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Then he was beside her, his fingers tantalisingly slow as he removed the tiny scraps of fabric that partially covered her aching breasts. Then, slowly, he lowered his head, taking one hardened peak between his lips, his hands moulding her hips to the hard maleness of his, making her mindless with longing.
She whispered his name as his body covered her and he said rawly, 'Annie, I love you,' and the wonder of those words, the touch of the hair-roughened bronze satin of his skin, set her on fire.
Arching her body to his, she responded wildly, lost in the hot, sweet urgency of a desire she could no longer control or deny, a desire she now welcomed without reservation.
His breathing was deep, ragged, and her hands reached up, her fingers twining through his dark hair before languorously moving down over his shoulders, over the tight skin of his back, his rib-cage, getting to know the shape of him, the feel of him. And, hungrily, his lips took hers, took her breasts, moving wildly, relentlessly, as if he wanted to devour the whole of her, one hand sliding along the heated silk of her thighs to effortlessly remove the tiny triangle of fabric that was the only barrier remaining between them.
'You're no longer afraid of love?' It was not exactly a question, more a statement, because he had to know now, after the ecstatic way she had followed him to the delirious heights of loving, that, for her, fear of unfettered emotion, of her own sexuality, was a thing of the past. Hadn't she, over the past overwhelmingly beautiful hour, shown him as much?
Wordlessly affirming what he already knew, she nuzzled her rumpled head into the crook of his shoulder as they walked slowly towards the villa. One strong arm held her possessively against his side, their bodies, where they touched, seeming to fuse.
Annie trailed the towel from one languid hand, unashamed now of the near nudity of her body.
She wondered how she could bear to be apart from Luke, even for the one night he had grudgingly conceded she must spend with Willa.
They had arranged that she would drive him to the village where he would find a room at one of the hotels, and then she would—with difficulty, she knew—return to the villa to do her duty at the wretched party her mother had decided to give. And tomorrow she would join him and they'd make plans. What those plans would entail he hadn't said and she didn't know. How far into the future he was looking was something she didn't dare to think about. But he had said he loved her and that was all she needed to know.
They were nearing the house, their footsteps growing slower as if both of them would delay the separation, however brief it was to be, and Annie asked, 'That yours?' meaning the single suitcase on the gravel sweep in front of the villa. She wondered if Griff had arrived, a full day earlier than he'd said he would.
'Uh huh,' Luke confirmed. 'I always travel light, but this time I threw enough gear together to last me for what might have turned out to be a protracted tour of Europe in search of a shapely, redheaded, stubborn female.' His hand tightened on the naked flesh of her slender waist. 'I dropped it where I stood when a large, dour woman told me you'd gone down to the beach.'
'That would have been Nora.' Annie smiled up into his eyes. 'She's Willa's minder. And tell me, how did you know where to find me?' It had seemed like a miracle when he had appeared on the beach and, as if she couldn't yet get to grips with the reality, she needed to have it explained.
'Easy. Joan told me.' His voice roughened as if he were in pain. 'When I realised you'd gone, without so much as saying goodbye, I nearly went out of my mind. It was as much as Norman could do to speak to me at all, let alone tell me where I could find you. But Joan took pity and came to my room while I was packing. She told me you'd broken your engagement and gone to your mother's. I guess that lady—Nora, did you say?— thought I was out of my head when I just dropped everything and ran for the beach. I hadn't hoped that things would turn out to be so easy!'
As if on cue, Nora appeared between the marble pillars flanking the main door.
'Willa wants to know if your fiancé would like to make use of the villa while he's here?' she said to Annie, her eyes openly assessing Luke's undeniably charismatic person.
Annie opened her mouth to deny the natural mistake, but Luke stepped forward, introducing himself, extending his hand, and Nora, to Annie's amusement, actually blushed when her own hand was swallowed by his.
'I'd be delighted to stay,' he said, smiling wickedly over his shoulder at Annie, leaving her in no doubt that he found Nora's mistake amusing and that he relished the opportunity for the two of them to spend more time together. He probably wondered why she hadn't made the offer herself, and she couldn't have explained why she hadn't, not in words that would have made much sense.
As Luke bent to pick up his abandoned suitcase a slight movement overhead caught Annie's eyes. Looking up, she saw the corner of a bedroom curtain drop back into place by the scarlet-tipped hand of a secret observer. Willa.
It was ridiculous to be feeling so apprehensive, Annie nagged at herself as she took a hurried shower. Willa had obviously been spying on them as they'd walked up from the beach, the time they had taken giving her ample opportunity to send Nora down with that message. But what of it? she mentally chided herself. It was only a natural interest in the man she mistakenly believed to be her daughter's fiancé.
But how interested was Willa? And what direction would that interest take?
Pushing the grumbling thoughts aside, Annie towelled herself dry. Luke had said he loved her and Luke wasn't another Hernando—besides, she was older now, more sure of herself. She could handle Willa!
Reassuring herself, she recalled how, when Nora had offered to take Luke to his room, she had mentioned that Willa wanted to see her. Annie had been expecting the third degree, but Willa had only mentioned Luke once, and that, as it were, in passing, saying in a barely interested tone, 'It's as well I happened to be sitting in my window when your fiancé arrived. Nora tells me he was going to take a room in the village. He'd have gone away with a poor opinion of my hospitality.'
She had gone on to ask Annie whether she should wear the blue or the grey, both simple, understatedly elegant dresses, and Annie had said, 'The blue. The colour suits you so well.' And Willa had agreed, smiling, no frost in her eyes now, leaving Annie to wonder if her mother was really herself again, because she always made sure she shone brilliantly at any social gathering, and she wouldn't do that in either of the dresses she had picked out of her lavish wardrobe.
And for a moment Annie had hugged her, wanting to give her some reassurance because, just for a while, Willa had looked like a lost kitten. Amazingly, her mother hadn't pushed her away as she always had done in the past when Annie had tried to show affection, and that gave her even more reason to hope that things would be different this time. If she had changed during the past seven years, then so had Willa.
She hadn't bothered to correct the mistaken assumption that Luke was the fiancé Annie had mentioned in her last letter. The difference in the names had obviously not struck Willa yet, and the whole tangled story would take too long to tell, especially as her mother was anxious to get herself ready for when her guests arrived.
Fortunately, the dress Annie had picked out, almost at random from the rails
in the boutique, suited her. Had she known that Luke would be arriving out of the blue she would have gone to endless trouble and probably still not bettered this one—the first dress in her size she had come across.
The turquoise chiffon flattered her vivid hair and creamy skin, and the scoop-necked bodice, held by a couple of narrow straps, fitted sleekly at the waist and hips and made the most of her slender yet curvy figure.
The simple style of the dress needed no ornamentation, and that was just as well, since she had left the few pieces she did possess back at The Laurels. And it was just as well that Willa had decided to dress simply tonight. If the star had elected to pull out all the stops, then she, Annie, would have been well and truly eclipsed!
Tonight was to be a simple affair all round, she reassured herself. Just a few of Willa's friends, all of them British expatriates who had made permanent homes in Capri. It would be nothing like Willa's wilder parties, the sort which had made Annie squirm in the old days. Nothing at all to feel apprehensive about.
