The Count's Blackmail Bargain (21 page)

if only she could reach…

Then the last remnants of reality splintered, leaving nothing but the primitive agony of pure sensation. And as she moaned aloud in the final extremity she heard Alessio’s voice, hoarse and shaken, saying her name as his sated body crumpled against hers in sheer exhaustion.

The warm scented water was like balm on her sensitised skin, at the same time soothing the frank, unexpected ache of her muscles.

Laura lay in Alessio’s arms in the deep sunken bath, her head pillowed dreamily on his shoulder as his lips caressed the damp silk of her hair.

There was no point, she thought, in trying to rationalise what had just happened between them. It defied reason or coherent thought.

It just—was.

And now nothing would ever be the same again. Or, at least, not for her.

For him, she thought with sudden unhappiness, it was probably just routine. Another eager girl to be taught the art of sexual fulfilment by a man who was undoubtedly ardent and generous—but also diabolically experienced.

He said, ‘Where have you gone?’

She glanced up at him, startled. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she parried.

‘A moment ago you were here with me, and happy. But no longer.

So what happened?’

‘I’m fine.’ She sent him a deliberately provocative look under her lashes. ‘Perhaps you’re better at reading bodies than minds, signore.’

But his glance was thoughtful rather than amused. ‘And perhaps you do not always tell the whole truth, signorina.’

She turned, pressing her lips passionately against the smooth skin of his shoulder. ‘Alessio, I am happy. I swear it. I—I never dreamed I could feel like this. Maybe I’m a little—overwhelmed.’

‘And maybe you also need food.’ He was smiling now as he reached forward to drain the water. ‘I think we must forget dinner, mia bella, but maybe I can coax Emilia to provide us with a little supper, hmm?’

‘Oh, God.’ Laura groaned as he helped her out of the bath. ‘What is she going to think?’

He grinned. ‘That we have the rest of the night to enjoy, carissima, and need all our strength. She will feed us well.’

And so she did, although, to Laura’s relief, Emilia allowed Alessio, who had gone on his quest wearing only a pair of jeans, to bring the basket of food from the kitchen himself.

Laura, having ruefully examined the ruin of her dress, had put on his discarded shirt. Now she pirouetted self-consciously for his inspection.

‘What do you think?’

The dark eyes glinted. ‘I think perhaps supper can wait.’

She laughed, and skipped out of range. ‘But I’m starving, signore.

You wouldn’t want me to faint.’

He slanted a wicked grin at her. ‘Well, not through hunger, certainly.’

The basket contained cold chicken, cheese, red wine and warm olive bread, which they ate and drank outside in the courtyard, while the goddess Diana stared over their heads with her cold, remote smile.

Laura said, ‘I don’t think she approves of us.’

‘According to the old stories, she approved of very little,’ Alessio said lazily as he refilled her glass. ‘My grandfather originally commissioned the statue, but I think he was disappointed in the result, and I know my parents were planning to have it replaced at some point.’

‘Yet they didn’t?’

He was silent for a moment. ‘They did not have time,’ he said eventually, his voice expressionless. ‘My mother was killed on the autostrada when I was sixteen. A lorry driver fell asleep at the wheel, and his vehicle crashed through the barrier. And my father never recovered from her death. Within the year, he had suffered a fatal heart attack, which his doctors always believed was triggered by his grief.’

‘Oh, God.’ Laura sat up, staring at him, shocked. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything…’

He touched her cheek gently. ‘Carissima, I have not been sixteen for a very long time. And I was looked after with infinite kindness by my godfather, the Marchese D’Agnaccio, and his wonderful wife, Arianna, so I was not left to mourn as a lonely orphan.’

Oh, but I think you were, she told him silently. However well you were looked after. And I think, too, that this explains some of the contradictions I sense in you. The way you seem to retreat to some remote fastness where no one can reach you. The emotional equivalent, perhaps, of this house.

He said, ‘You have left me again.’

She bent her head. ‘I was thinking of my own father. He died of a heart attack too. He’d liquidised all his assets, remortgaged the house to start up an engineering business with an old friend. He came back from a business trip with a full order book to find the place empty, and his partner gone, taking all the money with him.

