Italian Surgeon to the Stars (16 page)

He slowly peeled away my clothes until I was just in my knickers. Thankfully they
were my best ones. Bertie bought them for me a couple of birthdays ago, but I’d pushed them to the back of the drawer as I thought they were too girly and feminine for me. They were black lace, with little pink bows on the hips.

Alessandro obviously liked them. I saw his eyes darken as he stroked his finger down the seam of my body. The sensation of his touch through the almost sheer lace made my back arch off the bed. I could feel my dampness. I was sure he could too as he gently peeled the lace away from my body and brought his mouth down.

I shivered all over as his lips touched me. I wished I’d had time to wax, but he didn’t seem to mind. He separated me so tenderly; worshipping me with such achingly poignant reverence I had to blink back tears.

I realised then that he was my first lover in all the ways that counted. He had shown me how to experience pleasure. He had shown me what my body was capable of, how it responded to touch and carefully timed caresses. He had never touched me in a way I wasn’t comfortable with. He had always treated me with the utmost respect and consideration.
He had not selfishly satisfied his needs with no thought to mine.

He must have sensed my emotional response, for he stopped his gentle ministrations and came back up to look deeply into my eyes.

‘Too much?’

I bit my lip and shook my head, suddenly incapable of speech.

He stroked the underside of my chin. ‘I’ve given you beard rash.’

I could feel my chin wobbling, so I bit down even harder on my lip. His hand cradled my cheek, his eyes so dark and meltingly soft I knew I was a goner.

‘You have the most beautiful mouth,’ he said, stroking my bottom lip so I could no longer savage it. ‘So soft…so sweet.’

‘I like yours too.’ My voice was so husky it didn’t sound like me at all.

He kissed me again, softly and leisurely, until he sensed I was ready to continue. I let my body do the talking because it was easier that way. I didn’t want to suddenly blurt out how much I’d missed him or how great he made me feel—how I wished we could rewind the past and do things differently. I just wanted to be as close to him as physically
possible. I wanted to lose myself in his body, to feel the magnificence of sexual pleasure with him—only with him. I wanted to break free, to escape from everything that had been so tightly bound up inside me like a giant, prickly ball of bitterness.

Alessandro moved down my body again, taking me on a sensual quest that unmoored me from my foundations. I could feel myself being shaken loose with each stroke and flutter of his tongue against my hungry, aching, greedy flesh. The tremors of feeling moved through me until I was rolling, crashing like a wave against a shore. I was washed over with the sensations. Flooded with them. Drowned in delight. And then floating like a bit of flotsam in that blessed afterglow of release.

But I didn’t want to be the only one to experience such amazing sensations. I wanted to give pleasure to him. It was my gift—the only thing I had to give him. I could no longer—
would
no longer—give him my heart, but my body was his for the asking.

I moved my hand down his shaft, rediscovering the shape and heft of him. Delighting in the way he sucked in a sharp-sounding breath, as if my touch ignited him like no other. His skin was silky and smooth, and
yet the weight and thickness of him was as strong as steel. My body quivered with the memory of how it had felt to have him thrust inside me, losing himself in me.

He was fighting to control himself. I could feel the tension building in him. I could hear the hectic pace of his breathing as his need for release increased.

‘Wait.’

He suddenly pulled back and reached over the side of the bed for his discarded trousers. I was glad one of us was being responsible about safe sex, because I can tell you right then it was the furthest thing from my mind. But I appreciated his concern—particularly as I wasn’t currently taking the pill. I hadn’t seen the need to pump myself full of hormones when I was basically celibate.

Alessandro came back safely sheathed and poised himself at my entrance. But still he didn’t rush for completion. He caressed my breasts, using his hands, his lips and his tongue. He moved down my body, leaving a trail of blistering heat in his wake. I felt the pressure building inside me again as he came to my pubic bone. My nerve-endings began to twitch as his mouth came inexorably closer. I felt the warm gust of his breath against my
labia, then the gentle glide of one of his fingers as he tested my moisture to see if I was ready for him.

