The Italian's Summer Seduction. Karen Van Der Zee

her head, holding her against any hope of escape.

      Not that escape entered her mind. She had never experienced anything like this—this hot searing passion, this crazy escalation of sensation, setting every atom of her flesh on fire.

      Milly’s arms wound up to coil around his neck, her lips parting in instinctive eager welcome and she heard him groan, low and deep, his mouth gentling, moving sensually as his tongue stroked hers for giddying moments before moving down and taking the hard crest of her breast after nudging the unresisting scrap of wet fabric aside.

      Cesare moved slowly towards the shore, taking her with him, bodies moving as one, clinging, lost in drugged pleasure, and his mouth explored now, gentle, awestruck by the sweet perfection of her, the soft hollow at her temples, the tender underside of her jaw, her throat where a pulse was beating madly. His hands moved, disposing of the flimsy scraps that were an insult to the pert glory of her peaking breasts.

      Bewitching.

      He was bewitched.

      His hands moved, shaped her breasts then the tips of his fingers explored her tight nipples and the air in his lungs felt hot and heavy as she threw her head back, her eyes closing, her soft pink lips parted as her hips moved with instinctive rhythm against his rampant arousal.

      Shock waves of sensation had him almost stumbling as his feet encountered the hot sand of the secluded beach. His mouth took hers with almost savagely passionate intent as he drew her down on to the sand and groaned with all male pleasure as she wrapped her lovely legs around his hips and trembled.

      Madness.

      Irresistible madness.

      She was open to him. And hot. Hot. Hot.

      ‘Bella, bella, bella—’

      Chapter Eight

      THE DISTINCTIVE RING tone of his mobile phone had the salutary effect of a bucket of ice cold water. Cesare’s dark head shot up.

      Porca miseria. Had he run mad? He’d been controlled by lust for the first time in his life, forgetting who she was, who he was! It was demeaning and he didn’t like the experience.

      Her hands were clinging to his shoulders. He firmly detached them and, not looking at her for shame, he disentangled himself, jerked to his feet and strode over the few paces to where he’d left his rucksack before he’d turned insane.

      Noting with deep distaste that his hands weren’t steady, he extracted the slim mobile and ground out, ‘Che?’ And went still.

      Almost sobbing with a horrible mixture of shameful sexual frustration, blind panic and helpless mortification, Milly scrambled to her feet and stumbled over the soft sand and, all fingers and thumbs, began to struggle into her shorts and top.

      What must he think of her? Her eyes sparkled with scalding tears and her face burned hot and scarlet. That she was an out and out slut? His for the taking!

      And what was almost worse, the painful conclusion that she didn’t want him to think badly of her, that his good opinion mattered—more than anything else.

      How could she explain, tell him that she wasn’t like that, that this sort of thing had never happened to her before—and expect him to listen, let alone believe her? And that led to another conclusion she really didn’t want to have to think about.

      The final irony—he thought she was Jilly, his ex-lover. He wouldn’t have batted an eyelash at her frenzied response, naturally he wouldn’t, cynically putting it down to a resumption of past pleasures.

      It just went to show that she’d been so lost in wanting him, needing him, that she’d totally forgotten who she was supposed to be to the extent that she’d been frantically wondering how she could convince him that this sort of behaviour wasn’t normal for her and what had happened had only happened because, for her, he was special.

      Squirming inside with sickening embarrassment, she had to concede that she’d come within a whisker of giving herself away—in more senses than one.

      If there had been no interruption their steamy encounter would have reached an inevitable conclusion. He would have known then; he wasn’t stupid. She was a virgin, Jilly certainly wasn’t!

      Finally the top was in place, the tie ends more or less securely fastened and, her head downbent in mortification, she peered up at him through her lashes. He was speaking in his own language, his tone questioning, terse. Then he closed the phone with a snap, tossed it into the rucksack and dragged on his jeans.

      The belt buckle swiftly dealt with, he scooped up the rucksack, slinging it over his shoulder, then turned to her as if he had only just recalled her existence, his brow clenched in a black frown. Milly hung her head in a vain attempt to hide the renewed flush of humiliation that burned on her face.

      His voice harsh, he imparted, ‘Nonna had a bad fall this morning. That was Rosa to tell me they’d just returned from Casualty. We leave for the mainland immediately.’

      He was striding away and, just as he reached the cliff pathway, she caught up with him, her own troublesome problems forgotten in her anxiety for the old lady she’d liked immediately. ‘Is she hurt? What happened?’

      Brow clenched, he spared her a glance. ‘Broken collar bone and cracked ribs. Nothing life threatening but at her age the shock—’ His voice clipped on his last word and Milly impulsively laid a hand on his arm.

      ‘Try not to worry,’ she murmured sympathetically. ‘We’ll soon be with her. Look,’ she suggested firmly and calmly, ‘you go on ahead, do what you need to do—rev up the helicopter, or whatever. I’ll follow, quick as I can. And the stuff I brought with me, I’ll leave it. It’s not important, so I won’t need to waste time packing.’

      Cesare’s eyes dropped first to the small hand that lay consolingly on his forearm and then lifted to her face. There was concern in those beautiful eyes, determination writ large on her exquisite features. His heart jerked with something indefinable and his voice was thick as he countered, ‘You come with me. I don’t want to have to fly you to hospital because you fell off a cliff!’

      Common sense, Milly told herself as he took her hand and helped her along every step of the tortuous track. Of course he wouldn’t want her to miss her footing and fall; he wouldn’t want the delay of scraping her up off the rocks, she decided, determined not to read anything more into his care for her.

      The way he strode rapidly ahead the moment they reached the safety of the cliff top gave credence to her assessment. He was waiting for her outside the little stone cottage when she arrived, out of breath. He had slung a casual, well worn light denim jacket over his naked torso and he enquired briefly, ‘Did you mean what you said about not packing?’

      ‘Of course. I left stuff back at the villa. I won’t have to walk around naked.’ And what had led her to say that she had no idea, especially when the throwaway remark earned her the glimmer of a quirky smile and a pointedly raised eyebrow before he set off across the island to the landing pad, leaving her to trot along in his wake, hot and bothered, wondering if what she felt for him was actually love. Wondering how she could be so stupid to even give that thought headroom.

      The journey back to the villa was swiftly accomplished by helicopter and car, mostly in silence. Milly was aware of his impatience, the evidence of it written all over him as he braked the car to a gravel-splattering halt, slid out and strode into the villa where Rosa was waiting for him.

      There was no way Milly could make head or tail of the rapid Italian conversation, but she picked out the word dottore and when Cesare headed for his grandmother’s ground floor bedroom she followed, anxious to know how the old lady was.

      The room was exactly as she remembered it from the previous time she’d come here. Tall windows opened to the warm air, gauzy curtains filtering out the harshness of the sunlight, fluttering gently in the slight breeze. The delicate tester bed with Filomena propped up against the white embroidered pillows, one arm strapped