Her Mediterranean Playboy (7 page)

W
HAT
followed next was beyond anything Ally had ever imagined could exist between two people. Vittorio was not in a hurry, which totally surprised her. She had expected a man with his sexual experience to zone in on his needs with perhaps just a cursory regard for hers, but if anything he held back to an almost torturous pace as her body blossomed and swelled under his expert touch, leaving her breathless and close to begging in his arms.

He uncovered what little there was to uncover, since she was still wearing her damp bikini, exploring each curve and indentation of her body as if it were a priceless work of art. After some exquisite minutes of this she became impatient to conduct her own exploration. She wanted to feel him, hot and hard and heavy in her hands. She wanted to taste him, to stroke her tongue over his length, to bring him to the point where he begged for the release she could feel building inside her like a volcano about to erupt after years of lying dormant.

She decided there was no point in shyness—not now, when they were lying on a coolly sheeted bed, the door locked and the film of sheer curtains fluttering at the windows, bringing in a late-afternoon jasmine-scented breeze that did little to reduce the heat of their writhing bodies as they moved together on the bed in an increasingly urgent mission to come together in the most intimate way possible.

When Vittorio’s mouth began to suckle on each of her breasts
in turn she felt her back arch, bringing her honeyed pelvis right where he could reach it with his taut erection.

‘I do not want to rush you,
cara
,’ he murmured against her tingling lips as he kissed her mouth again. ‘You need time to prepare for me.’

‘I’m ready for you,’ she panted back, feeling the dew of desire between her legs.

He reached down and explored her intimately with his fingers, stroking, caressing, delving gently until she was crying out with the need for fulfilment. ‘You are hot and warm for me,
cara
, but I must protect you,’ he said, and reached across to search through his bedside drawer for a condom.

She watched in wide-eyed fascination as he applied it, his body so engorged and ready for hers she wondered if her small form would be able to stretch enough to accommodate him. Nerves fluttered like tiny moths in her belly as he resettled between her legs, one of his curled over one of hers to make his entry as smooth and deep as possible.

He took his time, nudging, retreating, thrusting a little deeper, until her slim form accepted his smooth thickness. She whimpered in delight. His body felt as if it was made for her. Every stroke and sensuous glide set off fizzing nerves of reaction right through her lower limbs, concentrating in the moist core of her, where every part of her seemed to be gathered in finely tuned focus for the final plunge into paradise.

‘Relax and move with me,
cara
,’ he coaxed. ‘Do not hold back. Let yourself go.’

Ally was expecting some resistance, but apart from a tiny twinge at first there was none. He filled her to the hilt, moving slowly, tantalisingly at first, before he increased his pace. She was crying out at the sheer delight of feeling him inside her, the position he had adopted maximising her pleasure. She could feel it building, bit by bit; it was if she was ascending a steep precipice until finally the wondrous view was in sight. She hovered there for a moment, suspended in a world of wonder at all she had missed out on before. All she had to do was allow herself to finally tip over…

Vittorio heard her suddenly sucked-in breath, and then her breathless cries of release, and he felt something unlike he had ever felt before as she clutched at him in trusting submission. His body was bursting and burning to let go, but he wanted to savour this moment as long as he could. He had never had such a mind-and body-altering experience. In the past sex had been just sex. It was physical. He never allowed emotions to get involved. And yet this time…

She arched her slender spine and moved against him again, and his release began to pump out of him. He tried to hold back, but it was impossible with her body still convulsing in tight little aftershocks around him.

He lay on top of her, breathless, valiantly trying to garner some sense of the control he was so used to executing in situations like this. But he was at a loss.

He had not in his entire experience been told it could be like this. He had not understood how body and mind could be so inextricably linked, so that what she felt made him feel not so much a conqueror but an equal in every way possible.

And yet they were not equals, he reminded himself as he eased his weight off her slim form. He looked down and saw the slight stain of blood between her legs, where he had torn through what had appeared to be her innocence, and a blade of guilt assailed him. Although he had teased her about her shyness, he had not truly factored in the possibility that she was still a virgin. It made him feel as if he had exploited her in a way he had never intended.

