Our Little Secret Rachael Stewart (best novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

Italian and I know she’s smiling even though I can’t see her face.

A chuckle erupts; I can’t help it. I like her confidence, her easy tease. Not many people dare tease me. I’m too cold, too controlled, too severe—labels I’ve been given plenty of times in the past—but not now, not with her, not with someone who doesn’t know me from Adam.

And it’s liberating. I don’t have to be Rafael Perez.

Only, you do...

She runs a hand beneath her neck and flicks her hair up, sending water droplets my way. ‘I’m still quite wet.’

My body tightens over her double entendre and her fingers cease their exploration of her front as she shifts her head to eye me. One second, two...she rolls back onto her front, her smile wicked, her eyes sparkling. ‘Problem?’

‘No. No problem.’

Unless you count an unhindered erection.

‘Sooo...’ she drawls, her eyebrows gesturing towards the pool house.

I give a tight smile and launch myself up and out. I watch the play of emotions flicker across her face, the way her eyes brazenly fall to my hardened length, and my ego takes a good, long stroke. I turn and walk away, unhurried, practically strutting as I enjoy her eyes on me and, hell, if my smile doesn’t relax and grow...

‘I take it you swim naked a lot?’ she calls after me.

I pause and turn my head just enough to see her. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Your behind is as tanned as the rest of you.’

She runs her teeth over her bottom lip, her eyes locked on my arse, and my cock bucks. I shake my head and carry on my way. She’s right; I do bathe naked. But this, between us, this is wrong and it has to stop. Only, it’s fun, so much fun and, Gesù, when did I last find fun in anything?

Why does she have to be Faye? Why couldn’t she be some random person with no connections to my family? To the wedding that has to go off without a hitch, and certainly without me crossing a line with my sister’s best friend and the maid of honour.

Because, no matter how much I’m enjoying the anonymity and the desire, I know I need to fess up and be me.

I damn my own good conscience as I enter the pool house and take a fresh towel off the rack. If I were my cousin Dante I wouldn’t hesitate. In fact, I’d put money on him going all-in tomorrow when he sees her. She’s just his type: brunette, big blue eyes, a broad grin that rounds her cheeks and lights up her entire face.

Diavolo, she’s my type. Not that I ever considered having a type before.

I wrap the towel around my waist; it’s safer to have at least one proper layer between us. That robe of hers counts for nothing. It’s worse than her being naked, teasing over her curves and making me wish it were my hands upon her, tracing the same path, the same wet trails...

I grab a second towel for her more roughly than I need to and stride back out. Confess. Leave. Confess. Leave. Confess...

She’s standing before the bed, the said robe shifting in the light breeze, pulling taut against her tummy, her breasts. She twists her hair over one shoulder as though wringing it out, but I sense it has a more seductive purpose as it dips her chin and forces her to eye me from beneath her lashes, her smile all sultry.

‘Thank you,’ she says as I mutely offer her the towel.

My confession is on the tip of my tongue. I haven’t lied, as such. I am the owner, as of six months ago, when I bought the place to ensure Dani could get married here. Only, my sister doesn’t know that. No one does.

‘You’re welcome.’

She opens the towel up and starts scrunching at her hair. The move is hypnotic and sends wafts of her shampoo my way, mixed up with chlorine and the scents of Tuscany. It shouldn’t affect me like it does.

‘I’m sorry you found me like you did,’ she says softly. ‘It’s been a long day of travelling and I hadn’t planned on going for a swim. The urge just...’

She gives a cute little shrug and drops the towel on the bed, turning away from me, and before I realise what she’s doing the robe slips off her shoulders.

‘Think I’ll need to hang this out to dry,’ she says, letting it fall from her fingers to the bed. She’s an arm’s reach away, entirely naked, and as she eyes me over her shoulder I swallow, open my mouth to say something and close it again. Because all I want to say, all I want to do, has nothing to do with confessing that I’m Dani’s brother.

She bends forward, every movement drawn out, maximising what I get to see: the delicate frame of her shoulders, the line of her spine, the way her hips splay outwards and the valley of her arse, the gentle curves as they jut out to me...

Oh, Dio. I grip the knot in my towel tight.

She scoops up her own towel and straightens, turning to face me once more as she dabs her cheeks, her neck, her breasts, her stomach, her...

Cazzo.

I wet my lips and rake a hand through my hair.

‘It’s late,’ I rasp out. ‘We should...we should call it a night.’

Her lips quirk, her eyes flicking down and back up just as quickly. ‘You don’t look ready for bed yet.’

‘You’d be surprised.’ I’m so ready for bed...if I get to take her with me.

She pouts as she cocks her head to one side and runs the towel across her back, forcing her chest to thrust forward and her breasts to lift. I grip my towel tighter.

‘Look, as much as I want to...’

I can’t stop my eyes from lowering, from drinking her in, and she chooses that moment to step forward, her eyes on my obvious erection beneath the towel. ‘I can see how much you want