Chapter Six #2
‘When I got up this morning. I thought we would be glad of a little laziness after we’d done the scenic tour.’
‘It’s hot,’ she complained as she pulled a bottle of cold water out of the cooler and pressed it against her brow before gulping back some water to quench her thirst. Mercifully, they were seated in the shade of a thin belt of trees.
Tore rolled up his shirtsleeves and undid another button on his shirt.
‘Take it off, for goodness’ sake,’ she told him. ‘I don’t care.’
Tore stared at her and then his expressive mouth quirked and he peeled off the shirt to pitch it aside.
‘It’s not as though there’s anyone to see!’ she mocked.
An irresistible grin slanted his lean, darkly attractive face. ‘You’re very welcome to take off that dress…’
Violet, flushed from more than the heat, busied herself opening the picnic basket. She set out the tempting contents with little ooh’s and aah’s of appreciation while ignoring his challenge to strip to her underwear. ‘I’m starving,’ she confided.
‘A glass of wine?’
Violet nodded as he drew a bottle from the cooler and she set out the glasses. ‘Heavens, this is very civilised.’
Violet unfastened the straps on her sundress, seeing no reason to invite tan lines.
Tore set out the plates as she sipped her wine and tried not to pay too much heed to his marvellously muscular torso.
There was no word for a temporary husband, she acknowledged, but she supposed it meant that he was more like a casual boyfriend than an actual husband.
She wondered if that meant that she should make hay while the sun shone or whether she should back off now and figure out what she was doing in the near future.
The intensity of his gaze on her made her want to preen and at the same time, laugh at herself for being so susceptible.
Yes, it was nice to be admired, but essentially it meant very little.
He might want her right now but he didn’t want her to start thinking that he was eager to keep her.
He saw no future for them as a couple. Tore Renzetti had no small opinion of his own worth.
Didn’t it occur to him that she might not want to hang on to him, either?
In fact, why would she choose to stay married to him?
Yes, he was gorgeous and sexy but he was also a workaholic and not particularly social.
He was good with Belle, though. At least he didn’t ignore Belle like her father had ignored his twin daughters, only acknowledging them with an angry reprimand if they got in his way or made too much noise.
Both men in her family tree, her father and her grandfather, had let Violet down by neither loving her nor even taking an interest in her.
That had wounded her deeply and she didn’t want to put herself in the same position with Tore.
She didn’t want to fall for him and develop expectations and then get disillusioned all over again by a man.
Pleasantly mellow from the wine, the delicious snacks and the heat, Violet rested back on her elbows on the rug. ‘I suppose we should return to the farmhouse and collect Belle, though I bet that by now, Stella’s fed her and put her down for a nap.’
‘She’ll phone if there’s a problem,’ Tore asserted, rolling over to gaze down at her, brushing a strand of hair slowly behind her ear, his shimmering green eyes intent on her flushed face. ‘I want you, lucciola.’
Playing for time, Violet lifted a questioning brow.
‘Firefly,’ he translated. ‘Tiny and hot. It suits you. In more ways than one.’
Something had clenched taut between her legs and she pressed her knees together, fighting the pulse of arousal and awareness he had awakened.
After all, she was still tender from that unexpected initiation the night before.
Regrettably, she had not appreciated that the pressure of the desire he aroused in her would still make her crave more of him than was healthy.
And now that craving was there inside her like a turncoat, a pool of liquid honey heat collecting at the very heart of her, wanting, needing, what she knew could well be bad for her.
Tore leant down and tasted her parted lips with restrained hunger, the fierce desire he was controlling held back.
But even so, he was fighting a hunger more ferocious than anything he had ever felt for a woman and it unnerved him a little.
Her hands drifted up and her fingers speared into his tousled silvery gilt hair, rejoicing in that silky luxuriance even as her curvy body lifted up beneath his.
His mouth travelled down her extended throat and his teeth grazed the tender muscle underneath the skin, making her gasp and instinctively lift her hips.
And at that point there was no further restraint from either of them.
Tore groaned against her parted lips as he dragged down the bodice of her dress, baring her plump pouting breasts.
He worried at a straining pink nipple with his mouth while his fingers pinched at its tender twin.
Just as suddenly, they were rolling over and he was reaching below her skirt to remove her panties, wrenching them out of his path, momentarily shifting away from her to unzip and reach for protection.
Her blood felt as though it was pounding through her veins, and her heart was racing. She found his sensual mouth again for herself while he was establishing just how ready she was to take him again.
Groaning with pleasure, Tore went in for another driving kiss as he arranged her under him. ‘I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you, lucciola.’
Her head tipped back as he lifted her hips and drove into her without hesitation.
Blissful sensation engulfed her in a surge of intense pleasure, her body jolting, receiving and finally embracing.
Nothing had ever felt quite that good and she was on fire with the sheer thrill of it.
Mindless moments followed while her body raced to the heights and over the peak in an explosive climax that left her shuddering and convulsed in the wild tide of pleasure.
Tore sank into her one last time with a growl before he attained his own release.
For a moment, Violet was in a daze of shock and pleasure and disbelief.
They were outdoors where they might have been seen or heard, and she was aghast at how reckless they had both been.
Tore shifted off her to dispose of the condom and slowly, clumsily, she sat up, glancing down at her bare bosom in horror before hastily yanking her dress back into place, lingering to refasten the straps.
