A Dangerous Infatuation
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
November 2011
ISBN: 0263887049
Harlequin Presents
January 3, 2012
ISBN: 0373528507
Rocco D'Angelo doesn't do needy women—and he certainly doesn't do commitment! But the spark notorious playboy Rocco feels with his beloved grandmother's nurse, Emma Marchant, is more than the usual thrill-of-the-chase adrenaline!
Never in her wildest dreams did cautious Emma imagine she would be swept from a sleepy English village to the exotic climes of the Italian Riviera—especially by a man as disreputable as Rocco.
Emma could be the one to tame the untamable—unless her infatuation is more dangerous than she imagined....
Emma tried to quash her pang of guilt. She could not deny that it would be best for Cordelia to go and stay with Rocco, but he would have to find another way of persuading his grandmother to accompany him to Portofino.
‘I’m sorry if you have led Cordelia to think I would go to Italy with her, but I can’t. And I don’t see why I should have to explain my reasons to you – a man I met for the first time yesterday,’ she added fiercely, her temper rising when she saw the angry gleam in his amber eyes. ‘That’s all I have to say on the subject.’ She jumped to her feet, ‘I think you should leave.’
She was throwing him out! No woman had ever asked Rocco to leave, and the novel experience was not one he relished. But he had stated his case - or rather his grandmother’s case - and he was damned if he was going to plead with Emma to reconsider, he thought grimly. Without another word he stood up, and placed his glass on the coffee table at the same time as Emma set down her half-full glass. Their fingers brushed and she snatched her hand away, sending the glass flying so that red wine cascaded across the table and dripped over the edge.
‘Blast!’ She stared in horror at the spreading stain on the cream carpet. ‘It had to happen now. The estate agent phoned earlier to say he’s arranged for someone to view the cottage tomorrow.’
‘I’ll get a cloth.’ Rocco was already striding from the room.
Emma hurried along to the kitchen after him, and while he grabbed the dishcloth she rummaged in a cupboard, looking for the carpet cleaning solution she was sure was stashed at the back – before remembering she had used the last of it to clean up a spill at Christmas.
‘Is the stain very bad? I’ve brought another cloth.’ She ran back into the sitting room just as he was emerging, and they collided in the doorway.
‘It’s fine. I’ve cleaned it up and you can’t see a mark, so stop flapping.’
His impatient tone brought her up sharp. ‘I never flap,’ she said tightly, flushing as she realised she had been doing just that.
What the hell was wrong with her? she asked herself furiously. She had spent two years working in an A&E unit, often dealing with life-threatening emergencies, yet here she was getting in a stew about spilt wine.
Rocco set her nerves on edge, she acknowledged ruefully. Ever since she had invited him into the cottage she had been conscious of the undercurrent of sexual awareness. And now they were jammed in the doorway, with their bodies touching, and molten heat was coursing through her veins.
Her eyes were drawn against her will to his face, and her heart gave a violent thud when she watched his gaze narrow and become predatory. Time stood still and the air between them quivered. He stared down at her, as if he could see deep into her soul, before he slowly lowered his head.
He was going to kiss her. She knew she should move, break the spell he had cast on her, but it was too late. His warm breath whispered across her lips and involuntarily she parted them as he claimed her mouth. With practiced ease he took possession of her, sliding a hand to her nape as he deepened the kiss, yet keeping the caress non-threatening, so that she slowly relaxed and allowed her body to settle against him while she responded to the gentle demands of his mouth.
She was drowning in a sea of sensation. There was nothing but Rocco’s strong, hard body pressing against her, so that she could feel his powerful thigh muscles through her skirt. His hand slid from her nape to tangle in her hair, holding her still while he subtly increased the pressure of his lips on hers and took the kiss to another level that was blatantly erotic.
Without conscious thought she lifted her arms to his shoulders, a tremor running through her when he curled his arm around her waist and drew her even closer to that she could feel the thud of his heart, and more enticingly, the solid ridge of his arousal straining beneath his trousers.
He delicately probed between her lips with his tongue before initiating a bold exploration that made her tremble. Reality had ceased to exist. All she was aware of was the faint abrasion of his jaw against her cheek and the softness of his hair as she curved her arms around his neck and slid her fingers into the dark mass of silk above his collar.
At first slow and sweet, the tenure of his kiss changed to hot and hungry, seducing her with its innate sensuality. Nothing had prepared her for the wild, almost primitive pleasure he evoked, and she responded with a feverish urgency as her defences crumbled.
From upstairs came the sound of Holly coughing. The sexually charged silence down in the hall immediately shattered, and Emma dragged her mouth from Rocco’s, her chest heaving as she snatched oxygen into her lungs. Dear heaven, what if her daughter had got out of bed and discovered her kissing a virtual stranger? What if Holly hadn’t coughed and she had continued to kiss Rocco with the wanton abandon that had overwhelmed her mere seconds ago?
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded shakily.
His dark brows rose quizzically. ‘What am I doing? Surely you mean what are we doing? And I think the answer is pretty self-explanatory,’ he drawled softly. He trailed a lazy hand down to her breast and brushed across the hard peak of her nipple jutting beneath her jumper.
‘Don’t!’ Mortified by her response to him, she snatched her arms from around his neck and side-stepped him out of the doorway into the hall, struggling to control her erratic breathing. ‘You took me by surprise.’ Panic made her voice sharp as she felt a growing sense of horror at her behaviour. ‘You had no right to come on to me.’
Rocco raked a hand through his hair, surprised by the strength of his desire for Emma, and his fierce urge to pull her back into his arms and kiss her into submission. ‘It was just a kiss,’ he managed to sound coolly dismissive, even though his heart was pounding in his chest. ‘There’s no need to get worked up about it.’
He sounded faintly bored, as if he was used to kissing women he barely knew on a passing whim – which he probably was, she conceded sickly. No doubt he had confidently expected her to invite him up to her bedroom, or maybe he would have led her back into the sitting room and removed her clothes – his - before making love to her on the sofa? Her face burned as erotic images of their naked, entwined limbs flooded her mind.
‘You shouldn’t have done it.’ Her voice sounded thick, almost guttural, as she fought the shockingly fierce pull of sexual desire that throbbed low in her pelvis. ‘I told you, I’m not looking for a…’ She faltered on the word relationship, certain that Rocco wanted nothing more than casual sex. ‘I don’t want a man in my life.’
As she looked through the doorway into the sitting room, the photograph of Jack’s grinning face seemed to mock her. Rocco followed her gaze and his face hardened.
‘He’s been dead for three years. He might have been a hero, but you can’t grieve for him forever,’ he said harshly.’ His eyes narrowed on her face as a startling realisation dawned. ‘You’re not telling me I’m the first man you’ve kissed since you were widowed?’
‘I’m not telling you anything.’ Her marriage was not open to discussion. Holly coughed again. ‘Our voices are disturbing her,’ she muttered, glancing towards the stairs. The maternal instinct to go and check on her daughter finally released her from Rocco’s magnetic spell. ‘Please go.’
Arguing with her was not going to get him anywhere, Rocco realised frustratedly as he snatched up his jacket and yanked open the front door. And, when it came down to it, what did he actually want? He hadn’t meant for things to get so out of hand. Hell, he hadn’t meant to kiss her. But when he had stared into her soft grey eyes he had felt compelled by a force he’d had no control over to slant his mouth over hers.
The uncomfortable throb of his erection was a mocking reminder that Emma turned him on more than any woman had done for a long time. But it was patently obvious that she was still in love with her dead husband - and although Rocco eschewed any degree of emotional attachment with his mistresses, he balked at the idea of making love to a woman who wished he was someone else…