Modern Romance February 2016 Editor's Choice

‘I’ve never understood why not. We’re good employers.’

‘Yes, but working on the estate means real old-fashioned service.’

‘And what is bartending but service?’ Gaetano watched her turn to lift her water glass and his attention dropped to the firm, full, pouting curve of her breast revealed by her dress. He shifted tensely in his seat.

‘There’s not that same sense of inequality between employer and employee that there is on the estate. I can’t explain it but I’ve never accepted that you are superior to me simply because you were born into wealth and privilege.’

‘Have I ever made you feel that way?’

Poppy pushed away her plate and stood up. ‘You can’t help it. Your parents raised you like that.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘For a walk—it’s a beautiful evening. I’ll have space for dessert by the time I come back,’ she told Sean, who was hovering to remove their plates.

‘I’ll come too.’ Gaetano sprang upright.

Poppy was as restless as a cat on hot bricks, which was hardly surprising when she had set herself the objective of somehow seducing Gaetano before his flight to Paris. Sadly discussing her career aspirations and the class system wouldn’t get her any closer to him and she wasn’t very deft at flirting. If all else failed, she thought ruefully, she would simply slip into bed with him and pray that his libido cracked his detachment.

‘That’s a daring dress,’ Gaetano observed. ‘The split in the skirt shows me your thighs at every step and I can see the curve and shape of your breasts. Don’t wear it anywhere more public...’

Poppy was relieved that he had actually noticed the provocative outfit because it meant that she wasn’t yet fading into the wallpaper as far as he was concerned. Her high heels crunched through the gravel. A finger danced up her exposed spine like a flame licking at her bare skin and she shivered, snatching in a breath as he flicked the knot at the nape of her neck. ‘If I pulled that loose...’

‘The whole thing would probably fall off,’ she completed.

Gaetano groaned out loud. ‘Don’t tempt me.’

‘I didn’t think you could be tempted any more.’

‘Temptation runs on a continuous loop around you.’

Poppy glanced at him with disbelieving eyes. ‘Then why have you been keeping your distance?’

‘It should’ve been that way from the start, bellezza mia. I was a selfish bastard to insist on sex.’

‘So, tell me something new,’ Poppy invited.

After a moment of telling silence, Gaetano’s stunning dark golden gaze locked to her flushed face in near wonderment at that response before he burst out laughing. ‘Well, that’s telling me...’

‘If you wanted lies you married the wrong girl.’

‘Obviously,’ Gaetano conceded, lounging back against an aged stone pedestal table at the viewpoint where the land fell away to reveal the panoramic landscape beyond the garden. Poppy gazed out at the beautiful countryside, her hair glowing like a live flame against her ivory skin as the sun went down.

‘I’m not being fair to you,’ Poppy muttered with sudden awkwardness. ‘I wanted sex too!’

‘Maybe when we were actually having it but not before,’ Gaetano qualified.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Gaetano... I couldn’t wait to rip your clothes off!’ Poppy flung back at him in exasperation. ‘I didn’t stay a virgin until this age by not knowing what I wanted. I’m not some easily led little rag doll. Stop talking as if you took advantage of a naïve kid!’

‘But I did take advantage of you.’ Gaetano reached out to grip both her hands in emphasis and prevent her from her constant pacing back and forth in front of him. ‘You were a virgin and I’m a natural predator. What I want I take. And I very much wanted you.’

Poppy took a step closer to his lean, powerful body. ‘How much is “very much”?’

He brought her hands down lightly to the revealing bulge at his groin. Her fingertips fluttered appreciatively over the hard jut of his erection and he jerked in surprise at that intimate caress. His golden eyes smouldering with erotic heat, he pulled her up against him and crushed her ripe pink mouth beneath his, his tongue darting and delving deep to send tiny shudders of shocking arousal coursing through her lower body. Liquid heat pooled between her thighs.

‘You’re a tease,’ Gaetano told her darkly.

‘No, I’m a sure thing,’ Poppy contradicted, helpless in the grip of the need throbbing and pulsing through her trembling length.

