Riccardo's Secret Child (18 page)

‘I miss your spectacles,' he murmured wryly. ‘There is something very erotic about removing a woman's glasses.'

‘You've done a lot of that in the past, have you?'

‘Never,' he admitted, tantalising her senses with another of those lingering smiles. ‘I pride myself on being open for new experiences.'

‘And that's what I am, isn't it, Riccardo? A new experience.'

He halted the fight she wanted by putting his finger on her lips. Then he held both her hands and raised them to the back of the sofa so that she was stretched out for his hungry eyes.

They could argue until the cows came home, he thought as his body reared up in response to the sight of her, she could preach about right and wrong and should and shouldn't, but they were drawn to each other like magnets.

He lowered his head and kissed her. It was a lingering kiss and he traced her lips delicately with his tongue, explored the softness of her mouth until she was gasping.

Then he kissed her neck, nibbling the slender white column, letting their anticipation mount while his thoughts played with images of her nakedness, milky white against his copper skin.

‘Riccardo…'

‘Ssh, don't talk.' She wasn't wearing a bra. He knew that much, had spotted it as soon as she had appeared after her shower. The top was not transparent and she probably wasn't even aware of how lovingly it shaped the contours of her breasts. He teased her collarbone with his mouth and with a little groan Julia curled her fingers into his hair.

This shouldn't be happening! But the minute he touched her she was lost. She didn't just want him, she was burning up with it! She wanted to taste him, that sweetly addictive masculine taste that dragged her into a vortex of desire.

She gave a little squeak when his mouth moved down to her breasts and he began sucking her nipple through her clinging top, dampening it until the outline of her nipple was evident.

‘No bra,' he murmured, lifting his gaze to her.

‘I hardly ever wear one when I'm in the house,' Julia panted unsteadily.

‘Keep it that way,' he laughed huskily and resumed his tender nibbling of her breast, saving himself for the moment when he could lift her top and view the real thing.

One hand stroked the line of her thigh. Jeans had to be the most frustrating item in a woman's wardrobe, he thought. Now if she had been wearing a skirt he could have felt her skin under his, felt every little shudder.

He gently lifted the top and groaned as he looked at her pert nipples, aroused and dark. He flicked his tongue over one and she shifted on the sofa, releasing little sighs of contentment that went straight to the core of him, making him want to take her right there and right now, without the preliminaries of foreplay.

‘If you don't want this, tell me now,' he ordered roughly.

‘You know I don't want it,' Julia moaned, but when he
raised his head she pulled him back down. ‘I don't want it, but I need it. Make love to me, Riccardo.'

The sweetest words ever uttered. He stood up, watching her watching him, and undid his belt, letting it slither to the ground, then he unzipped his trousers and stepped out of them.

Julia had never found anything remotely fascinating about male strippers. In fact, on the one occasion she had gone with a gang of friends to see some perform at a club for a hen party she had found the sight of men removing their clothes positively comical.

But this was mind-blowingly erotic. She knew that he was looking at her, maybe amused by her intent gaze, maybe turned on by it, but she couldn't help herself. She watched as he removed his clothing and then carried on watching when he stood in front of her, unashamedly masculine and very obviously turned on.

‘Now it's your turn,' he said, standing proudly male while she slowly stood up and began fumbling with the button on her jeans. She might have changed her image and polished her exterior, but her newly acquired outward shine certainly did not penetrate below skin level. She had never been watched by a man before, not like this, not knowing that his eyes were focused on her every movement, and her hands were slippery with nerves.

‘I wish you wouldn't stand watching me like that, Riccardo,' she said shyly, and he grinned.

‘OK. I'll sit.' He sat down and watched. Not much better from her self-conscious point of view.

But it was a sight he would not have missed for the world. So gauche, so unrehearsed, so utterly, utterly feminine with it. He had a stab of painful regret that he had not been the one to gently lead her out of her virginity. Her
fingers were trembling and he wanted to pull her towards him and bury her against his chest.

She modestly stood, nude, before him, her arms crossed and he beckoned her to him with the crook of one finger.

‘You are beautiful,' he murmured throatily, tucking her alongside him on the sprawling sofa. She needed tenderness, and he made love tenderly, rousing her with his tongue, with his hands, with his fingers, tracing the outline of her body, revelling in her pliancy and bringing her to the point of orgasm, only to thrust inside her with an explosion of fulfilment when neither of them could hold out any longer.

Julia lay against him, her head on his chest, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

When she stirred he gently pushed her head back into its resting position.

‘Now tell me what we just did was a mistake,' he said softly and Julia sighed.

‘You know it was. It won't happen again.'

‘A one-off?' he said, lazily content. ‘Like the last time? We are irresistibly drawn to one another. Now is the time for you to admit it.'

His words flowed around her, confusing her. Was he right? Should she just acquiesce and go with the flow, then sort out the consequences when they arose?

It took her a few seconds to register the distant trilling of the telephone.

‘Let it ring,' he commanded as she struggled up. ‘We have to talk.'

‘I can't let it ring. It might be Mum. It might be important.' And she didn't want to talk. Not yet. She didn't know what she could say to him. She needed time. She hastily slung on her jeans and pulled the top over her head, leaving him sprawling on the sofa.

The house felt cold as she hurried through it, desperate to reach the phone before it wakened Nicola. Unlikely, but a possibility and one Julia could heartily do without.

‘I was just about to ring off.'

‘Who is it?' Julia was still breathing quickly from her race through the house. She had not buttoned the top of her jeans and she cradled the receiver between her head and her neck while she fumbled with them.

‘Don't you recognise my voice?' There was an amused laugh down the end of the phone. ‘So much for my unforgettable impact on the opposite sex.'

‘Roger!'

