Free Loving Venus (Sally-Ann Jones Sexy Romance) by Sally-Ann Jones Page B

stairwell and was suddenly anxious. Annabella was in the house alone, apart from the sleepy old dogs, and had said she was going to have a bath. Was there an intruder he should frighten off?
         Leaving his bowl on the wall, he crept up to the house. A light was on in the bathroom, as he expected, but there was another in the kitchen. Perhaps the intruder was looking for a sharp knife. Stealthily, Alessandro crept around the house, not making a sound and keeping well down, below the window sills. He would kill, with his bare hands, anyone who dared touch his little cousin!
         At last, he reached the kitchen window and looked into the room. What he saw made his gasp in shock, delight and frustration. This was no intruder, but the heiress herself, sitting on the wooden table, absolutely naked, sipping vin santo , an inviting smile on her lips. For a minute, he couldn’t tear himself away. She was even more beautiful than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams. There wasn’t a blemish on her perfect, creamy skin. Her breasts, hips, buttocks were wonderful, soft and round and her hair, loose and spiraling down her back, hung around her like a veil. In her huge, green eyes he read deep contentment. Again, he was struck by her strong resemblance to a woman he knew but couldn’t remember. Like that mystery woman of whom Annabella reminded him, his cousin wore a look of complete serenity. Her face spoke of the kind of happiness a woman could only experience if she were in love, he was sure. And her lips told wordlessly of unspeakable joys.
         This was a woman who ’d been loved by a man, he was sure of it. And that man could only be Umberto Esposito. He’d seen how Annabella clung to his arm at the Palio , and how she was so looking forward to a romantic dinner with him.
          Feeling nauseous with jealousy, Alessandro crept away from the window and, once he was out of view of his second cousin, stood up to teeter down the hill, his senses alive with what he had seen, everything else blotted out.    
     
    Annabella lay in the silky water, sipping her wine and watching the twinkling stars through the high window. She was more excited than she ’d ever been, now that she’d resolved to prove she could be a good manager of her great-grandfather’s beloved estate. In a few days, when she was more familiar with the way things were done around here, she’d go down to the cottage and ask Alessandro for the estate books. But they could wait. There were more urgent things to attend to. In the morning, Carlo from the village would come and together they’d tackle the weeds, the broken irrigation pipes, the tumble-down fences and walls.
         And Alessandro could put that in his pipe and smoke it!
     
    Alessandro’s new year resolution that January had been to give up smoking – but since his second cousin had arrived at Casa dei Fiori he ’d done little else, he realized with a jolt. He knew he couldn’t expect to sleep tonight, having seen her looking so radiantly lovely and unselfconscious on the kitchen table, sipping wine and smiling rapturously. Even Claudia wasn’t at home to distract him, just a little, from what was becoming a ridiculous obsession.                                      
         Mentally, he cursed their great-grandfather. How could the old fellow had been so, so …What was the word? Downright annoying, that was it. For never in his whole life had Alessandro de Rocco been so angry and frustrated.
         He tossed and turned on top of the bed, not having bothered to get between the sheets for he knew there’d be no sweet dreams for him tonight. Only unwelcome memories of Miss Smith’s voluptuous body and even more unwelcome fantasies created, unwillingly, inside his own head. He knew she’d be only too happy to befriend him, to …. Damn their great-grandfather! Damn Annabella! Alessandro was far too proud a creature to