From the first, he had encouraged her to touch him, to explore at will and experiment, and she had soon discovered that the more familiar she became with that lean, beautifully masculine and intensely responsive body of his, the less nervous she was around him. Her fear had gone, for he had proved how self-controlled he could be. With a little sigh she shifted her hips in a sensuous circle on the lounger, recalling how she had wakened him the day before, and the unrestrained sound of his satisfaction while he buried his hands in her hair and urged her on.

With a wicked little quiver of awareness alight low in her belly, she acknowledged that her physical barriers were coming down-and why not? If Valente’s wonderful patience with her had taught her anything, it was that he was still the man she had loved when she was twenty-one years old. And at least he was no longer being forced to go without any sexual satisfaction at all, she reflected. Her cheeks hot, she smiled in remembrance of the pleasure she had discovered she could give him. And she had given that pleasure eagerly, while marvelling at the change in herself and the newly learned confidence driving it.

A helicopter flew overhead while she ruminated over the truth that, given time, she was convinced she would be able to meet the terms of their marital agreement. Valente would win where Matthew had failed, which she supposed was only to be expected when she was in love with Valente and desperate to be part of a normal marriage. She had never got over losing Valente, which was hardly surprising in the circumstances. Her horribly ill-judged rebound marriage to Matthew had made it all too clear to her what she had lost… Footsteps sounded on the terrace and she lifted her head.

‘I thought you wouldn’t be back until late tonight!’ Caroline exclaimed, glancing up in surprise and welcome at her tall, well-built husband.

Valente sat down on the lounger beside hers, his lean, darkly handsome features serious. ‘Since you’re flying back to England to be with your father for his surgery tomorrow, I thought I should finish up early.’

‘Good.’ Caroline smiled up at him, her entire face lighting up.

Sexual hunger hit Valente as hard as a punch in the stomach. He wanted to haul into his arms and carry her up to bed, but he knew better than to succumb to such a caveman impulse around her. To occupy himself, he leant forward instead and retied the straps on her bikini top. ‘Keep the little white patches intact,’ he urged softly. ‘I find them very sexy, tesora mia.’

Caroline sat up, reddening to the roots of her pale hair. The atmosphere was thick with tension. Hot dark golden eyes travelled from her full pink mouth down to the taut little breasts restrained by her bikini top, which she longed for him to uncover. Her mouth ran dry, the hunger in his all-male gaze causing a burst of sudden heat in her pelvis. Her nipples tightened to an almost painful degree. The very knowledge of his desire made her feel dizzy, and somehow proud that she could have that effect on him. Yet she lived in constant fear that frustration would drive him into the arms of another woman before she could get over her hang-ups.

Valente gazed back at her steadily. ‘I need a cold shower, or…’

‘Or?’ she whispered.

‘I could take you up to bed and unwrap you and play with you like a toy,’ he husked, in a voice laden with lust.

His earthy proposition shocked her, because it was still broad daylight and during those hours they were usually very restrained. The tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lower lip because she was both seriously tempted and seriously scared that things would go further than she could cope with. ‘You won’t-?’

‘Haven’t I proved how good my self-control is yet?’

Having learnt that she got no attention when Valente was around, Koko cried mournfully at the foot of the staircase as Caroline and Valente disappeared from her view.

‘That cat is such a bad loser, belleza mia,’ Valente quipped.

‘I bring her up to keep me company when you’re not here,’ Caroline admitted. ‘I suppose it doesn’t help that I spoil her.’

‘You always had a thing about cats. I remember bringing you little glass cat ornaments back from Venice.’

‘I still have them. They’re somewhere in the boxes that went to your house in Venice.’

One step inside the doorway of her bedroom, he cupped her cheekbones and kissed her slow and deep, until she was kissing him back and leaning into him, arms stretching up to lock round his neck to keep herself steady. He hoisted her up against him to carry her over to the bed. Although she still seemed to weigh little more than a child, he was satisfied that she was eating more. There was a new, more rounded fullness to her face and her slender limbs. From the bed, she reached up to press the button that closed the curtains.

