CHAPTER TWO
NEXT day Becky left the house early and rode down to find him. She had gone to bed thinking of him, lain awake thinking of him, finally slept, dreaming of him, then awoke thinking of him. She saw his face, young yet forceful, the mouth that was too stern for his years, until he smiled and became suddenly charming.
His mouth haunted her. With everything in her she wanted to kiss it, and to feel it kissing her back. And his arms, as powerful as steel hawsers, belonged around her. She knew that, as certainly as she had ever known anything, knew it with the conviction of a girl who had never seriously been denied anything she really wanted.
She had never even kissed a man before. But now that she’d met Luca she wanted him completely, in every way. It was as though her body had come alive in an instant, sending a message to her brain: this is the one.
The only question was how and when. It was impossible that the world, or Luca himself, could deny her.
As she approached he heard the hoof beats and looked up. She jumped down from the horse, facing him, and she knew at once, with joyful certainty, that he too had lain awake all night. But he turned away from her.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘I told you not to ride alone.’
‘Then why didn’t you come for me?’
‘Because the signorina did not give me orders to do so,’ he said proudly.
‘But I don’t give you orders. We’re just friends.’
She stood looking into his face, willing him to let her have her wish. He gave the slow smile that already made her heart beat strongly.
‘Why don’t you go and make the tea?’ he suggested.
She did so, and spent the rest of the day helping him work on the house. He made rolls with salami, which was the most delicious food she’d ever tasted. But she hadn’t given up her determination to make him kiss her. Sooner or later he would yield.
It took her three days to crack his resistance. During that time she came to know the man a little. He had a touchy pride that could make his temper smoulder, although he always reined it in quickly for her sake.
On the first day he had said, ‘Whatever pleases you,’ and that became his mantra. Whatever pleased her was right for him. This big man, who could be so ferocious to others, was like a child in her hands. It gave her a delicious sense of power.
But she couldn’t make him do the one thing she wanted above all else. She created chance after chance, and he wouldn’t take any of them, until one day he said, ‘I think you should go home now.’ He added in slow, awkward English, ‘It has been very nice knowing you.’
Her answer was to pick up a bread roll from the table and hurl it at him. He ducked, but didn’t seem disconcerted.
‘Why don’t you like me any more?’ she cried.
‘I do like you, Becky. I like you more than I should. That is why you must go, and not come back.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense!’
‘I think you know just what I mean.’
‘No!’ she cried, refusing to understand what didn’t suit her.
‘I think you do. You know what I want with you, and I can’t have it. I must not. You’re a child.’
‘I’m seventeen. Well, I will be in a couple of weeks. I’m not a child.’
‘You talk like one. What you want, you must have. For the moment you want me, but I’m a man, not a toy to be played with then cast aside.’
‘I’m not playing.’
‘But you are. You’re like a kitten with a cotton reel. You haven’t yet learned that life can be cruel and bitter, and God forbid that you should learn it through me!’
‘But you said you wanted me. Why can’t we-?’
‘Becky, my grandfather was your grandmother’s carpenter. I’m still a carpenter. Sometimes I make a little money repairing cars, getting dirty.’
‘Oh, nobody cares about that any more.’
‘Ask your father if he cares about it.’
‘This has nothing to do with my father. Just you and me.’
Suddenly he lost his temper. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ he shouted.
‘Don’t call me stupid.’
‘You are stupid. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t come down here and be alone with a man who desires you as much as I do. If you called for help there’s nobody to hear you.’
‘Why should I need help against you? I know you and-’
‘You know nothing,’ he said, in a rage. ‘I spend my nights lying awake, thinking of you in my bed, in my arms, naked. I have no right to think these things but I can’t stop myself. And then you come here, smiling and saying “Luca, I want you”, and I go insane. How much do you think one man can take?’
Out of all this only one thing made any impact.
‘You desire me?’
‘Yes,’ he said curtly, turning away to stare out of the window. ‘Now go.’
‘I’m not going,’ she said softly, almost to herself. It was more than a decision. It was a declaration that she had chosen her path and would follow it.
She went close behind him, slipping her arms about his body. As she had known he would, he turned instantly, and fell straight into her trap. She had removed her upper clothing and he found himself holding her bare skin, her arms, her shoulders, her breasts.
He made one last, agonised effort.
‘No, Becky-please-’
But the words were drowned by her lips on his, and then it was too late. It had always been too late.
He kissed her tenderly, then with increasing urgency, while his hands explored her and hers explored him. He was wearing a shirt, the front partly unbuttoned. It took her only a moment to rip open the remaining buttons so that she could press her breasts against his body. Inexperienced though she was, she knew at once that the sensation was too much for his self-control. When she moved to pull the shirt right off, he did it for her.
She was completely trusting, without caution or defences, and he seemed to know it even through his passion, for his movements were as controlled as he could make them.
At first all she felt was his tenderness, leading her forward gently. She was already in a fever for him, helping him remove the last of her clothes, then his, following his every move, trying to anticipate, so that he gave a shaky laugh, saying, ‘Don’t be in such a hurry.’
‘But I want you, Luca, I want you.’
‘But you don’t know what you want, piccina,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I have no right-we must stop-’
‘No! I’ll thump you in a minute.’
‘Little bully,’ he whispered.
‘You’d better let me have my own way, then, hadn’t you?’ she teased.
That was the end of his control. After that, no power on earth could have stopped him exploring her, enchanted by her sweetness and her young, blazing passion for himself.
As soon as he entered her she gave a little cry of excitement and began to move against him, urging him on. Her frank eagerness to make love and her lack of false modesty delighted him, and he gave everything without holding back.
It was a swift, unsubtle mating which came to a climax almost at once. Becky felt dizzy. One moment she was simply enjoying herself, and the next moment something tossed her up to the stars in a fine frenzy of pleasure, before sending her swooping back to earth, wondering which planet she’d landed on. Because it wasn’t the same one that she’d started on.
‘Oh, wow!’ she said breathlessly. ‘Oh, wow!’
The next moment she leapt on him again, ignoring his laughing protests. This time he loved her more slowly, or at least as slowly as she would let him, teasing her breasts with lips and fingers, until she wrapped her legs about him, demanding fulfilment, and he could do nothing but yield.
Afterwards they lay entwined while they drifted down from the heights, rejoicing to find each other still there.