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Rilla opened her eyes, unsure whether she’d imagined the whispered apology. Luca was staring at her, his dark gaze sleepy and sexy all at once. It was too much and she fluttered her eyes closed again for a few more moments.
She should get up and have a shower. Remove herself from the temptation of his nearness. But it was nice to snuggle into a comfortable sofa and rest her eyes in peace. A thought rose in her foggy brain and she voiced it before it floated away.
‘Why did you come back, Luca? To the General? Why not just sign the divorce papers and put an end to something we should never have started in the first place?’
Luca opened his eyes again. Her sleepy gaze was startlingly honest. He shrugged, struggling through the fog of fatigue and lust to remember exactly why he’d been so crazy. ‘The divorce papers arrived and I saw the job advertised the next day and I thought, Why not?’
Rilla felt her pulse leap at the mention of the papers. So he had received them.
‘Time to come back and put the past to rest,’ Luca continued. ‘And, anyway, it’s what I always wanted. We always wanted … remember?’
She did. Vividly. All those hours in bed, spinning their dreams, weaving their futures together. Him, the medical director of the emergency department at the Brisbane General. Her as the NUM. Colleagues and lovers. Partners at work and in life.
‘I remember,’ she whispered.
His heavy-lidded gaze was mesmerising and Rilla could barely breathe as the air between them was sucked away. She remembered everything about their life together as if it had been yesterday. The laughter, the excitement, the plans, the love. The way everything but them had ceased to exist. They’d been so good together.
Until they’d imploded.
The sinister thought and the memories of that terrible time forced Rilla to sit up straighter. How had they got so close?
‘It was a mistake to come.’ She rose from the sofa as if she’d been poked with an electric cattle prod. She moved away another step, trying to evade the innate lure that demanded she go closer.
What was the matter with her? Sure, she was emotionally vulnerable and physically overwrought. But it was no excuse. She wanted to scream at the power he still had over her seven years down the track. But how could she want to scream and feel him inside her at the same time?
She could feel the familiar itch under her skin and the prickle in her veins and didn’t trust what would happen if she didn’t leave immediately.
Theirs had always been a passionate relationship. Desire and lust had kept them enthralled, oblivious to all else. A fact that had been driven home to them as the cruel jolt of her miscarriage had woken them from their haze of lust to discover they hadn’t had the wherewithal, the history to make it work.
A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then and she was damned if she’d walk that road again. Rilla didn’t explain but simply turned around and walked out.
Luca blinked, taking a second to realise she’d gone. Damn it! ‘Wait,’ he called, stalking into the darkened hallway, catching her as she put her hand on the doorknob.
‘No,’ Rilla threw over her shoulder as she wrenched the door open. She was tired and she wasn’t going to do something stupid because neither of them was alert enough to resist. Damn her for her sexual vulnerability and damn him for this insane pull he still had over her.
Luca covered the distance to the doorway in four long strides, placing his hand against the door above her head and pushing it shut, keeping it there, sealing her escape route. ‘Stay,’ he murmured.
His chest, pressed to her back, crowded her against the doorframe. His other hand automatically went to her hip. They were so close. His breath heaved in his chest. He could smell her perfume and her shampoo. Hear her husky breathing. Her hair was temptingly close, the curve of her neck and the slope of her shoulder visible through the thick chocolate strands.
‘Please, cara, you said you were going to stay,’ he whispered huskily, as his pulse thrilled faster. He moved the hand from her hip to her shoulder and turned her round, pushing against the frame to step back a little, remove himself from the intoxication of her nearness.
Rilla shook her head. ‘I haven’t got the energy to fight tonight, Luca. To go back over this stuff. I’m tired.’
Their gazes locked for a heat-infused moment. He was too close. Rilla swallowed. The temptation to reach out and touch his jaw was overwhelming. ‘Goodbye, Luca,’ she said, as she turned away, her voice aching with an unspoken and totally inappropriate hunger.
Luca caught a whiff of her scent as her movement swirled and parted the air between them. He moved closer for a second infusion, placing his hand back up high on the doorframe. ‘You don’t wear your ring any more,’ he said to her back. He had noticed it in the bush and it had bugged him ever since.
‘No.’ Her voice trembled and she swallowed.
