cast a tall shadow in the afternoon sun, his broad shoulders tapering into a lean waist and muscular thighs, the very ones that had cradled her. There had been such power, such strength in him and yet he had been so gentle with her. That she knew his body with such intimate knowledge sent a strange thrum of power flowing through her veins.
Not that she had any illusion that he belonged to her.
She doubted Raphael would ever truly belong to any woman. And yet, seeing him stand there, Pia could only feel tenderness for him. As if somehow she could bring a new facet out of this hard man. As if she could give him something he didn’t have or hadn’t known before.
She sighed and trudged up the steep path. His hair, grown overlong, curled over the collar of his shirt. A pang beat through her chest as she noticed the dark shadows he sported under his eyes.
Wineglass raised to his mouth, he froze when he spotted her. That intense stare of his made her pulse flutter, that familiar feeling of excitement and anticipation singing through her veins.
His dark eyes swept over her with such lingering hunger that Pia instantly knew that he felt this thing between them just as strongly as she did.
Sweat had gathered over her forehead and her neck for she’d been walking for almost an hour. Her hair was a nest around her face. She wished she’d worn anything but another pair of old jeans and a collared T-shirt.
Then hated herself for thinking that.
“Hello, Pia.”
Pia walked around him, the clamor of her heart far too much to stand being near him right then, and poured herself a glass of ice-cold water. Only after she took a fortifying sip did she lift her gaze and meet his.
“Hello, Raphael.”
The table stood between them, yet nothing could dilute the awareness singing in the air between them, or his displeasure. His fingers gripped the wine flute so tightly that she was afraid he would break it and hurt himself.
“You didn’t come to the phone when I asked for you.”
She shrugged while her grandfather watched them as if he were at a tennis match. “I just...it wasn’t a good time to talk on the phone,” she said.
“All five times that I asked for you?” His tone rang with disbelief. His gaze lingered on her lips, searching, seeking.
There were a thousand questions in that simple sentence and Pia couldn’t answer all of them in front of Gio, even if she had the answers.
“I’ve been busy. Studying. I enrolled in a wood carving class in the village. Also thank you so much for the new tools and the wood. And the laptop. And my new glasses. I appreciate all the gifts,” she said lamely.
He carefully put his wineglass down and folded his hands behind him. “Do you?”
She hesitated at his combative expression. “Yes.”
“Tell him about the man you met when you went out to the trattoria the other night,” Gio urged. “You’re seeing him again, aren’t you?”
Like a hound scenting prey, Raphael walked past the table toward her. “Who is this man?”
Pia glared at Gio. Really, she didn’t understand Gio sometimes. Of all the hundred things he could’ve mentioned to Raphael her non-date was what he told him? “Just a guy I met at the café.”
“Is he a local? Does everyone at the café know you’re Giovanni’s granddaughter? Why didn’t Emilio tell me?”
“So Emilio is spying for you?”
“Emilio keeps an eye on Gio and now on you too.”
“I’m not answerable to you. You’re going to let him question me like that?” She appealed to Gio when he finally put the phone down.
“Raphael,” her grandfather said in a mock warning.
While she had been taking her stand, he had moved closer. The familiar scent of him—musk and heat—had her knees trembling beneath her. Pia clutched the table when he reached out a hand and brushed her cheek.
His hand pushed at a lock of hair behind her ear, while with the other he cupped her hip and pulled her forward. Her pulse racing, her body turned traitor, dipping toward him as if he were her true north.
“Are you trying to make me jealous, tesoro?”
Staring into his eyes, Pia forgot the entire world. “You’re the one who jumped to conclusions. And I would never do anything so low.”
“You wouldn’t?” He looked at her as if she were the answer to a lot of questions. A thumb traced her jawline, resting at the corner of her mouth. “You still haven’t told me anything about him.”
“Christ, Raphael. He’s a waiter at the café in the village. He saw me with some tools, we started chatting and it turns out carpentry is his hobby. We started talking, found we had a lot in common and when he told me about the class, I enrolled in it. That’s it. I made a friend. Sometimes, we hang out at the café. I didn’t know I was supposed to send you a day-to-day summary of my movements. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to make friends. Am I so untrustworthy? Am I answerable to you?”
“No, cara mia. Not answerable, and not untrustworthy, but you’re...”
“Naive and foolish?”
“Innocent.” How she was beginning to hate that word! “I do not care who you make friends with as long as the only man you let hold you like this is me.”
“Raphael, please, can we—”
She never finished the sentence because he pressed his mouth to hers in a soft buss and she was instantly lost. Every slumberous nerve ending leaped to life.
Oh, how could she want him so madly and be so mad at him at the same time?
His lips were so soft and yet hard, so familiar and yet there was something new in his every kiss. She could spend a lifetime in Raphael’s arms just savoring the taste of him, learning what he liked, discovering what she needed. Twining her tongue with his, Pia poured her heart and soul into his kiss.
When he held her like that, when he looked at her with such tender desire in his eyes, desire and love didn’t feel so different. What resonated in her body seemed to calm the clamoring in her soul. When Raphael was near, everything in her lined up.
“Maledizione, but I have missed kissing these soft lips,” he whispered into her mouth, sending arrows of pleasure to scandalous places. “Tell me you missed me, cara mia. Tell me you lie awake like me in the middle of the night wishing for my body, like I did for yours.”
Vining her hands around his neck, she sank into his hard body. Soft groans rumbled from their mouths as, thigh to thigh, their bodies fit perfectly against each other.
Pia had no idea how far she would have gone, if he hadn’t pulled back. It took her a few minutes to realize through the sensual haze that Gio had spoken.
She burned with embarrassment. Yet her grandfather ignored her completely,
