The Truth Behind his Touch (10 page)

‘Define
unsuitable
…’ He lazily reached over to the cooler bag which he had brought with him, and which she had barely noticed in her panic over the dreaded sailing trip, and pulled out two cold drinks, one of which he handed to her.

Held hostage to a conversation that was running wildly out of control, Caroline could only stare at him in dazed confusion. She pressed the cold can to her heated cheeks.

‘Well?’ Giancarlo tipped his head back to drink and she found that she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him, from the motion of his throat as he swallowed and the play of muscles in his raised arm.

‘I like kind, thoughtful, sensitive men,’ she breathed.

‘Sounds boring.’

‘It’s not boring to like
good guys
, guys who won’t let you down.’

‘In which case, where are these guys who don’t let you down?’

‘I’m not in a relationship at the moment, if that’s what
you’re asking,’ Caroline told him primly, hoping that he wouldn’t detect the flustered catch in her voice.

‘No. Good guys can be a crashing disappointment, I should imagine.’

‘I’m sure some of your past girlfriends wouldn’t agree with that!’ Bright patches of colour had appeared on her cheeks, and her eyes were locked to his in a way that was invasive and thrilling at the same time. Had he leant closer to her? Or had she somehow managed to shorten the distance between them?

‘I’ve never had any complaints in that department,’ Giancarlo murmured. ‘Sure, some of them have mistakenly got it into their heads that they could persuade me to be in it for the long term. Sure, they were disappointed when I had to set them straight on that, but complaints? In the sex department? No. In fact—’

‘I’m not interested,’ Caroline interrupted shrilly.

Giancarlo dealt her a slashing smile tinged with a healthy dose of disbelief.

‘I guess you haven’t met a lot of Italian studs out here,’ he said, shamelessly fishing and enjoying himself in a way that had become alien to him. His high-pressured, high-octane, high-stressed, driven everyday life had been left behind on the shores of Lake Como. He was playing truant now and loving every second of it. His dark eyes drifted down to her full, heaving breasts. She might have modestly half-covered her bare legs with the towel but she couldn’t hide what remained on display, nor could he seem to stop himself from appreciating it.

‘I didn’t come here to meet anyone! That wasn’t the point.’

‘No, but it might have been a pleasant bonus—unless, of course, you’ve left someone behind? Is there a local lad
waiting for you in the wings? Someone your parents approve heartily of? Maybe a farmer?’

Caroline wondered why he would have picked a
farmer
, of all people. Was it because he considered her the outdoor kind of girl, robust and healthy with pink cheeks and a hearty appetite? The kind of girl he would never have kissed unless he had been obliged to, as a distraction from the embarrassment of having the girl in question make a fool of herself and of him by having a panic attack at the thought of getting into a boat? She sucked her stomach in, gave up the losing battle to look skinny and stood up to move to the side of the boat, where she held the railings and looked out to the lake.

The shore was a distant strip but she wasn’t scared. Just like that, her irrational fear of water seemed to have subsided. There wasn’t enough room for that silly phobia when Giancarlo was doing crazy things to her senses. And, much as he got under her skin, his presence was weirdly reassuring. How did
that
work?

She was aware that he had moved to stand behind her and in one swift movement she turned around, her back to the waist-high railing. ‘It’s so peaceful and beautiful here.’ She looked at him steadily and tried hard to focus just on his face rather than on his brown, hard torso and its generous sprinkling of dark hair that seemed horribly, unashamedly masculine. ‘Do you miss it? I know Milan is very busy and very commercial, but you grew up here. Don’t you sometimes long for the tranquillity of the open spaces?’

‘I think you’re confusing me with one of those sensitive types you claim to like,’ Giancarlo murmured. He clasped the railing on either side of her, bracing himself and locking her into a suffocating, non-physical embrace, his lean
body only inches away from her. ‘I don’t do nostalgia. Not, I might add, that I have much to be nostalgic about.’

The smile he shot her sent a heat wave rushing through her body. She was barefoot and her toes curled against the smooth wooden planks of the sailboat. God, she could scarcely breathe! Their eyes tangled and Caroline felt giddy under the shimmering intensity of his midnight-dark eyes.