He must have been planning it for ages, because he’d covered his tracks completely. We were going to lose everything, and Dad collapsed on his way to the creditors’ meeting.’

Alessio drew her into his arms, and sat with her, his lips resting gently against her hair.

After a while, he said, ‘Would you like to sleep a little, mia cara?’

She found her eyes suddenly blurred. ‘Yes,’ she whispered shakily.

‘Yes, Alessio, please. That would be good.’

He took her hand and led her back to the shadowed bedroom.

Gently he unbuttoned the shirt, and slipped it from her shoulders, then put her into the bed and drew the sheet over her.

As he came to lie beside her Laura turned into his arms, and heard his voice murmuring to her softly, soothingly, in his own language until drowsiness prevailed, and she drifted away into oblivion.

It was very dark—some time in the small hours—when she awoke to his mouth moving gently, persuasively on hers, calling her senses back to life, and her body to renewed desire.

She yielded, sighing in sensuous acceptance as she fitted herself to him, waiting—eager once more to be overwhelmed—to be carried away on the force of his passion.

But he was, she soon discovered, in no hurry to enter her. No hurry at all.

Instead, she found herself shivering—burning in response as his fingertips stroked and tantalised every warm inch of her, awakening needs that, yesterday, she had not known existed.

His lips caressed her breasts, tugging gently on the hardening nipples until she moaned faintly, then kissed their way down her body, until he reached the joining of her thighs to demand a different kind of surrender.

She was beyond protest, unable to resist him as his mouth claimed her, and she experienced the intimate sorcery of his tongue working its dark magic upon her.

The breath sobbed in her throat as her body writhed helplessly beneath him, torn between shame and exaltation.

He was smiling against her skin, saying that she must speak—must tell him what she liked—what she wanted him to do to her. And was it this? And this? And—most of all—this? And as she was swept away into the maelstrom of anguished pleasure he had unleashed for her she heard her own drowning voice whispering an endless, ‘Yes.’

It was almost dawn before they’d finally fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and the next time Laura opened her eyes it was full morning, and sunlight was pouring through the slats of the shutters.

For a moment, she lay still, savouring her memories, then she turned her head to look at the sleeping man beside her. Only the bed was empty.

She sat up bewilderedly in time to see Alessio emerge from the bathroom, pushing a white shirt into the waistband of his jeans.

She said, ‘You’re dressed,’ and was ashamed of the open

disappointment in her voice.

He was laughing as he knelt on the bed beside her, and kissed her mouth. ‘I have to wear clothes sometimes, carissima. People expect it. Besides, I must go out. It seems that Fredo has recovered consciousness, and is asking for me.’

She stretched delicately, watching the sudden flare in the dark eyes as the sheet slipped down from her body. ‘Shall I come with you?’

He glanced swiftly, regretfully at his watch. ‘Next time, carissima.

Now I really must go.’ His hand tangled in her hair, drawing her head back for another kiss, longer, slower, deeper than the last, and she slid her arm round his neck, holding him to her.

‘Stay here, and get some rest,’ he told her softly, detaching himself with open reluctance. ‘Because you will need it when I return.’ He paused. ‘I shall tell the servants you are not to be disturbed.’

Laura groaned. ‘I don’t think I shall ever be able to face them again.’

He grinned at her. ‘Ah, but you will, Madonna. Now go back to sleep and dream about me, and I will return very soon.’ At the door he turned. ‘And then we must talk.’ He blew her another kiss, and was gone.

She lay quietly for a while. She had never thought much about her body, except as something to be fed and clothed. Had found the physical facts of passion and consummation faintly ludicrous, and the prospect of actually finding herself in bed with a man—

submitting to him—as both awkward and embarrassing.

And she’d never imagined herself as anyone’s sex object either.

She’d always supposed she was too thin, and her breasts were too small, to make her the focus of a man’s desire.

And yet in one terrifying, rapturous night all her ideas had been overturned, and her principles swept aside.

She belonged body and soul to Alessio Ramontella. And every nerve ending she possessed, each muscle, and inch of skin, was providing her with a potent reminder of his total mastery. And of how much he had, indeed, desired her.

