Page 10 of A Baby Scandal in Italy

‘Oh, no!’ Ivy had perfected the ‘wide-eyed ingénue’ act. But, even knowing that she was a liar and that she had obviously been in contact with the journalist whose business card had been in her bag, Rafa felt an intense desire to crush her soft mouth beneath his and taste the orange juice on her lips. Once again, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and he wondered if she even possessed one. Every time she moved, her tee shirt brushed against her breasts, and he glimpsed the tantalising outline of her pointed nipples.

‘I don’t understand why the papers are saying that you and I are...involved.’ Unbelievably, she blushed.

‘Don’t you?’ He had every right to be cynical and suspicious, Rafa told himself.

Ivy lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. ‘What can we do?’

The neck of her shirt had slipped off her shoulder, exposing the pale, upper swell of one breast. Heat stirred in Rafa’s groin, and he could not control the surge of sexual hunger that swept through him. Resting his elbow on the breakfast counter, he leaned closer to Ivy. She tensed but did not pull away. He was fascinated by the frantic thud of the pulse at the base of her throat.

‘The media and half the goddamned world believe we are lovers,’ he drawled. He did not add,thanks to you, but his unspoken accusation intensified the simmering tension in the kitchen. ‘I think I’m owed some sort of compensation for the trouble you have caused.’

Ivy’s face was a picture as her lips parted to form a perfectO!when his meaning became clear. Rosy colour stained her cheeks and throat, and Rafa’s fingers itched to grab the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head so that he could see if the flush of heat had spread across her breasts.

‘Are you propositioning me?’ The amber flecks in her eyes sparked with temper, but her voice was oddly breathless. ‘You said I’m not your type,’ she reminded him.

‘The pink hair is growing on me.’ Compelled by the drumbeat of desire pounding in his veins, Rafa traced his finger down her cheek and neck, stopping at the edge of her shirt, where her breasts were rising and falling jerkily. Her skin was as soft and delicate as rose petals and he was intrigued by how easily she blushed.

He should stop this now before he did something he would later regret, such as kiss the sulky pout from her mouth until her lips were soft and pliant beneath his. His common sense told him that he should switch on the coffee machine and get his kick from a hit of caffeine instead of hitting on Little Miss Liar. But he couldn’t move away from her.

‘We could be lovers,’ he murmured. ‘At least then, part of the news story would be true.’

He’d meant it to be a joke, a taunt to annoy her. He wanted to provoke a reaction from her, in the same way that she provoked one from him, but his voice thickened as the heat inside him flared into an inferno.

‘I’ve never had a lover.’ The lie—for surely it must be a lie?—slipped so easily from her pretty mouth. ‘What makes you think I’d want you?’

Rafa would have been more convinced that she was not interested in him if her voice hadn’t become husky and seductive. Her eyes had darkened, the enlarged pupils almost swallowing up the brown irises, drawing him in. He resented the effect she had on him even as he lowered his face towards her.

What makes you think I’d want you?Ivy had challenged him and Rafa could never resist a challenge.

‘This,’ he murmured before he brought his mouth down on hers.

She gasped and he swallowed the soft sound, easing her lips apart with his. The effect on him was instant. He felt as though an electrical current had zapped through his body. Somehow he stopped himself from ravaging her lips with hungry passion. He had felt her slight hesitation and he kept the kiss light, flicking his tongue over the contours of her mouth and taking little sips from her lips.

He felt her mouth quiver beneath the coaxing pressure of his and a nerve jumped in his cheek as it became harder to restrain himself from devouring her. His patience paid off as, with a low moan, she parted her lips to allow his tongue to probe between them.

Dio, she tasted of orange juice and nectar, and he wanted more. He speared his fingers into her pink hair. The feathery strands felt like silk against his skin as he slid one hand round to her nape and angled her head so that he could fit his mouth even closer to hers. He pushed his tongue between her lips and Ivy copied his actions, tentatively at first, but she grew bolder as the kiss became increasingly erotic.

She placed her hands on his bare chest, and Rafa knew she must feel the erratic thud of his heart. His skin felt too hot, too tight. He wanted her naked against his bare skin. Her breasts would be soft and her nipples as hard as pebbles pressing into his chest.

This was madness. She should not be kissing Rafa. Alarm bells rang in Ivy’s brain, but her body wasn’t listening. The instant he had covered her mouth with his, a fire had ignited inside her, and she was burning in his fiery passion. She was intoxicated by the scent of his body, a subtle blend of the spicy cologne he’d worn the previous day, the faint peatiness of whisky and something uniquely male that triggered a purely feminine response low in her pelvis.

Her bones had turned to jelly the moment he’d strolled into the kitchen, looking like a fallen god, with his almost black hair spilling across his brow and thick stubble shadowing his jaw. His bare chest was tanned a deep olive-gold and covered with whorls of black hairs that arrowed down to the edge of his sweatpants sitting low on his hips.

While she was sitting on the bar stool, her face was almost level with Rafa’s. He tightened his arms around her, and she was powerless to stop herself from melting against his whipcord body. Her breasts felt heavy and warmth pooled between her thighs. She ran her hands over his chest, fascinated by the feel of satin overlaid with wiry hairs. Her fingertips explored the ridges of his powerful abs as she strained closer to him and parted her lips beneath his, kissing him with a wild passion she’d never felt for any other man.

In truth, there hadn’t been many other men, Ivy acknowledged. Her first romance when she’d been seventeen had ended with her cancer diagnosis. In hindsight, she supposed that Luke had been too young to cope, but when he’d broken up with her it had reinforced her belief that all men were like her father and disappeared when things got tough. One day she hoped she would meet a guy she could rely on. But that guy was not Rafa Vieri. He was a playboy who had slept with her sister and pretended that he did not remember.

What was she doing? Ivy tore her lips from Rafa’s. Recrimination tasted like sawdust in her mouth. Her wanton behaviour was completely out of character. She felt guilty that she had betrayed Gemma, even though things with Rafa hadn’t gone further than a kiss. But for a few moments she had been utterly carried away by their blazing passion and she’d longed for him to lie her down on the breakfast counter and lower his body onto hers.

‘No.’She pushed against Rafa’s chest, and he backed off immediately.

‘Easy,’ he murmured.

Ivy slid down from the bar stool and wrapped her arms around her body as if she could hold herself together. She ran her tongue over her swollen lips. ‘I’m not easy,’ she told Rafa tremulously. ‘I realise I must have given you a different impression. That shouldn’t have happened.’

He shrugged. ‘It was just a kiss. Nothing to get worked up about.’

Evidently he hadn’t been affected by the kiss the way she had, and she wanted to die of shame.Who would look after Bertie?demanded a scornful voice in her head. Ivy shuddered with remorse and anger at herself. For those few minutes, while Rafa had been expertly kissing her, she had forgotten about Bertie.

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