Daisy folded her arms in a jerky motion and then her patience snapped. What a moody, volatile swine Alessio could still be! No matter what he said, he was still as suspicious as hell of her every move.
Desperately keen to look as if she had barely noticed his absence, Daisy was floating on a Lilo in the swimming pool when Alessio put in a reappearance. Since it had taken so much effort to get onto the Lilo, she didn’t twitch a muscle behind her sunglasses and maintained an attitude of sun-worshipping relaxation and cool.
‘If you’ve got into that water without learning how to swim, I’ll kill you!’ Alessio spelt out in a raw opening salvo.
Daisy looked smug. ‘I can swim... I can even lifesave.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since I found an instructor who didn’t think dropping me in the deep end and telling me I would float would miraculously do the trick.’
‘Come out,’ Alessio ordered.
‘Why should I?’ Daisy retorted, sitting up suddenly and without due care and attention. The Lilo lurched and she made a frantic attempt to correct her balance but still ended up being tipped into the water with a gigantic splash.
‘Stop it...let go!’ she spluttered when she found herself being towed back to the side, incredulous that Alessio had dived into the water in a quite ludicrous rescue bid fully clothed. ‘I told you that I could swim!’
Alessio dragged her back up the steps regardless. ‘I’d like to see some proof of your proficiency before I risk standing around while you drown.’
Infuriated by her inability to strike an impressive note of injured dignity around Alessio, Daisy snatched up a towel to dry her face, pushing her tangled hair out of her eyes with furious hands. ‘You make me so mad sometimes, I could scream!’
‘“O lady, speak again!”’ Alessio quoted with deep irony.
It took a second or two for Daisy to absorb the shock of Alessio throwing lines of Shakespeare at her. ‘Romeo and Juliet?’ she scorned with a curled lip. ‘I don’t think so. And I am not playing Desdemona to your Othello!’
‘It would indeed be difficult.’ Alessio elevated a winged brow sardonically. ‘Desdemona didn’t have a past that encompassed half the men in the UK.’
‘How dare you?’ Daisy gasped in outrage.
In thunderous silence, Alessio peeled off his sodden jeans and shirt, his rough, impatient movements lacking his usual grace and cool. Mesmerised against her will, Daisy watched him execute a perfect dive and plough in a fast, aggressive crawl through the water.
Walking to the edge, Daisy waited for him to hit the side and crouched down in readiness. ‘You think I made love with every one of them, don’t you?’
Stormy golden eyes struck hers like forked lightning. ‘What do you think?’ Alessio bit back with slashing derision, and launched into another deeply aggressive length of the pool.
The next time he touched base, Daisy murmured, ‘Alessio...?’
‘I don’t want to know,’ he grated, and, planting his hands on the tiled edge, he hauled himself up, water streaming from his lean, powerfully muscled body in rivulets that glistened on his bronzed skin. Watching him, Daisy found it extraordinarily hard to recall what she had been about to say. Inflating her lungs again was even more of a challenge. He strode past her stark naked and stood towel-drying his hair.
‘Put your eyes back in your head and look the other way like a lady, Daisy,’ Alessio advised silkily with his back turned to her.
A deep crimson flooded her cheeks. ‘I—’
‘I can feel you looking at me. I always could.’
‘It’s a little hard to ignore a naked man.’
‘Is it? Do you recall that nudist beach I once took you to? You welded shut your eyes and hung onto your bikini like it was the only thing that stood between you and moral damnation!’
‘That must have given you a laugh.’
‘Actually... it shamed me into taking you home.’
‘About those albums—’
‘Piccola mia, you are not as a rule this persistent. I have no desire to talk about your rogues’ gallery of photographic trophies.’
‘I haven’t had a single serious relationship since our divorce!’ Daisy admitted grudgingly.
‘Tell me something that might surprise me,’ Alessio drawled in sardonic invitation.
Daisy paled. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot... I’m such a shallow person, aren’t I? I’d be wasting my breath telling you anything.’
As she attempted to brush past him, Alessio caught her arm in a powerful grip and yanked her back. ‘No more running away,’ he spelt out grimly.
‘Let go of me!’ Daisy blazed.
Instead he took her mouth in a hard, punishing kiss. Her world swung violently and dizzily on its axis, her legs buckling as his tongue stabbed between her lips in an expression of raw, hungry need. She struggled to resist and then surrendered as a river of fire ignited low in the pit of her stomach. With a moan of helpless response, burned by the ferocious heat of his desire, Daisy wrapped her arms round his throat.
