Wife in the Shadows (16 page)

A voice she did not recognise mumbled
‘Grazie.’

‘Prego,’
Luca returned and she felt the swift brush of his lips on the nape of her neck before he turned away to stretch out on his own towel.

She pretended to doze, keeping her eyes closed, letting her breathing slow to a quiet rhythm, but her body was wide-awake, in thrall to this delicious agony of need that his touch had engendered. Which he must realise, she thought unhappily. He
was an experienced man who’d know exactly what effect even the most casual caress would have. Who intended it to arouse and incite. To make her want him.

Because—hadn’t seduction been his purpose ever since he’d walked into the
trattoria
some forty eight hours earlier and seen her there? She swallowed. After all, he’d hardly made a secret of it. Had he? And her rejection of him had only made him more determined, if only to heal his damaged male ego.

I should never have let this begin, she thought desperately. I should have gone while I had the chance. Headed south. Found a small
pensione
somewhere equally unfashionable and played the waiting game until I could call Santino and check that Luca had gone and it was safe to return.

But it was pride that kept me here. Wanting to prove to myself that I could cope with the situation and keep him at arm’s length. That very same pride that took me away from Vostranto. The need to convince myself that I was in charge of my own destiny and needed to take the initiative. To jump before I was pushed.

Yet how could I have imagined that something like this could ever happen? That he could suddenly appear like this, turning my life upside down, so that I no longer know what to do—or even who I am any more?

But it’s left me with only one certainty—that if I let him any closer to me, I’ll be lost forever, faced with a lifetime of regret. And I cannot afford that, especially when all he wants is a few hours’ entertainment. Because there can’t be any more to it than that and he has to know that. Has to.

And she went on lying silently there, only a few inches away from him, the ache of desire in her body fighting the turmoil in her mind. Knowing she would only have to stretch out a hand to touch him while reciting all the very real and cogent reasons to do no such thing.

Recalling another time when the urge to touch a man—to offer him her body—had almost overwhelmed her and reminding herself, too, of the unhappiness that would inevitably have followed if she’d given way. The shame she would have felt
after revealing her innermost feelings and needs to someone whom she knew neither loved nor cared for her in the ways that mattered. The misery of discovering where his desires were truly centred.

Luca was the opposite of the husband she had left, but he was equally an enigma, his motives inexplicable. Which made him even more dangerous.

And the feelings he’d so effortlessly awoken in her—the longing to be touched as a woman, taken—would, in the end, lead only to disaster because there could be no lasting commitment from him either.

Caught up as she was in these mental struggles, she was suddenly jolted by the touch of his hand on her shoulder and rolled away from him with a gasp, remembering too late that her top was unfastened.

A wave of heated crimson swept up from her toes as she hastily covered her bare breasts with her hands, but Luca merely picked up her bikini bra and handed it to her without comment.

Once she was safely covered again, he said, glancing at the sky, ‘It is becoming hotter than ever, so I suggest we look for somewhere with shade to have lunch.’

She took a deep breath, words of polite but resolute denial forming in her head that would finally and inexorably convince him he was wasting his time, only to hear herself say huskily, ‘Yes—that seems a good idea.’

They chose a bar at the end of the promenade, sitting at a table under its striped awning to eat large prawns grilled on skewers accompanied by rice salad and fresh bread, and drink cold local beer. It was delicious, messy and relaxed in a way she wouldn’t have dreamed it could be.

And he talked to her—asking her tastes in music, books, and the theatre. Making her laugh with his frankly cynical comments about the political situation. Seeking her views on topics like the global economy and climate change. Avoiding the questions she knew she would have found impossible to answer.

At the same time, at every moment, she was aware of his eyes on her, sometimes smiling, sometimes searching, always brilliant in their intensity. Aware of the proud lines of his nose and cheekbones—and how that lord-of-creation look softened when his mouth curved in amusement. Found herself watching him as if mesmerised. As if to gaze forever would not be enough.

Felt the ache of forbidden necessity deep within her. The helpless, shameful thrust of her hardening nipples against the confines of her bikini.