Luca inched closer, his control hanging by a thread. ‘We’re still married,’ he said huskily. ‘Why did you take off?’
Rilla didn’t turn round. Luca’s presence loomed from behind, so very close, and she knew if she looked at him she’d be lost. ‘It was time.’
She turned the knob but his hand prevented the door from opening. Blocking her freedom.
‘Let me out.’ Her voice sounded cracked and thready and she hated the naked streak of arousal so blatantly evident. There was an unbearable heat down low and her nipples were painfully tight.
Luca’s heart drummed frantically as her smell worked its way past his diminishing resistance. It was Rilla’s essence and he wanted to bite into her neck, slip his arms around her waist and reacquaint himself with every inch of it.
Rilla couldn’t stand the tension any longer. ‘Please, Luca,’ she half groaned, half whispered, her lips and body pressed against the wood of the door trying to escape the flare of his body heat behind her.
Luca was drawn like a moth to flame as he moved closer, pushing against the length of her. ‘That’s what you used to say,’ he whispered, his lips in her hair. ‘I missed it, Rilla.’
His breath caressed her scalp and her knees almost buckled at the husky timbre of his voice. His slight accent ruffled her name and a surge of pure want coursed through her. Rilla searched frantically through a brain that was powering down, seduced into standby mode by the feel of him, hard against her. Blood was being shunted to other areas of her body, tightening her breasts and pooling in her belly. She suddenly felt very, very awake.
This was madness. How could her body betray her so badly? She didn’t want to want this.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ Luca muttered, the hand he had up high on the doorjamb lowering to push her hair off her shoulder, exposing her neck. His fingers stroked the soft skin there and he gave a triumphant smile as she stretched it for better access. His hand tightened on her hip.
‘Rilla?’
She swallowed. ‘Luca, this is crazy.’
Yes, it was. But her voice was a hoarse plea that grated erotically along his nerve endings. His abdominal muscles contracted as if she’d trailed her nails across them. Luca put his hands on her shoulders and turned her round again. ‘I know.’
She sank against the door, his aroused body pressed against the length of hers intimately. His breath was ragged, clearly audible, rubbing against her skin like sandpaper. She shouldn’t want this. But she did. Seven years without his touch, seven years of absence disappeared in the fog of desire that encroached on her senses. It was as if nothing had ever come between them.
Luca wanted to kiss her more than he’d ever wanted anything. He lifted his hands to the cleavage of her shirt, to the top button straining to keep itself inside its hole. He looked at her, giving her a chance to pull back. Her tawny gaze glowed her surrender and he slowly popped each button in turn, exposing her chest to his hungry gaze.
Rilla moaned as the air hit her heated skin. The look of naked desire in his black, black eyes forced her to swallow hard. He was looking at her like he could devour her. His breathing was harsh as his gaze roamed over her greedily. She felt her nipples bead beneath the lacy fabric of her red bra and she almost arched her back in blatant invitation. Luca groaned, his gaze roaming over every luscious inch.
No one had ever looked at her like he did. No one. With eyes that stamped Mine all over her. She found it hard just to breathe under the weight of his possessive, hungry gaze. She should have felt objectified. But she didn’t.
‘I’ve dreamt about touching you. Like this,’ he whispered, a finger following the swell of a breast down into her cleavage. The finger tracked the lace edge back out again and in one deft movement pushed the lacy cup aside and stroked an engorged dusky tip.
Rilla fought against the moan that rose in her throat. But it still found its way out. Part of her hated it that he could do this to her. Hated it that he could freeze her out for seven years and still her body flowered beneath his touch. Yearned for his touch.
Luca swooped his head the short distance to claim her mouth. The first touch of her lips was like throwing petrol on a fire and he pushed her hard against the door as he savaged her mouth. She moaned and he increased the pressure until he was plundering her sweetness so thoroughly he wasn’t sure where she ended and he began.
God, he had missed this. Missed her. Despite everything, he wanted her as much as he ever had. ‘Tell me you missed me,’ he whispered against her mouth, his breathing coarse. He needed to hear he wasn’t alone in this madness.
‘I missed you,’ she cried, no thought of denial as he created havoc of such delicious proportions she thought it might just kill her.
