Sicilian Nights Omnibus (24 page)

‘But you would like that choice? You would wish, if you could, to be restored to your sexuality? To be reunited with it? So that armed with it you could have the freedom and the right to find someone with whom ultimately you might share your life?’

‘I...’ She desperately wanted to hang on to her pride and deny that she wanted any such thing, but Falcon’s words had awakened inside her such a sharply painful, yearning pang of longing for all that she could not have that it shamed her into telling him the truth. ‘Yes,’ she admitted.

Falcon looked away from her. He had come to a decision. It had been there all the time he had been listening to her. Initially it had been more of an awareness that had now coalesced into the decision that he now realised he had somehow known he must make right from the beginning.

‘There is something I have to say to you,’ he told Annie. ‘Your right to your sexuality has been stolen from you by a member of my sex, and the damage that he has done has been compounded by a member of my family. As a Leopardi, and the eldest of my brothers, I have a duty to make recompense to you and to restore to you what has been taken away. That is the law of the Leopardi family and the code by which we live.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ Annie told him unsteadily.

Something dark and steely glinted in the depths of his eyes as he turned his head to look at her.

‘It is my duty,’ he repeated. ‘A duty I owe not just to you but to Oliver, who shares my blood. He has the right to grow up with a mother who rejoices in her sexuality instead of fearing it, and who can thus show him a good example of all that a woman who values herself should be. How can he choose a partner who is worthy of him if he does not know what to look for? It is your duty as his mother to provide him with a template for that woman.’

With every word he said Falcon was making her feel more guilty.

‘It’s all very well you saying all this,’ she told him helplessly. ‘But I can’t become the kind of woman you describe.’

‘Yes, you can. With me as your guide and teacher.’

CHAPTER SIX

W
ITH
HIM
AS
her guide and teacher? Did that mean what she thought it meant? Annie’s heart started to thud unsteadily.

‘Give me your hand,’ Falcon demanded.

Reluctantly Annie held out her hand, stiffening when he took it and held it between his own.

‘Five minutes ago you said to me, “What man these days wants a woman like me? A single mother, who doesn’t know the first thing about how to give and receive sexual pleasure, or what it’s like to enjoy sex.” I believe that deep down inside you
do
want to take back to yourself what has been stolen from you, and that you
do
want to walk free as a sexually confident and happy woman. Isn’t that so?’

‘I don’t know,’ Annie answered uncertainly. Her heart was racing. She felt as though she was confronting something she knew to be dangerous but that she also found enticing and exciting.

‘Yes, you do,’ Falcon corrected her. ‘You love Oliver, and you know that ultimately, in order to give him the right to grow up confident in his own sexuality, you need to be confident in yours. I can teach you how to be what you want to be. You said earlier that you trusted me?’

‘I...’

‘I promise you that you can. I promise that I will not hurt you or abuse you, or do anything that you do not wish me to do. But I also promise you that I will show you and teach you that you have the right to own your own sexuality, to take pleasure in it and give pleasure through it.’

He meant what he said, Annie recognised weakly. He was a crusader, a motivator, a man with a mission—and he meant to restore to her what she had thought was forever lost.

‘If you wish, step by step, I will help you to rediscover what has been stolen from you. You do not have to accept. I would be as bad as your stepbrother if I coerced you verbally or emotionally to accept my help. All I will say to you is that you should ask yourself what you really want and be brave enough to take it. Once you have made that decision I promise that I will be here for you and with you. There won’t be anything you can’t tell me or ask me.’

‘What you’re saying is that for Oliver’s sake and my own I need to learn what it is to enjoy sex. But we don’t...we don’t...’

‘We don’t what?’

‘We don’t
love
one another,’ Annie told him.

There was a gleam in his eyes that made her heart thud as though it was flinging itself against her ribcage.

‘It is not necessary to love to enjoy good sex. It
is
, though, important to share a mutual attraction.’

He paused whilst her heart somersaulted and thudded so much that she had to lift her hand to her chest, in an attempt to steady its frantic beat.

‘It is my belief that we share such an attraction.’

‘No...I mean, I don’t think...’

‘You don’t think what? That I find you attractive? I assure you that I do.’