And all the time she was still thinking…
I didn’t do that, I didn’t allow that but intelligence was telling her that she was guilty as charged.
Guilty of getting so out of control that she had lost her dignity, she reflected with self-loathing as she wriggled into her discarded underwear.
‘That was amazing,’ Tore told her in a raw undertone of appreciation, making it crystal clear that his thoughts were completely out of step with hers. ‘Sex has never been that exciting for me before.’
In a series of sharp little movements, her cheeks burning over that uninvited accolade, Violet slid her feet into her shoes and stood up.
She had lost control and that shook, mortified and agitated her all at once.
Here she was in a relationship that had no boundaries unless she set them.
After all, why would he set boundaries when he was enjoying uncommitted, casual sex?
‘We were irresponsible,’ she pointed out tautly.
‘No, we weren’t,’ he contradicted with amusement. ‘I used protection.’
Her heart skipped a beat. ‘But it’s not always sufficient and I’m not using anything.
We don’t want consequences,’ she muttered, thinking in horror of what a disaster it would be if she inconveniently conceived.
Tore might have warmed up to Belle but not to the extent that he wanted a Belle of his own to cherish.
Out of the blue, they were both caught up in an almost uncontrollable passion for each other, Violet acknowledged as she watched him lift and put on his shirt, lean, strong muscles rippling below smooth olive-tinted skin.
Even taking her eyes off his beautiful physique was an unforgettable challenge.
‘There will be no consequences,’ Tore asserted. ‘I don’t take risks in that department.’
‘I would feel better if we contained this attraction and put an end date on it,’ Violet told him truthfully.
‘An end date?’ Tore shot her a questioning glance from sizzling green eyes. ‘Just because we both got a little carried away?’
‘A…little?’ Violet piled the picnic plates and glasses into the basket, her body aching and tightening at the recollection of how abandoned she had been in the fierce hold of that explosive passion.
‘Leave this stuff here. It’ll be picked up,’ Tore informed her in an exasperated undertone as he grasped her hand and walked her back up the hill through the alley of trees. ‘Nobody fights about sex that spectacular!’
‘I’m not fighting with you. I just don’t want us forgetting that what we have is only a temporary arrangement.’
Tore expelled his breath in a slow hiss, wondering why she was raking up unnecessary stuff all of a sudden and sizing up their situation from an irrelevant angle. ‘I’m not about to forget that.’
Violet was still thinking frantically hard. ‘I think a good end date for this sort of togetherness would be when we leave Italy to return to London.’
Tore stopped dead. ‘Violet, you can’t put a lid on an attraction like this.’
‘I thought you preferred clear rules,’ she argued unevenly.
‘Not if it’s likely to keep me out of your bed,’ he admitted tautly. ‘Possibly, I tend to be more realistic than you are—’
Violet stiffened and ignored that insinuation. ‘So while we remain in Italy this can be the equivalent of a holiday fling,’ she replied stubbornly. ‘But once we return to London at the end of the month, we go back to our own lives and forget about this.’
‘If that’s what you want—’
‘That’s what I want,’ Violet responded without hesitation, determined to ensure that she didn’t develop any kind of emotional attachment to him or dependency on him.
A holiday fling was fine; anything lengthier sheer insanity.
Once they were back in London, occupying separate bedrooms at opposite ends of his massive house, there would be no temptation and she would recover.
Yes, already she could feel herself getting dangerously soft and warm and forgiving towards Tore and she really, really didn’t want to fall for him.
If she was truly that susceptible to his appeal, she needed to protect herself from getting more emotionally involved with him.
Furthermore, there was absolutely nothing more sobering than Tore’s utter indifference to such finer feelings.
Tore wasn’t risking anything in continuing to have sex with her.
He had one of those divided brains with business on one side and leisure time on the other.
And she was the fool who had placed herself in an irretrievable position, assuming that she could have sex with him without feelings getting involved.
Only now was she appreciating that she wasn’t able to stay that detached from him.
‘It’s entirely your decision,’ Tore murmured tautly, wondering why he wanted to argue with her so badly, why he was already thinking ahead to that rejection awaiting him at the end of the month.
Obviously, it was a form of rejection and he wasn’t accustomed to that experience but over the next couple of weeks, he would become accustomed to the concept, he assured himself fiercely.
Or possibly Violet would discover that once you let a lion out of a cage, it was a challenge to get it to step quietly back into captivity again.
The passion she inspired in him was a revelation. Amazing sex was a hell of a draw, he acknowledged. Setting up an artificial barrier between them at a date only a couple of weeks ahead of them struck him as weird, unless…
‘Are you falling for me or something?’ Tore shot at her with startling abruptness as they reached the front of the house. ‘Is that what’s spooked you?’
Violet settled her face into an expression of polite disbelief and turned to look at him, her blue eyes wide with surprise. ‘Falling for you? Falling for the guy who likened me to the corpse bride on our wedding day?’ she asked with a forced laugh. ‘You have just got to be kidding me!’
And although Tore was relieved by that response there was an edge of annoyance in his reaction as well.
Granted, he hadn’t been the smoothest and most charming bridegroom at the outset, but hadn’t he since made up for that poor start?
And considering that she had told him that sex was a good idea, why was she suddenly backtracking on that decision?
The lowering suspicion that the sex had not been as good for her as it had been for him could only linger… and sting.