And when the meal was over, the bill paid, and Luca stood up, saying softly, ‘Helen,
mia carissima,
I think it is time for a
siesta,’
she went with him willingly, her hand clasped in his, back to Casa Bianca. Her retreat. Her own very private space, shared with no-one. Until this moment.

Her hand shook as she tried to fit the key in the lock, and Luca took it from her and opened the door, then picked her up in his arms and lifted her over the threshold as if she was a bride.

Too late now to listen to the voice in her head telling her to step back because this was all wrong—so very wrong. That there could be no future with this man who was offering her only the transient pleasure of the moment. And—most of all—that she didn’t do things like this—and never had. That there would be a price to be paid which she could not afford.

Then his lips took hers and the voice was silenced.

They were lying together on the bed, naked, in the warm golden light slanting across the bed from the shuttered window. The few clothes they’d been wearing had been tossed aside like leaves in a breeze as Luca had undressed her and then himself between kisses, his hands moving over her uncovered skin as if he was touching the delicate petals of a flower.

He pulled her closer, his kiss deepening as his tongue sought hers, thrusting into the sweetness of her mouth with sensual urgency, astonishing her with the swift glory of her response, her hands clasping his shoulders, twining round his neck, stroking
his thick dark hair. Learning every smooth, supple line of him. Unable, it seemed, even in those first moments, to get enough of him as if a lifetime’s waiting was ending at last.

Knowing, too, that, whatever pain still waited for her, there could be no turning back.

His hands moved downwards, his fingers moulding the swell of her breasts, teasing the rosy peaks to lift to the voluptuous caress of his mouth, making the breath sigh from her parted lips as he suckled her gently.

She had not known until now that her entire body could sing to the slow, languorous glide of a man’s hands and lips exploring her. That there would be excitement to be discovered in the arch of her throat, the softness of her underarms and the inner hollow of her elbow. That his slow traverse of her spinal column would make her rear blindly against him, gasping, or that she would moan with pleasure as he cupped her small, firm buttocks and traced the slender line of her flanks.

But then no-one had touched her like this before, or whispered soft words of desire against the newly awakened eagerness of her untutored flesh.

Nor had she experienced the tip of a tongue seeking the whorls of her ear, or teeth nibbling gently at its lobe.

Her thighs had never parted, as they were doing now, welcoming the heated arousal of her lover’s erection pressed between them. She reached down to find him, her fingertips stroking the silken length of the engorged male shaft in a kind of wonderment, as she felt his whole body quiver in responsive delight, making her realise that her need was shared—equalled.

And that it was too late to remind herself that it was only a temporary delight. That there could be no future in this. None.

His fingers were moving on her too, gently, exquisitely igniting new sensations, as he sought her tiny hidden pinnacle, bringing it to aching, swollen, delicious life, making her whimper, wordlessly, pleadingly against his shoulder as her body lifted to the delicate torment of his caress.

She was instantly aware of his touch changing, intensifying, drawing her inexorably into some blind, mindless region of the senses. Holding her there on an unknown brink for a breathless eternity before releasing her into a throbbing, soaring agony of pleasure.

And her body was still shaking from the last lingering tremors of rapture when he lifted himself over her, entering her, filling her with total completeness, then sliding his hands under her hips and raising her towards him in a silent command to lock her legs round his waist.

As he began to move slowly and rhythmically inside her, Ellie found herself remembering another time, another place, another man.

Recalling the feelings, the instincts she’d so deliberately denied herself then, but allowing them free rein now because it was all so incredibly, indescribably different.

Letting herself mirror every strong, powerful thrust, answering his demands with her own, her entire being alive and enthralled by the unexpected potential of her awakened sexuality. Feeling her inner muscles close round him then release. Hearing him groan in husky satisfaction at her response—at this mutual and glorious attuning of their bodies. Clinging to his sweat-slicked shoulders, as her mouth drank from his with eager, entranced delight.

I never dreamed …
The only coherent thought that came to her as their bodies rose and fell together.
I never dreamed.

Yet this was no dream. This was stark and beautiful reality, as inevitable as her next flurried breath.
What I was born for …

Luca was moving faster now, driving more deeply into her hot, wet sheath, and Ellie could feel a strange, sweet tension building within her like a fist slowly clenching. A small, aching sound was forced from her throat as she stared up, eyes widening, at the man above her, dark against the sunlight, the sensations he was creating spiralling relentlessly out of control. Carrying her away on the scalding tide of his desire.