She felt the sudden give at her neck as he tugged loose the tie of her dress. As the bodice dropped to her waist his hands closed to her hips and he lifted her up onto the stone table before reaching below the skirt to close his hands into the waistband of her lace knickers and yank them down.

‘Out here?’ she whispered, shaken by the concept as he dug her discarded underwear into his pocket with single-minded efficiency.

‘Out here because I couldn’t make it back indoors...and I believe I can promise you a very active night,’ he husked, bending her backwards to capture a rosy nipple between his lips and lash it with his tongue while his fingers stroked and teased the delicate pink folds at her core.

‘I want you,’ she framed jaggedly, her breath strangled in her throat by a responsive gasp as his thumb rubbed over her and then a long finger tested her readiness.

He slid a single digit into her lush opening and her body jackknifed, spine arching, hips lifting off the cold stone surface. And the coldness below her only added to the intense heat punching through her quivering body, steamrollering over her inhibitions and heightening every sensation to an unbearable level.

‘So wet, so tight,’ Gaetano growled, yanking down his zip with a lack of cool that even in the state he was in astounded him. On some level the hunger was so all-consuming that he honestly thought he might die of overexcitement if he didn’t get inside her.

His mouth roved between the straining mounds of her perfect breasts, tugging at the swollen buds, arrowing lower, letting her feel the long, slow glide of his tongue while he pulled her to the edge of the table to position her.

He plunged in and drove the breath from her body with the intensity of his entrance. She whimpered as he stretched her, her body clenching round him like a hot velvet glove.

‘So good,’ Gaetano ground out between gritted teeth as he pulled back and slammed back into her with delicious force.

Poppy couldn’t think, she could only feel and she was riding a torrent of excitement she couldn’t control, her entire being pitched to crave the peak of his every powerful thrust. The heat and the hunger and the pleasure all melded together into one glorious, overwhelming rush of sexual ecstasy. Her climax claimed her in an explosive surge of intense sensation and her teeth bit into his shoulder as the exquisite convulsions shook her violently in his arms.

In the aftermath she was as limp as a floppy doll. He fed her feet back into her underwear, retied her dress and lifted her down to the ground again where she swayed, utterly undone by the sheer primal wildness of their joining.

‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No, you blew me away,’ she whispered truthfully.

‘You bring out the animal in me, delizia mia,’ he admitted raggedly, pressing his sensual mouth to the top of her down-bent head in what felt like a silent apology.

‘And I like it,’ Poppy admitted shakily. ‘I like it very much.’

‘What the hell have we been playing at, then, for the last few weeks?’ he demanded.

Poppy shot him a teasing glance. ‘You were depriving me of sex. Why, I have no idea.’

But Gaetano was in not in the mood to talk. He was already painfully aware of the lack of logic in his recent behaviour. He couldn’t answer his own questions, never mind explain or defend his decisions to her. He had honestly believed that for once he was doing the honourable thing and that she would appreciate his restraint. Evidently he had got that badly wrong. She was accusing him of depriving her. Diavelos...no doubt it was sexist but he was the one who had felt most deprived. And being deprived of the joy of her body had eased his conscience.

His brooding silence nagged at Poppy’s nerves. Perhaps even though he enjoyed the physical release of her body he had preferred the distance provided by their lack of intimacy. Maybe he was worried she was getting too attached. Maybe she wasn’t as good an actress as she liked to believe.

‘It was just sex, you know,’ she mumbled as lightly as she could. ‘It doesn’t have to mean anything.’

‘I know,’ Gaetano fielded drily while also knowing that he could never, ever have imagined having a wife who would admit that she had just used him for sex.

It felt wrong to him and downright offensive but he was willing to admit that getting married to Poppy and living with her while struggling to stay out of her bed had played merry hell with his values. One hint of encouragement from her and he had shelved honour without a backward glance. In fact he’d been a pushover, he conceded grimly. He craved her like a drug. He was already thinking of early nights, dawn takeovers and afternoon siestas, hopefully the kinkier, the better, because his bride was still on a wonderful learning curve. Did it really matter if she only wanted him for sex?

Why complicate something simple? She was right. It was just sex, not something he had ever felt the need to agonise over or attach labels to. Maledizione! What was she doing to his brain? Why was he dwelling on something so basic?

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