went with him, step by sightless step as he led her towards the big, squashy settee that stood before the huge open fireplace in the centre of the library.
‘Sit down…’ he dragged his mouth from hers long enough to say.
Obediently she sank down onto the soft cushions, her clinging hands pulling him down with her. As soon as he was beside her she moved closer, taking his mouth for herself, letting her tongue play intimately with his and slide along his lips.
‘Meggie…’
This time she found nothing to object to in his use of her childhood name. It was soft and tender, a seductive and a verbal caress in one. But what excited her most was the thread of total surrender in the sound, the wordless declaration of the way that he had abandoned himself totally to her lead.
The thought gave her a thrilling sense of power, one that had her reaching for his tie and tugging it loose at his throat. No sooner had she exposed the tanned skin, the strong, corded lines of his neck than the overwhelming need for more gripped her, driving her to impulsive action. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips against the point where his pulse raced, hard and strong, savouring the slightly salty taste of his flesh, the heated velvet against her mouth.
‘Meggie!’
It was a groan of resignation, a sound of total abandonment. In one twisting movement he came to lie on his back on the wide settee, with Megan half at his side, half lying across the supporting strength of his body.
His hands were impatient now, tugging the white T-shirt free of her jeans at her waist, pushing it upwards over her slender ribcage, his fingers caressing the exposed skin left in its path. Megan caught her breath sharply, writhing in pure delight, her breasts hardening, pouting, pushing against the confinement of her bra in a physical mirroring of the burning arousal she had seen in Cesare himself already.
‘Bellissima, magnifica, squisita…’ Cesare had lapsed into his own language, crooning the words deep in his throat, his lyrical accent growing deeper, more musical on every word. ‘Megan, you always were enchanting as a child, but as a woman…’
Words failed him as he lifted passion-glazed eyes to hers and for a moment it seemed as if time had frozen. For long, silent seconds, their gazes locked and it seemed to Megan that in that time there was some wordless question asked, and equally soundlessly answered.
She thought she could guess what was in Cesare’s mind. He still thought of her as a child, the infuriating youngster who had hung around him, dogging his every step until she must have driven him to distraction. And those thoughts must make him hesitate, wonder if she was ready to go further, if she was woman enough for him.
Surely the fearless, unwavering way she met that burning, questioning stare was enough of an answer for him? But just in case it wasn’t, she lowered her head and took his mouth again, deliberately putting every ounce of sensuality and enticement she possessed into the kiss, using it to communicate the heated need that throbbed between her legs.
‘The answer’s yes, Cesare,’ she whispered unevenly, her mouth very close to his ear. ‘If you want me then yes, yes, yes! I’m yours right here and now—anywhere and anyway you want me!’
His only answer was a thickly muttered and near-incoherent curse in raw Italian and a moment later Megan too was beyond thought as hot fingers slid underneath the elastic sides of her bra, not even pausing to unfasten the slip of lace at the back. Her involuntary cry as the hard warmth of his palms cupped and held the soft weight of her breasts was a primitive sound of ecstasy, her head going back, her eyes staring sightlessly ahead. And when his thumbs moved, softly, slowly encircling her nipples in a tormenting, tantalising dance of provocation she writhed in delight under his touch, sighing her pleasure.
‘Madre de Dios!’
Cesare muttered in Italian again, tugging off her clinging T-shirt and tossing it impatiently aside before coming back to take her breasts into his hands once more, holding them up and out so that all he had to do was lift his head ever so slightly from the worn velvet cushions and he could take one swollen tip into his mouth, suckling on it hard.
‘Megan, mia amante, you weren’t lying when you said you’d done a lot of growing up lately. When I last saw you, you were still a little girl…’
A wickedly hot tongue snaked out, slid over the sensitised nipple, making her shudder violently in uncontrolled response.
‘Here, as everywhere else. But you’ve changed, developed…become all woman.’
Changed. Developed. Become all woman. The words echoed bleakly inside Megan’s head, becoming more frighteningly ominous with every repetition. And just the sound of them was a dreadful, hateful reminder, a violent death knell to all her hopes, dousing her passion in one brutal, bitterly cold rush.
‘No!’
It was a cry of pain, of bewilderment, of confusion, sounding high and wild in the echoing room. And it froze Cesare into immediate stillness.
‘No?’
It was like being slapped hard in the face. One moment she had been wild and willing, totally uninhibited in his arms. The next…
‘You don’t—you can’t mean it!’
‘I can! I don’t want this!’
‘Little liar.’
It was softly vicious, deadly. The nagging ache of frustrated passion was doing nothing at all to help his ability to think straight or reasonably.
‘You’re just teasing, you—’
‘No! That’s not it at all!’
With unexpected strength she tore herself from his restraining arms, flinging herself halfway across the polished floor towards the marble fireplace. Wrapping her arms around herself, concealing the creamy breasts his ardent passion had newly exposed, she shook her head so violently that her russet hair flew in a wild arc around her.
‘You have to believe me! I’m not teasing—honestly I’m not! I don’t want this!’
But that was too much.
‘You “don’t want”,’ Cesare echoed with gentle menace. ‘You “don’t want”! Oh, come now, cara, stop playing games! You were up for it every bit as much as I was—and don’t try to deny it!’ he snapped, seeing that she was about to refute the accusation once again. ‘I’m not blind—or deaf! I could see the passion in your eyes—hear it in your voice. “If you want me then, yes!”’
Megan flinched as he quoted her own thoughtless words of only moments before, echoing her passionate tone with cruel accuracy.
“‘I’m yours…anywhere and anyway you want me!” That was what you said, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes…’
Megan could only whisper words into the hands that concealed her ashen face.
‘I know I said that but…’
But what? The question rang inside her head, self-reproach in every syllable.
‘But I—I wasn’t thinking straight.’
She couldn’t have been thinking at all to let herself fall into Cesare’s arms like that, to invite his kisses, caresses…more!
For a few crazy, deluded moments, she had let herself pretend that she was still the young, innocent Megan, the adolescent with the world’s biggest ever crush on Cesare Santorino. And as that Megan she had seen his sudden new interest in her as the fulfilment of her long-held dream, the reward for half a lifetime of waiting.
But she was no longer that Megan. She no longer had the freedom to indulge in such wild and wanton behaviour. She couldn’t think only of herself…as Cesare’s words had reminded her. And the thought of what might have been had brought with it such a bitter sense of loss that she felt as if someone had reached into her chest and ripped out her heart without hesitation.