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Oh, someone save me! She groaned when his hand came to curve over one of her breasts and the flesh beneath came alive in a burgeoning thrust that must have left him in no doubt as to what she was feeling.
This was it, the point of no return for her. She knew it and she suspected that he knew it. She either stopped him now or she surrendered completely.
It was the taxi pulling to an abrupt standstill that had them both breaking apart. They had arrived, apparently, though Natalia was too dazed to know where they were.
To give him his due, if the cabby had noticed what they’d been doing in the back of his cab he made no sign of it as Giancarlo paid him, adding a rather large tip, she suspected, going by the pleasant way the driver responded.
Opening the door, Giancarlo reached for her hand, then stepped out on the pavement trailing her with him as he went. Neither had looked directly at the other since the kiss. But she could feel its heat on her lips still and the hand he had folded round one of hers was very possessive.
He was gazing at the frontage to a large building built in stone which reminded her of just one of many Victorian office blocks that dotted this area of the City. But when they stepped into its luxurious foyer, she began to realise that this was no ordinary office block, but a block of highly exclusive City apartments, with a concierge who rose to his feet behind his workstation and smiled politely as they approached him.
Giancarlo gave his name and was handed a plastic card, then was directed towards the lifts and told to use it in the lift to gain access to the top floor. Natalia managed to take back her hand as they walked towards the lift. He said nothing. They still hadn’t looked at each other.
No surprise there, she thought tensely, when you think what happ
ened the last time.
The lift doors slid open, and Giancarlo waited politely for her to precede him inside. It was lined from ceiling to floor with tinted mirror glass, and she went to stand in the far corner and kept her face lowered because she just didn’t want to see what her reflection was going to tell her if she did dare look up and catch a glimpse of herself. The lift began to rise. Giancarlo had taken up a position in the other corner across from her. She sensed his brooding study but refused to meet it. The silence was stifling, the tension so fraught it began lifting the hairs all over her body. If something didn’t break it soon she had a horrible feeling she was going to burst out crying.
Maybe he knew it. ‘Natalia,’ he murmured, using her name with husky intimacy that ran through her blood like mercury. ‘You can look at me; I am in control now.’
Well, bully for you, she thought with acid satire. Now ask me if I am in control! But despite the inner quip, she found herself lifting her head with a defiance that burned in her eyes as they hit him.
‘Who owns this place?’ she asked, using the first nonprovoking question to pop into her head.
‘A—friend of mine,’ he answered with his voice—while his eyes most definitely brooded on other things. ‘He is into property development. This building has only recently begun letting its space.’
‘Office space?’ she sliced sweetly at him.
‘No.’ He shook his dark head—and her fingers itched to grab hold of it and pull it down until his mouth hit hers.
Oh, damn, she cursed…
Damn it… Giancarlo was cursing silently. If she continued to look at him like that it was likely he would stop this lift and show her how much it was costing him to remain this passive.
‘Apartments,’ he answered levelly. ‘I need a place to stay while I am in London as well as a place to work from, and this will be the ideal solution.’
‘You’ve been here before? Last night, for instance?’
Ah! He began to get an idea as to what was really eating at her. Not the serious risk of torrid sex in a rising lift—but the risk that she was about to be walked into his busy den of iniquity.
He allowed himself a small grimace, seeing that the hook he had used to concentrate her mind on him had now become a hindrance to the developing situation.
So, ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Last night I stayed with the property developer himself and his lovely wife—Serena Delucca,’ he placed succinctly, watching carefully as her expression began to show the slow dawning of full understanding.
‘Playing games, signor?’ she grimly mocked him.
‘Don’t we all, signorina?’ he dryly returned.
Her breasts began to ache. They had no right to do so when the conversation could not be even vaguely considered sexual.
No? a little voice inside her head scoffed. Every single thing the two of you do or say is so sexual it should be X-rated!
The lift stopped. They both straightened away from the walls. The doors slid open. They stepped out together into a wide, light, square inner foyer with shiny white-tiled flooring and magnolia walls, and no doors but wide, deep-set, angular openings that linked room to room in a way meant to convey the impression of space and light and freedom of movement.
It also came pre-furnished, in a style designed to complement its open planning. Nothing stood out, nothing glared back at you, just a clever blend of natural shades and fabrics that were so easy on the eye you could almost miss them.
‘Nice,’ she said, not sure if she liked it.
