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“Please, Angelo.”
“Not yet, baby. I want you to take me in your mouth and then, when neither of us can stand it any longer, I’ll come in you. I want us both exploding at the same time.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN ROSIE TRIED to compare what she and Angelo had now with what they’d had three years ago, she was at a loss. In a lot of ways, it was piercingly sweet and achingly familiar, and in many other ways it was as though she was involved with a completely different human being.
He had built an impenetrable barrier around himself and there was no way she could get past it. She had known that within days of them recommencing their relationship, if it could be called “a relationship.”
Rosie gazed out of the kitchen window to where the vegetable plot she was cultivating was beginning to take shape. On the upside, the catering was doing well. That first job, nearly six weeks ago, had generated several others and she now had a girl from the village who came in to help her when needed.
On the downside...
She stared at the bowl of chopped vegetables awaiting her attention.
Her body had never been more fully satisfied. Their love-making was fast and furious and always left her completely spent. Angelo would come down on a weekend, and he would stride into the cottage with one thing and one thing only on his mind, and her body would weakly and helplessly respond. He never stayed the night. He returned to sleep at his own mansion, to which she had yet to be invited.
There was a part of her that knew just how pathetic that was, how low her self-esteem must surely be to find herself in a situation where the only thing that mattered was sex. Deep down, Rosie knew that that was the huge difference between what they had now and what they had had then. In her mind, she labelled her old relationship as “before fallout” and before fallout, she’d been a girl madly in love, where every touch was invested with significance and every kiss carried the promise of a future.
There was no future in what they had now and that was made abundantly clear in a thousand different ways. Angelo was assiduous when it came to using protection, which was a blessing, but she got the message loud and clear that very first time—her body had been screaming for him and he had calmly donned protection, whilst informing her that any mistake that could possibly lead to an unwanted pregnancy would be nothing short of catastrophic.
The past was never mentioned. Underneath the surface, she could feel the ugly swirl of unanswered questions struggling to rebel against their imposed silence.
Why had he married Amanda? Had he loved her? Had it just been the sex? What had happened to the marriage?
On the single occasion when she had tried to introduce what had happened between them three years previously into the conversation, she had watched as the passion on his face was replaced by a cold, shuttered expression that had sent a chill down her spine.
Rosie wondered how long she would be able to last. How long before she cracked under the pressure of trying to maintain the same cool, unemotional front he found so easy? Every time they made love, she was convinced that it would be the last time and she hated herself for fearing the inevitable outcome; she hated her weakness for still wanting him so badly that it hurt, even though she always made sure that she was as cool and as cynical as he was, treating him with the same emotional distance as he treated her.
She heard the sound of his car pulling up on the drive. Early summer had arrived with a bang and, although it was already after eight, it was still bright and light outside. All the predictions she had made about the flowers blooming into riotous colour had been fulfilled. London, in comparison, was a grey place that was fast becoming a distant memory.
Gradually, all the walls had been repainted and much of the furniture replaced. Bit by bit, the cottage was being stamped with her own personality, although there were little things belonging to Amanda which she kept because they brought back fond memories of her friend before things had gone pear-shaped: pretty tins and boxes which Amanda had been fond of collecting even as a kid; a couple of pictures in frames; two vases—they were all in the larder waiting for a spot to be found in the cottage.
Forgiveness was a good place to be and she could feel herself getting there.
Rosie pulled open the front door. Her heart swooped and dived and did all sorts of ridiculous things inside her as Angelo stepped over the threshold, already unbuttoning his shirt, to wrap her in an embrace.
“I’ve cooked for us,” Rosie murmured, pulling back rather than just succumbing on the spot to his powerful, masculine physicality. “There’s a vegetable dish I’m trying out for the catering job I have next Wednesday.” She scattered little butterfly kisses on his mouth and laughed when he pulled her forcefully towards him with a low growl.
