Free Just South of Rome by Judy Nunn Page A

brightly. ‘Thanks.’
    Did that mean I’d said yes? No, of course not, the voice of propriety insisted. There were still the stairs to go. Still time to say, ‘Thank you for a lovely evening, Stefano. Goodnight.’
    But I didn’t.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    I woke to find the touch of bed linen on my skin delicious and, for a moment, I wondered vaguely why I was naked and why I felt so sensual. Then I remembered.
    It was morning and beside me the bed was empty. Stefano had gone. Naturally, he’d been discreet, I told myself in a drowsy haze. He’d left before the hotel awoke. It was the correct thing to do, it was to have been expected, it was for the best … I willed myself back to sleep, erotic images drifting behind my eyelids, before I could acknowledge my true disappointment.
    The fact was, Stefano was the best lover I had ever experienced. Well, I’d only experienced three, and that included the two rebellious one-night stands after James and I had split up, so I suppose it meant I’d really only had one lover to speak of. But I had presumed that James’s and mine had been a fully erotic relationship. We’d been partners for seven years, two of which we’d lived together during our student days at drama school, and our lovemaking had been mutually satisfying and adventurous enough.
    Now, as I lay dreamily recalling last night, I realised that James and I had been as competitive in bed as we had been in our daily coexistence, that we had always been aware of the individual performances we were giving. Roland had said as much when we broke up. ‘Dangerous for actors to live together,’ he’d said in that peremptory manner that so irritated me, ‘too much ego under one roof.’
    Roland had been right, I thought, as I recalled the pure delight Stefano had taken in my body, and I in his. Not for one moment had I been conscious of my own performance. Not once had I thought, ‘Am I giving him pleasure?’ We’d both been lost in each other’s sensuality and the eroticism of the night.
    I lay, half asleep, half awake, recalling each touch of tongue and lip and finger,feeling myself becoming aroused at the memory.
    ‘Do you know that your drain is blocked?’
    Someone was calling out to me. I sat up groggily and looked around.
    ‘The shower’s flooded.’ Stefano was standing naked at the bathroom door, brushing his teeth.
    ‘Oh. Yes. I know. They haven’t fixed it. Is that my toothbrush?’ I asked lamely.
    ‘Yes, you don’t mind, do you?’ He grinned through the froth and disappeared momentarily. The brief sound of gargling and he was back.
    ‘Sorry about the shower.’ He sat on the bed and kissed me. ‘Good morning.’ I was wide awake by now and a little unsure how I should react, but his complete lack of self-consciousness made it easy.
    ‘Hardly your fault.’ I kissed him back. ‘It’s been blocked since I arrived.’ I was probably being unworldly, I thought, but I couldn’t help it. I felt a rush of pleasure that he was here with me, that he hadn’t dissolved into the morning.
    With the flat of his thumb he wiped ineffectually at the rings of mascara under my eyes. ‘You should get rid of this make-up.’
    I jumped brazenly out of bed, modesty seemed a secondary consideration with Stefano wandering around buck naked (besides which, no actor who has suffered the indignity of shared dressing rooms and backstage costume changes is coy about nudity), and looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. A sluttish owl looked back. Damn. I never went to bed with make-up on. How could I have done that!
    ‘Won’t be a tick.’ I turned the shower on full bore – well, as full bore as it would go (let the bathroom flood, who cares) – and when I stepped out in a bathrobe several minutes later, Stefano was dressed and ready to leave.
    He pushed my matted wet hair back from my face. ‘You look lovely,’ he said. ‘I likeyou better without make-up.’ And this time the kiss was not just a good-morning