Chapter Eight #4
‘It’s very real to me,’ he protested, but he was grinning. ‘A lot of legwork went into checking over the final tally for my place in London, although in truth, when it involves buying a place abroad, I leave the entire production to someone on the ground in whatever country I’m buying it in.’
‘Well, won’t it be a treat to traipse round potential houses with you and talk about wallpaper stripping and reconfiguring a kitchen. Think you’ll be able to handle it?’
‘Depends on the reward afterward.’
‘What sort of reward are you talking about?’
‘I could show you if I find a suitably quiet spot somewhere off the beaten track on the way back. What are your thoughts on making love in an open field with nothing but the sky above us and olive groves all around?’
Bloody wonderful. ‘Very bad idea because we’re running late as it is, considering we have to be back for this party Roberto and Luisa are having for us.’
‘Shame. Maybe another time.’
‘Is sex really all you think about, Gabriel?’
‘No, work always tops the list. Except for now.’
Jennifer didn’t say anything, but beneath the torment of realising that she’d fallen in love with the most inaccessible man on the planet, small shoots of hope began to stir.
Of course, she knew the danger of hope, but still…
Was it significant that here with her, he had forgotten about work? Was it significant that here with her, he had spent the nights in the same bed?
And most important of all, was it significant that before they’d even touched, they’d been friends? That their friendship had been deep and meaningful?
They would continue seeing one another…until they didn’t.
He would be waiting and expecting that being back in reality would eventually reassert all the boundary lines between them.
He might think that work, once again, would top the list when it came to his priorities, but if she were to be patient, might he find that she was less dispensable than he imagined?
Might being lovers have added so much to their relationship that he wouldn’t be able to distance himself from her the way he assumed?
She told herself to get a grip on her imagination, to stop seeing a future that wasn’t there.
She told herself that he was a man who would never trust enough to be open to love, who was too conditioned by his past…
But it was difficult to listen to those reasonable voices when she badly wanted to believe that the love she had for him would be returned.
They could see from all the lights on at the main house that preparations were in full swing for the guests who had been invited for dinner.
‘I blame you if we’re late,’ he murmured, hopping out of the car and swinging round to open her door for her.
She stepped out, but as she opened her mouth to laughingly protest, he covered it with his.
The meshing of their tongues made him harden in instant response.
They were invisible here from prying eyes, and he blindly reached down to push his hand under her skirt and then down into her knickers.
He found the tiny nub of her clitoris, already stiffened and pulsing.
He teased and rubbed it until she was breathing and panting and then…
shuddering as an orgasm ripped through her, leaving her limp and gasping against him.
‘Gabriel!’
‘I know, my darling. It felt good for me, too…’
Jennifer thought, For the first time, he called me his darling…
Then the moment was lost as he teasingly told her to stop distracting him, to save the distractions for later, when they were back in bed and he could take her the way he knew she liked being taken…
‘And we won’t be long at whatever party they’re throwing,’ he promised when, an hour later, they were dressed and walking towards the main house.
He had his arm slung over her shoulder. Through the thin, shimmering jade-green dress she had flung on for the party, she could feel the hard muscularity of his body.
Her mind was already racing ahead to just what they’d be getting up to when they were back in their cottage as they knocked on the front door of the main house.
It was pulled open before she could knock twice.
Luisa was right there, with Roberto bouncing happily behind her.
‘You are here!’ Luisa was urging them in towards the fragrant smells of food cooking and the sound of voices and laughter, although there weren’t as many people there as either of them had expected.
There had only been a few cars in the courtyard.
‘Come, come! There is someone so eager to meet you!’
‘And we can’t wait to meet your children,’ Gabriel was saying politely.
They laughed, and then Luisa said with a lot of happy gesturing, ‘Non stai incontrando I miei figli! Stai incontrando don Alfonso, il prete del paese! E qui per benedirvi entrambi!’
Jennifer smiled glassily and then turned to Gabriel.
‘Translation, please, Gabriel?’
‘We’re not meeting their kids, Jen.’ He paused and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘We’re meeting the local priest, who’s come to bless us…’