“I’m not sure I can hold off until I’ve tasted the trial vegetable dish.” He moved against her so that she was left in no doubt that he was heavily aroused.
“We don’t have to have sex as soon as you walk through the front door,” Rosie muttered in the first small show of rebellion since they had fallen back into bed together six weeks ago. “I mean, we can actually have a glass of wine and some dinner, and maybe even watch a little television. There’s a show I want to see about wildlife.”
Angelo frowned. He had not expected this to last as long as it had, nor had he predicted that he would still be hot for her after weeks of losing himself at will in her succulent, sexily responsive body. Weaning himself off her was taking its time. Indulging in domestic cosiness wasn’t going to help the process.
“I’ll try the new dish,” he drawled. “But watching telly isn’t going to work for me.”
Rosie held her smile and shrugged. “It was just a thought—” holding the smile made her jaws ache “—but you’re right.” She wound her arms up and around his neck. “Watching telly is a waste of valuable time.”
Angelo gave a grunt of satisfaction and hoisted her off her feet to take her upstairs.
“One day you’re going to do something to your back doing stuff like this.” Rosie was laughing breathlessly and unbuttoning his shirt, which was difficult, as she was bounced up the stairs as though she weighed nothing.
“And will you play nurse and make me all better?” Angelo glanced down at her and their eyes tangled.
There were times, too many to count, when all he could see was the girl he had taken to his bed three years ago. Then, he had to remind himself of the woman lurking behind the girl, the schemer who had so nearly conned him into a relationship which would have eventually ended in tears because sooner or later he would have found out what she was all about. He had been spared that outcome, but he had to keep reminding himself of its existence, especially when, like now, her laughing, teasing eyes made something wrench inside him.
He was, by now, very familiar with the cottage. Her bedroom was the one directly above the small kitchen. She had made him put up an old-fashioned, flowery porcelain coat-hook behind the door and he knew that if he turned round her bathrobe would be hanging there.
Two weeks ago he had bought her a new bathrobe to replace the one she had, which was falling to pieces. Hell, it was only one thing, practically without value; she certainly wouldn’t be able to pawn it for thousands of pounds! Where was the harm in that? She was his woman, at least for the time being, and as such he would rather not be affronted by the sight of her in something that should have been consigned to the dustbin years ago. It made complete sense. What wouldn’t have made sense was the delicate jewellery box with the stained-glass sides and the diamond beading which he had happened to see in passing a few days previously. He was extremely glad he had resisted the temptation to buy it for her.
“I’ve never been good at nursing,” Rosie quipped lightly, when she wanted to tell him that, yes, she would love nothing more than to take care of him, to have him spend a night in the cottage with her instead of dashing off whatever the time, as though he would turn into a pumpkin if he didn’t. Rosie wasn’t a fool. She knew exactly what this was all about, just as she knew that if she started trying to make more of it than it really was then he would disappear in a puff of smoke and she wasn’t ready for that.
As he deposited her on the bed, her heart picked up speed as she wondered when she would ever be ready for him to disappear in a puff of smoke. She had dumped her reservations and jettisoned her misgivings to climb back into bed with him and now, as the need to hold him close and really talk to him swelled inside her, she was realising that she had made a colossal mistake. She had kidded herself that she was like him, that she could have sex with him and clear him out of her system once and for all. She had been a fool, because she was more embedded in this than ever before. Sleeping with Angelo was not diminishing her desire, it was stoking it.
Like it or not, she was at his mercy, as useless as a piece of flotsam bobbing along dependent for its direction on the ocean currents.
“Not true,” Angelo admonished, half-smiling as he got undressed. “I distinctly remember you sorting out a cut on my finger once upon a time.”
He frowned, annoyed with himself for having taken the conversation into the past. He never had, not even when he had sensed her trying to engineer it in that direction. He might occasionally have to remind himself of the sort of woman she really was, and of the reasons he had chosen to bring her back into his life, but the past remained out of bounds, a taboo subject.
