Breathing Room

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Let me think about it.” She didn’t. “No.”

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to do this.” He trailed his finger past the open button at the collar of her blouse. She wasn’t so indignant, he noticed, that she backed away. “It seems I’m going to have to remind you of the obvious.” He built the tension with a long pause. God, he hoped he was turning her on, because he sure as hell was turning himself on. “It seems I’m going to have to remind you of how much you want to. Of how it’s going to feel.”

Her lashes flickered, and that full bottom lip parted from its mate. Oh, yeah…

She moved a fraction of an inch closer. “I, uh, stand reminded.”

He suppressed a smile. Not so sassy now, are you, sweetheart? “Let’s be sure about that.”

He gazed at those puffy lips and thought about how good they were going to feel against his own. “Imagine the sun beating down on your bare breasts. Feel me watching you. Touching you.” He was sweating beneath his shirt, and his groin felt thick and heavy. “I’m going to pick the fattest grapes I can find and squeeze the juice on your nipples. Then I’m going to lick off every drop.”

The honey in her eyes darkened to syrup. He tipped her chin, bent his head beneath the brim of her hat, and closed his mouth over hers. It was so much better than he remembered. He tasted sun, the grape juice he’d imagined, and a heady dose of righteous, turned-on woman. He felt a primitive urge to take her right in the vineyard. To lay her down in the ancient soil of his ancestors, shaded by these old vines. To plunge into her the way one of his Medici ancestors might have taken a willing peasant woman. Or an unwilling one, for that matter, but he sure didn’t have to worry about that right now, because this woman had molded herself right to him.

He pushed off her hat, let it fall to the ground, and tunneled his fingers through her disorderly curls. She was killing him, and he released her just enough to whisper against her lips. “Let’s go to the house.”

“Let’s… not.” Even to Isabel’s own ears her words sounded like a sigh. But she didn’t want to go anyplace. She wanted to kiss. And then she wanted to open her blouse just as he’d said, and let him do exactly what he wanted with her breasts.

The scents and sensations overwhelmed her. The heat of the Tuscan sun, the smell of ripe grapes, of soil, and, mostly, of man. She felt drunk with him, his kiss, his erotic verbal foreplay, the hint of menace that shouldn’t have excited her but did-and she had no intention of analyzing that. His tongue slipped past her teeth into her mouth. A soul kiss. Exactly the right term for a kiss that was too intimate to be offered to just anyone.

His hands were on her hips now, pulling her against his erection. “Unbutton,” he whispered. And she couldn’t resist.

She did it slowly, working from bottom to top. He inched back enough to let the fabric part, revealing her lacy, nude-toned bra. There was no triumph in his eyes, merely honest male anticipation. She flicked the center clasp, pushed the lacy cups away, and let the sun fall on her breasts.

He made a quiet sound of suppressed need, lifted his hands, and cradled her breasts so they lay like pale ivory offerings in his palms. His thumbs brushed the nipples, and they pebbled. He reached into the vines and plucked a grape.

She didn’t understand what he was doing until he squeezed the grape between his fingers. The juice spurted, then trickled in a gleaming rivulet down the slope of her breast and over the tip. She shuddered. Tried to catch her breath. But he wasn’t done.

Slowly, he rubbed the sun-hot pulp over the nipple, making circles, each one coming closer to the erect tip. She let out a hiss of pleasure when he reached his goal.

He slipped the bruised fruit-pulp and skin-over the end and squeezed. Grape. Pulp. Tiny seeds. He rolled it all between his fingers, abrading her flesh in the sweetest pain she’d ever felt. Her breath came quicker, and edgy waves of pleasure cut through her bloodstream. His tongue licked at the inside of her mouth, then slipped away to her breast. He played there, sucking and teasing, eating what was left of the fruit, tormenting her flesh, until she couldn’t bear it any longer.

“God…” He breathed the word like a prayer, drawing back to gaze at her. Juice stained his cheek. His eyes were heavy-lidded and slumberous, his lips slightly swollen. “I want to push a grape inside you and eat it from your body.”

