Tall, Dark and Italian: In the Italian's Bed / The Sicilian's Bought Bride / The Moretti Marriage

Her eyes widened. ‘Where are you going?’

Rafe stifled a groan. He wondered how she would react if he told her the truth. That he was desperate to put some space between them before he did something unforgivable. He didn’t just want to stroke her cheek or make casual conversation as they’d done in the car. He wanted to put his tongue where hers had been a few moments ago, to cover her mouth with his and find a partial release of his frustration in a kiss.

‘I thought I might take a walk,’ he offered at last. ‘I need to stretch my legs.’ And cool my libido.

Tess’s eyes moved from his constrained features to the undulating water and he glimpsed the wistful look that crossed her face. But, ‘Okay,’ was all she said and it was left to Rafe to feel a heel for behaving so callowly. He’d brought her here, per amor di Dio. It wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t control his rampant desires.

‘Io—come with me. If you wish,’ he said, before he could stop himself, and she sprang eagerly to her feet.

‘You don’t mind?’ she asked, dropping the carton containing the remains of her salad onto the sand. He gave a faint smile of acquiescence. It seemed the decision had been made and he would have to live with it. It wasn’t as if he wanted to leave her alone.

Tess left her shoes with the rest of their belongings, practically skipping across the sand to dip her toes in the cooler waters of the gulf. She shivered dramatically, laughing as the incoming tide swirled about her ankles. She was like a child, he thought ruefully. As natural and uninhibited as his own children had been before adolescence, and their mother’s desertion, had had such an impact on all their lives.

‘Oh, this is heavenly,’ Tess said, linking her fingers together and stretching her arms above her head in obvious delight. ‘Thank you so much for bringing me.’

‘I am happy you are enjoying yourself,’ he said politely, forcing himself not to linger. He was quite sure she was unaware of the effect she had on him but it was far too easy to imagine his hands circling that deliriously bare midriff as he tumbled her onto the sand.

Unknowingly, he had quickened his step and by the time he realised it and glanced over his shoulder Tess was some distance behind him. She was following much more slowly, splashing through the shallows, her delight in her surroundings apparently dissipated by his indifference. Once again he felt the familiar pangs of guilt. It wasn’t fair of him to spoil the day for her.

Despite his reluctance, he waited for her to catch up with him, but now she wouldn’t meet his gaze. She halted beside him, her eyes seemingly glued to the yacht that was now disappearing over the horizon. She had obviously sensed his ambivalence and misread the reasons for it.

‘What is wrong?’ he asked, as if he genuinely didn’t know. ‘It is very hot, is it not? Have you had enough?’

‘Have you?’

Her retort caught him unawares and he didn’t have an answer for her. ‘It is—getting late,’ he said lamely, although it was barely three o’clock. ‘I would not want you to get burned.’

She lifted first one arm and then the other, looking at them as if she hadn’t considered them before. But she didn’t look convinced. Despite the fact that the skin of her shoulders looked slightly sore, she gave a careless shrug. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said without conviction. ‘If it’s what you want.’

Rafe stiffened. ‘What I want does not signify.’

‘Oh, I think it does.’ He caught a glimpse of indignant green eyes, quickly averted. ‘I should have realised before. When you said you were going for a walk. You didn’t really want me to come with you, did you?’

‘Io—’ Rafe was nonplussed. He hadn’t realised he had been so transparent. ‘That is not true.’

‘I don’t believe you, signore.’ She used the term deliberately, he was sure, and it infuriated him. ‘All this—buying the food, bringing me down here—was just a way of appeasing your conscience.’

Rafe’s jaw dropped. ‘Appeasing my conscience?’ he echoed, stung by the accusation. ‘Why should I feel the need to appease my conscience? I have not done anything wrong.’

Yet.

‘You feel as if you have,’ said Tess doggedly, and for a moment he wondered if she’d read what he was thinking. He hoped not. And, to his relief, she seemed to confirm it. ‘You think you’ve upset both your daughter and me,’ she continued. ‘So you decided to pacify one of us with a peace-offering. In this case, an hour of your precious time, right?’

‘Wrong.’ He was annoyed by the objectivity of her reasoning. Not least, because it was so far removed from the truth. ‘When I invited you to have lunch with me, it was because I wanted to. Not for any other reason.’

‘So why do you want to cut the afternoon short?’ she asked impulsively. ‘Am I keeping you from some important previous engagement?’

‘No.’ His breath gushed out in a rush. ‘I am sorry if I have given you that impression.’

‘Well, what else can I think when you seem determined to avoid me?’ she countered, looking up at him now with a wary, uncertain gaze. ‘You seem to—to blow hot and cold in equal measures. I—well, I don’t know how you really feel’

Rafe’s good sense deserted him. ‘I was not trying to avoid you,’ he said huskily. ‘If it seemed that I was—and I am admitting nothing, you understand?—perhaps it was because I find you far too—appealing, no?’

He’d shocked her now. He could see it in the face that she turned up to him. But, what the hell, he’d shocked himself, and that was far more disturbing.

