the bed beside her he sat down, breathing hard but in control of himself. Laura saw the sudden question in his eyes, and understood it.
She answered it silently, reaching up her hand, grasping his and pulling him closer to her. His face relaxed.
‘Are you sure?’ he whispered.
‘Quite, quite sure.’
She was on fire, half wild from the need to have him touch her, and when he did so, just lightly with his fingertips, she reacted so swiftly that she startled herself.
The heat seemed to stream through her, bringing a pink flush to her skin, making her breasts grow firm and peaked. She was embarrassed to have revealed so much about her own need. She’d been wanting exactly this for some time, and now he would suspect.
But such practical thoughts were swallowed up in the rising tide of sensuality that was blotting out the rest of the world. All her perception was narrowing down to this one moment, this one man, who was caressing her with skilled hands.
He’d drawn back, wanting to be certain she was willing, but now nothing could have held him. His body pressed her down against the bed while his mouth covered hers. His tongue flickered against the inside, causing a sigh of pleasure to break from her.
She pressed back against him, her arms wrapped around his neck, while she could feel him trying to touch her everywhere, rousing her until she was impatient for him. The moment when he plunged into her felt like the culmination of her entire life.
She seized him, drawing him in, driving against him, relishing his power and her own, inciting him on to claim her more and more completely.
This answered all questions. How long had she secretly wanted Gino in her bed? Since that first day on the park bench when she’d admired him as a healthy, beautiful animal?
What had really prompted her to propose to him? She’d hidden the truth from herself, but now it was fighting its way to the surface. She was seized up in the fierce rhythm of desire, moving faster with him until there was nowhere else to go but into the glittering void.
In the moments when reality returned they discovered that they were still clinging on to each other, as though for safety. As they drew apart she could read her own astonishment reflected in his face.
‘I had no idea,’ she murmured.
‘Nor had I until recently.’
He threw himself onto his back, gasping, but still holding onto her hand while he recovered. Then he propped himself up and looked at her naked body, pale and mysterious in the dim light.
‘You’ve been holding out on me,’ he said wryly.
‘I have? How?’
‘Those prim and proper clothes you wear-’
‘Plain and dowdy, you mean?’
‘Some of them, almost like you were doing it on purpose.’
‘That’s how I saw my life,’ she admitted, breathing slowly to steady herself against the turmoil that was only gradually subsiding. ‘I suppose I dressed for the part.’
‘You fooled me-for a while. There were a few hints, like when you brightened up for Steve. Then nothing-until tonight.’
He looked down at her and ran one hand over the length of her body. ‘I should have remembered that you’d been a dancer,’ he said. ‘You move like a dancer, graceful in everything. And tonight, you knew just what to do and how to do it. And those few extra pounds you told me about.’ He laid a hand on her hip. ‘Just there, enough to make you nicely curved. And here-’ His fingers drifted over her breasts, sending a little shiver through her.
‘I suspected,’ he mused, ‘but I didn’t know for sure until I saw you putting it on display for other men. And-I minded.’
Gino knew his words didn’t express one tenth of what had been happening inside him, but he couldn’t have found the right words. If there were any. He wasn’t an analytical man. He lived through feelings, not thoughts, and he’d been shying away from feelings, which added to his confusion.
Since he’d left Italy he’d lived like a monk, from choice. The passing fancies he might once have enjoyed were barred to him by his sense of despair and isolation. At times he’d wondered if he would ever seriously desire a woman again.
His friendship with Laura had been sweet to him, but things had happened that had taken him by surprise. After her first date with Steve she’d returned home, radiant. He’d held her in his arms and wanted to kiss her, and known that he must not. He’d seen her safely and chastely to bed, but nothing had been quite the same after that.
There was something else, to do with the time when he was delirious, but that mystery had yet to be explained. What was no longer a mystery was his own reaction to Mark’s telephone call: furious physical jealousy, that had grown worse every moment as he’d stood in the crowd watching her remove her clothes.
It was, as she’d claimed, a fairly modest strip. But it hadn’t seemed so to a man whose desire for her had caught him suddenly, almost unaware, and was rising by the minute. Every flash of those long, lovely legs, every wriggle of her hips had tortured him, until he snapped.
‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘I minded, more than you’ll ever know.’
She gave a chuckle that sent a frisson of pleasure up his spine. ‘I reckon I do know now,’ she mused.
‘Just don’t forget it.’
‘I didn’t recognise you, the way you’ve been acting.’
‘I didn’t recognise myself.’
‘Poor Mark. He thought you were a gangster.’
‘Let him go on thinking it. He’ll be safer that way.’
‘Gino, you don’t really mean that.’
He looked at her in an odd way, and did not answer directly. ‘Let’s just say that I’m naturally possessive,’ he said. ‘You’re mine. No argument.’
‘Who’s arguing?’
He was silent for a moment, his face clouded.
‘Maybe I have no right to ask,’ he said at last, ‘but-you and Steve-?’
‘No,’ she said at once. ‘I never slept with Steve.’
Compared to this wild, physical craving, how restrained had been her feelings for Steve; not love or passion so much as the need to ease her loneliness and have some kind of future.
‘I’m glad,’ Gino said. He began to run his hands over her again.
To Laura it was thrilling and satisfying to know that she could rouse him to powerful sexual jealousy. It was only a fraction of what she wanted from him, but she couldn’t think of that now that his touch was causing the tide of excitement to rise in her again. For a while there would be nothing else but desire, and craving for the satisfaction that only he could give her.
He let his fingers drift down over her breasts to where the nipples were peaked.
‘Mine,’ he murmured again. ‘And here-’ his hand moved down to her waist ‘-and here-’ his fingers found the tops of her thighs, then eased their way gently in to the place that was now home.
‘If that’s what you want,’ she murmured, trying to think through the forks of pleasure that were invading her where he touched.
‘Yes,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘That’s what I want.’
One easy movement brought him over her and then he was inside her again, moving more slowly than before, prolonging the pleasure, bringing skill to the service of strength. Now she discovered him as a subtle, generous lover, as well as a powerful one, seeking to learn the caresses that brought her delight, and offering them gladly.
She tried to hold back on her climax, wanting to prolong everything until the final moment, but at last she yielded to it and felt again the joy and profound fulfilment she’d known before.
When he rolled onto his back she propped herself up and, watching him, wondering why he was grinning.
‘What is it?’ she asked, giving him a gentle poke.
‘I was remembering some thoughts I had recently, about heading for middle age. I even planned to buy a pipe
