Page 28 of A Baby Scandal in Italy

‘The maid thought you might need fresh towels,’ he said, dropping the pile of towels he was carrying onto a lounger. ‘She must have forgotten she’d brought some earlier.’ He looked unabashed when Ivy glanced at the stack of clean towels on the counter.

‘I’m sorry you interrupted your work unnecessarily.’

He came closer to the hot tub and started to undo his shirt buttons. ‘I didn’t feel like working. Too many other things on my mind.’

He slipped off his shirt and Ivy’s mouth ran dry when she moved her eyes over his broad, bronzed chest overlaid with crisp black hairs that arrowed down his flat stomach. He put his hands on his belt buckle and she remembered that she was naked.

‘You can’t come in the tub,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I forgot my swimsuit.’

‘I promise not to look.’ His sexy grin sent a coil of heat through her, and she felt as if she might self-combust when he stepped out of his trousers to reveal black swim briefs that he must have put on before he’d come to the pool house. So much for his excuse of delivering towels!

His body was a work of art from his wide shoulders, tapered torso and flat abdomen. His hips were lean, and his long legs were powerfully muscular from his years of playing sport at a professional level. Ivy noted that his dark body hairs disappeared into his swim briefs that contained the distinct bulge of his manhood. He stepped into the spa, and she inched along the seat to put as much distance as possible between them.

‘Mmm, this feels good,’ he murmured, stretching his arms along the sides of the tub and dropping his head back against the tiles. He reminded her of an indolent sultan, and she would not have been surprised if half-naked concubines had appeared to fan him with palm leaves. ‘Is your shoulder any easier?’

‘A bit. You were right, the jets are helping.’

The water sloshed when he suddenly moved across the tub and somehow manoeuvred them both so that he was sitting behind her. She caught her breath when he settled his hands on her shoulders and pressed his thumbs into her muscles.

‘I can feel a knot in your trapezius.’ He pressed harder on her left shoulder and she yelped, but after a few seconds the pressure of his thumb started to ease the tension in her muscle. ‘The trapezius is a big muscle that starts here.’ His warm breath stirred the tendrils of hair at the base of her neck. ‘It goes across your shoulders and down to the middle of your back.’ The brush of his fingers on her sensitised skin was as light as gossamer, yet Ivy gave a shiver of reaction.

Rafa continued to massage her shoulders and she gradually relaxed beneath his magician’s touch. Steam from the hot tub drifted up to the glass roof and the low thrum of the jets made her feel as though they were cocooned in their own world, far from reality.

‘What exactly do you mean by marriage?’ Her voice was husky as she asked the question that had thudded inside her since his proposal. ‘Would you want...?’

Words failed her. The knowledge that she was naked, and he very nearly so, increased her intense awareness of him, especially when he continued to massage her injured shoulder with one hand and slid his other hand around her rib cage to cup her breast. He splayed his fingers over the small mound and found her nipple, making her gasp as pleasure spread like molten liquid down to her feminine core.

‘Oh, yes, I would want,cara mia,’ he said thickly, before he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to her collarbone. ‘I want to have sex with you.’ Bold and to the point. The images his words evoked in Ivy’s imagination were shockingly explicit. ‘Tell me what you want, Ivy.’

He dropped his hand from her shoulder and drew her closer so that her back was up against his chest. Now both his arms were around her, and he played with her breasts, rolling her dusky pink nipples between his fingers. Ivy could not fight the waves of languorous delight that swept through her as Rafa caressed her. He lifted her onto his lap and she pressed back against him, catching her breath when the hard ridge of his arousal nudged the cleft of her bottom.

‘Do you want me to do this?’ Despite the hot water in the spa, his gravelly voice brought her skin out in goose bumps. She held her breath when he skimmed one hand over her stomach, and lower, to the cluster of curls at the junction of her thighs.

‘Yes.’ She was intrigued and could not deny her longing for him to touch her intimately. She felt boneless and her thighs splayed open to allow him to slip his hand between them. He moved her so that she was sitting sideways across his thighs and bent his head to claim her mouth in a searing kiss that added a new dimension to his sensual foreplay.

This time when he pushed her legs apart there was a new urgency in his touch as he unerringly found her slick opening. He parted her and eased a finger inside her, stretching her a little wider when one finger became two. She loved the feeling of fullness, and her internal muscles were already tightening, quivering as he moved his hand with a steady rhythm.

Ivy clutched his shoulders and moaned as her excitement built. Rafa captured her delighted cries with his mouth and thrust his tongue between her lips, mimicking the action of his fingers inside her. It belatedly occurred to her that she should offer him the same pleasure he was giving her but, when she moved her hand down to his briefs and stroked her fingers along his powerful arousal, he lifted his lips from hers and growled. ‘Not this time,belleza.This is for you to enjoy.’

And then it was too late for her to think of anything but the wondrous sensations he was creating when he gave a twist of his fingers deep inside her and simultaneously rubbed his thumb across her clitoris. She bucked against his hand as her orgasm hit like a tidal wave, crashing over her, and it kept on coming in ripple after ripple of intense pleasure until she was spent and sagged against him.

Water streamed down Rafa’s limbs as he stood with her in his arms and carried her out of the spa. Ivy twined her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his when he set her on her feet. What had happened in the tub had been a prelude and, although it had been amazing, she sensed there was more. She wanted Rafa to teach her everything, and her confusion must have shown on her face when he stepped away from her and shoved his arms into a bath robe before he draped another robe around her.

‘I thought...’ Her voice was thick with mortification. She had assumed he wanted to have sex with her, and his rejection opened the Pandora’s Box of her insecurities.

Rafa slid his hand beneath her chin and tilted her face up to meet his glittering gaze. ‘I want to make love to you for the first time on our wedding night,cara mia.’

‘And if I don’t accept your proposal? Her eyes widened. ‘Are you using sex to blackmail me to marry you?’

Unforgivably, his lips twitched. ‘Not blackmail. I preferpersuasion.’ His expression became serious. ‘You know it is the right thing to do—marry me so that Bertie can claim his birth right as the Vieri heir.’

Ivy bit her lip. Rafa was so forceful and resisting him was impossible—in every way, she thought ruefully. Her body became alive to his caresses, but she was aware that, while she had experienced ecstasy in his arms, he had always remained in control. He must have had dozens of mistresses who were more experienced than her, perhaps hundreds. She did not want to think of the glamourous women he had enjoyed before her. Worse was the idea that there might be others when his desire for her faded.

‘Honesty is important to you, and it is to me too.’ She held his gaze. ‘I want a promise of fidelity so that Bertie doesn’t grow up in an atmosphere of suspicion.’ She remembered the arguments between her parents when her mum had suspected her dad of having an affair.

Rafa gave a harsh laugh. ‘My wife cheated and led me to believe that I was a father. I will be totally committed to our marriage and always tell you the truth. Make no mistake,cara—if you marry me, I will demand equal commitment and honesty from you.’ His eyes glittered. ‘What is your answer?’

Ivy took a deep breath and prepared to jump. ‘My answer is yes. I will be your wife.’

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