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She took her place and occupied herself pouring out coffee. Benji glanced at her briefly from astride his new trike before zooming off along the terrace.
Rafaello leant towards her. His bare chest was like polished steel in the bright morning light.
‘Well, cara, what would you like to do today, hmm?’
He might have been asking her as a tourist, but the expression in his eyes made it perfectly clear what he wanted her answer to be. She felt the colour run up her cheeks again.
‘Um, whatever you like,’ she answered confusedly. Then went on hurriedly, ‘But don’t you have to go into the office or something?’
Rafaello shook his head. ‘I can think of nothing more tedious,’ he answered.
And it was true. The very thought of sitting at his desk, expanding di Viscenti AG into a global empire, was the most boring idea in the world. No, his world today was centred here—on this extraordinarily enticing woman.
Benji came roaring back in true Formula One style, and as Rafaello glanced at him he felt himself still.
She had taken on another woman’s son to raise as her own. A dying woman had trusted Magda with her own child…
He felt something constrict inside him. What did it take, he thought, to do such a thing? It was a choice that had cost her so much in material terms. For the sake of her dying friend she had taken on a newborn baby, with no support other than what the state provided—no family, barely any money, not even a home of her own to raise him in. But she had done it—turned herself into a drudge, living in penury, because she would not turn her back on a helpless baby who had no one else to look after him.
Emotion surged through him.
Thank God I found her!
He had taken her away from all that poverty-stricken drudgery, brought her here and released her, like a bird from her cage, to fly on iridescent wings in the summer’s warmth. Well-being flooded through him, and something more—something more…
A hand planted on his knee drew his attention. Benji wanted to climb up. He bent down and scooped him onto his lap, marvelling at the solid warmth of the infant, the way he trustingly snuggled up against him before turning his attention to the bread rolls on the table.
With a laugh, Rafaello fed him while Magda sipped her coffee.
‘Another day at the beach,’ he announced decisively. ‘That’s what we all need.’
Benji would be in seventh heaven, Magda would be happy and he—well, he would have another opportunity to admire her swimsuit…
‘More coffee?’
Magda shook her head. Part of her wanted to say yes, because that would mean she could go on sitting at the table. Upstairs, Benji was fast asleep, exhausted by the pleasures of the seaside, and Rafaello had persuaded her to entrust his safety to a newly-purchased baby alarm monitor that even now relayed his deep, even breathing from its receiver beside her place.
They were still out on the terrace, even at this late hour, for the weather had turned even warmer and Magda was drinking in the glory of the Italian night sky. A scrape of metal on stone accompanied Rafaello’s getting to his feet. He came around the table to her and held out his hand.
‘Bedtime,’ he said softly.
Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. She knew exactly what he wanted—and she knew with all her heart, with all her body, that she wanted it, too. She wanted to feel his arms around her again, feel that hard, lean body against hers, feel his hands, his mouth…his tongue…moving over her, taking her step by step back to that wonderful, ecstatic, unbelievable, heavenly paradise he had taken her to last night.
‘I have waited all day,’ he went on, looking down at her with his dark, velvet wanting eyes. ‘For countless, agonising hours…waiting for this moment, cara, when I would take your hand and draw you to your feet, like this—’ with soft, insistent force he drew her up ‘—and wind my arms around you, like this—’ his arms folded her against him ‘—and lift your face to mine and taste, ah, taste again that honey from your mouth—like this—’
His mouth lowered to hers, and with a little sigh she gave her lips to his.
It was bliss, it was heaven, it was the stars moving in a slow, insistent arc across the sable sky as his mouth moved upon hers, opening her like a flower, to feast on the nectar he sought.
‘Come,’ he said again, ‘it is time for the night to begin…’
Could it really be, she thought, her mind a mist, her body a soft velvet fire, as good again as it had been before? And yet it was—and more. As he swept her inside his bedroom she did not even go through to check on Benji—‘He is fine, cara—listen, I have brought the monitor with me—he sleeps like an angel.’ Rafaello breathed into her mouth as he kissed her again and again, and with each kiss, each touch, lit flames in every portion of her body, peeling from her the flimsy covering of her clothes until once again she stood naked in his embrace.
