Our Little Secret Read online

  ‘It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, signora. Your reputation precedes you.’ I grin down at the lady who is every bit the Italian grandmother. Her brown eyes sparkle and crinkle at the corners with her smile and the wisps of grey that have escaped the knot at her nape soften the bronzed lines of her face. ‘All good, I promise,’ I add in my best Italian. I’m not fluent, not by a long stretch, but I’ve picked up enough to impress over the years.

  ‘Greta, per favore.’ She beams up at me. ‘Ciao, bella.’

  She reaches out and I place my hands in hers, lean down, and she kisses each cheek as is the custom for friends, and I immediately feel welcomed in...welcomed in and...sad.

  It’s a sudden pang of loss as I acknowledge how different our situations are, Dani’s and mine. I have no elder to look up to within my own family, to be loved by and to love in return. No one, save for Dad. And the lack of a female, of that maternal connection, suddenly feels huge. It makes tears spike out of nowhere. I close my eyes and breathe through it. It’s such a silly thing to get caught up on, right now of all times. But then, grief doesn’t abide by any rules.

  I straighten back up and frown as I take in Greta’s chair. I don’t remember anyone mentioning her being wheelchair-bound and I make a note to mention it to the wedding planner, if Dani hasn’t already.

  ‘Nonna had a fall this morning,’ Dani chips in, spying my focus. ‘She’s sprained her ankle.’

  ‘Ouch.’ I look to her feet which are hidden beneath the skirt of her dress. ‘Ti fa ancora male?’

  ‘Adesso, va bene. No fuss.’ She waves a hand at me and goes to raise her foot with a wiggle but winces almost immediately.

  ‘I think we should get some ice on it, just to be sure, and get it raised,’ I say. I was a first-aider back in my swimming days. Lifeguard duty at weekends was a great way to bring in extra pennies and, looking at her swollen foot, ice is definitely a good idea. But I sense nothing happens without Nonna’s buy-in. ‘What do you think, Greta?’

  ‘Si, buon’idea.’

  Or Rafael’s buy-in, it seems, as his deep baritone fills the space and he comes up alongside us, so close I can breathe in his scent, and it makes me remember everything we did this morning. Me, naked. His mouth between my...

  ‘Ah, Raf...’ Dani beams. ‘I hear you’ve already met Faye.’

  Our eyes meet and his mouth twitches.

  ‘I have. Though I didn’t realise you speak Italian.’

  I give a sheepish smile. I know he’s remembering how I questioned the meaning of cara mia. But the query was genuine. It’s hardly the kind of vocab I’m accustomed to hearing when touring the globe conducting pharmaceutical sales.

  ‘I speak a little. I travel a lot with work.’

  Or I used to...

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Pharmaceutical sales. Though I’m more UK-based these days.’

  His brows lift marginally and I feel not only Nonna’s eyes, but Dani’s and Tyler’s flitting between us. No one speaks. Not even Dani, who speaks enough for the entire population of Italy. And I feel the heat creeping ever more into my cheeks, along with the carnal recollections that seem desperate to clamber up into my sex-starved mind.

  ‘About that ice...’ I say, needing to break the silence and the burn of being caught out, even though we haven’t been. Not even close.

  ‘Si, why don’t you give me a hand?’ Rafael suggests. Is it my imagination or has his voice dropped an octave or two? And is he seriously suggesting we go off together? He must sense the series of questions searing my brain as he smiles encouragingly, his eyes too suggestive. And again, is that my mind putting that suggestion there? And do I even care when it means we can be alone again?

  ‘You sound like you know what you’re talking about,’ he continues.

  ‘I was a first-aider—lifeguard duty in my teens.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I feel the appreciative burn of his gaze all the way to my toes. Surely everyone else can read it too? ‘Well, in that case, I’ll point you in the direction of the first-aid kit. I’m sure we can fashion together some sort of compress.’

  I swallow. ‘Great.’

  ‘It’s just in the pool house. This way...’

  Us. In the pool house. Alone. Won’t Dani suspect?

  But Raf is already heading that way.

  Dani nudges me in the side. ‘That’s my brother all over, issuing a command and not waiting for a response.’