Luca wished that made it better. It didn’t. This whole thing was making him crazy. Everything burned. His loins were on fire, his chest was bursting with the pounding of his heart, his brain exulted in their inevitable joining and railed against it too. Damn! He didn’t want to want her this much. He was supposed to be seeking closure—not revisiting old ground.
‘Yes,’ she cried as his hand jerked aside the other bra cup and his lips closed over the turgid peak.
Rilla looked down at his dark head fastened at her breast and had such a fierce sense of possession it sucked her breath away. She plunged a hand into his hair, pressing him closer, arching her back, urging him to take more.
Everywhere ached, everywhere yearned. The tingling between her legs was almost unbearable and she reached for Luca’s fly, impatient to feel him inside her. She moaned as her hand found his hot, naked length. The stray thought that he wasn’t wearing any underwear floated out of reach as she squeezed him tight and Luca groaned into her neck.
He was as thick as she remembered, filling her palm and she slid her hand up and down the length of him a few times, refamilarising herself with his proportions.
His hands were hot on her skin as he pushed her skirt up. ‘Hurry,’ she panted as she guided his hardness towards her heat.
Luca lifted her up, his hands cupping her buttocks, fitting her against him as her tongue stroked against his, betraying her impatience for a much more intimate invasion. Her legs clamped around his waist and he pushed her hard against the door for better leverage.
He entered her in one decisive stroke, swallowing her cry with his mouth as he seared her lips with his. He groaned as she enveloped him in a tight velvet glove, the sensation too exquisite for him to even breathe.
He opened his eyes and eased himself away from her slightly, looking down at her. Her head was thrown back, her teeth biting her lower lip. Her breasts, partially released from their lacy prisons, were swollen and moist from his ministrations and he wanted more.
Rilla opened her eyes and regarded him through heavy lids. It felt good to be stretched all the way. She’d forgotten how well he filled her. ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘don’t stop.’
Luca groaned, thrilled at the sheer wantonness of her exposed flesh and the depth of her supplication. He sheathed himself again in her tight, moist depth.
‘Luca,’ she cried, fixing him with her amber gaze as she clutched his shoulders, his entry rocking her head back against the door. His black eyes glittered back at her, like diamonds in coal.
‘Again!’ Rilla gasped, her gaze twisting with his as he obeyed her command. She pulled his head down and claimed his mouth in a kiss full of passion and seven years of denial.
She cried out as he slid into her. Once. Twice. Three times. She could feel her internal muscles start to tense and tighten around him. He groaned and she knew he could feel it too.
He lifted his head. Their gazes locked as their bodies moved to a rhythm that was innately them. Higher and higher. Closer and closer. Rilla fought against the rise. It swelled up and she beat it back, wanting to cherish this moment. Wanting it to last.
Luca groaned, his resolve to outlast her fraying by the second. The pressure in his loins built unbearably.
He lowered his head to her breasts and sucked each nipple deep into his mouth. He grunted at her strangled gasp and looked up into her face. She was walking the fine line between pleasure and pain and he wanted to, needed to, feel her come apart in his arms.
He buried his face in her neck, his forehead against the door. He turned so his lips were at her ear and he whispered words of lust and longing in his native tongue.
Rilla shivered as his breath caressed her ear and clutched his shoulders as the words destroyed her concentration. ‘No … fair … Luca,’ she cried as the words filled her head and flowed over her body like fine silk and warm honey.
‘Come on, Rilla, come with me,’ Luca whispered as he felt her muscles grip him hard and knew she was about to go over the edge. And he was right there with her.
‘I hate it that you can still do this to me,’ she sobbed as her orgasm rushed forward, unable to be held back after so much denial. She bucked against the door, her back arching.
He hated her power over him too. But then his own release joined hers and he couldn’t think any more. He held her tight as for one elusive moment the world stopped and pleasure erupted around him, rained down on him. Then he rode it, rocking her against the door, stoking her release and his until there was nothing left, until they were breathless and spent.
The house was silent except for the sound of their uneven breathing. He stirred, raining gentle kisses over her face, whispering endearments in Italian, still locked inside her. ‘Are you OK, cara?’ he whispered.