She could barely remember what they had been talking about. The quiet sounds of the water had receded and she thought she could hear the whoosh of blood rushing through her veins and the frantic pounding of her heart.

She wasn’t aware of her eyes half closing, or of her mouth parting on a question that was never asked.

Giancarlo was more than aware of both those things. The powerful scent of lust made his nostrils flare. He realised that this was exactly what he wanted. Her lush, sexy body combined with her wide-eyed innocence had set up a chain reaction in him that he hadn’t been able to control.

‘And as for getting away from it all …’ Some of her long hair blew across his face. She smelled of sun and warmth. ‘I have a place on the coast.’ From nowhere sprang such a strange notion that he barely registered it. He would like to take her there. He had never had any such inclination with any woman in the past. That was purely his domain, his private getaway from the hassle of everyday life, always maintained, waiting and ready for those very rare occasions when he felt the need to make use of it.

‘You have the most amazing hair.’ He captured some of it, sank his fingers into its untamed length. ‘You should never have it cut.’

Caroline knew that he was going to kiss her and she strained up towards him with a sigh of abandon. She never knew that she could want something so much in her life.
She lifted her hand and trembled as her fingers raked through his fine, dark, silky hair.

With a stifled groan, Giancarlo angled down and lost himself in a kiss that was hungry and exploring. His questing tongue melded with hers and, as the kiss deepened, he spanned her rib cage with urgent, impatient hands. They were out in the open but visible to no one. Other boats, dotted on the sparkling, still water, were too far away to witness his lack of control.

The push of her breasts as she curved her body up to him was explosive to his libido and he hooked his fingers under the straps of her swimsuit. He couldn’t pull them down fast enough, and as her breasts spilled out in their glorious abundance he had to control the savage reaction of his throbbing arousal.

‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he growled hoarsely.

‘Beautiful’ had never been one of those things Caroline had ever considered herself. Friendly, yes. Reasonably attractive, perhaps. But
beautiful
?

Right now, however, as she looked at him with a fevered, slumberous gaze, she believed him and she was infused with a heady, wanton feeling of total recklessness. She wanted to bask in his open admiration. It was a huge turn-on. He looked down and her nipples tightened and ached in immediate response. Her ability to think and to reason had been scattered to the four winds and she moaned and arched her back as his big hands covered her breasts, massaging them, pushing them up so that her swollen nipples were offered up to his scorching inspection. The sun on her half-naked body was beautifully warm. She closed her eyes, hands outstretched on the railing on either side of her.

It was a snapshot of an erotic, abundant goddess with her hair streaming back, and Giancarlo lowered his head
to close his mouth over the pulsating pink disc of a surrendered nipple.

Reaching down, Caroline curled her fingers into his hair. She felt like a rag doll and had to stop herself from sinking to the floor of the boat as he plundered her breasts, first one then the other, suckling on her nipple, drawing it into his mouth so that he could tease the distended tip with his tongue. She felt powerful and submissive at the same time as he feasted on her, licking, nipping, sucking, driving her crazy with his mouth.

When his hand clasped her thigh, she nearly fainted. The swimsuit was pulled lower and he trailed kisses over each inch of flesh that was gradually exposed. The paleness of her stomach was a sharp contrast to the golden colour she had acquired over the summer months.

Giancarlo found that he liked that. It was a
real
body, the body of a living, breathing, fulsome woman, unlike the statue-perfect, all-over-bronzed bodies of the stick insects he was accustomed to. He rose to his feet and pushed his leg between her thighs, moving it slowly and insistently which made the boat rock ever so slightly. Caroline, with her phobia of water, barely noticed. She was on a different planet and experiencing sensations that were all new and wonderful.

She only surfaced, abruptly and rudely, when the sound of an outboard motor broke through her blurry, cotton-wool haze. She gasped, shocked at her state of undress and mortified at her rebellious body, which had disobeyed every law of self-preservation to flirt perilously with a situation that instinctively screamed danger.

Struggling to free herself, she felt the boat sway and rock under her and she stumbled to rebalance herself.