  I look to her, my own eyes wide behind my glasses, but hers are laughing. She looks happy, not suspicious. Not suspicious at all. My own conscience is doing the guilt thing for me.

  ‘Right.’ I clear my throat. ‘Okay. One cold compress coming up.’

  I follow his luscious rear and don’t look back. I sense Dani’s eyes following us, and I’m not entirely sure we’ve escaped undetected after all, but I’m already being sucked into the impending heat, high on what’s to come...

  The pool house is a stone building with a terracotta roof and a stunning pink rose rambling over its walls. It’s pretty and unassuming, the little cobbled path that leads up to it dainty and cute. But, as he opens the door and stands back to let me enter, my heart rate soars, my blood zinging with the look in his eyes. It’s no innocent structure now.

  I enter and remove my sunglasses, slipping them into my bag as I scan the walls, the racks of towels and what look like laundry bins, a fridge, a freezer...

  I hear the door click shut behind me and start to turn. ‘The first aid—’

  I don’t finish. He’s upon me. My hat and bag hit the deck, our lips mash together and I’m pressed up against the wall, my entire body covered in the hot, hard heat of his.

  He growls low in his throat. Hungry, fierce. ‘Cazzo, Faye! This outfit. This swimsuit.’ He drags in a breath, his forehead pressing into mine. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

  My laugh is high, giddy, my hands clawing into his shoulders beneath his shirt; his hot skin sears my fingertips. I feel his cock pulse against my belly, his unrestrictive shorts doing nothing to conceal his need for me, and the throbbing ache in my core wants nothing more than to satisfy him whole.

  ‘I could say the same to you.’

  He kisses me harder, his tongue delving inside, his hands raking beneath my kimono, shoving it aside as I hook one leg around him and press him tighter against me. His hardness pulses against my clit and I cry out, muffling it in our kiss as I ride him with shameless abandon.

  ‘I want you.’ His demand is gruff and I’m nodding into his kiss, telling him I want him too.

  ‘Now.’ He grazes over my lips. ‘Here.’

  ‘Here?’ I break away and stare up at him, biting my lip.

  ‘Si.’

  His eyes blaze into mine and I look to the door.

  ‘They won’t come in.’

  ‘How can you...?’ He spins me into the door and presses us up against it.

  ‘They won’t have much luck.’

  It’s daring, it’s risky, but it feels too damn good and I can’t stop this. I’ll surely die if I don’t come soon, but...

  ‘Do you have a condom?’

  He’s already releasing me and unzipping a pouch on the side of his shorts.

  ‘You haven’t?’ He has... He’s pulling out a small foil packet. ‘I don’t know whether to be offended or relieved.’

  ‘What can I say?’ He tongue-fucks my mouth. ‘I’m always prepared.’

  ‘Like a proper boy scout.’ I tangle my fingers in his hair, marvelling at his seriously sexy good looks, and try to imagine him as a child. Vulnerable. Young. Studious.

  His grin cocks to the side. ‘That’s me.’ He rips the packet open. ‘In the interest of speed, you want to get yourself out of that cock-teasing number?’

  A ripple of excitement runs through me. I love his dirty mouth. Bobby was never li
ke this. Never direct, masterful, so hot for me... I toss my kimono to the side and shove the straps down on my swimsuit, eager to be free of it as quickly as possible, but the sight of him shoving down his briefs makes me still.

  I wet my lips and swallow. He’s big. Big, long and so fucking hard.

  ‘Hurry, cara, I need you.’ He’s already rolling the condom down, fisting his length, gripping the base tight. The tension is thrumming off him, his entire body pulsing tight, all muscular and bronze. ‘Now.’

  I shove my swimsuit to the floor and step out. I’m not even out of my nude wedges before he has me lifted against him, my legs wrapped around his waist, his cock jutting between us as he presses me back against the door, his lips claiming mine once more.

  He reaches back to lock my ankles together, his fingers pausing to toy with my anklet.

  ‘I love this. Molto sexy.’

  My heart flutters. I could listen to him spill over with the compliments all day.