Then, as the first harsh spasm tore through her and she dissolved into shuddering helpless ecstasy, she cried out, her voice breaking on his name and heard him answer her.

W
HEN THE WORLD
finally stopped reeling, Ellie found she was lying in his arms, her head pillowed on his chest, as he gently stroked the damp hair back from her forehead. There were a thousand questions teeming in her mind, but the warm aftermath of passion was being superseded by a sudden agony of shyness at the memory of her abandoned surrender, and she knew she could ask none of them.

He must have sensed her growing tension because he said softly, ‘Is all well with you,
mia bella?
I did not—hurt you?’

‘No—oh, no.’ She hesitated then said on a little rush of words, ‘I just—didn’t realise—didn’t know …’

‘And now that you do?’ He tilted her chin, raising her face for his kiss. Caressing her lips with his until she relaxed back into his embrace. ‘You have no regrets I hope?’

‘No,’ Ellie said slowly. ‘I’ll never have those—whatever happens.’

‘Even when I have to leave you?’ His hand slid down to clasp the curve of her hip.

There was a heartbeat of silence, then she said, ‘Are you planning to go?’

‘At some moment,
sì.’
There was a smile in his voice.
‘Naturalmente,
I have to return to my hotel to change my clothes,
mia cara,
in order to take you to dinner.’ He kissed her again. ‘But not immediately,’ he murmured against her lips, his hand moving with quiet purpose.

‘No,’ she whispered back. ‘Not immediately.’ And gave
herself up to the renewed joy of his touch. The slow delicious establishment of a need as passionate as it was mutual. A reaching out to each other that somehow transcended the purely physical, as it carried them to the sweet agony of orgasm, and as Ellie rested in its honeyed aftermath, she realised there were tears on her face.

Afterwards, she made coffee, black and strong, and as she carried the cups into the living room, she found him, fresh from the shower, a towel draped round his hips, studying her laptop and the files beside it.

He turned to look at her, his slow smile reminding her of what had just happened between them under the warm cascade of water, and a wave of heat enveloped her.

‘You work here?’ His brows lifted.

‘Of course.’ Ellie kept her tone light. ‘Just as I would in any other place. I have my living to earn.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said softly. ‘And you do—what precisely?’

‘I translate from English for a publishing house called Avortino.’

‘Love stories,
mia bella?’
His tone teased her.

Ellie shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. Mostly non-fiction. Often quite technical stuff.’ She opened the top file and handed him a couple of pages. ‘You see?’

He drew her to him, his arm lightly round her waist, and read, grimacing slightly. ‘You find this—interesting?’

‘Not this particular assignment perhaps. But, on the whole, it’s a job I love,’ she said.
And it demands a high level of concentration—something which has proved a lifeline in the past and may do so again.

She added quietly, ‘In future, I may go back to working in-house. I haven’t quite decided yet.’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘In your situation, there must be so many decisions to be made.’

As well as many more that will be made for me.

He drank his coffee, and put down the cup. ‘Now, I must go.’ He picked up his discarded clothes still lying with hers on
the floor, mute evidence of how eagerly they’d stripped each other as soon as the front door closed behind them.

As he dropped his towel, Ellie moved closer, running a tantalising finger down the length of his strong spine. ‘Do you have to—really?’ she whispered.

He grinned at her over his shoulder.
‘Sì, carissima.
We have to eat,
dopo tutto
and I think even Santino would draw the line if we arrived tonight like this.’ He caught his breath as her hand strayed lower. ‘However, the sooner I leave, my little witch, the sooner I shall return. And after we have eaten, we shall have the entire night to please each other so do not tempt me now.’

‘You mean I could?’

He dragged on his shorts, zipped them and turned to pull her into his arms. ‘Always,’ he muttered unevenly against her lips.

Alone, Ellie pressed a hand to the soft tingle of her mouth, aware that her entire body was aglow, singing with fulfilment.