Falcon was still holding her hand, and now to her shock he turned it over, then gently ran the pad of his thumb over her inner wrist.

Lightning surges of reaction hot-wired up her arm, causing her to gasp out loud and try to pull away.

Falcon was watching her closely, and Annie knew that her reaction had been plain to him and had given her away.

‘You gave me a shock,’ she told him feebly. It was the truth—even if the reality was that the shock he had given her had been entirely sexually charged rather than mentally.

‘I gave you pleasure,’ Falcon corrected her softly. ‘And your pleasure gave me pleasure. Imagine, if the touch of my thumb can give us both that pleasure, how much more intense it would be if I followed up the touch of my thumb with the caress of my lips.’

Oh, to be a Victorian virgin and free to swoon, Annie thought feverishly. Because that was the only guaranteed way she could think of escaping from her present situation. And by her present situation what she meant was the sheer extent of the feeling of longing that surged through her at the mental images Falcon’s soft words had created.

‘It is entirely possible to enjoy sex without loving someone, you know,’ he was telling her now. ‘Just so long as there is mutual respect and understanding, and a mutual desire to give and receive pleasure. There is nothing shameful in that—no matter what your stepbrother may have tried to make you think.’

He had released her hand now, and she was delighted that he had done so. Totally delighted. And relieved that he hadn’t thought it necessary to show her just what the caress of his lips could do. Absolutely. Definitely.

‘You don’t have to make up your mind right now. I have to fly to Florence later this afternoon, for a meeting about a building I’m involved in helping to renovate,’ Falcon told her. ‘I shall be back by tomorrow evening. You can give me your decision then. I’m not your stepbrother, Annie. I might tell you what I think would help you, but only
you
can make the decision as to whether or not you agree with my assessment of the situation and want to accept my help.’

* * *

Annie leaned over the still, sun-warmed water of the fish pond in the middle of the formal garden, dropping in some crumbs of bread for the fat lazy goldfish and then trailing her fingers in the water. Ollie slept in his buggy. By now Falcon would be in Florence. The
castello
felt empty without him.

When he came back— Her hand jerked, disturbing the basking fish, her skin burning. She didn’t want to think about his return, because that meant she would have to think about the decision she had to make before that return.

There was no decision to make, she reassured herself determinedly, standing up and taking hold of the buggy, preparing to take Ollie back inside. She was happy as she was.

* * *

She was happy as she was. Was she? Then why was she repeating those words to herself as though they were some kind of mantra she needed to use to reinforce her belief in her own words? Annie asked herself later than evening as she prepared for bed. She wanted to escape from the disconcerting pressure of the increasingly rebellious thoughts that were trying to undermine the sensible decision she had already made.

Although thankfully she had no memory of Antonio’s abuse, he
had
stolen something from her. And that was her right to give her body freely to the man of her own choice for that first special time. Deep down inside it
did
hurt to know that her body’s only experience of sex was such a cruel one. If she was honest, didn’t she feel cheated of something very special? Of something that could have been and should have been very sweet? Nothing and no-one could give her back what she had lost, but what Falcon was offering her could be a very special gift to her body. Didn’t she owe herself that for what Antonio had taken?

Falcon was man enough to offer to recompense her—was she woman enough to accept? A frisson of something that could have been dangerously close to excitement raced down her spine.

Falcon. Even his name sounded strong.
He
was strong. Strong enough to conquer her past and her pain? Could she afford to let him try?

For Ollie’s sake, could she afford not to?

She felt so restless and on edge—so buoyed-up and...and filled with conflicting feelings.

It was only half past nine. No doubt in Florence Falcon’s evening would only just be beginning, Annie acknowledged as she ran a bath for herself, hoping it would soothe her and help her to sleep.

Falcon might be stepping into the shower, before going out for the evening. Unbidden and definitely unwanted, out of nowhere she had a mental image of him standing beneath the shower, water cascading down onto his broad shoulders, and from there down over his chest, smoothing and flattening the dark hair on his body, running in rivulets that arrowed downwards.