I guided him with my hand, lifting my pelvis, making a pleading noise that was unintelligible but crossed all language barriers. He knew what I wanted and he gave it.

I gasped as he took that first slow but sure thrust. He could have gone much deeper and much harder, but he didn’t. The measured pace was just right for me to find my own rhythm before I tried to keep up with his.

And then it all fell magically into place.

Somehow it was like beautiful choreography—a ballet of limbs and lips and lust and longing that built to a stunning, heart-stopping climax.

I closed my eyes to give myself up fully to the storm of passion that ricocheted through me. Tiny bright lights like a fistful of carelessly flung diamonds sparkled behind my eyelids. My flesh tingled from head to foot and my heart raced in time with Alessandro’s. I could feel it pumping against my crushed breasts, where his body was pressed as the final waves of release washed over him.

I could have used one or two of Bertie’s ‘wows’ just then, but I decided to stay silent.
Talking would break the spell that had fallen around and over us like a velvet blanket.

My fingers started moving up and down the length of his strong spine like a lapsed pianist working on her scales.

‘“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”?’ Alessandro said after a moment, his voice a deep rumble against my neck, where his face was pressed.

I couldn’t stop a laugh escaping. ‘Good guess. How about this one?’ I tapped out the rhythm to ‘Three Blind Mice’.

I felt his lips move against my neck as he spoke. ‘Play it again.’

I played it again, slower this time. ‘Come on,’ I said, laughing again. ‘It’s an easy one.’

His lips started to nibble on my earlobe. ‘Give me a clue.’

I shivered all over as his tongue traced the cartilage of ear. My fingers stopped playing their tune and started weaving their way through the thickness of his hair. ‘I’m tired of that game,’ I said in a breathy whisper. ‘Let’s play something else.’

He propped himself up on his elbows, his eyes glinting at me smoulderingly. ‘Any suggestions?’

I circled his mouth with one of my fingertips,
the sound of his skin rasping against mine making something topple inside my belly. ‘Three Questions?’

He lifted one dark eyebrow. ‘I haven’t heard of that game. How does it go?’

I traced the right angle of his jaw with my finger. ‘I get to ask you three questions. Anything I want. And you have to answer.’

A flicker of tension passed across his cheek before he got it under control. ‘And do I get to ask
you
three questions of my choice too?’

‘Of course.’

Now, you might ask why I was playing such a potentially dangerous game, but I had already told him my worst secret. What did I have to lose? Besides, I had a feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me about his sister Bianca. Don’t ask me how I knew. I’m not psychic…or at least I hope not.

‘O-kay,’ he said, but his tone was unmistakably cautious.

‘What’s the most difficult operation you’ve ever done?’ No point in starting with the big one, I thought. I’d work up to it.

He didn’t hesitate in answering. ‘It was a heart transplant on a seventeen-year-old when I was a registrar. Things didn’t go according to plan. To be fair, it was a risky case. But
the consultant was one of those instrument-throwing ones. He was out of his depth but refused to admit it. He sent me out to tell the relatives their son hadn’t made it. I’ll never forget their faces. They leapt to their feet, eager for good news, and I had to tell them the opposite.’

I looked at his face, saw the anguish of that remembered tragic encounter playing out over his features—the shadows in his eyes, the ghosts of lost patients who lingered to haunt him. ‘That must have been awful for them—and for you,’ I said. ‘And cowardly of the consultant to leave it up to you.’

He brushed a stray strand of hair away from my face. ‘It was a good lesson to learn. I make a point of dealing directly with relatives. Not to mention keeping a cool head under pressure. Things
can
go wrong. No one—no matter how skilled or how much experience they have—is exempt from that. But staying calm in the middle of a crisis can be the difference between life and death.’

Somehow we had shifted our bodies so we were lying side by side, one of his legs draped over one of mine, our hands loosely entwined.

‘Next question?’

I had to remind myself of the game. I was so taken aback by the quality of him, the strength and courage he exhibited under pressure. Was that why he hadn’t acted the way I’d expected when I’d accused him of using me five years ago? He had faced down my spitting tirade with what I’d thought was cool indifference. But what if that had been his way of keeping calm when the unexpected was thrown at him?