‘I’m still not speaking to you,’ she mumbled shakily. ‘I want you to know that.’
‘I’m a jealous, possessive toad. We both know it. What is there to discuss?’ Alessio demanded unevenly, divesting her of her bikini top and letting his hands rise to cup her bared breasts with a shameless groan of appreciation. ‘Dio...I would burn a thousand years in purgatory for this alone!’
Crushing her to him, he lifted her high in his arms and carried her into the villa. ‘The staff...?’ she began.
‘I sent them home.’
They landed on the bed in a wild tangle of damp limbs. Alessio pulled her over him, golden eyes smouldering over the pouting swell of pale breasts adorned by succulent pink nipples. Her breath was trapped in her throat as he stroked the painfully taut buds, sending shivers of excitement coursing through her.
‘You are the only woman I have ever loved,’ Alessio murmured roughly. ‘And I want to be inside you so badly, I ache.’
As he reached up and played with the excruciatingly sensitive peaks with his teeth and his tongue, Daisy cried out, shifting briefly to bury her mouth hungrily in the hollow of his strong brown throat. Her worshipping hands travelled up over his broad chest, loving the flex of his muscles and the rough curls of black hair that met her exploring fingertips. He tangled his hands in her hair and dragged her lips back to his in an explosive kiss that melted her bones to hot honey. The sun-warmed scent and the never forgotten feel of him engulfed her, leaving her utterly without defence.
‘Yes!’ she gasped as he forced her down to him again and the hard, smooth jut of his manhood pressed against her belly, extracting a whimper of urgent, breathless need from her.
She couldn’t get enough of him. She couldn’t get close enough to satisfy herself. He rolled over, an impatient hand skimming the clinging bikini pants from her slender hips. Her heartbeat thundered as he found the pale, damp curls at the junction of her thighs and moved onto discover the hot, silken flesh she opened to him. And then, as suddenly, she could hardly get breath into her lungs and what she could burned and rasped in her throat as sensation clawed at her with a bitter-sweet intensity that was more than she could bear.
As he explored the aching, wet emptiness at the very heart of her, a long, sobbing moan of tormented frustration was dragged from Daisy. Never in her life had she craved anything as much as she craved the hot, hard invasion of Alessio’s body into hers. She clutched at him with wildly impatient, pleading hands, out of control, drawing her knees back in feverish invitation.
Alessio lifted her up to him, eyes ablaze with answering desire, and entered her with a single powerful thrust. A startled cry of pain escaped her as intimate muscles locked tight in instinctive rejection.
Alessio stilled in shock. Astonished golden eyes raked her hotly flushed face. ‘Dio...you feel as tight as the first time we made love!’
Ungritting her teeth, Daisy looked up at him.
‘Like a virgin,’ Alessio breathed in hoarse, shaken addition. ‘I hurt you.’
But the pain had already receded and her wildly sensitive flesh was now aware of his intrusion on a very different plane. Her eyes slid shut in voluptuous acceptance. She gave a sensuous little wriggle, excitement taking hold of her again. He felt so incredibly good inside her, filling her, stretching her.
‘Just how long has it been since you made love?’ Alessio demanded unevenly.
‘Please...’ she moaned, every fibre of her straining body maddened by the stillness of his.
‘How long?’ Alessio grated with all the persistence of a natural-born torturer.
‘Thirteen years!’ Daisy shot at him in a burst of anguished frustration.
‘Madre di Dio, piccola mia...’ Alessio growled in a daze of disbelief.
He studied her with stunned intensity, a dark surge of blood rising to highlight his cheekbones, his shimmering eyes clinging to hers. And then, with a driven groan, he sank into her, deepening his penetration with fiery dominance. He delved his tongue between her lips with a sense of erotic timing that made every nerve-ending scream. There was only him then, and the incredible intensity of what he was making her feel.
He drove into her hard and fast. She rode a storm of frantic, feverish excitement, her heart slamming wildly against her breastbone. Then, without warning, the excruciating ache inside her intensified sharply, making her sob out his name in torment. A split second later, the wildness inside her expanded in a blazing explosion of sensation, shooting a hot, sweet overload of pleasure into every quivering inch of her being.