A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [62]
She didn’t know how long she sat there in the stillness of the night, listening to the words pouring from him. Didn’t know whether hours or even days had passed, or simply minutes as she was held absorbed. She only knew that she wouldn’t have wanted to lose a single second of them, even though they brought to her the most devastating personal realisation that she had ever known. One that would never leave her, and which could do nothing but change her life once and forever.
Because by the time Gio had finished his tale of love, she recognised just what had happened to her.
She had fallen in love with this man, as hopelessly, desperately and totally as he had been in love with his wife. And, like Gio, hers was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. One she would never feel for anyone else.
But Gio had loved and lost another woman. And, as a result, she could never have the true strength of all that his heart was capable of.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she said at last, when he had stopped speaking, stopped pacing, and was simply standing, one hand resting on the worktop of a cabinet, just within reach of her own.
He looked exhausted, shadows darkening the olive skin of his face, deep lines scored from his nose to his mouth. But the ebony eyes were clear and calm. It was as if he had been through a storm, a violent whirlwind, and come out the other side.
‘Anything,’ Gio said huskily, rawly.
And strangely enough he sounded as though he meant it.
‘That night…’
She knew she didn’t have to say which one. That there was only one night she could mean. The night they had met.
‘You said once that Lucia died ten days before Paolo’s birthday. Was—that night…?’
‘That night was the second anniversary of the date she died, yes.’
‘Oh, Gio…’
She reached out, touched his hand. And knew from his total stillness how much it meant.
His dark gaze went to where her fingers rested lightly over the top of his and lingered for a moment. Then he looked up again, ebony eyes locking with blue-grey. And holding.
Terrie would never know which one of them moved first. Or whether in fact they both acted in the space of the same heartbeat, heading towards each other on the impulse of almost the same thought.
She was only aware of being on her feet, and needing to be close to him. And finding that was easier than she had ever anticipated because he had halved the short distance between them too. So that all that it needed was a couple of swift, short steps and she was there, with him, his arms closing round her, her face lifting for his kiss.
It was a kiss that seemed to draw her soul out from her body, taking with it every thought of hesitation, of reservation, of second thoughts. She had no time for doubts, no time for anything but the deep-felt need to hold this man, to touch him, kiss him, give him everything that was there in her heart for him.
But most of all to give him herself.
There was a faint, inexplicable awkwardness about the way that Gio was holding her. An unsettled, uncomfortable feeling across her shoulders and back so that she wriggled slightly, trying to adjust, coming briefly out of the haze of need as she heard Gio’s faint laughter that warmed her skin with his breath.
‘What…?’ she asked and looked up, puzzled, into his smiling eyes.
‘Hands off,’ Gio whispered, his smile a wide, wicked grin. ‘You gave me my orders—while we’re in Sicily it’s strictly—’
‘Oh, to hell with hands off!’ Terrie exclaimed, but then suddenly she changed her mind. ‘On second thoughts…’
His uncertain, slightly wary glance was all that it took to have her mouth curling in teasing mischief as she snuggled closer, rubbing her face against his chin where the rough suggestion of his growth of beard snagged against her delicate skin.
‘Perhaps we’ll stick to hands off,’ she murmured, deliberately pitching her voice as a husky purr. ‘But just for you—for me it’s definitely hands on. I get to touch all I want!’
Slowly, tantalisingly she walked her fingers up the front of his shirt, feeling his quick catch