I’m a different person, she thought wonderingly. I’ve been re-born—and nothing will ever be the same again.

And she whispered his name, yearningly, achingly, into the silence.

But it can’t last.

That was what Ellie had to keep telling herself, over and over again as each blissful day and night slid past and a measure of sanity began to return. It just can’t …

However warm and passionate it might be, however sweet the madness, it was still only an interlude. It had no future and when the real world intervened again, which at some point it must, she would have to learn to be alone again.

Even the mark on her finger where her wedding ring had been had now faded as if it had never existed—rather, she thought, like the marriage itself. A few months that had involved a different lifetime and a different girl. A place to which she could never return. A time for her to begin her life again.

Once or twice Ellie had wished that she still had some of the designer clothes and sexy lingerie that had filled the closets at Vostranto, so that she could wow him when he arrived to pick her up each evening.

On the other hand, as she reminded herself, none of those glamorous garments had done much for her in the past, so instead she’d visited Porto Vecchio’s only boutique and bought herself a new and very inexpensive dress, in a soft and floating fabric with dark green flowers on a cream background, and watched with delight his face light up when he saw her.

‘How very lovely you are,’ he’d whispered as he kissed her, his hands sensuous as they moulded her slender shape through the thin material. Making them, as she recalled, very late for dinner even by Italian standards.

Although they spent most of their waking hours—as well as the time they slept—together, he had never asked if he might move out of the hotel and join her at Casa Bianca as she’d half-expected, and Ellie had hesitated to suggest it herself. After all, it was hardly a necessity, she thought, when they were so happy with life just as it was.

Also, it seemed that he had totally accepted her need to work because he never intruded on her after he’d left for the hotel each morning, generally timing his return for around noon. It occurred to her that perhaps he also had matters to attend to in the interim period, although he never mentioned them directly.

All that, she thought, savoured too much of the real world rather than the idyll they were sharing, and maybe he thought so too.

The warm weather continued, drawing them each afternoon to the beach and the shade of their rock, usually accompanied by Poco. The Signora was clearly intrigued by her young neighbour’s new human companion, her eyes twinkling at him in undisguised appreciation, but she nobly forbore to ask any questions. And if she saw him leave in the early mornings, it was never mentioned.

When, at last, she did sound a note of caution, it concerned the weather rather than personal relationships.

‘No more beautiful days.’ She peered at the sky frowning. ‘Tomorrow, or perhaps tonight there will be rain. Perhaps a storm.’

‘Oh,’ Ellie said, dismayed. ‘I hope you’re wrong.’

‘Never,’ the Signora exclaimed superbly. She pressed a dramatic fist to the shelf of her bosom. ‘I know this place the whole of my life. I know how quickly things can change. So make the most of today, Elena, because it cannot last.’

And as Ellie walked back to Casa Bianca, she heard the echo of her own inner warnings, and felt herself shiver as if the threatened rain had already begun to fall.

By evening, the clouds were already gathering and a chilly wind had sprung up making the candle-flames dance and flicker under their glass shades at the
trattoria.

‘The Signora was right,’ Ellie said as they ate their chicken
puttanesca.
‘All good things do come to an end.’

He took her hand, and she saw him looking down at her bare wedding finger. He said quietly, ‘But other things can take their place.’

She said with faint breathlessness, ‘Perhaps I don’t want anything to change.’

‘Yet I think it must.’ His voice was gentle. ‘Because we cannot continue as we are. Surely you see that.’

‘Yes.’ She withdrew her hand from his clasp. ‘Yes, I do. I—I accept that totally. I mean—when you came down here, you can’t have foreseen or planned for this to happen. For us to meet as we did.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You are right. I did not anticipate—any of it.’

‘And if you’d simply stayed in your hotel like most of the other guests, it would have been entirely different.’

‘I cannot deny that either.’ He picked up his glass and drank, the movement jerky.

She looked down at the table. ‘So I need you to know that I—I didn’t expect it either.’

His mouth twisted. ‘As you made clear,
mia cara.
You were not easy to convince.’

‘Then let me make this clear too.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t expect nor want anything more either.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘You cannot mean that,’ he said at last. ‘Are you saying these things because of the past? Because of your marriage—the way it was?’

