Page 38 of My Fake Italian Marriage

“Yes.” She heard the grin in his voice. “I knew you weren’t sleeping.”

“How could I, with you attacking your pillows like that?”

“I like to soften them up just right.”

“I think I may have discovered the real reason you’re still single. Between this and your snoring, how’s a poor woman supposed to get any sleep?”

“I don’t snore,” he protested. “And usually, when I’m in bed with a woman, we’re not sleeping.”

Under cover of the darkness, she rolled her eyes.

Luca chuckled. “I heard that.” His voice dropped to a purr. “Good night,cara.”

ChapterFifteen

Chi si marita in fretta, stenta adagio.

(Marry in haste, repent at leisure.)

He woke slowly to warmth and softness. He also woke to an erection, which wasn’t unusual, but the pressure of a warm, soft body against his erection was. He snuggled into the warmth, breathing in the fresh, summery scent of peaches which made his erection harder, turning it from ordinary bodily function to arousal between one heartbeat and the next. The body pressed against him shifted and sighed, and, just like that, he came fully awake. His right arm was draped over her hip; and Cleo’s hair was fanned out over the pillows, in his face, the source of that sweet, arousing scent.

He had Cleo wrapped in his arms and pressed up against his chest. His naked chest. What the hell happened to the pillows she’d set between them? She wasn’t going to like this.

He, on the other hand, was enjoying it very much. He would be happy to close his eyes, and lie there a moment longer, run his hand over her curves, kiss her soft skin … but he couldn’t. He needed to extricate himself before she woke and realised that their platonic friendship was anything but to him. Would she wake if he lifted his arm and rolled slowly away? Did he even have the willpower to do it, when his every instinct was to bury his face in her hair, in her neck, to bury himself in her?

He knew the moment when she woke. Unlike him, it wasn’t slow and lazy, but an instantaneous change in her breathing, and the sudden stiffening of her body. His erection reacted, nudging against her lower back.

“Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is,” she moaned.

He chuckled, his voice low and reverberating against the soft curve of her neck. “That depends on what you think it is.”

She released a slow, measured breath, as if to calm herself. “Did we sleep like this all night?”

“I have no idea. I only just woke up myself.” He gave in to temptation and brushed aside her hair to press his lips against her neck.

“What happened to ‘work and play don’t mix’?” Her voice sounded thick, not with sleep but with desire.

Somewhere in the last few days they’d crossed the line between work and play. “You’ll be going back to England in a day or two, and we might never meet again. Would it be so bad to give in to this this attraction before you leave?”

She sighed. “I guess this would be a good moment to tell you that Kevin asked me to stay a couple more weeks until the new manager starts.” She eased away, sliding to sit on the edge of the bed, and his whole body wanted to reach for her, to pull her back.

She kept her back to him, her head ducked down. “This never happened.” It sounded as if she was trying to convince herself. Then she shook her head and rose. “I’m going for a run. When I get back, we should go to breakfast, then hit the road. We have a long drive ahead.”

Without looking at him, she hurried around the bed, grabbed her running clothes from the closet, and headed to the bathroom. He rolled onto his back, and stretched, his erection tenting the sheet. It wasn’t going anywhere, not as long as his imagination was picturing her stripping off her sleep shorts and tank top on the other side of that smoky glass screen.

At least two more weeks with her. How did he feel about that? Sure, it would take the pressure off, allow him to catch up with work at his own practice instead of devoting all his time to the vineyard. But two more weeks unable to give in to this desire, which only seemed to grow with each day they spent together…

He wasn’t an arse who would pursue where he was not wanted. He usually had no difficulty suppressing his desires if they were not returned, but with Cleo it was not so easy to turn off. Perhaps because, despite her attempts to deny it, their attraction was a mutual magnetic pull, like a constant hum just out of earshot. But he had to resist. He couldn’t afford to mess this up; the vineyard was too important.

He pulled the crumpled duvet above his waist to hide the evidence of his arousal, but needn’t have bothered. When she emerged from the bathroom, she scurried past, avoiding looking at him. The patio door snicked closed behind her, and finally he headed to the shower to get rid of his erection in a far less pleasant way than he would have liked.

* * *

By the time Cleo returned from her run, adorably flushed and glowing with sweat, it was indeed as though it had never happened. She was back to her usual bubbly, smiling self. While he made coffee in their kitchenette, she showered and dressed, and after they’d drunk their coffees on the terrace, savouring their exclusive view of the lake one last time, they headed to the main hotel building for a quick breakfast before checking out.

“Thank you, Graziano,” Luca said to the manager, who came out of his office behind the reception desk to bid them farewell. “That was a truly memorable honeymoon.”

“We’ll see you again at the wine show next year?” Graziano shook his hand. “Or maybe you bring your lovely wife back sooner?”

---