Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,11

overwhelming hunger which made Aisling stay right where she was? Perhaps it was simply the fleeting feeling that if she didn’t, then she would regret it for the rest of her life. That she would become one of those bitter old women who had rejected a taste of paradise when she’d had it offered to her on a soft, warm night in Umbria.

‘You know you want me,’ he asserted harshly.

‘Yes,’ she assented breathlessly. And with a little moan, she wrapped her arms around his neck, lifting her mouth to meet his hard, seeking kiss.

A thousand fireworks exploded in his head as her lips opened beneath his. ‘Aisling,’ he groaned, her name as unfamiliar on his lips as the taste of her, the smell of her, this sheer unexpected reality of having her soft and compliant and oh-so-hungry in his arms. The ice-queen melting! The cool Englishwoman kissing him!

Aisling swayed as she responded with a fervour which seemed to sap her of strength and reason. His hands were touching her breasts, and—oh, heavens!—she was letting them, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Fingertips moving over her body, as if examining her by touch alone. Lingering at the indentation of her waist. Skating over the curve of her hips. Cupping the swell of her buttocks and pulling her into the hard rock of his arousal.

‘Oh!’ she gasped.

‘You like that?’

‘Yes!’

‘And that?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She breathed. ‘Yes!’

‘You want me to keep doing it?’

‘Yes!’

He flicked his tongue over her bone-dry lips. She was like molten lava, bubbling beneath his touch—so responsive, so unbelievably receptive in a way which belied her normal cool image.

Gianluca thought quickly. If his barn were not filled with villagers and local dignitaries, he would have thought nothing of taking her there, beneath the tree. He could have fought to get her jeans down and thrust deliciously into her. Then they could have gone back to the party afterwards as if nothing had happened.

He frowned with concentration. If he kissed her thoroughly enough, silenced the sounds of her orgasm, he might yet be able to accomplish it. And yet he was still not certain of her. Some women were needlessly sentimental when they took a new lover—insisting on the formality of a bed rather than a shadowed space in an orchard. Would Aisling be one of them?

He realised that this was madness—that there were a million other women more suitable to take to his bed than this one. She was a good head-hunter and this could impact badly on their professional relationship. Yet for once he failed to heed the note of caution in his head. He wanted her in a way which surprised him. Against her lips, he smiled. He wanted her and he knew how to guarantee that she would be his.

He moved his hand to touch her thigh through the thick material of the denim, feeling her shudder against him.

‘Gianluca?’

The word came out breathlessly against his lips and he heard her uncertainty. Ruthlessly, he moved his fingertips upwards, alighting and burrowing over her mound with irresistible precision, and heard her helpless little moan.

‘You like that too, I think, cara mia,’ he murmured, and now he began to move his hands with accurate sweetness, knowing that the barrier of her jeans was exciting her as much as frustrating her. ‘Don’t you?’

The world tipped on its axis as for one second Aisling really thought she was about to lose it there and then.

‘Don’t you?’ he prompted huskily.

Mutely she nodded her head—words beyond her ability as she clung to him with all the hunger of someone who hadn’t had sex for so long, she’d almost forgotten what to do. But it was more than that, wasn’t it? It was because it was him—her every fantasy personified. ‘Gianluca,’ she moaned.

‘We can’t stay here,’ he ground out.

Again, it was a statement. He was not given to asking permission, Aisling realised weakly—in the same moment realising that she didn’t want him to ask. She wanted him to take control in that masterful and autocratic way of his. Because that will take some of the self-recrimination away—is that why? questioned a mocking voice in her head, but she silenced it.

‘I know,’ she whispered, her answer making her complicit in what they were doing.

Those shaky words were all he needed—and he didn’t realise how much he had been fearing that she would tear herself away from him and let sanity prevail until he heard the rush of pent-up air escape from his lips.