Riccardo's Secret Child by Cathy Williams Page B

returning to the music and food, but in early March most people did not fancy the prospect of dawdling outside.
    The cold was already beginning to bite through her thin jacket, and she pulled it tighter around her.
    â€˜Cold?’ he enquired. In the absence of light, he was just a big, shadowy figure.
    â€˜A little.’
    â€˜There is that age-old technique for warming up,’ Riccardo murmured, stepping closer to her, and Julia blinked furiously behind her spectacles. He ran his hands up and down her arms and felt a rough, primitive urge sweep over him. In every way she had played with his life, turned it on its head, and in more ways than one she had played with his mind, turning his hard-edged dislike intounwilling curiosity, taking the revenge he had coolly plotted and changing it into a genuine quest to control a woman who remained infuriatingly out of reach.
    She looked at him. ‘I don’t think Management would like it if we lit a fire out here.’
    Riccardo grinned, his teeth a sudden flash of white in the shadows. ‘You’re right. They might complain. Besides, I have no matches, have you?’ He could feel her shivering beneath his hands. ‘Nor do we have sun and a magnifying glass.’
    â€˜You were a boy scout?’
    â€˜Hardly.’ He laughed softly. ‘I just read a lot of useful books when I was a kid. I fancied myself marooned on an island, having to survive.’
    There was a brief silence, during which they looked at one another, a brief, charged silence, pregnant with the possibilities of the moment.
    Then he lowered his head and his mouth met hers. He had not realised the depth of his hunger to taste her lips until he felt hers cool and yielding. Her hands remained clasped protectively around her body as she inclined upwards to him.
    â€˜I can’t do this with…these on…’ He removed her spectacles and Julia whimpered at the brief interlude. She no longer cared about keeping her distance. She was waiting, no, yearning for him to kiss her again, and this time, as his mouth sought and found hers, she returned the kiss, her tongue sliding against his, her lips parted to receive his searing, hungry caress.
    He pulled her arms away from her body and, with his hands behind her buttocks, pushed her towards him, grinding her so closely against his body that she could feel his hard erection pressing against her.
    A wild abandon coursed through her veins and she moaned as his teeth nipped the arched column of her neck.
    Her breasts were aching with the need to be touched, and as if sensing this, Riccardo shoved his hands up the silky top until he felt their soft swell under the strapless lace bra. He felt like a man making love for the first time. Every movement was fuelled with desperate urgency. He didn’t want to gently make love to her, he wanted to take her right here and right now and satiate the primal urge tearing him apart.
    With one swift movement he dragged the strapless bra down so that he could massage the twin peaks of her breasts with their tight, protruding nipples. As he massaged them she groaned with pleasure and every groan urged him on.
    â€˜Touch me,’ he commanded, circling her wrist with his hand and guiding it to where his throbbing manhood needed the cool touch of her fingers. He unzipped his trousers and as she gripped his stiffness through his silk boxer shorts she gave a little cry of desire.
    â€˜Feeling a little warmer now?’ he asked, punctuating the warmth of his breath in her ear with the damp coolness of his tongue.
    Julia was beyond answering. The gardens could have been designed, she thought wildly, for this type of activity. The trees were a natural barrier against prying eyes and the scattering of benches a welcome respite for unsteady legs. Riccardo led her to one of these benches, and when she had sat down he splayed apart her legs and positioned himself between them, then he lifted her vest. Her