A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [46]
‘He—he must be counting the hours.’
‘He’s also looking forward to seeing my new friend.’
‘He—he what?’
The sudden realisation of just what he had said had her sitting forward, blue-grey eyes locking with deepest brown.
‘My son is looking forward to meeting my new friend,’ Gio repeated, coolly and clearly and elaborately slowly. ‘He wants to see you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
She was leaning forward as she spoke, reaching for the coffee mug on the hearth, needing something to do—anything—to distract her from the look in his eyes, the buzzing confusion in her head.
‘It’s quite straightforward, Teresa. I am returning to Sicily. I have to go back for Paolo—and I want you to come with me.’
‘You…’
Hastily Terrie put her half-raised mug back down onto the tiles before she let it fall completely. She felt as if his words had caused her heart to stop abruptly then jolt back into action with an uneven judder.
Had he really said what she believed he had?
‘I’m flying back to Sicily tonight. I want you to come with me.’
Even when he had said the actual words, Terrie still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe them.
‘Why?’ she croaked.
Gio’s sigh was a perfectly calculated blend of resignation and exasperation.
‘Teresa, cara, we have been through this before. I told you—’
‘I know what you told me but I don’t believe it!’
Didn’t dare believe it. Couldn’t let the possibility that his outrageous claims might be the truth into her head because if she did then she was only opening herself to a more devastating hurt than before because she had allowed herself to hope.
‘Believe it!’
Gio’s voice was harsh, deep, vibrating with the emphasis on the words as he came to stand in front of her, placing one hand on each arm of the chair and leaning over her to stare deep into her face.
‘Believe it, belleza, because it is the truth! I want you to come to Sicily with me, because this last week I have thought I am going crazy without you. Because I spend my days thinking of you when I should be working.’
‘You do?’
‘All the time,’ he assured her.
Terrie gazed up into his dark, set face, unable to think beyond the small excited voice that was repeating over and over in her head, He wants me with him! He wants me with him! And, seeing the bemused, still not totally convinced expression on her face, Gio held out a hand to her. Like a hypnotist’s mindless victim, she put her own fingers into it and let his strength draw her upwards, out of her seat, until she was standing so close to him that she felt her body melting into the heat of his.
‘I want you with me because at night I dream of holding you close…’
He suited the action to the words, drawing her into the circle of his embrace, folding his arms around her.
‘Of running my hands through your hair…kissing your soft mouth.’
Long fingers fastened in her hair, bringing her face to his, and his lips closed over hers in a long, demanding kiss that made her senses swim wildly. On a tiny murmur of surrender, she abandoned all pretence at keeping her distance and gave herself up to the seductive spell he was weaving around her. Her hands went up and around his neck, her mouth softening, opening under his.
Her body was curved against the lean, hard length of him, the wild demand of sexual hunger uncoiling low down in her body in the space of a heartbeat. And when one of those exploring hands left her hair and slid down her spine, closing over her hip to press her even closer into contact with the potent force of his erection, she caught in her breath on a swift, choking sigh of mindless yearning.
His kiss was stealing away her soul, taking with it all hope of thinking rationally, of being able to reason in any way at all. She could only respond, only surrender to the forceful, primitive tug of sexual attraction that would always bind this man and her together.
‘I can’t sleep for thoughts of kissing you…touching