‘Killjoy,’ he teased, although the sun was still so bright it pierced through the curtains to illuminate the room.

Still bikini-clad, she scrambled into bed. She knew he liked to undress her and, although she wasn’t yet equal to modelling the fantastic collection of lingerie stored in the dressing room, she tried to compensate where she could. Her heart was already thumping as though she had been running. She lay back on the cool linen sheet and watched him remove his business suit. As always, he took her breath away. From his strong brown torso to his long, powerful thighs he was achingly male and extremely sexy. Little quivers of restive warmth were darting through her. She realised in genuine awe that what she was feeling was anticipation.

He slid in beside her. She curved into the heat of him as sinuously as a vine seeking support and parted her full lips for his. She tasted his hunger, the faint tang of wine and the familiar flavour that was uniquely his own. She smiled below the pressure of his mouth when he pressed her flat to the pillows and kissed her long and deep, with more passion than he usually revealed. He had missed her the night before; she was convinced of it, and she really loved that idea.

The bikini top was detached with one gentle tug. Suddenly there was nothing to hide behind any more, and for a split second she lay very still, unable to forget Matthew’s taunts. But Valente had already seen her in various states of undress; vanishing into the bathroom every time she needed to change had begun to seem ridiculous. So for him there would be no surprise or disappointment with her body, she reminded herself urgently.

Valente pushed back the sheet and her hands flew up to cover her exposed breasts He made no attempt to stop her but, his dazzling dark eyes intent, studied her through the dense screen of his black lashes and sighed. ‘Please let me look at you…’

Feeling foolish, Caroline slowly lowered her palms, and Valente feasted his attention on the pale, pouting perfection of her small breasts. ‘You’re so beautiful, and you don’t even know it because your first husband was an oaf, gattina mia.’

Breathing in and out shallowly, Caroline remained still.

‘He may not have appreciated you,’ Valente breathed, ‘but I do…very much.’

He traced the distended length of a swollen pink nipple with his forefinger and she shut her eyes tight and quivered. ‘Is that a yes or a no?’ he husked.

‘Y-yes,’ she stammered, weak with longing as the tingle of arousal darted straight down to the pulse already beating between her thighs.

He moulded his hand to one slight mound and she quivered, so innately responsive that she delighted him. He touched her delicate breasts, with the wonderfully lush and prominent nipples she had worked so hard to keep hidden from him, always turning away or covering up the instant she felt his eyes on her. He was as excited as a teenage boy let loose on a woman’s body for the first time. He dropped his dark head and let his mouth roam over that silky-soft skin, lingering on her protruding nipples with the skilled precision of a connoisseur.

Her mouth opened to provide a vent for her quickened breathing. To say that she liked what he was doing would have been an understatement. Her heartbeat was racing, and soon it became almost impossible to stop her hips from moving. She was wildly conscious of her body, and the heat and moisture gathering between her thighs. She arched up to him, aching unbearably for something more intense, while tiny involuntary cries fell from her lips. When he put his hand on the most sensitive part of her entire body she froze, but for once he ignored that fact. Through the barrier of her bikini pants he rubbed the tiny hidden bud at the heart of her, and she jerked in surprise before she began to squirm in delight.

He lifted his head to stare down at her, and told her simply and frankly what he wanted to do next. She went even pinker than she was already was, her eyes shifting from his, shock and sudden forbidden longing tearing her in two. Did he really want to…? Could he really want to do that? She recalled the intimacy she had already shared with him, and suddenly she was reaching down to help him skim off that last garment.

‘Just close your eyes, lie back and enjoy,’ Valente urged her thickly, parting her slender thighs.

She was trembling like a leaf, and he willed her to push another boundary back and trust him. He shimmied down the bed, pausing to dip his tongue into the shallow indentation of her tummy button. She giggled, and he tipped her back so that she lay open and naked before him.

Caroline was in shock at what she was allowing, breathing in little shallow pants, her aroused body quivering with an eagerness she could not suppress.

‘Stop thinking and shut your eyes,’ Valente commanded, settling confidently into the challenge of giving her more pleasure than she had ever dreamt he might give her.