‘You don’t mean that,’ she said, and he knew that this was his last opportunity to escape the consequences of his outburst. He had only to tell her he was teasing and he might be able to get out of this unscathed.

But he didn’t do it.

‘I do mean it,’ he said, the words coming even though his brain was trying desperately to silence him. ‘You are—enchanting. And beautiful. And I would not be a man if I did not find you desirable, mi amore.’

Her lips parted then, and, although he sensed she was as uncertain of the good sense of what they were doing as he was, she didn’t move away. Instead, she came a little nearer, her toes brushing the front of his loafers, those clear green eyes keenly searching his face. Almost involuntarily, it seemed, she lifted her hand and stroked the roughening skin of his jawline, and Rafe could no longer control the instinctive hardening between his legs.

‘So—do you want to kiss me?’ she breathed barely audibly, and the quicksands of passion moved beneath his feet.

‘Tess—’ he said hoarsely, and even then he thought he might have found the will to resist her. Yet when her hand dropped to the open neckline of his shirt and he felt those tentative fingers against his bare skin, he totally lost it. The groan he uttered was purely anguished, and his hands found her shoulders to haul her into his arms.

Her lips were already parted, inviting the hungry invasion of his tongue. He didn’t disappoint her. One hand moved to grip her nape, angling her face towards him as his mouth fastened greedily over hers. His kiss both enticed and seduced, drawing a response from her that sent his head spinning. He felt his own gnawing hunger controlling his actions as his senses whirled out of control.

Her arms wound around him, her palms spreading against the damp curve of his spine. She must have been able to feel the heavy weight of his erection throbbing against her stomach but she didn’t recoil from him. When his hand cupped her buttocks, bringing her into intimate contact with his arousal, she arched against him, letting him feel how responsive she also was to his touch.

A sexy little moan emerged from lips that were already wet and swollen from his kisses and his conscience resurfaced. Dio mio, he thought, if he didn’t stop this soon he would go all the way. He was in real danger of acting out the images that had been taunting him all morning, and while he couldn’t deny he wanted her, she was simply not for him.

She was too young, for one thing, and she probably saw this as just a pleasant adjunct to her holiday. She’d had a tough time of it so far, what with Ashley’s disappearance and her stepmother breathing down her neck. Not to mention his own less-than-subtle hints about what he thought of her family. He wasn’t conceited, but he could quite see that having him lusting after her might offer some compensation. Particularly if, as seemed likely, she had little experience with older men.

His own feelings were less straightforward. And however tempting making love with her might be, he still had enough sense to step back from the ultimate betrayal. He could do without any more complications in his life, he thought cynically. From his point of view, it would be a recipe for disaster.

Which was why, when he lifted his mouth from hers, he didn’t succumb to the urge to slide his hands beneath the hem of her tank top and let his thumbs caress the undersides of her breasts. He wanted to. Dio, he wanted to feel her pert nipples taut against his palms and to take those firm mounds of flesh into his hands. Instead, stifling a groan, he gripped her forearms and put her gently away from him, feeling every kind of a heel for having led her on in the first place.

Her confusion was obvious and he couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t been able to hide his body’s reaction to her and in her book there was probably only one conclusion to this affair. But when he met her troubled gaze with eyes that were deliberately regretful, she soon got the message. She took a stumbling backward step before turning and hurrying away along the beach.

‘Cara!’ He couldn’t use her name, that would be too familiar. ‘Cara,’ he called again. ‘I am sorry. I do not know what came over me.’

She muttered something then, but she was too far away for him to hear it. But he could imagine it wouldn’t be complimentary and who could blame her? He had behaved abominably and she deserved so much better. She was bound to think he had as little respect for her as he had for her sister.

Chapter Eight

THE wind chimes woke her.

Tess had thought that she wouldn’t sleep, but surprisingly enough she’d fallen into a deep slumber as soon as her head touched the pillow. Perhaps it had been the heat or the tiring quality of the journey, she mused, rolling onto her back and staring up at the dust motes dancing in the rays of sun seeping through the blinds into the bedroom. Or more likely it had been the stress, she thought bitterly, as the remembrance of the previous day’s events hit her. Oh, God, she had behaved so stupidly. And that after the embarrassment she’d suffered at Maria Sholti’s hands.

Pushing herself up into a sitting position, Tess rested her elbows on her knees and pushed frustrated hands into her hair. The whole outing had been a mistake, from start to finish. Castelli should never have taken her with him, and, just because he had, she shouldn’t have run away with the idea that he was attracted to her.

How had that happened? All right, he’d given her some pretty smouldering looks, but he was an Italian, for God’s sake. Italians were supposed to be the most romantic race in the world, weren’t they? She’d obviously read more into it than he could possibly have meant. She should have been on her guard. After that scene at the Sholtis’ hotel, she should have been wary of any uncharacteristic behaviour on his part. A man who could treat his daughter so coldly was surely not to be trusted.

Yet what had happened on the beach hadn’t been entirely her fault, she consoled herself. She’d provoked him, yes, and he’d responded. It had been as simple—and as complicated—as that. She should have let him take his walk alone.

She should never have tagged along. If she’d stayed and finished her salad she wouldn’t be berating herself now.