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Approaching twenty-four and she had never lost control…now, that was worrying. Even more worrying was the fact that she had not seen the appeal of such a loss until now! A part of her wished that the searing kiss had never happened, that she was still walking around in blissful ignorance, but another part of her was inclined to relive the moment again and again…!
Recalling once more those initial moments of boneless, melting submission made her heart-rate quicken. As Alessandro had plundered her mouth the submission had given way to something equally outside her experience: a frantic, inarticulate need to touch and taste…to fuse with his male heat and hardness. Thinking about the primitive response made her breathing quicken and her pale, translucent skin turn a rosy pink.
Sighing she sank beneath the water. Surfacing moments later, she brushed the fronds of water-darkened hair from her face. She knew she loved Jonny. It had been a given in her life for so long that she just hadn’t questioned it—not until Alessandro had put doubts in her head with his sneers.
‘I do love Jonny!’ she announced defiantly to the steamy bathroom.
Just because you couldn’t imagine yourself having steamy head-banging sex with someone it didn’t mean you didn’t love them! And, by the same token, just because you could imagine it, it didn’t mean you did!
No, the stuff with Alessandro was just about sex. Maybe, she thought, lifting her head as the depressing possibility struck her, you couldn’t have love and sex. You had to settle for one or the other. Now, that was a depressing thought.
Chapter Eight
SHE was belting a big fluffy robe when there was a tap on the interconnecting door. Without waiting for her to respond, the door opened and Alessandro walked in.
‘What—?’ she said, her voice accusing, because his presence sent her hard-won composure straight out of the window.
‘I did knock,’ he observed, dropping the jacket he was carrying on the bed and walking towards her.
‘The idea of knocking is that you wait for someone to invite you in…or tell you go away.’
‘You don’t want me to go away.’
His calm assurance made her want to hit him. Lips pursed, she lowered her eyes. He had changed into a pale cashmere sweater and dark, close-fitting jeans, he smelt of soap and himself, and he looked sexy enough to cause mass hysteria in the female population of a small planet!
‘Believe that if it makes you feel happy.’ Tightening the belt on her robe, she was reminded of the fact she didn’t have a stitch on underneath.
‘I didn’t come here to fight with you,’ he said, sounding weary. ‘I came to ask what you want to do about dinner. Do you want to eat here, or with the other guests? Though I must warn you up-front that a quiet dinner downstairs isn’t an option. Smithie favours dining dinner-party-style.’
‘I don’t want to eat full-stop. I’m going home.’
‘Don’t be stupid—you must be hungry.’
Sam’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t call me stupid.’ She glared into his eyes and lost the plot. He had such gorgeous eyes—dark and deep and so, so…sexy…they made you want…Gasping sharply, she pulled herself up before she lost it completely. ‘So you know,’ she said, ‘what I’d really like…?’
‘What?’ he asked, thinking she looked so pale and brittle that she might break if handled roughly. But he knew she wasn’t that fragile. She hadn’t felt breakable when he had held her in his arms. She had been supple, strong, and so very, very hot.
‘I’d like you to leave right now.’ Before I do something very stupid. ‘Walk out of that door and never come back.’ Her problem was she was in danger of believing there was something between them. The only thing between us is two years of not liking one another.
While they had been talking he had been moving towards her and she had been retreating, matching him step for step. Of course his steps were bigger than hers, and by the time her shoulders made contact with the wall and she could retreat no farther he was so close she could see the fine lines radiating from the corners of his eyes.
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do,’ she said, putting as much conviction into the lie as she could.
Alessandro, the strong bones of his face drawn taut against his golden skin, regarded her pale face in silence before his eyes dropped. ‘If you tell me you’re not interested I’ll walk away.’ His eyes lifted, and she was pinned beneath a taut, combustible stare that made the muscles in her abdomen quiver.
Sam blinked to clear the rash of red dots that danced across her vision, conscious as she did so of the heavy thrum of blood as it beat through her body. Chirpy, she told herself. You need to aim for chirpy, but firm.
Fingers crossed, she scrunched up her face in a mask of determination as she told herself over and over…You can do it; you can do it…!
She opened her eyes, and he looked so damned gorgeous standing there, so dark and lean and excitingly dangerous, that her will-power almost crumbled. My God, but being virtuous and sensible was not all it was cracked up to be, she thought dully.
‘I’m not…interested.’ She failed miserably with chirpy, but by some freaky accident she hit bored and couldn’t-give-a-damn dead centre!
Other than a slight clenching of his muscles no visible reaction to her reply registered on his strong-boned, autocratic features. When he responded a moment later his tone was coloured only with an easy come, easy go quality.
At least I know I definitely made the right call, she thought.
Just because she’d decided that it was time she moved on with her life and stopped being faithful to a relationship that had never existed outside her imagination, it didn’t mean her personality and values had changed beyond recognition.
She was realistic. She hadn’t been walking around with her eyes and ears closed. She knew that for a lot of men—and, for that matter, women—sex had the same emotional content as a trip to the gym or a game of squash! A lover, yes. She recognised that she did have needs that weren’t being fulfilled. But casual sex—no.
