She looked down, but couldn’t help watching him secretly, through her lashes, her face very hot. She was sure she had called out his name, but had she said anything else that might have betrayed what she was dreaming about?
‘You were dreaming about that night, weren’t you?’ Patrick asked in a harsh voice.
She hesitated, then reluctantly nodded.
His face tightened. ‘Why did you call out my name?’
‘Did I? I can’t remember...’ She tried to lie, but the words stuck in her throat.
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t!’ he muttered. ‘I heard you. You yelled my name. Tell me the truth. Did you dream it was me?’
She trembled, her lashes stirring against her cheek, hot colour burning up her face. ‘No!’
He put a hand under her chin and pushed her head back, forced her to look at him, his narrowed eyes searching her face, probing for clues in the shifting, confused gleam of her own eyes.
‘No? You didn’t dream I was the one attacking you?’
She silently shook her head.
He kept looking into her eyes and she was afraid he might read the shameful tangle of desire and fear, the confusion of her reactions to him.
Her eyes slid away and Patrick softly asked, ‘Then what was I doing in your dream? Why did you keep saying my name? Why did you say, “Patrick, don’t!”? Why, Antonia?’
Desperately she lied. ‘I don’t know; I don’t remember.’
‘I think you do,’ he said, staring fixedly at her mouth, his eyes dark and intense, and she felt her lips begin to quiver and burn, as if he were kissing them. Her heart was racing; she was breathless.
‘Please go away,’ she pleaded, her voice a faint whisper.
‘Why are you trembling, Antonia?’ he asked in that soft, husky voice, and she trembled even more.
‘I’m not.’
‘Liar,’ he said, his mouth curling. He put a long index finger on her throat, and she started violently.
‘What are you doing?’
‘There’s a pulse beating there, at the side of your neck,’ he said smokily, his fingertip pressing down into her skin, on the blue vein, and she felt her pulse racing under the touch of his flesh.
‘Stop it,’ she whispered.
‘Is it really that scary?’ he asked, and of course it wasn’t; that wasn’t why she wanted him to stop. She wanted him to stop because she liked it too much.
He ran the finger slowly, inch by tormenting inch, up her throat to her jawline and then to her mouth. Watching her like a cat waiting for a mouse to emerge from a hole, he teasingly drew his finger along her parted, trembling lips, and her breathing almost stopped; she was transfixed, staring up at him, eyes stretched to their utmost.
She could have pushed his hand away. She should have pushed his hand away. She didn’t; she just sat there as if hypnotised.
‘What did I do in your dream, Antonia?’ Patrick whispered, and she was sure he had guessed, or he wouldn’t be playing with her like this.
She had a curious sense of unreality, no longer certain whether this was happening or not, whether she was dreaming or not.
His finger slid down from her mouth and trailed silkily downwards again, over her pale throat, to the delicate lace edging her fine, transparent lawn nightdress.
When his finger reached for the white ribbons tying the bodice of her nightdress and she saw him staring at the flurry of lace and lawn and ribbon through which her smooth white breasts could just be glimpsed, she broke out of her trance. Gasping, she pushed his hand away, grabbed the sheet, and pulled it up over her shoulders.
‘Get out!’ she muttered, looking angrily at him over the top of the sheet. ‘And this time, I don’t just mean out of this room. Get out of this house! Or do I have to call the police?’
He slowly got up, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his lean body tense and formidable.
‘Have you ever dreamt of your fiancé?’ he asked coolly.
‘Get out!’ she yelled.
‘I didn’t think you had!’ he said, as if she had answered him. ‘Try to get some more sleep, Antonia, and be careful what you dream about, won’t you? What would you do if your dreams came true?’
She didn’t have to react to that. He was already going out of the door; she heard him running down the stairs and climbed hurriedly out of bed, and followed him, meaning to watch from the top of the stairs, making sure he actually left the house.
He paused at the front door and looked back, as if quite aware of her standing there. His blue eyes gleamed like sapphires in the dark and he lifted a hand in mocking salute.
‘Did you know that material is totally transparent?’
She leapt back out of sight and he laughed. There was a mirror hanging in the hallway; she watched it and saw his reflected figure leave, the front door slam shut behind him.
Antonia ran down and bolted both front and back doors this time, then methodically searched each room to make sure there was no one in the house except her. It was almost dawn by then; the sky was a milky white, gauzy mist hanging over the Grand Canal, cloaking the outlines of the buildings on the opposite bank, the moorish fretworked stone, rose-pink and dusty cream, the cracked and crumbling plasterwork, the uneven roofs, the cupolas, domes and spires which made up Venice’s skyline. They all blurred into a soft composition of line and shade above the rippling, mist-hung water.
Antonia made herself some hot chocolate and went back to bed with it, sat there, brooding in the growing light, remembering his touch, the sensual note in his voice as his finger caressed her throat, her mouth, her breast. She was trembling, shuddering; she was so hot, and her skin prickled with erotic sensation.
She must never, never let herself be caught with him alone again. Not now