  ‘You know what I find sexy...?’ I shove a hand down between us and grip him hard, lowering him to my wet and ready pussy. With one thrust he is deep inside, so deep, so big, and my poor neglected womanhood stings with pain and pleasure, my cry swallowed by his low growl. He breaks away. Stills.

  ‘Are you ok?’ His eyes are desperately searching. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  ‘No, fuck no.’ I lift a hand to his hair and drag him back to my mouth, my other hand clawing into his shoulder, gaining purchase, grinding down. ‘Don’t stop.’

  He hesitates a split-second more and then he starts to move, starts to thrust, his movements long and drawn out and so tight against me, his entire length working against my clit and filling me deep. It’s incredible, intense, and my belly pulsates with the erotic thrill of it. Of where we are. Of the talk and the laughter on the other side of the door. Of what we are doing here, now.

  Pleasure pulsates out from my core, coiling through my limbs, making movement impossible as I surrender to his every thrust. I keep my mouth pinned to his, my wanton moans merging with his unhinged grunts, trapping them inside.

  And I can feel his climax building, feel his thrusts turning jagged, and I tear my mouth away. I want to watch him come. I want to see this beautiful man, so powerful, so controlled and so secretly loving, spill his load inside me. I want to be the woman capable of doing that.

  Our eyes lock as he grips me tighter. His neck cords up, his jaw pulses and my mouth falls open. My pants are enough to tell him I’m tipping over and he’s there with me. His body jerks, a sharp thrust that sends me up the door, and I drop my head forward and bite into his shoulder to stop the cry that’s desperate to emerge with my orgasm. But his growl doesn’t have the same point of rescue, and I cover his mouth with my hand and feel it vibrate against my palm as he lets go.

  He rides it out inside me, against me. It’s quick, it’s intense and it’s mind-altering. I feel reawakened, as if I’m stepping out of the dark and seeing life for what it is—full of possibility, of potential, of so much more if I just take a leap.

  ‘Wow.’ It comes out of me softly, full of wonder, and as I raise my head to smile at him I feel his lips lift beneath my palm and see the same smile in his eyes. Their golden hue, intense, alive.

  ‘That was fun,’ I say, lowering my hand from his lips, and he chases it with his mouth, kissing the palm.

  ‘Very much so.’

  I feel like warm, mouldable putty, incapable of standing, let alone walking out of here. But we have to and soon. There’s only so long we can disappear for under the pretence of fashioning a compress.

  ‘So...’ I say. ‘The first-aid kit?’

  He chuckles low in his throat and pulls out of me, careful to wait for my feet to be planted before he releases me completely, and my body immediately pines for the loss of his.

  ‘That’s what we came in here for,’ I remind him, meeting the mischief in his face.

  ‘Absolutely. What else could we have possibly needed?’

  I watch him move away, his laugh teasing my blissfully satiated body, and bite into my lip. How is it possible to want him again? Already?

  I don’t know, but I do know that this week is turning out better than I ever could have imagined...

  We make ourselves presentable, and focus on constructing the compress for Nonna, but I feel the awareness still thrumming in the air, the desire that we can’t seem to burn out. As we go to leave, he grabs my hand and pulls me back in for a kiss that promises more, so much more. Soon, very soon.

  I should feel guilty. I know I should. Dani made her thoughts clear as far as Rafael and I are concerned. But that was when she was worried about potential heartbreak. And I’m not foolish enough to fall in love with Rafael. He isn’t a man wanting a future. He’s a man wanting super-hot sex. And I’m all for that.

  The new me is one hundred percent all over it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Danielle and Tyler’s Wedding Week

  Monday: Bridal Party Dinner. Terrace,

  eight-thirty p.m.

  AKA TORTURE ON the terrace. And it was always going to be torture...even before Dani made it clear she had high hopes for Faye and Dante getting it on. Her not-so-subtle matchmaking has been full-on since we emerged from the pool house and, no matter how much I remind myself that it was me cock-deep in Faye, bringing her to climax twice in one day, I can’t stop the way it riles me.

  She made sure they sat together at the poolside and encouraged them into a game of water volleyball with Harry and his wedding date, Lisa. It quickly morphed into what Dani declared as a chicken fight, and there was no way the designer of Faye’s swimsuit envisaged it being worn during that. No way at all.