He waited for her breathing to return to normal before he got off the bed and handed her a soft wad of tissues. ‘Is there something you need to tell me, Ally?’ he asked gently.

Ally scrambled to cover herself beneath the sheets. ‘Such as what?’ she asked, trying to sound casual and unaffected about what had just happened between them.

‘You are bleeding. Is that your period, or something else you need to tell me? Did I hurt you?’

The question was delivered in such a tender and totally disarming way that Ally felt like confessing everything there and then. He was supposed to be a use-them-discard-them playboy,
and yet he was concerned about the spot of blood that had stained his sheets and the possibility he had hurt her. It didn’t quite fit her image of him as a ruthless playboy, but she didn’t want to examine her feelings too closely again until she was alone.

‘No…’ she said softly, still keeping her eyes away from his penetrating ones. ‘I’m having a period. I’m sorry…perhaps I should have told you.’

Vittorio narrowed his gaze as he studied her bent head and delicately flushed cheeks. ‘My family is joining us for dinner later this evening. Will I send Ghita up to help you dress, or would you prefer to be alone?’

Ally forced her gaze to connect with his. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, trying to affect a smile but falling a little short. ‘I don’t like to be fussed over. Ghita means well, but right now I would like to have some time alone if you don’t mind.’

Vittorio lifted her chin, his thumb moving back and forth over the fullness of her bottom lip. ‘You intrigue me, Ally. Call it male ego, if you like, but I cannot believe you are the same person my brother-in-law described. Either he is lying, or there is more to this situation than either of you are letting on.’

Ally moistened her lips. ‘There is more to this, but…but I’m not sure what it is.’ She swallowed painfully and continued, ‘You see, I—’

His gaze intensified, making his pupils disappear into the blackness of his eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘’Vittorio…there is something I need to tell you about Rocco and—’ she swallowed ‘—me.’

‘Let us talk later, when we will not be interrupted,’ he said, as the noise of people arriving sounded from downstairs. ‘My family is here.’ He bent forward and kissed her forehead. ‘I will leave you to prepare for dinner. Do not worry about my relatives. My older sister Justina is desperate for me to settle down, so you will be welcomed with open arms.’

‘Is Rocco’s wife Chiara going to be there?’ Ally asked, trying to disguise her dread about meeting any of his family—much less the woman her sister had inadvertently betrayed by sleeping with her husband.

‘No, she is under doctor’s orders to stay put at our villa in Positano, but she is looking forward to meeting you as soon as she is well enough,’ he said. ‘Thankfully she is now assured that the rumours were nothing but a case of mistaken identity. She is convinced you and I are an item, and that Rocco is completely innocent.’

Mistaken identity
, Ally thought on the back end of a sigh as the door closed behind Vittorio’s exit.

Yeah, well, that was
exactly
her problem—wasn’t it?

When Ally came downstairs she was a little disorientated, and found herself in one of the smaller reception rooms. It wasn’t vacant, as she had first presumed, and before she could back out and find where the rest of the family had gathered she heard the clink of crystal, and saw a tall figure pouring a pre-dinner aperitif from a cabinet fitted into an antique wall unit. At first she thought it was Vittorio standing there, until the figure turned around and faced her.

She knew it was Rocco Montano, for even though his likeness to Vittorio was uncanny, considering they were not blood relatives, Rocco’s lips were thinner, and right now were lifted in a snarl as he came towards her. The fumes of brandy on his breath wafted unpleasantly over her face the closer he got.

‘What the hell do you think you are playing at?’ he gritted out harshly. ‘I told you never to contact me or my family again.’

Ally knew she would have to tread very carefully to get the information she needed. He was a man who had been intimately involved with her twin sister, and it would take all of what little acting ability she possessed to pull this off without him seeing through the part she was playing.

‘How much more do you want from me?’ he asked, with aggression carving every word to dagger points. ‘I gave you what I could. What else do you want, you greedy little bitch?’

‘What do you
think
I want from you?’ she asked, watching every nuance of his expression as closely as she dared.

