Carole Mortimer - The Sicilian's Innocent Mistress

In fact, Darci wasn’t sure she didn’t have a fever, after all!

She was definitely more aware of Luc Gambrelli, more physically aware of him, than she had a right to be…

‘And what is your diagnosis?’ Luc persisted, slightly surprised—although why he should be he had no idea—at her choice of profession.

But, in his defence, no doctor he had ever consulted, on the rare occasions that he’d been ill, had ever looked like Darci Wilde.

In fact, he would have thought that just facing all that wild red hair, those come-to-bed green eyes, the full pout of her mouth and the temptation of her full, thrusting breasts across the desk in a doctor’s consulting room would be enough to raise any man’s temperature!

As his own was rising now, as he realised that she wore absolutely nothing beneath those striped pyjamas…

As garments, they shouldn’t have been in the least sexy. They were obviously meant for someone much bigger in size—the shoulders hanging loose and the sleeves falling over the slenderness of her hands, and the trousers only held in place by the tie-string at her slender waist as they bagged about her hips. With their awful green-and-cream striped pattern, the pyjamas should have been anything but sexually alluring. But the low neckline of the jacket revealed the slenderness of Darci’s throat and a creamy expanse of her bare breasts as they thrust pertly, her nipples taut, against the cotton material.

Luc could imagine nothing more erotic than slowly undoing the buttons down the front of the pyjama jacket to reveal those thrusting breasts, then lavishing the full attention of his lips and tongue across her hardened nipples…

‘My diagnosis?’ Darci echoed, moistening her lips before replying, although she was slightly disconcerted as Luc’s dark gaze followed the movement. ‘I have the start of a cold, I believe,’ she dismissed briskly, in an effort to dispel the air of—of— intimacy that slowly seemed to be surrounding the two of them.

Where was the cautious Kerry, the worrier, when Darci most needed her?

Although after Kerry’s anxiety over the last two days, she had a feeling her friend might have little sympathy with Darci’s present predicament. Especially as it was completely self-inflicted! Kerry, without having even met Luc Gambrelli, had warned Darci against interfering, seeming to know instinctively that it would be dangerous to wake this sleeping tiger.

It was a pity that Darci’s instincts hadn’t been as acute!

And that she hadn’t thought to pre-warn Grant that under no circumstances was he to reveal her address to Luc Gambrelli….

But it had never occurred to Darci, as she’d made her fiendish plan to leave Luc Gambrelli sitting at Garstang’s, that he would actually feel concerned enough about her supposed ill-health to actually seek her out!

The man was completely unpredictable, she decided.

‘As I’m sure you appreciate,’ she went on firmly, ‘there’s no actual cure for the common cold, and it’s also highly contagious. In fact, I don’t think you should even be here in the same room with me,’ she added, belatedly registering the intensity of his dark gaze as it roamed freely across her face and body.

Luc gave a slight smile as he recognised her skittishness for exactly what it was. ‘But I couldn’t possibly desert you when you aren’t well,’ he drawled huskily. ‘Do you live here alone?’ he probed, having thought it was rather a large apartment for just one person.

He wondered if the owner of the pyjamas didn’t live here, too… Although he would have thought Grant would be more circumspect about telling him of Darci’s living arrangements if that were the case…

‘My flatmate has gone out this evening,’ Darci informed him. ‘I have two flatmates, actually, but one of them is away at the moment,’ she finished.

Luc quirked blond brows. ‘Male or female?’

‘Both female, of course,’ she came back tartly. ‘Now, I really do think you should leave, Luc—’

‘And I think that you need someone to take care of you—at least until your flatmate returns,’ he cut in decisively as he slipped his jacket off and laid it across one of the chairs. ‘Point me in the direction of the kitchen and I’ll get you something cold to drink. It’s important to keep up your liquids when you have a fever, isn’t it?’ he opined, when she looked totally nonplussed.

Darci couldn’t answer him for several seconds, totally thrown by the expanse of his broad back in the black silk shirt, and by how his muscles rippled beneath the softness of the material.

She had no idea how much time Luc necessarily spent behind a desk for his work, but he obviously made time to work out in a gym: his shoulders were wide and powerful, his chest muscles, and his stomach lean and flat.

In fact, all that lean maleness took her breath away!

Maybe she did have a fever? It would certainly explain the symptoms she was exhibiting: shortness of breath, fevered brow, flushed cheeks and a dry throat.

But she had a feeling that sexual awareness would also explain her ailments—the aching, heavy feeling of her breasts, and the moist heat gathering between her thighs!

She swallowed hard. ‘There really is no need for you to stay, Luc. I was about to go to bed anyway—’ She broke off, her eyes wide, and gave Luc an awkward glance for what she had just said.

Luc gave a knowing smile at her obvious discomfort. ‘Surely, Darci, you don’t imagine that I’m about to take advantage of your weakened state?’ he mocked softly, all the time knowing that was exactly what he had been thinking of doing!

In fact, he seemed to have thought of nothing else, anticipated nothing else, but taking this woman to bed for the last two days. The memory of those challenging green eyes, her temptingly full lips and the lush promise of her body had intruded into his thoughts all too often during the last forty-eight hours.

Finding her here wearing nothing but those disreputable pyjamas was doing absolutely nothing for his tenuous restraint!

‘Of course not,’ she dismissed sharply, her moss-green gaze no longer meeting his. ‘I—You’ll find some juice in the fridge in the kitchen.’ Reluctantly, she pointed him in the right direction.

In keeping with the Georgian building in which the flat was housed, the kitchen was long and rambling, with a large work-table in its centre and a breakfast bar at one end, at which it was possible to sit and eat. The room was obviously normally at the centre of life in this spacious apartment. The pots and pans hanging on one wall showed evidence of frequent use, along with the dried herbs set next to the Aga range, for adding to each dish as it was prepared.

A capable cook himself when there was the need, Luc could easily envisage cooking a meal in here with Darci—with or without the pyjamas.

Preferably without!

His body hardened just at the thought of a naked Darci moving effortlessly around the kitchen as they prepared a meal together, at the image of the fullness of her naked breasts, and those lean hips and thighs with a triangle of fiery red hair at their apex…

Having arrived at Garstang’s on time this evening, he had been at first irritated, then worried, when Darci hadn’t arrived at the restaurant at the appointed time. Then the pendulum had swung to anger as the minutes had ticked by with no sign of her arrival nor a telephone call to explain her tardiness.

It had been almost a relief when James, the maître d ’ had approached his table with the message that Darci had telephoned and was unable to join him after all because she wasn’t well.

Almost…

Because Luc hadn’t been fooled for a minute by the telephone message. In fact, he was sure that James hadn’t been, either. The surprised look in the other man’s eyes had been in complete contrast to his politely bland expression! Luc knew that if Darci had really been ill, she would have telephoned the restaurant much earlier than she had to inform him she wasn’t able to join him.