though there was a touch of shyness in her direct gaze. When he touched his thumb to her lips, still swollen from his kisses, and traced the cushiony softness, her lashes had swept downwards, brushing against her smooth flushed cheeks.
He kissed the delicate blue-veined eyelids and murmured, ‘Very beautiful and desirable. I thought so from the moment I saw you.’
Her eyelashes lifted and there was a sparkle of teasing wickedness in her eyes. ‘Do you want to know what I thought when I first saw you?’ Before he could respond she shook her head and with a rueful grimace said, ‘On second thoughts, don’t ask. It wasn’t very professional.’
He watched her expression grow sober, a furrow appearing between her feathery brows as she touched the sutures that had closed the healing wound that lay close to the hairline at his right temple and ended at his jaw.
He caught her hand and raised it to his lips.
‘Come to think of it, this isn’t very professional,’ she said huskily as she curled her fingers around his jaw. He watched the clear green of her marvellous eyes cloud as, with a distracted expression, she began to stroke her thumb across the light dusting of stubble on his cheek.
‘But what you lacked in expertise you made up for in enthusiasm.’
It took her a second before she digested his comment; in the next second her eyes widened as she loosed an indignant, ‘You know what I mean!’ before she rolled away from him and in one seamless motion pulled herself into a sitting position. Then, balancing on her heels, she lobbed a pillow at his chest.
Gianfranco had been too absorbed by the gentle and incredibly erotic quiver of her small pink-tipped breasts to block the missile.
Pleased that he had succeeded in driving the self-recriminatory frown from her face, he grinned, removed the second weapon from her hands and pushed her back against the mattress. Supported above her by one hand, he curved the other over her delectable bottom. As he dragged her to him he heard her sharp intake of breath and felt the vibration as the husky little whimper got trapped in her throat.
Looking into her eyes, he saw them dilate dramatically until just a thin ring of green remained. She aroused a hunger in him that threatened the control he prided himself on.
‘What you need, cara, is practice and lots of it.’
‘Which you will provide?’ Before he could assure her of his total willingness to do so she suddenly groaned. ‘No, this is all wrong!’
‘Wrong?’ It felt pretty right to him. Frustration clawed at his belly.
‘Patients are vulnerable,’ she explained solemnly. ‘Sometimes they get close to the people caring for them, imagine they have feelings.’ Her eyes slid from his. ‘It’s a well-documented fact. To take advantage of someone vulnerable is despicable … and I can’t even claim I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing.’
It took him a few seconds to interpret her convoluted and earnest explanation.
‘You think you are taking advantage of me?’ He had to bite back the laughter because she clearly took this very seriously. ‘If anyone could be accused of taking advantage it should be me. You were the virgin.’ She brushed aside the reminder with a wave of her hand. ‘And today you were upset because you lost your patient.’
‘I’m a nurse and I work on a unit where people are very ill, patients die.’
‘And you stay objective—you expect me to believe that?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I’ve watched you.’ He actually couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘You ooze empathy.’
She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Is that a bad thing?’
‘Not for the lonely old man you visited on your day off.’
‘Mr Chambers had no family here. His daughter had emigrated, she was coming and—’
‘You do not need to explain your actions to me, Dervla. I am not your patient.’
‘No, but your son is.’
‘Not for much longer.’ If Alberto threw off the infection that had slightly delayed his progress, the medics said he ought to be fit enough to be transferred to a hospital within half an hour’s drive from their Florence home to convalesce.
She nodded. ‘You’ll be home soon.’
He watched as without warning tears started to leak from Dervla’s glorious eyes. ‘My God,’ she groaned, flashing him a mortified look as she brushed them away. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Why are you crying, Dervla?’ he asked, sitting upright.
Normally tears were his cue for recalling he needed to be somewhere else. Gianfranco had a cynical take on female tears, being of the opinion they were more to do with manipulation than sentiment.
Only it was fast dawning on him that unlike other lovers in his past, this redhead didn’t know the first thing about manipulation or, for that matter, self-preservation.
His hands clenched into fists as he thought of her walking like an innocent lamb into the clutches of some bastard who would take advantage of that trusting nature.
Some might say she already has. Gianfranco dismissed the thought. Men took advantage of a woman when they pretended to feel something they didn’t. He did not play those games.
‘I’m not. I don’t cry. Oh, God!’ she snapped, rounding on him angrily. ‘Can’t a girl sniff without a full-scale interrogation?’
‘You’re upset and I want to know why.’ He had felt a slight twinge of unease, recognising that he genuinely did want to know.
In previous relationships the most personal details he had felt it necessary to learn about the women in his life were their preferences in designer labels. He was not an ungenerous lover, but he was not one who was interested in emotionally high-maintenance women.
‘Are you regretting this?’
‘Regretting?’ she echoed, looking startled by the suggestion and then wryly amused as she told him, ‘Nothing could be farther from the truth.’
He was relieved but perplexed by the odd inflection in her voice. ‘Then why …?’
She shook her head mutely and rolled away, presenting him with her slim bare back. A hand on her shoulder, he pulled her back. ‘Look at me!’ he commanded.
After a moment she did. Their eyes meshed and the silence stretched until a small choking sound escaped her throat. In one single fluid motion she was on her feet at the side of the bed, red hair falling in a silken skein around her shoulders. She seemed oblivious to her nakedness as she stood there literally quivering, her pale skin glowing with an opalescent sheen.
Gianfranco had known at that moment that the image of her standing there would always remain in his memory.
‘I was trying very hard to be grown up about this, but if you want to know, fine!’ She flung up her arms, causing her small pink-tipped breasts to bounce in a way that sent a fresh distracting stab of lust slamming through Gianfranco’s aroused body.
‘I was crying because I’ll miss you when you go back home.’ She screwed her eyes tight shut and shook her head before fixing him with a challenging glare. ‘And before you say it, yes, I do know how stupid that sounds and how ludicrous I’m being. I barely even know you. We have nothing in common and—’
‘You’ll miss me?’ He watched as dull colour ran up under her fair skin as she reached for a quilt that had fallen to the ground and wrapped it around herself.
‘I really don’t know what I’m saying. This has been a pretty emotional day.’
Was she referring to losing the patient she had cared for or losing her virginity? He patted the bed. It was an invitation she accepted after a moment,