianni held out a towel and wrapped it round her. ‘You hadn’t locked the door. I thought it was all right to join you,’ he murmured soothingly.
‘You’re not the only one of us who needs to remember that we’re a couple,’ Jo admitted with pink cheeks as she lifted another towel to dry her hair. ‘And couples share...stuff.’
‘Like beds,’ Gianni agreed with dark eyes alight with merriment.
‘You came in here with an ulterior motive,’ Jo registered.
‘Guilty as charged,’ Gianni responded equably. ‘The thought of my very beautiful wife in the shower naked and alone was too much for me.’
Jo flipped back her damp hair and rested her fingertip against his full lower lip, noting the shadow of stubble that had appeared there since morning. ‘How many times have you said that to a woman?’
‘You’re the only wife I’ve ever had,’ Gianni told her with strong satisfaction as he eased her closer, brushing away the towel so that it dropped to the floor.
Every line of his lean, powerful physique was pressed to her naked body. She felt the urgent thrust of his erection. She slid her hand down his chest and allowed her fingers to trace the hard, ready length of him and he shuddered against her in response. She found his responsiveness to that slight advance incredibly hot.
With a stifled groan of surrender, Gianni lifted her up fully into his arms and carried her into the bedroom to tumble her down on the bed.
‘I should have dried my hair!’ Jo exclaimed.
Gianni laughed out loud. ‘Forget your hair,cara. Recognise your priorities here,’ he urged.
Jo flung her head back and surveyed him appreciatively. ‘Are you saying that you expect to be my priority?’
Gianni’s stunning dark golden eyes gleamed as he peeled off his tee shirt, revealing his strong shoulders and the solid wall of his muscular chest. ‘What do you think?’ he traded as he toed off his shoes and began to unzip his trousers.
‘I think that, yes, youexpectto be my first and only priority,’ Jo murmured with amusement. ‘But I know that you don’t appreciate anything that comes to you too easily. You like a challenge. It intrigues you.’
Gianni discarded his boxers and came down on the bed, reaching for her in almost the same movement, his hungry urgency providing another lift to her confidence.
‘I want you so much,’ he breathed raggedly.
‘I like that,’ Jo told him truthfully. ‘I like to be needed.’
‘Right now, I need you like I need air to breathe,’ Gianni growled.
He nipped along the fullness of her lower lip, teasing her into opening her mouth before taking rampant advantage by sliding his tongue against hers and making her shiver with reaction, her whole body suddenly so sensitive it was ridiculous.
He pushed her knees back and she felt him brush against her damp heat. Hooking her legs over his shoulders, he rose over her. Disconcerted, she gazed up at him in feverish anticipation, locked to the smouldering gold of his eyes. He sank into her hard and fast, filling the emptiness, stretching her to fullness until she didn’t know where he began and she ended. The pleasure came in an intense surge that made her inner muscles clench.
‘You feel divine,’ Gianni groaned, snaking his hips to pull out of her clinging flesh only to surge in again with even greater vitality. And so it began, a passionate assault on her senses as he plunged into her again and again and she bucked and arched beneath him as the excitement between them built. A frantic ferocious need climbed inside her. Her hands raked through his hair, over his shoulders and down his back. Her heart was racing, her skin damp with perspiration and then she reached a climax in a great rush of sensation that triggered an intoxicating explosion of reaction. Gianni jerked and shuddered with an uninhibited shout of satisfaction and then they both slumped, drained by the pleasure still rippling through their connected bodies.