‘I’m saying that we have our real lives—our actual commitments—far away from here.’ She lifted her chin. ‘We’ve had this—time together, these few days and nights, and they’ve been wonderful, but that’s all. There’s nothing else, and there never can be.’

She paused. ‘So maybe a change now is appropriate, even necessary. Isn’t there a saying—quit while you’re ahead?’

‘I have heard it used,’ he said slowly. ‘But is that truly what you wish?’

‘Yes,
signore.’
Her gaze met his without wavering. ‘It is.’

But I’m lying, she thought, pain twisting inside her. I want to hear you tell me that in spite of everything, we have a future. I want you to say that you love me. I wish for the impossible.

And, instead, saw him glance towards the window, hit by the first spatter of drops.

He said lightly, ‘It seems that, in any case, we will not be going to the beach tomorrow. What will Poco do?’

‘Stay indoors with the Signora.’ She made her tone match his, carefully masking the agony of loss. ‘He loves going in the sea, but he hates the rain. He doesn’t seem to recognise that they’re both water.’

He even managed to look amused. ‘Well, he is not alone in that,
mia cara.’
He paused. ‘Have you always liked dogs?’

‘We had a golden retriever when I was a child.’ She drank some wine. From somewhere managed to produce a reminiscent smile. ‘He was called Benji, and he was big and soft and sweet.’ She added with faint huskiness, ‘I missed him terribly when he died.’

And this—this is like another death …
‘He was not replaced?’

She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t possible. My father had a new job and we were moving to an apartment without a garden.’

‘Che peccato,’
he said. He leaned back in his chair, surveying her with narrowed eyes. ‘I am trying to imagine,’ he said, ‘how you looked when you were a little girl.’

Oh God, don’t do this to me—please.

She shrugged. ‘Scrawny. Hair in plaits. Big eyes.’ She grimaced. ‘Only the hairstyle has really changed.’

He gave a despairing glance at the ceiling.
‘Dio mio,
how many times do I need to say how beautiful you are before you believe me?’

At least once a day, she thought, for the rest of my life. One of so many things I can never tell you in return.

Santino lent them an ancient umbrella for the walk back to the Casa Bianca, its shelter precarious as the wind threatened to turn it inside out.

At the door, she halted. ‘Perhaps we should say
“Addio”
here.’

‘A clean break?’ he queried derisively. ‘No,
mia bella.
Never in this world.’

And as he had done that first time, he unlocked the door himself, carrying her into the house. Once inside, he put her on her feet and stood for a long moment, looking down into her face.

She tried again. ‘Believe me, please. This—is so unwise.’

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘But it is also far too late for wisdom.’

He took her gently in his arms and began to kiss her slowly and very deeply, his mouth moving on hers in insistent demand, making her moan softly with the aching need of arousal before he lifted her again, shouldering his way into the bedroom.

His hands were deft as he undressed her, his mouth tender and seeking on her uncovered body and she held him, hands clasping his shoulders, offering herself for his possession, gasping a little as he filled her and made her complete. As they
moved together in the unison that they had learned, knowing every nuance of each other’s responses.

Yet even as she began to dissolve into delight, Ellie could feel that he was holding back, concentrating on her pleasure, her satisfaction rather than his own. But it was too late for protest or to lure him into equal abandonment because her senses were already spiralling giddily out of control, her body shuddering in the first fierce spasms of climax.

And even after she had cried out, her voice lost and wondering, he had not finished with her, his lips performing a sensuous traverse down the length of her trembling sweat-dampened body, his hand parting her thighs for the voluptuous caress of his fingers and his tongue.

She tried to tell him that it was too soon—that it was impossible—but she couldn’t speak, caught once more in the irresistible rush of desire. Carried away almost inexorably. Convulsed—drained by its culmination.

He said her name hoarsely and took her again, his strong body driving her to limits she’d never guessed at. Urging her towards some dangerous edge and holding her there for a breathless, agonised eternity before permitting them both the harsh, pulsating tumult of release.

Sated, exhausted, Ellie lay beneath him, treasuring the relaxed weight of his body against hers, stroking the dark head pillowed on her breasts.