Am I expecting too much? It’s not as if I’m asking for a life-long commitment!
It wasn’t too much to ask to expect the man you went to bed with to at least remember your name the next day. She didn’t want him to sleep with her because it was a rainy afternoon and he had a couple of hours in his diary to kill. Or, even worse, because he wanted to make sure she wasn’t climbing into his brother-in-law’s bed!
Alessandro scanned her heart-shaped face for a moment, his expression inscrutable, then after a slight hesitation inclined his dark head. ‘As you wish.’
Sam nodded back and thought, Wish…! If this was about wishes I’d be underneath you now…or maybe on top…
‘You’ve been very kind,’ she heard herself say stupidly.
That she could say anything at all with the sort of erotic images that were jostling for position in her head was nothing short of a miracle.
He flashed her a hawkish glare that was not at all kind. As he proceeded to consult the metal-banded watch on his wrist Sam’s attention was drawn to the contrast of the cold dull metal to his warm, bronzed, satiny skin. Her stomach did a painful flip as she looked at the light dusting of dark body hair on his sinewed forearm and, appalled by the strength and primitive quality of the urge that made her want to touch him, she turned her head.
You just have to step back, she told herself. Be objective…! Great advice—pity there’s not a chance in hell of me taking it, she thought, swallowing the bubble of hysterical laughter in her throat.
Inhaling a deep, sustaining breath, she made herself focus on his face. The line between his strong dark brows deepened, as though his thoughts had already moved on to more pressing issues. Of course it was good that he’d accepted her decision and not tried to dissuade her, but she would have felt a little better if he had looked as though it cost him some effort!
Obviously not sleeping with me ranks alongside other minor inconveniences—such as missing the last post!
It was just beginning to dawn on her that he’d been standing there looking at his watch for a strangely long space of time when he lifted his head and looked at her.
‘If you do want to go back to London tonight speak to Smithie. She will arrange transport.’
‘You’re not going back…?’ His eyes narrowed fractionally and she added quickly, anxious to dispel any impression that she was trying to invite herself along for the ride, ‘Not that I expect a lift or anything.’
His hand on the door, Alessandro turned slowly back. Sam gave a sharp intake of breath and shrank back from the molten ferocity of the expression that drew the flesh taut across the sharp angles of his lean face. ‘A lift? Madre di Dio!’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll probably give my mum a ring and stay at home until my car is sorted.’
His narrowed obsidian gaze moved across her face. ‘You stand there looking like that and talk about getting your car fixed!’ He closed his eyes, pressed his fingers to the bridge of his patrician nose and released a wrathful flood of fluid Italian.
Italian, Sam decided, listening in awestruck silence to the outpouring, was a very expressive language to get mad in. Though for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what she had said or done to trigger this from a man who was legendary for his reserve and control. When he opened his eyes again she realised that she wasn’t seeing the polite regret she had felt was being expressed moments earlier. In his searing stare she was seeing overt raw hunger and rampant frustration…Not an I missed my game of squash expression at all.
As Sam’s stomach muscles clenched she suddenly wasn’t so sure about her assessment of the situation. Alessandro wasn’t acting like a man who was going to forget her name by tomorrow. He was acting like a man who was pretty near to losing it!
As she studied him through the spiky sweep of her dark lashes she saw him rake a hand viciously through his hair. As he padded across the room, as sleek and dangerous as any jungle cat, she could hear him muttering under his breath in his native tongue. Having put several feet between them, he turned his head and looked at her.
My God, but he really is magnificent! The tightness in her chest became a physical pain as she watched him.
‘You think I could trust myself to be alone in a car with you?’ The frustration emanating from him was an almost palpable entity in the room.
Sam, not knowing what else she could do or say, shook her head.
His sensual upper lip curled in a grimace of self-derision. ‘Dio,’ he rasped thickly. ‘I can’t trust myself to be in the same room as you!’
It wasn’t until after the door had slammed, hard enough to rattle the hinges and several pieces of artwork on the walls, that Sam, her emotion-whacked body limp, literally crumbled. Tears streaming down her face, she slowly slid down the wall until she sat in a hunched heap of misery on the floor. A sob of titanic proportions rocked her body as her head fell forward into her hands.
Why on earth did you tell him to go?
Sam had no idea how long she sat there. The next thing she registered was strong hands tilting her face upwards and dark eyes filled with concern examining her tear-drenched features.
Alessandro had dropped down onto his knees beside her.
‘Tell me,’ he demanded, his velvet voice roughly imperative. ‘What is wrong?’
‘Nothing…’ she claimed, with tears still streaming down her face. ‘What are you doing here?’ Other than driving me totally out of my mind.
‘Clearly nothing is a lie. I left my jacket.’ His eyes didn’t leave her face as he nodded towards the bed. ‘Now, tell me,’ he coaxed. ‘No, I know,’ he added harshly. ‘And the man is not worth it. I know it seems hard now, but if you can forget…’
‘Forget?’ she shrilled, pulling her face angrily from the protective circle of his fingers with a loud sniff. ‘How the hell am I meant to forget when you’re here.’
