‘Well, things do.’ She heaved a sigh and studied the pattern on the rug beneath her knees as she settled back onto her heels with a frown. It was a depressing thought and not one she, as a natural optimist, thought about often, but she couldn’t escape facts. Cesare’s comments had simply brought worries she already had into sharper focus. ‘People get run over and killed crossing the road every day of the week.’
The prosaic observation caused a bone-deep chill to settle over Cesare as his imagination provided flashing images of pools of blood on a road, a warm body growing cold and stiff… A choking sound dragged from some place deep inside him.
The strange noise sent a chill down Sam’s spine and brought her head up with a snap. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, deeply alarmed by the grey tinge to his normally vibrant skin. The Stygian blackness of his unseeing stare as he looked back at her suggested the things he was seeing in his head were not pretty.
‘Oh, you’re thinking the baby would have ended up in care,’ she said, seizing on what she believed was the cause of his visible distress. ‘Don’t worry, my brother and his wife would never let that happen.’
‘Madre dio, woman, will you focus and stop prattling?’ He raised a hand to his head; the pressure in his skull had grown to an explosive level as the truth he had been trying hard to avoid stared back at him.
Sam’s eyes flashed; she was offended by the snarling brusqueness of his tone. ‘I suppose when you make a decision you draw up a chart, work out statistical probabilities, weigh up the pros and cons all very scientifically,’ she retorted sarcastically.
‘Actually I am a great believer in following my gut instinct.’
And Cesare’s gut instinct was telling him right now to kiss her. Open her mouth and taste the sweetness that was on offer within.
He followed up the throaty statement so quickly that Sam had no hint of his intention until his fingers curled around her chin. She didn’t think of resistance as he tilted her face to one side to allow himself full access to her mouth. She just thought, Please—please kiss me!
Then he did. His mouth was on hers and his lips were moving with slow, sensual expertise that raised the feverish temperature of her overheated blood to a bubbling simmer.
He drew back fractionally, breathing hard—or was that her…? Sam struggled to separate herself from him, not just physically, but emotionally too, and failed.
Intense-sounding words of Italian fell harshly from his lips as he bent his head and kissed her again with a driving possessive hunger she felt all the way down to her toes. Like a firework display, desire exploded inside her, driving the last shred of resistance or sense to the farthest foggiest recesses of her lust-soaked brain.
The kiss ended and her heavy lids half lifted, a sigh of sheer longing snagging in her aching throat as she traced his lean dark face.
They were so close she could see the fine texture of his skin, the lines radiating from the corners of his eyes and bracketing his sensual mouth, the scar on his forehead that disappeared into his thick, glossily dark hairline.
She lifted a hand to trace the physical evidence of the accident that had robbed him cruelly of his sight. She felt as if a hand had reached into her chest, icy fingers tightening around her heart as she thought of him hurting, waking up alone and in the dark.
His long, tapering fingers skimmed her face, drawing it up to his as he breathed, ‘Open your mouth for me, cara.’
And she did, a little growl vibrating in her throat as she drew herself up onto her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. She met his tongue with her own, breathing in the scent of him, the taste of him as her breasts were crushed against the hardness of his chest and her fingers slid over muscles that were hard and perfectly formed.
It was Cesare who drew back so abruptly that Sam fell back, only just stopping herself from tumbling onto her bottom with her hands.
She stared at him, eyes round, her pupils still hugely dilated, panting as she tried to suck air into her lungs.
She was filled with shame. ‘That was…that shouldn’t have happened.’
‘But you knew it would, we both knew it would…’
She opened her mouth to deny this ludicrous claim and stopped. She pulled herself up onto her heels and sighed.
Cesare spoke. ‘You know, if we’re going to keep on ripping each other’s clothes off every time we’re in the same room I think we should get married.’
Embarrassed colour flared in Sam’s cheeks as she smoothed down her top. ‘I have my clothes on,’ she replied with dignity. And so did he, she thought as her glance drifted to the V of golden skin visible where the top button of his shirt was unfastened. Her stomach quivered.
‘That situation can be changed.’
She sucked in an audible outraged breath, which seemed a bit crazy considering that he knew every inch of her body intimately… She tried not to think about how intimately. He was obviously of the same opinion as his rumble of laughter was wicked and warm.
‘You’re blushing, aren’t you?’
Her eyes widened. ‘How do you know?’
‘You have a very eloquent range of gasps and I can feel the changes in your body temperature from here.’ Without warning he reached out and placed his open hand against her chest. ‘From here it is easier—I can feel your heart trying to beat its way out. It’s ironic—I’m blind and I’ve never come across a woman who is easier to read than you. How do you go through life showing so much?’
Sam stared mesmerised at his fingers splayed against her breast and shook her head. Sometimes the truth was the worst thing to say and this was one of those times. She knew it yet still she said it.
‘It’s only with you.’
His eyes darkened as he rasped, ‘Come here.’
Sam’s heart was hammering so loud it blocked out everything else as without thinking she raised herself up on her knees and leaned in to him until their faces were almost touching.
His fingers speared deep into her bright hair as he inhaled the fragrance that came from the silky skein. ‘This is a side to the arrangement which would be most pleasurable for us both, cara,’ he husked, resting his nose beside hers.
‘The kissing…?’
His expression was solemn but his eyes fierce as he explained, ‘Obligatory for married people.’ He kissed the side of her mouth before dropping his head to trail a line of delicious damp kisses down her neck.
‘Oh, God!’ she groaned. ‘I don’t know why you can do this to me.’
‘That makes two of us, but who cares?’
Sam couldn’t approve of this reckless attitude and she said so, but he didn’t seem to take her seriously—possibly because she was already unfastening the buttons of his shirt with shaking but determined fingers.
A deep sigh of pleasure escaped her throat as the material parted and his gleaming torso was revealed to her greedy gaze. ‘You are just so beautiful… What?’ she asked suddenly in hoarse protest as he grabbed both her wrists and lifted her hands from his warm skin.
‘Marry me, Samantha.’
Her disbelief was tinged with indignation. ‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’
‘You mean will I withhold my favours if you don’t say I do?’ He laughed, but underneath the laughter the tension that pulled the skin taut against the magnificent bone structure of his face was visible. ‘Good idea, cara,’ he admitted. ‘Only one problem—I’m really not endowed with that sort of self-denial.’ Not where she was concerned anyway.
‘I don’t even like you,’