Read Online Far From Perfect by Portia Da Costa - Free Book Online Page B

Yet again.
     
     
    Dannazione ! Why did everything about her bother him so much?
    Steeling himself not to react, Nick still found himself mesmerized by the compulsive pleating action of Anna’s slender fingers as she worried the sash of her voluminous and bizarrely chaste robe.
    She had beautiful hands, elegant, smooth-skinned and nimble, and just the mere sight of them had a stunning effect on his body. He suppressed an inner shudder, feeling again the delicate, instinct-guided stroke of those soft fingertips across his aching penis. The way she’d touched him, at first tentatively, then with more confidence.
    Ah, Dio Mio , how she’d held him.
    Groaning inside, he felt that self-same flesh react violently as if crying out for her innocent caress. Summoning a supreme act of self-control, he managed to suppress the most patent evidence of his discomfiture, but even so, he was grateful that once he was sitting at the kitchen table, the cheerful red and white checked cloth masked his groin.
    But the heavy atmosphere, latent with a thousand unspoken words and accusations, was more uncomfortable in its own way than his ferocious arousal.
    “So?” he queried, unable to bear the electric tension one second longer.
    The minute it was out of his lips, he knew he’d miscalculated. About to sit herself, Anna remained on her feet, glaring down at him like an avenging angel swaddled in what looked like twenty layers of night attire. For a moment he thought the cup of tea in her hand was about to end up on his head.
    “‘So’? What do you mean ‘so’? Shouldn’t that be my question?”
    Her voice was impressively composed, but he could see her knuckles were white. “You pull a fast one on me. You foist your mad scheme on everybody before I’ve even had an hour or two to digest it, and then you make with the ‘so?’ as if it’s me that’s done something wrong.”
    With enviable self-containment, she sat at the table, facing him, her eyes like a green inferno as she boldly met and held his look.
    Another surge of raw, animal feeling wrenched at him.
    Dio , but she was magnificent.
    He’d been with his share of women, all beautiful, all with poise and star quality, all able to make an entrance and dominate a room, play the seductress and captivate a man physically. But Anna possessed a rare quality to which not one of his past girlfriends could hold a candle. An inner spirit and individuality that had haunted him, no matter how he’d tried to deny it. She was a drug in his blood that would never let him rest, always nagging him, always standing between him and the possibility of a wholly satisfying relationship with another woman.
    If he didn’t get Anna Felgate out of his system somehow, every lover he bedded in the future was doomed to seem ultimately lacking.
    “So?” she mocked him, still glaring, her elegant chin up.
    Drawing on formidable powers of his own, and the control and self-belief that had always served him admirably in business and with all other women, Nick held his ground. A staring and slanging match was stupid and pointless, so he tried a different angle. Truth—at least partial—and honesty and no more evading critical issues.
    “You’re right, I made a mistake. I acted in haste and I was unfair to you.”
    Reaching calmly for his coffee, he took a sip and wrinkled his nose at the less than aromatic taste. “But I was afraid you wouldn’t agree to the engagement, and I couldn’t risk that, for Carlo’s sake. So I moved things on a little more quickly than I should have done.”
    Anna’s brow puckered and she ran her thumb round the rim of her mug, the almost unconscious gesture making Nick feel uncomfortable again.
    “Do you think I’d be so cruel and thoughtless that I’d just ignore Carlo’s wellbeing?” she challenged, “Of course I want to help. And I know that going along with you is the right thing for the moment.” Her eyes narrowed and she gave him a look of sudden, chilly