‘For God’s sake, Alex, you were supposed to go away,’ he said, raking a hand through his thick black hair, his eyes shooting all over the place apart from anywhere near hers. ‘That is what all the others have done in the past. Why not you?’

Ally planted a hand on her hip and gave him a gimlet stare. ‘You should have told me the truth at the start. You owed me that at the very least.’

He let out an exasperated sigh and began to pace the room. ‘I should have told you I was married when we met that night in London,’ he said. ‘I should also have told you I will never leave my wife. She is the reason Vittorio gave me a position in the company. Do you think I would walk away from that for a common tramp like you?’

Ally could barely stomach what she was hearing. People’s lives—two young women’s lives and happiness—had been bandied about like dollar chips on a poker table. It sickened her. It made her so angry she had trouble maintaining her disguise. ‘So I was just a temporary fill-in? Someone to warm your bed while your devoted and trusting wife was back at home, loving and missing you?’ she asked with caustic bite.

He sent his hand through his hair again. ‘Did you do as I told you to do?’ he asked.

Ally tried to read his expression, but it remained cold and distant. ‘You should know me well enough by now to know I don’t like being told what to do, Rocco,’ she said, testing the water.

His eyes flared with anger, and something else Ally thought looked a little like panic. ‘I told you to disappear,’ he bit out. ‘I gave you enough money to do so, for God’s sake. What the hell are you doing here, in Vittorio’s house?’

The door of the room opened behind them, and Vittorio’s deep commanding voice cut the through the air like a knife. ‘She is here because I want her to be here,’ he said. ‘And she will stay for as long as I want her to stay.’

Rocco swung around to face him. ‘You cannot be serious!’ he said. ‘What has come over you? I told you she is mad. She keyed your brand-new car, for God’s sake.’

‘I am
not
mad,’ Ally said, with steely emphasis.

Rocco turned back to Vittorio. ‘
Dio mio!
You were supposed to pay her off!’ he ranted. ‘Not sleep with her yourself!’

‘I am at liberty to choose my own lovers,’ Vittorio said. ‘Unlike you, I am not yet married.’

Rocco threw his hands in the air in a frustrated gesture. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ he asked. ‘Chiara was warned to take things easy during her pregnancy. Alex was more than available. She practically threw herself at me, like the slut she is.’

Ally snorted in disgust before she could stop herself. ‘You low-life bastard!’

‘So you chose a convenient lover to fill in for you, not for a moment thinking of the consequences?’ Vittorio said, pointedly ignoring Ally’s vehement outburst.

Rocco briefly met Ally’s blistering gaze and hastily turned away. ‘I thought Alex was a woman of the world. She told me she had been married and divorced. I figured she would be agreeable to a short-term affair. I did not for a moment think she would want anything long term. Nor did I expect her to toss in her job and follow me to Rome.’

Ally decided to remain silent. She didn’t know enough about her sister’s motivation to relocate to Italy. In fact she knew so little she was starting to think she had made the biggest error of judgement in her life. Exchanging places with her twin when they were ten years old as a mischievous prank was one thing; doing it when she was twenty-five was another thing entirely. This was certainly not child’s play, and as each moment passed she felt she was sinking in even further over her head.

‘It is of no importance now,’ Vittorio was saying. ‘The problem has been solved. Ally and I are intimately involved, and that is all the press and the rest of our family needs to know right now.’

Rocco sent Vittorio a penetrating look and switched to Italian. ‘You
are
being straight with me, are you not, Vito? You do not have to pretend with me, remember? I asked you to solve this problem, not to take my place and sleep with her yourself.’

‘But what did you ask
her
to do?’ Vittorio asked with a searing look. ‘Or should I take a wild guess?’

Rocco’s eyes flicked to Ally and back again. ‘She set me up, Vito,’ he said in an undertone. ‘The bitch tried to trap me. What else was I supposed to do?’

Vittorio had to fight hard to disguise his reaction. His gut clenched as if a powerful fist had grabbed at his intestines and
cruelly squeezed. He felt his hands go to fists at his sides; although not a violent man by nature, he wanted to smash his brother-in-law’s face against the nearest hard surface.