The Petrelli Heir (12 page)

I
ZZY
spent a couple of hours exploring the warren of rooms. She had felt fewer qualms about leaving Lily with Roman than she had imagined she would. It was hard to walk around the historic building and not be excited by the, what had he called it …
potential
?

She smiled to herself. The place had that, all right.

The room that had been made up for her was pretty and south-facing. There was a brand-new cot and stacks of fresh linen in the adjoining dressing room and beyond that a bathroom. Opening another door, she found herself in a room that was a twin to her own. The folded clothes on the bed said that she was standing in Roman’s room.

Cosy
, she thought.
Umpteen rooms and he’s next door?
Was she appalled by this obvious manoeuvring? No, she was excited. The discovery shook her a lot more than seeing his boxer shorts neatly stacked!

She had anticipated sharing some sort of romantic dinner with him so she was a bit thrown when even before she had put Lily to bed he explained that there were urgent things he needed to attend to in the library, which it seemed was to be his temporary office.

Having decided to repulse any advances he made, she was miffed not to be afforded the opportunity! If
this was part of a ‘treat ’em mean keep ’em keen’ strategy, it was working, because as she sat enjoying a lonely microwave supper she thought of little but him.

She fell to sleep listening for the creak of floorboards and woke some time later, her maternal sensors picking up Lily’s cry.

‘Darling, it’s all right, Mummy’s here.’

She stopped on the threshold. She wasn’t the only one who was here. Roman was standing over the cot, winding up the mobile suspended over it. He turned and mimed a hushing gesture. Lily’s heavy eyelids were already closing; her lashes lay blue black against her rosy cheeks.

Izzy nodded, aware rather belatedly that she was wearing only her nightdress. She smiled and tiptoed her way back into her own room, her heart beating faster because she knew he was following her.

She turned just as he was closing the adjoining door carefully behind him.

He struggled to keep his eyes on her face. ‘I’m glad I saw you.’ The semi-sheer ankle-length nightdress she wore was rendered virtually transparent by the lamplight, revealing the curvaceous outline of her body and the strategic dark areas … ‘I meant to catch you before you went up. I’m sorry I had to leave you on your first night, but there were some contracts I had to sort. I don’t mean to bore you. Did you find everything all right?’

‘Yes, thank you … fine.’ He looked like the living incarnation of everything that was male and raw and powerful. He was the very opposite of her and things inside her shifted and tightened as she stared at him.

He tipped his head, feeling the flare of attraction between them so strongly that it made his blood burn.
This was only ever going to work if he let her dictate the pace, one false move on his part and … ‘Right, then, I’ll … Sleep well.’

‘No.’

He turned back, a question in his eyes.

She stood there wanting him so much it hurt; every cell ached with the wanting. She wanted to feel his body hard and male, smell his skin and enjoy the tactile sensations of flesh on flesh. She wanted to tangle her fingers in his hair, taste … oh, taste …!

How long could she carry on resisting and why should she?

The escalating desires were consuming her, sapping her ability to think beyond these basic primal needs. She felt as if she were drawn towards him by some invisible cord that was reeling her in. She’d been fighting so hard, fighting not to admit how much she wanted him, and why not …? The time to be cautious had been two years ago; this was no leap in the dark.

Why not?

Uneasily aware that her defiance masked a desperate need that she didn’t want to think about, she faltered. ‘I … I don’t want you to go …’

The broken plea had barely left her lips and he was at her side, framing her face in his big hands, kissing her.

He felt his control slipping away as her hand slid up his back and she whispered in his ear, ‘I want to feel your skin.’

He pulled back only far enough to rip off his shirt and place her hands on his bare chest.

Eyes slumberous and passion-glazed, Izzy ran her hands over the planes and ridges of muscle on his torso and up over his broad shoulders. Need ached through
her, sweet like honey, sharp like a knife. ‘Your skin feels like silk.’

She ran her tongue across her lips and the action caused his eyes to darken. He pulled her into him, causing their bodies to collide. His open mouth covered hers, hot and moist, his firm lips moving with the same erotic, sensuous motion that his hips were against her lower body.

