The Sicilian's Innocent Mistress

Darci couldn’t answer him for several seconds, totally thrown by the expanse of his broad back in the black silk shirt, and by how his muscles rippled beneath the softness of the material.

She had no idea how much time Luc necessarily spent behind a desk for his work, but he obviously made time to work out in a gym: his shoulders were wide and powerful, his chest muscles, and his stomach lean and flat.

In fact, all that lean maleness took her breath away!

Maybe she did have a fever? It would certainly explain the symptoms she was exhibiting: shortness of breath, fevered brow, flushed cheeks and a dry throat.

But she had a feeling that sexual awareness would also explain her ailments—the aching, heavy feeling of her breasts, and the moist heat gathering between her thighs!

She swallowed hard. ‘There really is no need for you to stay, Luc. I was about to go to bed anyway—’ She broke off, her eyes wide, and gave Luc an awkward glance for what she had just said.

Luc gave a knowing smile at her obvious discomfort. ‘Surely, Darci, you don’t imagine that I’m about to take advantage of your weakened state?’ he mocked softly, all the time knowing that was exactly what he had been thinking of doing!

In fact, he seemed to have thought of nothing else, anticipated nothing else, but taking this woman to bed for the last two days. The memory of those challenging green eyes, her temptingly full lips and the lush promise of her body had intruded into his thoughts all too often during the last forty-eight hours.

Finding her here wearing nothing but those disreputable pyjamas was doing absolutely nothing for his tenuous restraint!

‘Of course not,’ she dismissed sharply, her moss-green gaze no longer meeting his. ‘I—You’ll find some juice in the fridge in the kitchen.’ Reluctantly, she pointed him in the right direction.

In keeping with the Georgian building in which the flat was housed, the kitchen was long and rambling, with a large work-table in its centre and a breakfast bar at one end, at which it was possible to sit and eat. The room was obviously normally at the centre of life in this spacious apartment. The pots and pans hanging on one wall showed evidence of frequent use, along with the dried herbs set next to the Aga range, for adding to each dish as it was prepared.

A capable cook himself when there was the need, Luc could easily envisage cooking a meal in here with Darci—with or without the pyjamas.

Preferably without!

His body hardened just at the thought of a naked Darci moving effortlessly around the kitchen as they prepared a meal together, at the image of the fullness of her naked breasts, and those lean hips and thighs with a triangle of fiery red hair at their apex…

Having arrived at Garstang’s on time this evening, he had been at first irritated, then worried, when Darci hadn’t arrived at the restaurant at the appointed time. Then the pendulum had swung to anger as the minutes had ticked by with no sign of her arrival nor a telephone call to explain her tardiness.

It had been almost a relief when James, the maître d’ had approached his table with the message that Darci had telephoned and was unable to join him after all because she wasn’t well.

Almost…

Because Luc hadn’t been fooled for a minute by the telephone message. In fact, he was sure that James hadn’t been, either. The surprised look in the other man’s eyes had been in complete contrast to his politely bland expression! Luc knew that if Darci had really been ill, she would have telephoned the restaurant much earlier than she had to inform him she wasn’t able to join him.

Which meant she had to have deliberately left him waiting at the table in Garstang’s.

The question was, why had she?

Luc had been a little taken aback two evenings ago when Darci had made it a condition of their date that he take her somewhere sinfully expensive if he wanted her to meet him at all. The fact that she then hadn’t even bothered to turn up had intrigued him enough for him to take the unprecedented step of contacting Grant in order to ask for his sister’s address.

Grant’s surprise that his sister and Luc were actually supposed to be out on a date together this evening had been even more interesting, and posed the question why hadn’t Darci informed her twin on Thursday evening that she had agreed to have dinner with Luc tonight?

Luc had a lot of questions where Darci Wilde was concerned.

Questions, one way or another, he was determined to have answers to…

CHAPTER FOUR

‘DRINK some of this. It will make you feel better.’

Darci, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, turned frowningly to take the glass of orange juice from Luc’s long tapered fingers, feeling like a fraud at his unexpected display of kindness.

Who would have thought that the heartless Luc Gambrelli, after having been informed Darci wasn’t well, would actually come here like this and offer to care for her until Kerry returned later this evening?

Darci certainly hadn’t.

It didn’t exactly fit in with her image of him as a selfish playboy, did it? she acknowledged, a troubled frown creasing her brow as she sipped the cold juice.

Maybe—

‘I also brought you this,’ Luc murmured, before placing something against her forehead.

That ‘something’ was several ice cubes wrapped in cling film which, once placed against Darci’s forehead, made her arch up in surprise. Her back stiffened as the intense cold was almost painful against her overheated skin.

‘Good grief!’ she gasped breathlessly, and she struggled to sit up—the action made harder because of the way she was sitting cross-legged. Her awkwardness dislodged the makeshift ice-pack and caused the cling film to burst open and scatter the ice cubes.

Most of them down the front of Darci’s pyjama jacket!

‘Oh, dear,’ Luc said ruefully as Darci, her entangled legs making it difficult for her to stand up, flapped the pyjama jacket in an effort to stop the icy cubes coming into contact with her flesh. The movement gave Luc, as he stood behind the sofa, tantalising glimpses of her bared breasts…

They were firm and uptilting, their nipples rose-pink, hard and enticing, causing his own flesh to burn, to stiffen, as his body responded.

Luc took a step around the sofa. ‘Would you like me to—?’

‘Don’t even think about it!’ Darci cut in warningly as she finally managed to stand up, allowing half a dozen ice cubes to fall onto the carpeted floor as she backed away from him. ‘You did that on purpose!’ she accused furiously, her cheeks flushed, her green eyes sparkling.

Much as they would look when she was sexually rather than emotionally aroused…

‘I was merely trying to help, Darci,’ he contradicted. Her pyjama jacket was damp in several places now, the wetness of the material clinging to her luscious curves…

‘By almost giving me a heart attack?’ she scorned. ‘I don’t think so!’

Luc didn’t think so, either, having considered, as he took the ice cubes out of the freezer to put into her drink, that perhaps a cold awakening was the least Darci deserved for what he was now convinced had been a deliberate ploy on her part to stand him up this evening.

Since arriving at her apartment, Luc had noted the look of absolute horror on Darci’s face when she’d opened the door and found him standing there, had taken in at a glance the almost empty bowl of popcorn in the sitting-room and the fact that the DVD player was on ‘Pause’, and had become convinced that Darci was no more ill than he was! Before he’d arrived she had obviously been lying on the sofa indulging herself by watching a movie and eating popcorn. Toffee popcorn, he had noted irrelevantly.

The fact that she had decided to continue with the deception of her supposed illness had brought out a need for retribution in him. Hence the deliberately precarious cling film wrap on the ice cubes…

‘Now, why on earth would you even suggest that I should deliberately cause those ice cubes to fall?’ he asked with feigned innocence.

Darci didn’t know—surely Luc couldn’t have guessed that her excuse about being ill in order to avoid their date this evening had been a complete fabrication?—she was only sure that he had.

‘Because—Well, because—’ She broke off as Luc took another step towards her, taking a step back herself as she easily read the intent in those dark, compelling eyes.

Luc Gambrelli was going to kiss her!

‘I told you not to even think about it!’ she warned sharply as, her gaze fixed on his, she continued to back away—only to come to an abrupt halt as her back hit the wall.