Page 29 of Hired By The Forbidden Italian
But her feverish mind was playing second fiddle to her even more feverish body and she knew that her breathing had become sluggish, and her eyes remained treacherously riveted to his dark, unbearably handsome face.
She reached out to gently push him back, to create some desperately needed space between their bodies, but found her hand remained on his stomach, and after a couple of seconds he covered her hand with his and then stroked it, rolling his finger over her knuckles, which elicited a soft moan from her.
Sophie closed her eyes and tiptoed up, inviting his kiss. Still, the touch of his lips against hers sent a rush of blood to her head and she almost swayed. She reached to clutch his shirt and took a step towards him, eyes still closed, not breaking their contact, just loving the feel of his tongue against hers, wet and hungry.
She was close enough to feel the prominent bulge in his shorts and moaned again.
The air was warm and sultry and the stillness of the dark night around them seemed to lock them into a bubble where the only sounds were the telltale noises of two people craving more.
And how long would they have remained there, locked in their embrace?
Would they have somehow found themselves making out like a couple of horny teenagers by the side of the pool?
At what point would one of them have woken up to the madness of what they were doing?
Neither had the chance because they were interrupted by a soft cough from somewhere behind them.
It was so soft that for a few seconds Sophie wasn’t sure whether she’d heard anything at all, but then suddenly Niccolo was drawing back and she heard him swear in Italian under his breath before spinning round to face the elderly couple now stepping out of the shadows.
Sophie blinked.
Vincenzo de Luca and his lovely, charming wife, Maria. Vincenzo was the head of the Italian family selling to Niccolo. Sophie had spent ages chatting to both of them and one of their sons.
The couple were as family-oriented as Sophie’s own parents had been, bursting with pride at the achievements of their boys and eager to show her pictures of their grandchildren.
Their stay on the yacht, just long enough to fine tune the final details of the deal—which she had shrewdly interpreted as making sure that Niccolo was the real deal...an honourable man who treated his staff well and was considerate to all members of the de Luca clan and not simply the ones that held the pens to sign the deeds—would be followed by a huge family holiday in Tuscany.
They couldn’t wait.
And now here they were, smiling broadly and moving towards them, and Sophie’s heart sank so fast she was surprised she didn’t keel over from the impact.
Vincenzo said something to Niccolo in very fast Italian and, picking up minute signs of embarrassment, she noted Niccolo’s passing flush before he drew her towards him, hand curled round her waist, just as Maria said, with a little whisper of delight to Sophie, ‘I told my Vincenzo when we went to bed that the two of you were in love. I am amammaand anonnaand I can see these things.’
Framed by a halo of moonlight, Sophie could see the sparkle in her dark eyes.
Around her waist, Niccolo’s hand felt heavy and deeply intimate.
They had decided to venture to the top deck to see what the view was like, they explained. It was such a lovely evening it felt a shame to let it go to waste.
Sophie’s smile had frozen into something she fancied might look reasonably terrifying, and she did her best to relax.
They’d been caughtin flagrante delicto... Except they hadn’t been committing an offence. They had been wrapped around one another on the verge of making love and she knew, in a heartbeat, that Niccolo’s arm around her was the gesture of a man acquiescing to a pretence that was necessary. For him, the deal would risk being scuppered because the de Lucas were traditional enough to reconsider what they were on the verge of signing if they got it into their heads that their knight in shining armour was a bounder.
And for her?
She knew how much this deal meant to Niccolo and she cared that he got it. And more than that, she had really liked the elderly couple.
She saw the warm pleasure on their faces to learn that she and Niccolo were an item and, with an inward sigh of resignation, she nestled a bit closer to Niccolo, playing along with the fiction.
Relief and a certain apprehension filled Niccolo. He had expected her to stiffen against him, not move closer. He had banked on their weird body language being misinterpreted under cover of darkness. The very second he had become aware of the presence of his clients on the deck with them, he had foreseen an awkward situation between himself and Sophie, but here she was, nudging her ballet-dancer-graceful body against his side, laughing and chatting without a care in the world.
It was doing the trick, he thought, but what might be the price for this particular gambit?
Something spontaneous was fast turning into a situation where damage limitation might be needed.
He’d thrown the rulebook out of the window the second he’d met this woman. There hadn’t been the usual predictable path that always invariably led to the bedroom. A path where certain ground rules were laid down and parameters put in place.
Yes, he’d confided in her, much to his surprise, but had that been enough to fill her in on the lie of the land? Had she got the big picture? That he was a man who wasn’t in it for the long term?
