A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [18]
This time his mouth was a devastating combination of hard and soft, starting off fiercely demanding and then suddenly and unexpectedly gentling into an enticing sweetness that eased open her lips, allowing him more intimate access to her mouth. The play of his tongue was an erotic caress, and the tangle of his hands in her hair, holding her exactly where he wanted and at what angle, was an arousing indication of his strength and the ease with which he could use it either to excite or control.
Her own hands went up, her fingers closing over the hard muscles of his shoulders and clinging, needing the support because her legs were unsteady beneath her, suddenly feeling as if they were made of nothing but cotton wool. She was lost, adrift on a heated sea of sensation, and could only abandon herself to the waves and the direction they wanted to take her.
The rap at the door she had been anticipating came while her heart was still pounding, so that for a second she was only aware of it as another, sharper, note in the crescendo of passion that was building inside her. But then it was repeated and at the same moment another sound blended with it, a shrill, higher pitched note that intruded into the moment, disrupting the mood.
Against her lips, Gio muttered something dark and furious in rough Italian. But when the summons came again he moved sharply, releasing Terrie abruptly and turning towards the door.
Abandoned so unexpectedly, she found herself staggering for a moment before dropping down awkwardly onto the bed, unable to remain standing. Her eyes were hazed, barely focused as she watched Gio cross the room in two swift strides, pull open the door with one hand, while hunting in his pocket for his phone with the other.
She was still trying to collect her thoughts as he waved an autocratic gesture towards the coffee-table, indicating that the tray of coffee-pot and cups should be placed there, pushed an obviously generous tip into the waiter’s hand, and ushered him back out the door all in one fluid movement. And then he turned his attention to the still-ringing phone.
‘Scusi… Sì?’
Whoever was on the phone was someone he wanted to talk to, Terrie reflected, stunned by the sudden transformation of his face. The hard lines and planes seemed to soften. Between the thick black lashes she could see a new light in the deep, dark eyes, and a dancing little smile curled the hard line of his mouth into something that made her heart kick sharply, stealing her breath away.
The conversation was in Italian too fast and too accented for her to be able to catch any more than a single word here or there. But there was one word she did hear, and it stuck in her mind like a burr, stinging sharply.
Cara, he said, his tone warming and gentling. Cara mia. And the words were like a hard, brutal slap in her face, cold as ice after the heat of her reaction just moments earlier.
Once more her eyes fastened on Gio’s face, watching, reinterpreting the new expression on his face. The sense of devastation in the pit of her stomach, the feeling of being so close to something very sweet and very special, only to have it snatched right away from her, was like a raw bruise, aching and sore.
‘Buona notte,’ Gio finished. ‘Ben dorme.’
She couldn’t wait until he had put the phone away.
‘Are you married?’
It froze him in the middle of closing the case.
‘Married?’
There was something disturbing in the way that he had reacted, the look in his eyes. Something that set her heart racing, jolting unevenly in distress.
‘I heard you! You called—you said “cara”. I might not understand much Italian, but I do know that word and I know what it means! Cara—darling—darling!’ she repeated emphatically when he simply sat there, dark eyes unreadable. ‘Who were you calling darling?’