‘I've been thinking about you since the party, Julia. Would you like to come out with me? Movies? Theatre? A bite to eat afterwards?'

‘Roger…I…'

She glanced furtively over her shoulder, half expecting to see Riccardo lounging indolently in the doorway. She had just had the most beautiful, meaningful experience in her entire life and he would be waiting for her, waiting to hear her tell him that she had caved in, was willing to have a fling with him and play at happy families until he decided the time was right to leave. He had spoken a lot about want and attraction but not one word had passed his lips, even in the depths of passion, about permanence or love or commitment.

Her jaw hardened. ‘When were you thinking of going out?' she asked, blinking back tears and telling herself furiously that she was doing the right thing.

‘Is tomorrow too soon?'

‘Tomorrow's fine,' she heard herself say.

‘Why don't you give me directions to your house? I can be there to pick you up at—'

‘No! I mean, it would be a lot more convenient if I met you at…at wherever we're going.'

‘OK.' He paused and she could hear him thinking down the end of the phone. ‘There's an excellent Italian…'

‘Not Italian. I'm…I don't care for Italian food.'

‘How about French, then?' He sounded mildly surprised and Julia wondered whether he was cursing himself for arranging a date with a woman who sounded bizarre down the telephone.

‘French is fine.' Julia closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘What's it called and how do I get there?'

He gave her detailed directions, getting her to repeat them so that he could make sure that she knew where she would be going and then she said, ‘I'll meet you there about seven-forty-five. Is that all right?'

‘Better than all right. See you tomorrow.'

Julia walked slowly back to the sitting room to find Riccardo semi-dressed, with his trousers on, standing by the window, waiting.

‘Important phone call?' he queried laconically, testing the water, but he knew, with a knot of anger and desperation in his gut, that he had lost her. She had that closed look on her face that spoke volumes. How?
How, dammit?
He wanted to break things, but he remained where he was, rigidly poised, looking at her.

Julia shrugged. ‘I'm going to bed now.'

‘We have to talk,' he grated and she gazed at him distantly.

‘What about?'

‘About us.'

‘There
is
no us, Riccardo. Yes, we're attracted to one another, but there's no us and I'm not willing to have a fling.'

‘And you've had time to make your mind up about that in the time it took for you to answer the telephone?'

Julia bravely met his eyes. God, how easily she could move over to him, run her hands over the hard, muscled chest and lift her mouth to his.

‘That's right.'

‘Why don't you stop hovering by the door and step inside the room?' He knew that if she did she would come to him, but he realised, suddenly, that it would be an empty victory and he flushed darkly. ‘No, forget I said that,' he told her roughly. His pride kicked into gear. She had turned him down. Twice. No more. He was finished running behind her. Women were a dime a dozen, he thought viciously. He didn't need to pursue this one, whatever she did for him and however much of a challenge she was.

Julia looked at him hesitantly until he said coldly, ‘I get the message loud and clear, Julia. So why don't you go to bed and we'll both be adult about this and pretend that nothing ever happened?' His mouth twisted cynically as he turned away to stare out of the window, his back to her.

It's for the best, Julia thought as she headed up to her bedroom. So why did she feel so hollow? Tomorrow she would begin the dating game. She would be going out with a perfectly nice man, a nice,
predictable
man who did not swing from one mood to the next in a matter of seconds. And if Roger wasn't the man for her then there would be another, and another, until she found one.

The following morning she awoke at her usual time to find that Riccardo had already left for work. His car was not in the drive and the half-empty cup of coffee on the kitchen counter showed that he had been up and out long before seven-thirty, which was when she and Nicola had come downstairs.

At lunchtime, still feeling peculiarly empty inside, Julia
called him at the office and was surprised when she was put through to him.

‘I just want to find out whether you'll be in tonight,' she said, playing with the cord of the phone and talking quietly into the receiver because the staff room was full, with most of the teachers choosing to have their lunch at their desks.

‘Why?'

‘Because I'm going out tonight and I want to know whether I should ask Mum over to babysit.' In fact, she would have to get in touch with her mother later that day and explain the arrangement of Riccardo living in the house. At least she would be able to say, with her hand on her heart, that there was absolutely nothing going on between them, that Nicola now knew who he really was and so any so-called pretend relationship had ceased. The proof of that would be the presence of another man on the scene.

‘I'll be home. What time are you leaving?'

‘Around seven.'

‘I'll be back.'

And that was the end of the conversation. She had demanded politeness from him and she had got exactly what she had wanted. His voice had been coolly courteous and Julia knew that his behaviour, when she saw him, would be as well.

She spent the remainder of the day at school operating on automatic, teaching her classes without really being aware of what was going on around her. She collected Nicola from kindergarten at a little after three-thirty and, instead of returning to the house, took her to the shopping mall for a treat and then to a fast-food restaurant, where Nicola chattered on relentlessly about everything under the sun, asking thousands of questions about her father which Julia had to answer as brightly and normally as she possibly could. How long had this child been waiting for the missing
jigsaw piece of her father to be slotted in? Forever, it now seemed!

The house was in darkness when they returned at a little before six. So he wasn't back from work yet. Julia was unutterably relieved. She went through the motions, bathed Nicola, and then, with Nicola lying on her bed watching television, Julia got dressed, feeling all the while as though she were heading for her doom instead of preparing herself for a date, an exciting date, she told herself, with a good-looking, pleasant, eligible man.

And soon it would be the holidays. Nicola would be taken to Italy, without the necessity of needing a chaperon, and there she would see the sprawling family of which she was now a member and by whom she would be lovingly embraced.

But there would be no void because she would be dating, dating, dating.

She chose a sober but figure-hugging wool dress, short-sleeved with a scooped neckline, and the high heels, then she stood back and looked at herself. She looked glamorous rather than sexy and she was pleased with her reflection.