‘Yes … oh, God,’ she murmured against his mouth. She was spinning out of control and she loved it!

Still kissing her, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the room. When they reached the bed he placed her on her feet.

The febrile glow in his eyes made her dizzy as he caught hold of the bottom of her nightdress. She lifted her arms to help him and a moment later her nightdress hit the opposite wall.

He lifted her bodily onto the bed, kneeling over her prone form, and allowed his burning gaze to roam freely over her naked body.

Izzy experienced a moment’s doubt; the last time he had seen her she had not had a child—her body had changed since then. Her hips were wider, her breasts fuller and softer; she had a woman’s body now.

Would he like what he was seeing?

‘You are so beautiful … more beautiful.’ He had never wanted a woman like this in his life; it was the same as that night, only more so.

Izzy released the breath she had been holding and reached up and dragged him down, her hands deep in his dark hair as she pulled his mouth to her aching breasts. He took first one hardened nipple in his mouth and then the other, drawing a series of moans and gasps
from Izzy as she writhed beneath him in a frenzy of desire.

She bit into his shoulder, sliding her arms around his back and arching as she tangled her fingers deeper into his hair, bringing his mouth to hers. She sank her tongue between his lips, wanting to taste him, wanting him to taste her.

She was gasping for breath and almost delirious with pleasure when he began to kiss a path down her throat. Her body was limp and pliant as he pulled her onto her side, looping one of her thighs across his hip as he kneaded her buttock, his fingers sinking into the soft springy flesh. He eased a finger along the damp cleft between her legs, drawing a low moan from her parted lips as he stroked her slowly and rhythmically.

He rolled her onto her back and she lay there looking at him with big passion-glazed eyes as he tore off his remaining clothes and returned to her.

‘Don’t close your eyes,’ he insisted. ‘I want you to watch.’

She did watch as his hands were on her body, touching her everywhere, lighting fires and massive conflagrations until she burned all over and deep inside, releasing all the loneliness and fear that had been hiding there.

Izzy was dimly aware of a voice that sounded as if it was coming from a long way off, a voice begging and pleading, realising with a sense of shock that it was hers when he whispered in her ear.

‘I can’t wait either, cara.’

She arched her body, lifting off the bed as he slid into her in one hard thrust. She clung to him, her face pressed into his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his
sweat-slicked muscled back as he filled her again and again until she almost fainted with the sheer bliss of it.

She climbed so high it felt as if she were flying. Then as the vibrations that began deep inside her grew, she fell, losing a sense of self as her entire body shook in a series of shattering sensory explosions.

Later, when their sweat-slick bodies had cooled, he pulled her face from his shoulder and ran a finger down the thin pink line low on her abdomen.

‘Tell me about that.’

‘I had a long labour and things went wrong … I had a Caesarean.’

She saw his expression and touched his face with her hand. ‘It was nothing major … I just wish I could have seen her when she was born.’

She had given birth alone and in pain and she was the one offering comfort.

‘Now we both have our scars,’ she teased, reaching down to touch those on his leg. ‘They’re from your illness …?’ She had thought when she first saw them that they were from an accident.

‘I had bone cancer. I was lucky it was picked up early when they X-rayed me after a climbing fall. Not pretty.’

‘They’re part of you,’ she said, looking surprised.

‘Lauren didn’t think so. I don’t blame her—any woman would have felt the same.’

Izzy raised herself up on one elbow, wondering if he defended the indefensible because he still loved her. ‘You have a very low opinion of women.’

Roman looked at her fondly. ‘Not everyone has your strong stomach.’

Not everyone had a man like Roman in their bed, including the shallow and stupid-sounding Lauren.

As Gennaro pulled into the outside lane of the motorway Roman closed his laptop.

‘Are things all right?’ Last night had been the first time he had spent a night away from Izzy and Lily. He had spent most of the time wondering what they were doing. He wouldn’t have gone at all if Izzy hadn’t insisted.

