The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

were expecting to marry turned out to be a liar and a cheat?’

      She turned away from Dante and watched the dying rays of the sun streak the sky with fiery flames of pink and orange. The beauty of it touched her soul and with a little flare of pain she thought how heartbreaking it was that her child had never seen a sunset.

      She was shocked by the realisation that Dante must have been hurt in the past. She had believed him to be a womaniser who had no interest in meaningful relationships—a perception he promoted because it was what he wanted people to believe, she thought with a flash of insight. She was curious about the identity of the woman who had hurt him, and wondered if he had loved her. For some reason the idea evoked a needle-dart of pain inside her.

      ‘I do believe in love,’ she said quietly. ‘I see it in my parents’ eyes when they look at each other. They haven’t had an easy life; the farm has never earned much money. But Mum and Dad have weathered the storms together and they’re devoted to each other. I had a bad experience with Gareth, and I admit that for a while I thought I would never want to risk being hurt again. But I don’t want to be alone all my life, and one day I hope I’ll have a relationship with someone that leads to marriage and a family.’

      She glanced at him. In the rapidly fading light he looked so stern and remote that it was hard to believe he had ever allowed anyone into his heart, and she sensed that he would not do so again.

      ‘Can you really be happy having one meaningless affair after another?’ she murmured.

      Perfectly happy, Dante assured himself, refusing to acknowledge the traitorous thought that for the past couple of months he had felt a growing sense of restlessness and discontentment with his life. It was pure coincidence that this feeling had begun soon after he had employed his new chef.

      ‘Absolutely,’ he drawled. His chair scraped on the patio stones and he stood up and walked around the table to Rebekah. She was wearing a simple white sundress and, with her long hair falling around her shoulders, she looked achingly beautiful and innocent. But she had proved two nights ago that she was no inexperienced virgin. The wild abandonment with which she had made love with him had been exciting and strangely humbling. She had held nothing back and the sweet honesty of her response to him had made sex with her a mind-blowing experience that he was impatient to repeat.

      ‘While we’re here in Tuscany I will prove to you how satisfying sex without emotional involvement can be,’ he told her as he pulled her to her feet and stared down at her flushed face. His eyes blazed with a feral hunger that caused Rebekah’s heart to miss a beat.

      ‘Dante …’ The word don’t trembled on her lips and was muffled as he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her. It was a hot, passionate kiss that demanded her response. She would be a fool to succumb to him warned a voice in her head, but she could already feel heat spreading through her body and a melting sensation in the pit of her stomach.

      ‘You want me, mia bella,’ he muttered when he finally broke the kiss to allow them to drag oxygen into their lungs. ‘And my hunger for you is patently obvious,’ he added sardonically as he cupped her bottom and pulled her up against him so that the hard length of his arousal pushed insistently into the cradle of her pelvis. ‘Why not enjoy what we have for as long as either of us wants it to last?’

      What they had was sex, pure and simple. Although pure was not how she would have described the tumultuous passion that had blazed between them when he had made love to her after the party, Rebekah thought, blushing at the memory of how he had taken her to the pinnacle of pleasure with his hands and mouth and his powerful, muscular body. She sensed the inherent danger of an affair with Dante. The discovery that, beneath his playboy image, he was a man of complex emotions had left her feeling confused. Her brain told her to resist him but her heart was softening and her body was completely in his thrall, she thought ruefully as he claimed her mouth once more. Excitement shot through her when he closed his hand possessively around her breast and stroked her nipple through her thin cotton dress.

      She was shaking, or was it him? She was unaware that he had undone the buttons at the front of her dress until he pushed the material aside and she felt him caress her naked flesh. It was too much, her desire for him was too overwhelming to be denied and she melted into his hard body and kissed him back with an eagerness that caused him to groan.

      Suddenly the world tilted as he swept her up into his arms. ‘Put me down,’ she gasped, struggling against the temptation to rest her head on his shoulder. She loved being held in his arms, loved the feeling of being safe and cared for. But she was far from safe, she realised when she saw the sensual gleam in his eyes. ‘I’m too heavy. You’ll injure your back carrying me,’ she muttered as he strode through the quiet house and up the stairs with a purposeful intent that made her heart thud.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why do you have a problem with your body image?’ he demanded as he shouldered the door to his bedroom and set her down by the bed. ‘You have a gorgeous, voluptuous, sexy shape that I find such a turn-on.’

      ‘Do you?’ Rebekah murmured weakly, trying to dismiss the image of his whippet-thin ex-mistress Alicia Benson.

      ‘Believe me, cara, no other woman has ever made me feel so out of control,’ Dante admitted roughly. His hands shook as he peeled off her dress and cupped her breasts in his palms. He delighted in the weight of them and the creamy softness of her skin. His body tightened with anticipation as he bent his head to each of her nipples. The feel of them hardening beneath his tongue drove him to the edge and when she made a high, keening sound of need he quickly stripped off her panties, pulled off his own clothes and drew her down onto the bed.

      Rebekah sensed Dante’s urgency, and shared it. His olive skin felt like satin beneath her fingertips and the faint abrasion of his chest hairs against her palms was innately sensual as she trailed a path over his flat stomach. He gave a low growl of encouragement when she curled her fingers around his erection. He was already fiercely aroused and the knowledge that in a few moments he would be inside her evoked a flood of heat between her legs.

      Dante slipped his hand between her thighs and made a hoarse sound when he discovered the drenching sweetness of her arousal. But, instead of lowering himself onto her as she was impatient for him to do, he trailed a line of kisses over her breasts and stomach. Rebekah’s heart lurched when he moved lower still. This was new to her and she stiffened when he gently eased her legs wider and ran his tongue over her so that he could access the heart of her femininity.

      ‘I’m not sure …’ she began in a startled voice, her faint protest turning to a gasp of pleasure.

      ‘Relax,’ he murmured, ‘and let me pleasure you, mia bella.’

      Dear heaven, Rebekah thought shakily, as Dante continued his intimate exploration. She was on fire, so hot down there that she twisted her hips restlessly, not wanting him to stop, but afraid that if he didn’t she would not be able to hold back the orgasm that she could feel building deep in her pelvis.

      ‘Please …’ It was unbearable torture, and she clawed at the silky bedspread beneath her as the first spasms of her climax made her body tremble. Pausing briefly to take a condom from the bedside drawer and slide it on, Dante positioned himself over her and entered her with a fierce thrust that elicited a ragged groan from his throat as he felt her relax to accept him.

      Rebekah closed her eyes for a few seconds—her body and her soul, she would swear, utterly enraptured by the feel of Dante inside her, filling her, completing her. He began to move, slowly at first so that each thrust seemed to fill her even more as he slid his hands beneath her bottom and angled her for maximum effect. Then he set a rhythm that echoed the drumbeat of her blood, faster, faster, while she clung to his sweat-slicked shoulders and hurtled towards the peak. He kept her there for timeless moments, laughing softly when she implored him to grant her the release she craved, until with a final devastating thrust they climaxed simultaneously, their bodies shuddering as waves of ecstasy pounded them.

      For a long while afterwards they lay replete in each other’s arms while the serene silence of the house closed around them and the outside world seemed far away.