  Not when her legs were hooked on Dante’s shoulders, his hands grasping at her thighs as the couples sought to up-end the females into the water. I mean, one wrong move and that mesh would surely tear, or a breast would pop free or, heaven forbid, come away all together. It seemed far too delicate, the mix of mesh and opaque fabric curving around her body in just the right way to conceal the crucial points, but one tug, one mistimed move, and...

  It didn’t happen, but it could have, and the idea had my entire body rigid for the duration.

  As did the fact that it was Dante’s hands on her.

  I shouldn’t have been so hooked on their easy fun together. I should have made myself busy talking with the other guests and catching up with Nonna. And I tried. I really tried. But when Nonna looked at me with that far too astute gaze of hers, and asked if I felt I was missing out, the smile tugging at her lips telling me she saw far too much, I knew I’d all but failed.

  It was the cue I needed to make a hasty exit, citing work as the excuse. I’d been there long enough, surely? But in reality I wasn’t ready to admit that I was jealous. Jealous and envious of their easy camaraderie. The fun so readily available to them while I sat on the sidelines.

  And I know I’m the older brother...the serious, responsible one. I know fun doesn’t come easily to me, not when my family is near. But not once did they seek to include me. I’d been lumped in with the older generation and forgotten about, save for Faye. She would send the occasional look, one that was more curious than anything else.

  She’s doing it now. As we all sit round the table for dinner, the chatter incessant, her eyes keep finding mine...or is it that I keep pulling her my way because I can’t stop seeking her out? It’s as though I’m magnetically drawn to her and no amount of mental talk will stop me from doing it.

  ‘Isn’t that so, Rafael? Rafael?’

  I turn to see my mother staring pointedly at me from further along the table. Tyler’s parents across from me are also looking rather expectant, but I have no idea what I’m supposed to be responding to.

  ‘Scusi, what was that?’

  My mother rolls her eyes and shakes her head. ‘You’ve hardly been with us all afternoo
n. What’s wrong with you?’

  I take a sip of wine and lean back in my chair. ‘Work.’

  The lie is easy. Far easier than the truth. That the woman two seats down from me, with Dante between us, is causing my mind to wander. Hell, maybe it bothers me more because I know Dante is a better match for her. Dani certainly thinks it’s the case.

  ‘Of course.’ My mother looks to Tyler’s parents. ‘No change there. He’s all work and no play, my son.’

  Tyler’s father murmurs a respectful, ‘He has the success to show for it too.’ While his mother beams at me.

  Marianna, on the other hand, looks as if she’s sucking on a lemon. ‘That may be, but it would be nice to have your son’s attention once in a while.’

  The wine turns bitter on my tongue and I’m about to respond when Faye’s voice reaches me. ‘It’s such a beautiful part of the world here. Rafael told me you used to live here when he was a child, Marianna?’

  My mother’s eyes leave me to find Faye and her face softens, a wistful smile touching her lips. ‘We did. It feels like a whole other lifetime ago now.’

  ‘Do you miss it?’

  Now my mother really does smile, and an unexpected sheen fills her eyes. I’m frozen as I take it in, witnessing an emotion that’s not anger, either acrid or cold. There’s no petulance, no arrogance. And yet the strength of it, its sincerity, guts me.

  ‘I do. I often wonder if I should come back, but in my heart I know it wouldn’t be the same as it once was. It’s the people that make a home. It was...it was Eduardo who made it home.’

  I watch Nonna reach out for my mother’s hand and give it a squeeze, a rare sign of affection between the two, and I feel the mood around the table turn sombre with reflection. I can’t breathe. It’s the first time I’ve heard my mother say my father’s name in too many years to count and it resonates through me. A grief I haven’t allowed for so long assaults me without warning and it’s suffocating. The pressure of it pushes down on my chest and I need to get out of there.

  I push back from the table, the iron chair legs screeching against the travertine floor and through my skull, but I don’t even wince. My apology, when I utter one, is practically mute as I head for the steps that lead towards the gardens.