Parenting was a steep learning curve. The time he spent working he felt guilty he was neglecting his family and the time he spent with his family he felt guilty he was neglecting work.

When he had discussed it with Izzy she had laughed and said, ‘Welcome to my world, big boy. Women have been feeling that way for ever and a day!’

Izzy … The situation was working out better than he could have hoped. There was just one development that he had not expected. People said things in the throes of passion they did not necessarily mean, but three times now she had moaned,
‘I love you!’
Roman was certain that she was just babbling nonsense; she had to be. The whole point of their relationship was to be together without falling in love …

‘What’s that?’ Izzy asked, looking at the gift-wrapped box.

‘Open it and see.’

She flashed him a smile and unpicked the prettily tied bows, resisting the impulse to tear them. She carefully unfolded the beautiful layers of tissue paper to reveal the item that lay beneath.

‘It’s beautiful!’

‘How do you know? It’s still in the box! It’s a dress.’ He had given women gifts on many occasions, many
more expensive than this one, but he had never watched his gifts being opened before. Now he found himself feeling almost nervous, experiencing a desire for them to be pleased.

Taking hold of the fabric, she took it out, gasping as the beaded silk unfolded to reveal the most glamorous dress she had ever seen.

‘It’s beautiful.’ Her wide eyes took in details of the low-waisted, heavily beaded, twenties-inspired dress. It was made of silver-grey silk; the tiny beads arranged in geometric patterns were silver and they winked and caught the light. ‘Real golden age Hollywood,’ she enthused.

‘It is only a dress.’

It was nothing.

Conscious that through his sophisticated eyes her reaction might seem a little over the top, Izzy damped down the enthusiasm levels of her response as she pointed out sensibly, ‘But I’ll never wear it.’ Holding the dress against her, she studied her reflection in the antique mirror she had recently installed on the opposite wall.

‘Why not?’ he asked. She reminded him of a child opening her presents on Christmas morning.

She arched a delicate brow. ‘When did you last see me in anything that didn’t involve jeans?’

She looked very good in jeans, he thought as his eyes slid to her tightly rounded derrière. Especially the pair she was wearing now, which clung in all the right places.

‘You will have an opportunity tonight.’

‘Tonight?’

‘You have spent the last three weeks in some sort
of self-imposed exile.’ As exiles went the one they had shared had not been a trial, but enough was enough. ‘We are going out.’

‘Is this you asking?’

‘No, this is me being masterful, or, if you prefer, autocratic?’ He grinned and she thought just how charming he was.

‘It is all arranged. I have asked Chloe to babysit. You have no problem with that?’

Chloe was an art student who had been helping Izzy out with the sample boards.

‘It seems to me that she is level-headed and responsible.’

‘Yes, she is.’ And Lily loved her.

‘So tonight we will dress up and dine together.’

‘But why? Do you want to check out my table manners or something?’ she teased. ‘Check out I’m not a social liability before you sign on the dotted line,’ she added, only half joking now.

Wishing she had not introduced a reference to the subject that was always the elephant in the room, Izzy veiled her eyes, but not before her cheeks had grown self-consciously pink.

‘I have had no opportunity to show you off and it is your birthday, isn’t it?’

Her blue eyes widened as they flew to his face. ‘How did you know?’

He thought of the report he had downloaded on his laptop. He did not imagine that its existence would endear him to her, so instead he turned the question back on her. ‘I think the question should be why didn’t you tell me?’

Izzy was conscious of a fizz of excitement. The idea
of dressing up and eating a meal with an incredibly handsome man was not totally awful. If you had fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with said man it did not detract from the idea of making yourself beautiful for him and seeing his eyes light up with, if not love, she’d settle for lust.

She was a realist and this relationship could work if only she could keep her damned tongue under control. Luckily the few times her feelings had got the better of her and she’d blurted out her true feelings for him he hadn’t noticed, but she couldn’t rely on her luck holding out. She had to keep her mouth shut.

‘Where did you have in mind?’ She held the dress out at arm’s length, admiring the way the hand-sewn beadwork caught the light. It was beautiful, but awfully dressy for the local places she knew of.