Visconti's Forgotten Heir(35)

‘How—how long have you been standing there?’ She sounded almost as breathless as the five-year-old she had forgotten about for a few seconds. ‘Look, darling, I have to go. Mummy will call you later. Say bye-bye to Aunt Josie for me.’

She’d tossed down her phone before Andreas had had time to move.

‘Why so jumpy?’ He smiled as he moved away from the door. ‘Do you think I’m the type of boss who’s likely to extract payment for personal calls in office hours?’

When she didn’t answer immediately, too disconcerted by just how much he might have heard, he came closer.

‘Of course if that’s what you were hoping...’

She didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly he was leaning over her behind her chair, with one arm across her breasts, unleashing a riot of betraying sensations inside her as she felt his lips against the nape of her neck.

‘Do you usually get your kicks out of listening in on other people’s private conversations?’ Her breath was coming raggedly and causing her breasts to rise with exquisite torture against his dark sleeve.

‘Why? Were you saying something I wasn’t supposed to hear?’ He was lifting the collar of her white silky blouse away from her neck—devoid of any scarf today—and gently fanning the pale exposed skin with his breath.

Magenta visibly shuddered from the sensuous tingles that were running down her spine. ‘Of course not.’

‘Are you sure?’

Dear heaven! What was he saying? Doing to her?

She gave a soft moan as he dragged his hand across her burgeoning breasts.

‘Have you ever wondered what it would be like to make love on a desk, Magenta? Or perhaps you’ve already tried it?’

‘No, I haven’t!’ The fear of what he might have heard her saying was being replaced by another insidious fear, and that was being unable to resist giving in to this almost overwhelming and terrifying desire to succumb to him. ‘Mrs Cox may come in.’

‘Mrs Cox is off duty.’ Long fingers deftly slipped the first button of her blouse.

‘One of the maids, then.’

‘Both off duty.’ A smile laced his voice as he pushed the pale slippery fabric he’d loosened down over one silken shoulder. ‘Isn’t this making you remember? We almost made love on a table once, but unfortunately our...intentions were rather impeded.’

‘Your intentions you probably mean.’ It was a breathless accusation, and one threaded through with shuddering desire as his teeth grazed with arousing skill along her shoulder.

‘Oh, no.’ He laughed low in his throat. ‘I never did anything without a willing accomplice. Don’t you want to remember, Magenta, how sexy I said you looked draped in nothing but that tablecloth?’

The tablecloth! Slashes of colour rose before her eyes, but then the jumble of vivid images took very definite shape. It was red and white chequered linen, and its starched coarseness was an unbelievable turn-on against her painfully aroused breasts.

‘You were afraid of being caught even then doing something you knew you shouldn’t.’

She pressed her hands flat against her ears. ‘I don’t want to remember!’ Her statement was one of negation and rising panic.

‘Oh, I think you do.’ He came around her chair, positioning himself on the desk, so close that his bent knee was touching her arm. With a gentle firmness he pulled her hands down. ‘A grabbed hour’s privacy. We were desperate for each other. It was a Monday night and the restaurant was closed. We thought we were alone.’

But someone had come back... Magenta put her hand to her temple. ‘Oh, dear heaven!’ she groaned.

She could still hear the key in the lock—the door opening. Then voices—Giuseppe Visconti and a woman. Maria Visconti! It had been dark and they hadn’t seen her! Had she really let Andreas undress her there at that discreet table at the back of the restaurant? How could she have let him?

She shook her head as other images raced in. Her panicking and Andreas whipping the cloth off the table and throwing it around her. He’d been still fully clothed. There had been a storeroom...no, a cupboard...which he’d hustled her into. She remembered standing there and keeping very quiet and still—trying not to move. And Andreas...Andreas having other ideas...

She closed her eyes, remembering the sensations that had fired through her when he had used that coarse cloth to arouse her. Moving it like a towel, slowly and calculatedly drawing it back and forth along her body in a deliberate and excruciatingly sensual attempt to see how long she could keep herself from breaking the silence with a moan of pleasure.