Annie gasped, and tried to sink beneath the water of her bath to hide her shocked chagrin. What was the matter with her? She had never thought about a man like this before—imagining him naked, imagining him aroused, imagining that arousal giving her a feast of varied sensual pleasures. It was an imagining which now had a very real physical effect on her own body, in the tightening of her nipples and in the slow, grinding ache that had taken possession of her lower body.

What would Falcon think of her body? Would he think it attractive? Would it arouse him? Her breasts were firm and full. She had been so embarrassed when she had been the first girl in her class to need a bra—and even more uncomfortable when Colin had started asking her if boys ever tried to touch them. After that she had taken to wearing tops that were big and loose to disguise them.

If she accepted Falcon’s offer he wouldn’t expect her to do that. He’d want her to take pride in them. He’d want to see them and touch them—kiss them, perhaps. What was she doing, allowing herself to think like this? She’d already decided that she wasn’t going to accept his offer—hadn’t she?

She tried to think about something else—anything else. She didn’t need to rediscover her lost sexuality. She was happy as she was. She had her adored son, and she felt she was on the verge of making a good friend in Julie. She and Rocco were so obviously happy together, and they loved one another very much. Anyone could see that. Every smile and every touch they exchanged showed their feelings for one another. Wouldn’t
she
secretly like to be like that? To have a partner, someone with whom she shared that kind of bond of love and commitment? No, she wouldn’t.

They might be lucky enough to love one another, but couples made commitments to one another every day of the week and then regretted them. She didn’t need anyone else in her life, she didn’t need Falcon to teach her to let go of the past, and most especially she didn’t need Falcon to show her how to reawaken her suppressed sexuality. Because it was already awakening of its own accord. And she was afraid that if it awakened any more she might be in danger of enjoying her lessons way too much.

That was ridiculous.

But so was trying to lie to herself that she would be happy to spend the rest of her life alone. Everyone needed and wanted love.

She had Ollie.

Who one day would want to live his own life, find his own personal happiness. How would she feel if he was unable to do that because of her?

Her bathwater was growing cold, and her head was beginning to ache with the weight of her confused and contradictory thoughts.

Don’t think about it any more.

She wasn’t going to.

She stepped out of the bath and reached for a towel.

What was Falcon doing now? Was he thinking about her at all?

Why should he be thinking about her. She didn’t
want
him to be thinking about her. Because if she did then that would mean...

What? What would it mean? Certainly not that she had some private ulterior motive for wanting to agree to his suggestion. Those almost forgotten frissons of sensation that had stoked her body into renewed sensual life from the first minute she had seen him meant nothing other than that her body was one step ahead of her head, that it was already eager to become the body of a woman who knew and understood her own sensuality.

Freedom was beckoning her. It was freedom that was causing such an intoxication of her senses, overwhelming the barriers of her anxiety and fear.

There was nothing personal in those unsettling little surges of sensation that pulsed through her and gripped her every time she allowed herself to acknowledge that Falcon was a very male man. It was just the same kind of natural response to a situation as the tingling that came from blood returning to numbed flesh.

Pulling on her bathrobe, Annie walked through her own bedroom and into the nursery, where Ollie lay peacefully asleep in his cot.

With a mother’s instinct she knew it wasn’t just her imagination that her son was thriving in his new environment. He had put on weight. And already his skin—despite the copious amounts of sun protection cream in which she smothered it—was warming to what she suspected was really its natural colour. It hadn’t escaped her that the colour was closer to Falcon’s skin tone than it was to her own. Already he seemed to be taking a much greater interest in his surroundings, smiling more readily at the strangers who had come in to his life than he ever had at strangers in London. Did he somehow, with his baby instinct, sense that these new people were
his
people, of
his
blood?

What she would be doing if she accepted Falcon’s offer wouldn’t be so much for herself as for Ollie. Annie felt love for her baby gripping her heart. When he grew up she wanted more than anything else what surely every loving parent wanted for their child. She wanted his happiness and his joy in life. She wanted him to know and share love, and to build good relationships out of that knowledge. She wanted for him all that she had not known but must for his sake learn.

But could she do it? Could she find the strength to thrust herself into the fire and endure more, much more, of what she already felt when Falcon touched her?