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“I don’t want to go back to the estate and I don’t want a gelato”

“No? What are you interested in then, bella?”

A soft kiss on his cheek Her breath fluttering over the rim of his ear And then those warm brown eyes pinned him

“You” There was no coyness in her gaze No sultry invitation No fe of her eyelashes Just pure, artless need “Tonight, I want you, Raphael Just you”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BY THE TIME she and Raphael rode the glass elevator to his ninth-floor apart point Desire was a live wire left unearthed between the through the seven or so miles to his apartment in the affluent fashion district, a world away froh Corso Venezia

Raphael’s cell phone gave that shrill ring the moment they stepped inside and Pia almost jumped out of her skin

His hand at her lower back, Raphael steadied her His own pithy curse when he looked at the screen painted the air blue “I have to take this call”

While Pia stood there in thelike a bell all through her body, Raphael returned, after only a few minutes His mouth took on that hard cast that she didn’t like Another darker tone added to the awareness sizzling between them

She thought they’d grown comfortable with each other over the past feeeks, that they had crossed a otten closer emotionally too

Yet it seeive voice to this need between them, to express desire for sexual intimacy—she blushed when she realized that hat she had done—and every word became explosive, every look rife with promise

“Who was that?”

He shrugged off his suit jacket, carefully folded it and left it on the chair “Nothing important”

Struggling to keep her dismay off her face, she said softly, “That’s what you say when you don’t want to tell me”