It was a sobering thought.

‘Did you have a pet as a child?’ I said.

A shadow passed over his features like a cloud crossing the path of the moon. ‘Yes. His name was Cico.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He died.’

‘When?’

‘That’s question number four,’ he said. ‘Now it’s my turn.’

‘Hang on a minute.’ I gave his chest a playful shove. ‘I want to know what happened to him.’

Alessandro captured my hand and came back over me, all but pinning me to the bed. ‘You’re the one who made the rules,
ma petite
. You can’t go changing them now.’

I gave up with good grace…well, good for me—if you overlook the quick tongue poke and the childish pout. ‘Okay, fire away,’ I said.

‘Do you want to have dinner or make love again?’

‘Make love.’

He smiled and brought his head down. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him away from his mission.

‘Hang on. Don’t you want to ask another two questions?’ I said.

‘I’m getting to that.’ He sent his mouth on a hot trail down to my breasts. ‘Does that feel good?’

‘Yes…’ It was part gasp, part groan.

He moved down my body and kissed the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. ‘How about that?’

Somehow I lost count of the questions, and suddenly I was incapable of answering. Anything.

CHAPTER TEN

M
Y FATHER MADE
a spectacular recovery—which, as I’d predicted, my mother and to some degree my father took all the credit for. However, they
did
think to organise a thank-you card for Alessandro and a bottle of wine. It wasn’t a top-shelf one, but it was organic.

They came back to my place to collect their things, but they didn’t hang around.

I was awkward with my mother. Nothing new there, but now there was another layer of awkwardness. She obviously hadn’t said anything to my father about our discussion/argument, which showed at least she had
some
sensitivity, given he was still getting over heart surgery. But I had a feeling she might never tell him. She would do what she had always done when things got too confrontational or threatening for her. She would bury her head in the sand, or in her navel, or
take up with yet another guru to distract herself from facing reality.

I stood on my front step and waved my parents off, feeling that mixture of guilt and relief that so perplexed and frustrated me.

They had not long gone when I heard the unmistakable roar of Alessandro’s car turning the corner.

I couldn’t wait to tell him how well Claudia was doing. The drama therapy was going gangbusters. Even the speech therapist was stunned by Claudia’s progress in such a short space of time. Although Claudia’s stutter was still present, the boost in her confidence from doing those drama exercises had helped her to be not so distressed about the words and sounds she couldn’t say, but to concentrate on what she could.

The only thing that still troubled me now was how she never mentioned her mother. It was unusual in a child so young. She didn’t show any signs of homesickness either. She had settled into the boarding house routine as if she’d been boarding for years. That sort of quiet self-reliance in an older child would have been laudable. However, in a child of Claudia’s age it was faintly disturbing.

But then I thought of my tricky relationship
with
my
mother. Kids soon learn who they can rely on and make the necessary adjustments. I for one knew all about making adjustments. I swear I could moonlight as a spanner.

I watched as Alessandro’s powerful car growled into one of the few parking spaces at the front of my flat. He had spent the last few days working in London. I knew he was finding it tough, balancing his supervision of the renovations on his house here in Bath and his commitment to his niece, not to mention our ‘relationship’—which I automatically put in quotation marks because I didn’t know what else to call it.

It didn’t feel like a fling, but neither did it feel like a proper commitment. He had made it clear he wasn’t able to offer anything permanent, and I had made it equally clear I didn’t want to settle down. The trouble was I was having wayward thoughts that would catch me totally off guard.

Like when I went to my wardrobe to get dressed for school and my wedding dress, hidden in its silk bag, kind of stared at me. For all that it was covered in a sack—hidden, stashed away—it had an annoying habit of reminding me of the hopes and dreams I
had once clung to. It was like I had shoved a part of myself into the dark recesses of my wardrobe but now that part was getting restless…agitated.

I decided I would give the damn dress away or stuff it in a charity bin the first chance I got.