He groaned. ‘I would. I really, really, would.’ And he reached behind her and gave the bow in the lacing of her dress a tug, grunting in satisfaction when it tumbled undone. ‘I studied whether you’d knotted it as well,’ he confessed, stroking smoothly up her body to hook her straps slowly over her shoulders. ‘You can tell that a woman really turns you on when you mentally undressed her fifty times while making the coffee.’

She shrugged and the straps began a slow descent down her arms, causing the fabric of the dress to sag. The warm night breeze rushed in to caress her naked breasts, turning her skin to goosebumps and drawing her nipples to tight points. Piero dipped his head and sucked one slowly into the scalding heat of his mouth. She whimpered her pleasure. He moved to the other breast, caressing, sucking, licking until Zia could hardly breathe. Frustrated by how many clothes they still had on she managed to undo the first couple of buttons on his shirt to stroke the tight skin over his collar bones.

He showed no signs of suffering the same impatience, apparently happy to take his time easing the skirt of her dress up her thighs so he could investigate her underwear, groaning when he discovered a brief pair of Brazilians, following them round till he could palm her near-naked buttocks.

‘I’m usually a big fan of visual stimulus but feeling our way around is sexy,’ he murmured. Then, lifting her, he stood them both up so he could ease her dress further down and send it whispering to the floor. ‘But there’s a perfectly good bedroom a few yards away if you’d rather?’

She shook her head, sucking in her breath as she laid her hand on the front of his trousers and found a whole lot of hardness. ‘How about out here, under these Italian stars of yours?’ With a quick movement she dealt with the button at his waistband then, slowly, slooooowly, pulled down the zip and slid her fingers inside, finding him straining hot and hard against his underwear.

Galvanised, he shoved down his trousers, kicked them off and yanked his half-unbuttoned shirt over his head. ‘Don’t move.’ Almost tripping in his haste, he pulled away and fumbled his way through a nearby door.

Zia waited, heated, aroused, left hanging as she listened to him swearing as he crashed around somewhere nearby.

Then he was back. ‘Didn’t want to destroy my night vision by putting on the lights and it took ages to find a quilt.’ He flung it onto the terrace floor along with two pillows.