Olivia Gates - One Night In…

Sometimes he would crash into that minefield right there in the hallway. Sometimes he would draw out the agony by making her wait before he unleashed the sensual storm. She learned to live on a high wire of expectation that allowed no respite and little sleep, with him even invading her dreams.

He knew every single sensitive inch of her. Sometimes he would coax her to stretch out on the bed with her arms raised above her and her legs pressed together, then he’d begin a long slow torture that she loved yet hated with equal passion because he would make her come—eventually—with only the lightest stroke of a finger or the gentlest flicker of his tongue. It was an unashamed act of male domination which left her aching because he never gave in to his own need on these occasions or finished such torments off with an intimate, deep physical joining.

Why did he do that? Even after four weeks with him she still did not have an answer to that question.

And then there were those other times. The times when he allowed her to perform the same slow torment on him. He would lie there with his eyes closed and his long body taut with sexual tension while she indulged her every whim.

Being equals, he called it. She called it dangerous, because it had reached a stage where she could not look at him without seeing him lost in the throes of what he was feeling on those occasions. A big golden man, trembling and vulnerable, a slave to what she could make him feel.

The elixir which kept her rooted in their relationship, wanting—needing more.

And other things began to torment her which were far more disturbing than the constant overwhelming heat of desire. She knew she had fallen in love with him. She could feel it tugging constantly at the vulnerable muscles around her heart. If he touched her those muscles squeezed and quivered. If she let her eyes rest on him, those same muscles dipped into a sinking tingling dive.

But Raffaelle was not in this for love. He wanted her, yes. He still desired her so fiercely that she would have to be a complete idiot not to know that he was content to keep things the way they were right now.

If she had any sense she would be walking away from it. Elise and Leo were back in Chicago. Elise was happy, Leo was happy and keeping his pregnant wife and his son close to him; the crisis in their marriage was over.

All of this should be over now. And, if it wasn’t for the worrying prospect that her period was overdue, she would have no excuse left to call upon which could allow her to stay.

Then it all went so spectacularly pear-shaped that it threw everything they had together into a reeling spin.

They were in Milan when it happened. Raffaelle was tense, distant, preoccupied—busy with an important deal, he said. But Rachel wondered if the stress of waiting to discover if she was pregnant was getting to him too.

He didn’t say so—never mentioned it at all and neither did she.

She knew that she needed to buy a pregnancy test. Putting it off any longer was silly when she was almost a whole week late. She was supposed to be going shopping with one of Raffaelle’s many cousins but Carlotta had rung up to say she couldn’t make it.

On impulse she snatched up her purse and headed out of the apartment. She should have called Tony to get him to drive her, but she didn’t want anyone with her to witness what she was going to do.

She caught a cab into the city, then headed for a row of shops that included a pharmacy. Anxiety kept her locked inside her own thoughts as she walked, but the last thing she expected to happen was to be woken from them by a loud screech of brakes as a glossy red open top Ferrari swished to a sudden stop at her side.

The man driving that car did not bother to open the door to climb out but leapt with lithe limbed grace over the door. ‘Rachel— amore!’ he called out.

Shock held her completely frozen, her blue gaze fixed on his familiar handsome face.

‘Alonso—?’ she gasped in surprise.

‘Si —!’ He laughed, all flashing white teeth, black silk hair and honey-gold beauty. ‘Is this not the greatest surprise of your life?’

HE BEGAN closing the gap between them, a lean muscled six-foot-two inch-Italian encased in the finest silver-grey suit. A man with so much natural charisma and self-belief that it just would not occur to him that he was anything but a welcome sight to her.

So Rachel found herself engulfed by the pair of arms he folded around her, then found herself being kissed on her cheeks and the tip of her nose, then her surprised, still parted mouth.

She tried to pull back but he was not letting her. ‘I saw you get out of a cab and I could not believe my eyes!’ he exclaimed. ‘And look at you,’ he murmured, running a teasing set of fingers through the bouncy curls on her head. ‘Still my beautiful Rachel.’ He kissed her mouth again. ‘This has to be the best moment of my day!’

Well, not mine, thought Rachel, still rolling on the shock of seeing him. ‘What are you doing here in Milan?’

‘I could ask the same thing of you.’ He grinned down at her. ‘Though I would have to be blind not to know by now that you have captured the heart of Raffaelle Villani, eh? May good fortune always smile upon the bewitching,’ he proposed expansively. ‘He is totally besotted with you, as I was, of course …’

Across the street, on the shady side, sitting languidly at a lunch table with five business associates, Raffaelle happened to glance outside in time to see Rachel walking by on the sunny side of the street.

A smile warmed him from the inside. She looked beautiful in her simple white top and her short blue skirt which left a pleasurable amount of her long legs bare. And her silky blonde hair was shining in the sunlight, recently cut by an expert so the curls tumbled around her neck and her face like sensual kisses.

It was no wonder other men stopped to admire her as she walked past them, he observed, a smile catching the corners of his mouth as he saw one guy in particular actually spin around to take a second look.

Sorry, but she belongs exclusively to me, he heard himself stake the silent claim. Then he started to frown when another thought hit him. Where was Tony? Where was his cousin Carlotta? Why was Rachel out shopping alone when she knew the rules about going out without protection from the ever-watchful press?

The sound of screeching car brakes diverted his attention. A glossy red Ferrari with its top down had pulled to a sudden stop in the street. Its handsome young owner leapt out with lean grace and approached Rachel with his arms thrown open.

She had stopped to stare at him. What took place next lost Raffaelle the power to maintain a grip on his surroundings. The quiet hum of conversation taking place around the lunch table disappeared from his consciousness as he saw her soft pink mouth frame a name.

The man spoke, his gestures expressive, like the rakish smile he delivered as he gathered her into his arms, then kissed her cheeks, her nose and finally, lingeringly, her parted pink mouth.

A mouth that belonged to him. A mouth that did not attempt to draw back from the kiss.

So cold he felt frozen now, Raffaelle watched this other man run his fingers through her curls as he talked.

Small, familiar, intimate gestures. Soft parted pink lips that quivered when she spoke back to him.

They knew each other.

His heart hit his gut because it did not take much intelligence to follow the body language and know without a single hint of doubt who the man had to be.

Alonso. The heartbreaker. He was so sure of it he did not even think to question his certainty.

Had they arranged to meet—right here in broad daylight without a care as to who might see them like this?