He pressed a hand to his chest and looked confused. ‘Me…?’
‘Who else?’ she demanded, rubbing her teary eyes with her balled fists.
‘You were crying before I returned.’
‘Of course I was. You left!’ Her lips started to quiver as a fat tear slid slowly down her cheek. I never cry.
Alessandro dragged a not quite steady hand through his hair and looked mystified. ‘Because that is what you wanted.’
‘My God, are you stupid?’ she yelled, glaring up at him through a shimmer of tears. With both fists she scrubbed the dampness from her cheeks and then, as her eyes slid from his, admitted huskily, ‘I lied.’
‘You lied…?’
She nodded and sniffed. ‘About not wanting you to stay.’
He tensed and leaned back on his heels, his eyes fixed on her downbent head.
‘I didn’t want you to go…’ With a groan, Sam lifted her head, pushing her still damp copper hair back from her smooth forehead as she met his eyes. ‘Well, I did—but I didn’t…’
A muscle in his lean cheek clenched and then clenched again as he fought the impulse to crush her to him. Per amor di Dio! A man would have to be lacking every red blood cell not to respond to the sultry half-scared invitation in those wide-spaced eyes. Despite the fact that his body ached he held himself in check…just.
His seething frustration concealed behind a languid façade, he smiled sardonically. ‘Well, that makes everything as clear as mud.’
Female mood swings were something he had a healthy masculine respect for, but this woman was in a class of her own! He had always prided himself on his self-control, but if she changed her mind again he feared that his control—already tested to the limit—would prove inadequate to the task of walking away. The women he had mutually beneficial arrangements with knew the score; there were no emotional scenes. By contrast, the red-headed Samantha Maguire was a walking three-act drama!
His ironic drawl ignited a flare of anger in Sam. What does he want me to do…? Beg…?
Alessandro watched her white teeth sink into the trembling curve of her full lower lip. He swallowed. Dio mio, it was more than flesh could bear! He had been thinking about that mouth all day, and what he would like to do with it.
Hands clenched at his sides, his thoughts abruptly reversed to the moment earlier that day, when he had witnessed Trevelan kissing her. His primitive desire to choke the life out of the younger man had, he reasoned, been a perfectly legitimate response when the honour of his sister was concerned.
The only problem with that was that Alessandro hadn’t been thinking of Katerina—at least not at that moment. He had seen the other man kissing Sam and his first thought had been, That should be me. His thoughts were running along the same lines at that moment.
Lifting her chin to a belligerent angle, Sam choked bitterly. ‘I thought you were supposed to have a brilliant brain? Do I have to spell it out?’ She heaved an exasperated sigh.
He angled a dark brow as his smoky gaze moved across her face, lingering longest on her pink parted lips, before he produced one of his inimitable shrugs and said, ‘Maybe…’
‘Maybe you’d like me to put it in writing?’ Then there would be permanent proof that she was such a push-over where he was concerned that she was totally shameless. That she was ready to beg and he hadn’t even touched her. If he did touch me… Gulping, she tore her gaze from his long brown fingers. But it was too late. Every nerve-ending in her body was already screaming for attention.
‘Then why did you tell me to go?’
For a bright man, she thought, he could be dense at times.
‘Because you put me on the spot,’ she told him accusingly. ‘Because you made me the one to make the decision when all I wanted you to do was…’
‘What did you want me to do?’
She shrugged and her eyes slid from his. ‘Kiss me, I suppose.’
‘If you wanted to be kissed, telling me you weren’t interested probably wasn’t the best clue.’
‘Well, I didn’t actually know how much I wanted you until you walked away.’
The dark colour scoring his chiselled cheekbones deepened as he inhaled sharply. ‘And do you still want me?’
She swallowed and lifted her eyes. The smouldering heat in his made her dizzy, and totally, utterly reckless. ‘Only slightly more than I want to breathe,’ she confessed huskily.
Alessandro took her face between his hands, allowing his thumbs to move across the smooth contours of her cheeks. ‘I think we can arrange for you to do both.’
Breathing hard, Sam turned her head and kissed the open palm of his hand. ‘You do know that you’ve got everything a perfect lover should have…?’
Alessandro stopped what he was doing and studied her flushed face with a fascinated expression. ‘Are you going to tell me what those qualities are?’
‘You’re beautiful—not that you being ugly would be a deal-breaker, exactly,’ she conceded. ‘Because you’ve got bucket loads of sex appeal. And you’re not going to insult my intelligence by pretending to be in love with me or anything…’
‘You don’t want love?’
She was suggesting the sort of mutually beneficial relationship that he favoured—so why did he not feel pleasure, even relief…? Actually, he couldn’t quite pin down the cause for his perverse gut response, and now was not the moment for deep soul-searching. Alessandro, in the grip of a blind, relentless hunger unlike anything he had felt since adolescence, had more urgent matters to consider—like the very real possibility he might go insane if he didn’t bury himself deep inside her in the near future!
‘I thought I did, but you’ve made me look hard at myself.’
He looked startled by the confidence and framed a cautious question. ‘I have…?’