‘What the hell are you doing? You’re going to capsize this thing. Stay still!’

He tried to hold her arms as she frantically endeavoured to pull up her swimsuit and hide the shameful spectacle of her nudity.

‘How
could
you?’ Caroline was shaking like a leaf as she cautiously made her way back to the centre of the boat. Her huge brown eyes were wide with accusation, and Giancarlo, who had never in living memory experienced any form of rejection from a woman, raked his hand impatiently through his hair.

‘How could I
what
?’

‘You
know
what!’

He took a couple of steps towards her and was outraged when she shrank back. Did she find him
threatening
?

‘What I
know
—’ his voice was a whiplash, leaving her no leeway to nurse fanciful notions of being seduced against her will ‘—is that you
wanted
it, and it’s no good huddling there like a virtuous maiden whose virginity has been sullied. Snap out of it, Caroline. You practically threw yourself at me.’

‘I did no such
thing
,’ Caroline whispered, distraught, because she had, she really
had
, and she couldn’t for the life of her understand why.

Giancarlo shook his head with such rampant incredulity that she was forced to look away. When she next sneaked a glance at him, it was to see him preparing to sail back to shore. His face was dark with anger.

With agonising honesty, Caroline licked her lips and cleared her throat. It was no good letting this thing fester in simmering silence. She had had a terrible moment of horrifying misjudgement and she would just have to say something.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said bravely, addressing his profile, which offered nothing by way of encouragement. ‘I know I was partly to blame …’

Giancarlo glanced over to her with a brooding scowl. ‘How kind of you to rethink your accusation that I was intent on taking advantage of you.’

‘I know you weren’t! I never meant to imply that. Look.’ With urgent consternation, Caroline leaned towards him. ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t even
like
you! I disapprove of everything about you.’

‘
Everything
, Caroline? Let’s not labour that statement too much. You might find that you need to retract it.’ Not only was Giancarlo furious at her inexplicable withdrawal, when it had been plain to see that she had been as hot and ready for him as he had been for her, but he was more furious with himself for not being able to look at her for fear of his libido going haywire all over again.

‘You took me by surprise.’

‘Oh, we’re back to that old chestnut, are we? I’m the arch-seducer and you’re the shrinking violet!’

‘It’s the heat,’ she countered with increasing desperation. ‘And the situation. I’ve never been on the water like this before. Everything must have just been too much.’ She continued to look at him earnestly. ‘It’s
impossible
for me to be attracted to you.’ She sought to impose an explanation for her wildly out-of-character behaviour. ‘We don’t get along at
all
and I disapprove of why you decided to come here to see Alberto. I don’t care about money and I’ve never been impressed by people who think that making money is the most important thing in the world. And, furthermore, I just don’t get it with guys who are scared of commitment. I have no respect for them. So … so …’

‘So, despite all of that, you still couldn’t resist me. What do you think that says?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t say
anything
!’

Giancarlo detected the horror in her voice and he didn’t
quite know how to deal with it. He would have made love to her right there, on the boat, and he certainly couldn’t think of any other woman who wouldn’t have relished the experience. The fact that this woman was intent on treating it as something she had to remove herself from as quickly as possible was frankly an insult of the highest order.

Caroline felt that she was finally in possession of her senses once again. ‘I think you’ll agree that that unfortunate episode is something we’d best put right behind us. Pretend it never happened.’

‘You’re attracted to me, Caroline.’

‘I’m not. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve just been saying? I got carried away because I’m here, on a boat, out of my comfort zone. I don’t go for men like you. I know you probably find that horribly insulting but it happens to be the truth.’

‘You’re attracted to me, and the faster you face that the better off you’ll be.’

‘And how do you figure that out, Giancarlo? How?’

‘You’ve spent your life thinking that the local lad who enjoys the barn dance on a Saturday and whose greatest ambition is to have three kids and buy a semi-detached house on the street next to where your parents live is your ideal man. Just as you tried to kid yourself that never leaving the countryside was what you wanted out of life. Wrong on both counts. Your head’s telling you what you should want, but here I am, a real man, and you just can’t help yourself. Don’t worry. Amazingly, it’s mutual.’