Her pulses kicked. She was heady with need and a ferocious joy. This was what real passion felt like, this mindless saturnalia of the senses. He cupped her through her slacks and rubbed. She arched against his hand in a slow, holy dance. Her flesh was sticky from the juice, and her body felt as swollen as the grapes.

Abruptly, he jerked away. The sudden motion left her dazed and disoriented. With a rough growl he grabbed her hat from the ground, thrust it at her, and spun her toward the farmhouse. “I’m way too old for this.”

He was rejecting her?

“Signore Gage!”

She glanced back and saw Massimo approaching. Not a rejection, after all, but a hideously untimely interruption. She clutched her blouse together and hurried to the farmhouse, stumbling on the path. She’d never experienced anything like this, and she wanted more.

She reached the farmhouse, rushed to the bathroom, and turned on the cold water. She splashed her face, then rested the heels of her hands on the sink to catch her breath. The memory of her own voice mocked her.

“If we don’t ever push the parameters of our lives, how can we grow as human beings, my friends? God smiles at us when we reach for the stars, even if we don’t quite manage to touch them. Our very willingness to make the attempt shows we aren’t taking life for granted. That we’ve kicked up our heels, howled at the moon, and honored the sacredness of this gift we’ve been given…”

She peeled off her crumpled, juice-stained blouse. Her lust for Lorenzo Gage wasn’t sacred. On the other hand, her desire to howl at the moon had become irresistible.

After she’d tidied herself, she jumped into the Panda and drove to town. As she wandered through the market that had been set up in the piazza, she tried to turn her jumbled feelings into a prayer, but the words wouldn’t take shape. She could pray for other people again, but she still couldn’t manage to pray for herself.

Breathe… She focused on the piles of fresh produce, where eggplants lay sleek and fat in their purple skins, and ruby heads of radicchio nested between lacy bundles of leaf lettuce. Tubs of wrinkled black olives sat next to pyramids of apples and pears. Straw baskets held porcini mushrooms with earth still clinging to the stems. Gradually, she could feel herself calm.

Until she’d come to Tuscany, she hadn’t thought much about her inadequacies as a cook, but in a culture where food was everything, she was missing out on something important and life-affirming. Maybe she could redirect some energy by taking a few cooking classes when she wasn’t writing. And despite Ren’s scoffing, she would write.

She approached the market’s flower stalls and chose a country bouquet. As she paid for it, she noticed Vittorio emerging from a shop across the piazza with Giulia Chiara, her ineffective real-estate agent. As she watched, he drew Giulia against him and kissed her, a kiss of passion, not friendship.

They were both young and attractive, so there was nothing surprising about their being together, especially since Casalleone was a small town. But when Isabel had mentioned Giulia in connection with the various utility problems, Vittorio hadn’t said a word.

“Thanks for ditching me.”

A pulse jumped in her throat. She turned and saw a tall, shabbily dressed workman with a frayed eye patch and a flat cap pulled over his dark hair. She wished he’d left her alone until she’d had a chance to reorient herself. “I had things to do. How did you get here? I thought your car was in the garage.”

“I borrowed Anna’s.” He acted as if their erotic encounter hadn’t been more than a handshake, another reminder of the emotional chasm that existed between them. And she intended to make love with this man…

The knowledge jarred her, and she banged her elbow against a metal post.

“Watch yourself.”

“I’m trying to!” She’d spoken too loudly, and several people turned to stare at her. She had a death wish. That was the only explanation. But what was the use in pretending? The incident today proved that it was only a matter of time before she gave in to something that was guaranteed to add even more turbulence to her life. Unless…

Unless she was very clear about her goal. This would be a time to celebrate her body. Only her body. She would keep her spirit, her heart, and especially her soul safely tucked away. Not that it would be too difficult, since Ren wasn’t interested in any of those parts. What a dangerous man. He reeled women in, then dismembered them.