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As if acting of its own accord, her other hand came to rest on his shoulder.
His muscles bunched beneath her touch. She felt the potent strength that ran through his being, a strength she had always taken such comfort from.
The stars that resided in the midnight of his eyes gleamed, holding her gaze, trapping her into their depths. He had shaved before they left their hotel yet dark stubble had already broken out along his jawline. If there was a sexier man in the world she had yet to meet him.
He brushed his lips against her neck, nipping at the sensitive skin. ‘Dance with me.’
She wanted to, badly. She wanted to say to hell with the past and to hell with the future, to simply take the moment for what it was.
His hand sidled down her chest, tracing the outline of her breast, coming to rest on her hip. He dug his fingers through the soft fabric and into her flesh, and pulled her so she was flat against him. ‘Dance with me,’ he repeated.
For the first time since she’d left Sicily, Grace felt as if the essence of herself had slipped out of the recess in which it had been hiding.
Luca was like a drug to her. She could survive without him but it was like breathing air with only a fraction of the usual oxygen.
She hated him.
She loved him.
The two sides were interchangeable.
The only constant she felt was desire. And she was sick of fighting it and pushing it away. There could only ever be one outcome.
Bending her head, she caught the top of his ear between her teeth. ‘Yes,’ she breathed, tracing her tongue across the contours. ‘I’ll dance with you.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DANCE FLOOR heaved with bodies, the music blasting out an R & B mix with a sensuous beat that throbbed through the wooden floorboards. The model who had flirted with Luca and whose name already escaped him was grinding with a member of the British aristocracy.
And he was dancing with his wife, a leg pressed between hers as they swayed together in time to the pulsating music, her face buried in his neck, her breath warm on his skin.
She moulded into him perfectly. Just as she always had.
This was an event he had looked at as a necessary evil, even before he had decided to cut all business association with Francesco Calvetti. After their meeting that day, attendance had been a requirement to show the world they were parting on good terms. The last thing either man needed was any usurper sniffing around trying to detect weakness.
The subtle politics of his business life was enough to give anyone a headache.
Grace eased his headache. Holding her in his arms drove away the demons that resided within him, just as it always had. No matter how out of control he had felt at times, one embrace from his wife had always been enough to temper it, if only a fraction.
For the moment he could almost forget the demons she had placed in there.
If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe the past year or so had never occurred. Physically they were as in tune as if they had never been apart.
Slowly he ran his hands down the length of her back until he reached her bottom. Cupping her buttocks, he pressed her ever closer. She could be left in no doubt of his arousal. And why would either of them doubt it? Physically, they were made for each other.
His quest to find a mistress had ended before it started. He had to get used to the fact there was not a woman alive, other than his wife, who did anything for him.
Before Grace had exploded into his life with all the subtlety of a flying brick, he’d never been so selective. His body had never been so stubborn to respond.
He shivered as her fingers brushed the nape of his neck. Such clever, talented fingers.
When had she last painted? In the Cornish cottage where he had found her, there had been none of the usual paraphernalia that used to accompany her everywhere. There had been no sign she had picked up a paintbrush or even a simple pencil since she had left him. The thought saddened him. The thought that he could be responsible for it made his chest tighten.
She raised her thigh slightly and ground against him, nipping at his neck. All his thoughts turned to fog, her soft lips sending darts of pleasure pulsing through his blood.
Turning his head, he captured her mouth in his and closed his eyes. Her hot sweetness engulfed his senses.
He forgot to breathe.
There it was, the taste that filled his mouth with moisture, the heat that turned his bones to liquid and his groin to steel, all so familiar and yet all so powerfully new.
Gently, he coaxed her lips apart and deepened the kiss, deepened the craving that had never left him, had been banished to a dark recess until she came back into his life.
She moaned softly and parted her lips, digging her nails into his scalp.