Rilla could barely speak, never mind wrap her head around the explosion of passion she’d been at the centre of. ‘I … don’t know.’
‘Shh,’ Luca soothed, adjusting them so he could swing her into his arms. ‘You’re tired—we both are.’ He carried her into his room and lowered her gently onto the bed, lying beside her, pulling her against him spoon fashion.
‘Go to sleep,’ he murmured into her hair, his own eyes unbearably heavy, post-coital fatigue melding with days of inadequate sleep.
Rilla knew she should be protesting the intimacy. Having sex against the front door was one thing. But spending the night in his bed, like lovers, like husband and wife, was another. But the intense orgasm had sapped what little reserves she had and she could feel the lure of sleep pulling her under even before her head hit the pillow.
She was out cold in seconds.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE sun, already high in the sky, finally penetrated Rilla’s closed lids. She opened them slowly, taking a moment or two to orientate herself, last night returning in full Technicolor detail. She was alone and she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or annoyed.
She looked down at her fully clothed form. Well, sort of fully clothed. Her red shirt was still undone and gaping open, revealing her bra. She blushed, thinking about how it had gotten that way, and wondered what Luca had thought when he’d woken this morning to see her goods on full display.
Had he tried to wake her? Her slumber had been so deep she doubted whether she’d even moved overnight. A nuclear explosion probably wouldn’t have woken her this morning. Three days and nights of little sleep, the stress of Bridie’s illness and a bone-melting orgasm had certainly taken their toll.
Rilla stretched and felt the ache of internal muscles that hadn’t been used in a long time. Her teeth worried her bottom lip as she thought about their next meeting. Would it be awkward? Would they know what to say to each other? What were his expectations? Hell—what were hers?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know what it meant or how it would affect them working together or their looming divorce. She did know that last night hadn’t been the wisest thing she’d ever done. In fact, muddying the waters that way had been incredibly stupid. And if she could undo it, she would.
Really.
Rilla turned her head to check the time. The red numbers told her it was eleven o’clock.
Eleven o’clock!
She vaulted into an upright position. She’d had no idea it was so late. Why had Luca let her sleep so long? Where was he? The house was as silent as a cemetery. Damn it! She should be at the hospital. He should have woken her. She needed a shower and a change of clothes and her car was still at the hospital. Argh!
An hour later, Rilla strode into the parents’ lounge to find Gabe and Beth eating lunch.
‘Afternoon, sleepyhead,’ Beth teased.
Rilla felt the tension ooze out of her. Beth was looking rested and was showing some sass—Bridie must have had a good night. ‘I take it everything’s still going well?’
‘By leaps and bounds,’ Beth confirmed. ‘Luca’s in with her so we could eat together.’
Her heart gave a loud thud at the mention of Luca’s name. So he was there? ‘Oh,’ Rilla said, trying for nonchalance. ‘Has he been here long?’
‘Couple of hours.’ Gabe shrugged.
‘Why don’t you go and keep him company? We’ll be another fifteen minutes or so,’ Beth suggested.
Rilla’s pulse reverberated through her entire body, her heart banging against her ribs as if it was trying to escape her chest as she approached Bridie’s room. She was more nervous seeing him now than she had been the other morning at work with an audience of colleagues.
She drew level with the doorway to the isolation room and stopped short. Luca was stroking Bridie’s head and murmuring to her in his native tongue, calling her his little bush bambina. He was looking at her with such compassion it sucked Rilla’s breath away.
Was he thinking about their baby as he stroked Bridie’s downy wisps? As she was? Wondering how different it could have been had she managed to carry their baby to full term. As she was? Fantasising about dribbly smiles, early-morning cuddles and soft baby skin? As she was?
Why had they let things go so cold between them?
Bridie’s nurse spotted her in the doorway and told her to come in. Luca raised his head and she held her breath, unsure of what she would see in his eyes.
‘Hello, Rilla.’
Rilla saw the same wariness she knew was reflected in her gaze. Did he regret their impulsiveness too? ‘You should have woken me, Luca,’ Rilla chided, as she walked to the other side of her niece’s cot.
He was looking devastatingly casual in a polo shirt and jeans, and she wondered if they were the ones he’d been wearing last night. The ones she’d helped him out of.
