silence but for the birdsong crept round her like a cocoon. She kicked off her shoes and sat down on her knees, determined not to betray her nervous tension. ‘Where are your bodyguards?’ she asked abruptly.
‘I gave them the day off. After all, I’m still on the estate and this was a last-minute decision that nobody else knows about.’ Pouring the wine, he passed her a glass, the tips of his long elegant fingers briefly brushing hers. ‘Drink up...relax.’
Relax? Topsy almost laughed at that impossibility. Being alone with a man who fascinated her to the degree that he did was deeply unnerving. She sipped the wine and let him pile a plate with a selection of the many delicacies he unpacked from the basket. She ate wafer-thin ham, dainty crostini snacks and Panzanella, a refreshing tomato salad. Lemon tart followed by a rich spicy slice of cake finished the meal. Having drained her second glass of wine, Topsy flopped down flat on her back with a sigh to gaze up through the sun-dappled canopy of leaves above her.
‘I’ll never move again,’ she swore ruefully. ‘I’ve never eaten as much at one sitting.’
‘My chef will be flattered.’
A window of clarity briefly shone in her sunlight-and-wine-dazed mind. He had brought her into the woods to seduce her. He had even put on jeans. Topsy froze and then hurriedly sat up, deeming it unwise to lie horizontal like a sacrifice and encourage him. She collided with iridescent green eyes and a quiver of response shimmied through her. ‘I know why you brought me here.’
Dante shifted fluidly closer. ‘We both know why.’
‘This is so not going to happen,’ she warned him ruefully.
A RELUCTANT SMILE tugged at the corners of Dante’s beautifully shaped mouth. ‘But why not?’
Topsy sighed. ‘When I was eighteen I made a list of exactly what I wanted from a man. I watched my sisters get involved with unsuitable men and getting hurt and I swore it would never happen to me.’
‘What’s on the list?’ Dante prompted, silkily confident. ‘I love a challenge.’
‘Can you cook?’ Topsy studied his face and the bemused frown forming there before sighing. ‘I can’t cook, so I decided I needed a guy who could.’
‘I can provide a chef,’ Dante pointed out with deadly seriousness. ‘And obviously I can microwave stuff but I usually eat out when I’m working.’
‘You can’t beat the list, Dante. You just don’t match. You’re not modest or romantic or caring.’
‘But I’m also not asking you to marry me,’ Dante declared with staggering candour. ‘And by the sound of it, your list was drawn up to road test a potential life partner.’
Topsy tilted her head to one side, long black waves sliding over one bare shoulder, dark eyes reflective because she had never thought of that angle before. ‘You’re right. You don’t need to be Mr Perfect.’
‘You choose me to have a good time in and out of bed, gioia mia,’ Dante proposed silkily.
‘No, you’re definitely not modest,’ Topsy commented with a helpless little laugh as she studied his face, marvelling that just looking at that precise arrangement of features could give her such an extraordinary thrill.
‘Modest types lose boardroom battles,’ Dante confided with immense assurance and leant forward to bridge the gap between them. ‘And they probably lie about their performance in the bedroom.’
‘How do I know you’re not lying?’ Topsy asked breathlessly because he was so close now a faint hint of citrusy cologne was tugging at her nostrils, instilling a powerful recollection of what it felt like when she was in his arms with his mouth on hers. An ache stirred deep down inside her and her tummy flipped.
‘I aim to prove it.’ Knotting one bronzed hand into the hair falling down her back, he eased her closer and sealed his sensual mouth to hers. It was like dying and being reborn in a burst of fireworks and celebration. Her awareness of her body shot from zero to overload in the space of seconds, every part of her reacting to the heat he generated.
Smouldering green eyes scanned her flushed face in the aftermath. ‘Together we burn, gioia mia,’ Dante savoured. Long fingers smoothed up over her taut ribcage to caress the swell of a rounded breast, ensuring that her breath shortened in her throat.
He reached for the hem of her dress and began to lift it and she literally froze at the threat of being naked in broad daylight. Suddenly she wanted lights she could switch off, a bed she could huddle in beneath a sheet.
‘Che cosa hai? What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing’s wrong!’ Her throat convulsed on the denial as she struggled to get her nerves under control again. A certain amount of clothing had to come off, there was no getting round that requirement, she told herself. She closed her eyes, reached down to close her hands into her dress and tugged it up and off in one determined movement. It made her feel much better than the alternative of sitting there like a doll for him to undress; it made her feel that she was taking control. She glanced at him from below the rumpled mane of her hair, dark eyes provocative, her brain refusing to dwell on the reality that she was stripped down to a lacy bra and knickers.
‘Time to take your shirt off,’ Topsy told him instead.
His stunning eyes gleamed with amusement and he unbuttoned his shirt and shed it. The corrugated slab of his flat abdomen as he stretched took her breath away. He was beautifully built, hard muscles rippling below bronzed skin with his every movement. Her mouth ran dry as he unzipped his jeans and peeled them down with fluid ease, revealing black boxers that clung to narrow hips and a lean waist. She noticed, could not have avoided noticing, the bulge of his straining erection in the boxers and something clenched low inside her and she hurriedly glanced away, a more primal dart of apprehension infiltrating her. She was wondering if the first time would hurt and was realistic enough to assume that there would at least be some discomfort, but there was nothing she could do to avoid that rite of passage. Of course she could tell him she was a virgin but was afraid he would think she was some kind of freak to have stayed untouched until her age and the prospect of that made her cringe.
‘Come here,’ he husked, all warm tanned flesh and assurance, finding her mouth again, toying with her lips, stroking them apart, thrusting, in truth unleashing a repertoire of moves that disconcerted her because just kissing had never been so good before. Pulsing energy consumed her and she pushed against him, falling into those kisses and the delving of his tongue with shivering enthusiasm, marvelling that the feverish heat in her pelvis could be awakened by even that small intimacy.
‘You have the most glorious breasts,’ Dante murmured hungrily, moulding the high round globes with appreciative hands, tracing the tightly beaded tips and suckling the pointed peaks into the hot velvet of his mouth, parting her lips on a gasp and sending tiny arrows of need spearing continuously to her core. Almost as if she had spoken, when the hot, tight feeling between her thighs became unbearable, he tugged off her knickers and touched her where she most needed to be touched.
Her awareness of what was happening took a severe hit at that point as her hips squirmed and sensation overwhelmed every other response. His thumb circled her clitoris and a fingertip traced the sweet swollen