She realised she was blushing and pushed the sheet away, swinging her legs to the floor. Too late for blushes now—or even to remember her own careful taboos about casual sex. Although those hours of lovemaking could hardly be described as casual.

And, she thought, she didn’t regret a thing. How could she?

She quickly straightened the bed, plumping the crumpled pillows and smoothing the covers flat, then wandered into the bathroom to take a long, luxurious shower. As she soaped herself she recalled other hands touching her, sometimes tantalising, sometimes almost reverent, and felt her heartbeat quicken uncontrollably.

I want him here, she thought, pressing a clenched fist against the tiled wall. I want him now.

As she emerged from the shower and reached for a towel she glimpsed herself in one of the many mirrors and paused, all her earlier doubts about her lack of glamour confirmed.

She turned away, sighing. She still had nothing to wear, and frankly she didn’t fancy traversing the house to collect a change of clothing from her room, so she borrowed Alessio’s black silk robe instead, rolling up the sleeves and tying the sash in a secure double bow round her slender waist.

The faint fragrance of the cologne he used still lingered in the fabric, she discovered with ridiculous pleasure as she stretched out on top of the bed to wait. She could almost pretend that he was here with her, his arms around her.

And the fantasy became even more real if she closed her eyes. She hadn’t meant to doze, but the room was warm, the bed soft, and the shower had relaxed her, so the temptation was irresistible.

As she pillowed her cheek on her hand she remembered how Alessio had kissed her awake only a few hours before, and exactly what it had led to. And she wriggled further into the mattress, smiling a little as her eyelids drooped.

It was the sound of the dog barking excitedly that woke her.

Laura propped herself up on an elbow, and stared around her, momentarily disorientated. Caio, she thought, trying to clear her head. Caio in the courtyard outside her room, wanting her to come out and join him. Except he wasn’t here—he was at Lake

Trasimeno with the Signora. And—this wasn’t her room either. It belonged to Alessio.

Just, she thought slowly, just as she did herself.

And, with that nosedive into reality, she suddenly became aware of something else. The sound of women’s voices arguing, not far away. One of them was Emilia’s. But the other…

Oh, God, Laura thought, transfixed with horror. It’s the Signora.

She’s back. I have to get out of here.

But she was too late. The door was flung wide, and the Signora came stalking into the room, brushing away the volubly protesting Emilia as if she were a troublesome insect.

‘So.’ She stared at Laura, still huddled on the bed, and her smile was gloating. ‘Just as I expected.’ She turned. ‘Paolo, my poor son, I grieve for you, but you must come and see this slut you brought here. This puttana you thought to honour with our name, and who has become yet another of your cousin’s whores.’

Paolo followed her into the room, his expression sullen and inimical. The look he sent Laura was enough to freeze the blood.

‘Fool,’ it said plainly.

‘Sì, Mammina,’ he said curtly. ‘You were right about her and I was wrong. She has totally betrayed me, and now I cannot bear the sight of her.’ He spat the words. ‘So, get rid of her. Make her go.’

I’m still asleep, thought Laura. And this is a nightmare. A bad one.

He couldn’t still intend to keep up this ludicrous pretence, surely?

The situation was fast slipping out of control, and somehow she had to drag it back to reality. It was hard to be dignified when wearing nothing but a man’s robe, several sizes too large, but she had to try, she thought, scrambling off the bed and facing them both, her head held high.

She said coldly and clearly, ‘Paolo, I do not appreciate having my privacy invaded, or being insulted like this. So, please stop this nonsense, and tell your mother the truth.’

‘And what truth is that, pray?’ the Signora enquired.

Laura sent Paolo an equally fulminating glance. ‘That your son and I are not involved with each other—and never have been.’

‘And nor will we ever be,’ he flung back at her. ‘You faithless bitch. Do you think I would want my cousin’s leavings?’

Laura felt as if she’d been punched in the midriff. She said, ‘But that’s insane—and you know it.’

‘I know only that I want you thrown out of this house.’ He turned to his mother. ‘Arrange it, Mammina. I wish never to see her again.’

He stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him. Leaving Laura and the Signora looking at each other.