The Italian's One-Night Baby

‘Non c’è problema... Don’t worry about it,’ Rio advised drily as he swung round and pulled open the door. ‘But when you fall, I’ll still be the one to catch you.’

‘I won’t be falling. Can I hope this is the last I’ll be seeing of you?’ Ellie dared as he strode out into the corridor and involuntarily she too stepped over the threshold.

‘You have nothing to fear from me unless you distress or damage Beppe in some way,’ Rio warned, his voice roughening at the mere thought of any harm coming to the older man. ‘I don’t know why you’re being so secretive anyway. Beppe will eventually tell me what this was all about.’

Pretending sublime indifference to that prospect, Ellie shrugged a slight shoulder. ‘Why would I care?’ she said breezily, keen to discourage his suspicions that she was hiding anything of a serious nature.

But she did care. Rio could see it in her unusually expressive and anxious gaze. He realised that there was definitely a secret of some sort that connected Ellie to his godfather and that disturbed him because for the life of him he could not imagine any likely connection. Beppe, for one thing, had never travelled outside Italy and was very much a home bird. It occurred to him for the first time that perhaps he should have investigated the mother rather than the daughter, but unwisely he had overlooked that option because Ellie inspired greater curiosity.

‘You do care,’ Rio traded softly, moving slightly closer.

In a skittish move, Ellie backed up against the door of her room. ‘I’m a very private person,’ she stated in a stubborn refusal to admit even the smallest weakness, because Rio was 100 per cent shark and she knew the blood in the water would be hers if she gave so much as an inch.

‘Not always,’ Rio disagreed, suddenly right there in front of her, eating her alive with his black-lashed smouldering eyes. A lean brown forefinger trailed gently down the side of her hot face.

She felt every tiny second of that fleeting caress like a brand burning right through to the centre of her body. She wasn’t used to being touched, she told herself bracingly, should’ve been dating more, should’ve been less of a perfectionist, should’ve been less sensible. His eyes above hers flamed gold and she recalled a moment exactly like that on the dance floor in Dharia, and in a clumsy movement she tried to peel herself off the door into her room and safety but it was too late, way too late when Rio’s beautifully shaped mouth came crashing down on hers.

And that kiss was something between a car crash and a shot of adrenalin in her veins. Her body came alive with a great whoosh of physical response and her hands flew up into his hair, touching, shaping, clutching the springy strands. And she wanted him as a dehydrated woman wanted water, as if he were the only thing that stood between her and death. That ferocious, screaming shout of need that instantly controlled her absolutely terrified her. The spear of his tongue in her mouth electrified her beyond all thought and the flick against the roof of her mouth was pure licking temptation by a maestro of sensation. He knew how to kiss, he knew how to do all the stuff she didn’t and that drew her helplessly, that and the merciless craving making her heart beat too fast, making her body tremble and her legs weak.

‘Inferno, Ellie...’ Rio growled against her swollen mouth, rocking his hips ever so slightly against her.

And she could feel him through their clothing, long and hard and urgent with the same need that had already overwhelmed her and she shuddered, fighting for control against all the odds and without words, knowing that no, whatever happened, she just couldn’t do this with him.

But Rio, womaniser that he was, kissed her again and again; being Rio, he had upped his game. Slow and tormenting had become rawly passionate and demanding and every skin cell in her body lit up in neon as if she had met her perfect match. The pulsing damp heat between her thighs was coalescing into a generalised burning ache that tortured and tempted and screamed. The sound of a metal bucket scraping across tiles was almost deafening and Rio sprang back from her at the same instant that Ellie literally forced her hands down to his shoulders to push him away.

And for once, Rio didn’t have anything super smart to say, she noted with only the smallest amount of satisfaction because she had nothing to boast about either. Rio dealt her a scorchingly angry glance and swung away.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said grittily.

‘Not if I see you coming first,’ Ellie quipped weakly, ducking back into her room under the curious appraisal of the cleaner and closing the door on legs that felt as limp as cotton wool. But no, she was not going to do that thing she usually did when she did something wrong. She wasn’t going to dwell on it and go over it endlessly. She had made a mistake and it was already behind her and that was all the brooding Rio Benedetti deserved. No more self-loathing, no more regret, she told herself squarely. He was like a cup of poison that tasted sweet, created only to tempt and destroy. Paranoiac...much, she asked herself then.

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