The Italian's Christmas Secret

He pulled out of her and rolled back against the pillows to suck in a ragged breath. With a sudden shyness, Keira glanced across at him but his eyes were closed and his olive features shuttered, so that suddenly she felt excluded from the private world in which he seemed to be lost. The room was quiet and she didn’t dare speak—wondering what women usually said at moments like this.

Eventually he turned to her, his eyebrows raised in question and an expression on his face she couldn’t quite work out.

‘So?’

She wanted to hang on to the pleasure for as long as possible—she didn’t want it all to evaporate beneath the harsh spotlight of explanation—but he seemed to be waiting for one all the same.

She peered up at him. ‘You’re angry?’

He shrugged. ‘Why should I be angry?’

‘Because I didn’t tell you.’

‘That you were a virgin?’ He gave an odd kind of laugh. ‘I’m glad you didn’t. It might have shattered the mood.’

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why?’

‘You chose me to be your first?’ His smile now held a faint trace of arrogance. ‘I could commend you for your excellent judgment in selecting someone like me to be your first lover, but it’s not really any of my business, is it, Keira?’

For some reason, that hurt, though she wasn’t going to show it. Had she been naïve enough to suppose he might exhibit a chest-thumping pride that she had chosen him, rather than anyone else? ‘I suppose not,’ she said, her toes moving beneath the rumpled bedclothes in a desperate attempt to locate her only pair of panties.

‘I just hope you weren’t disappointed.’

‘You must know I wasn’t,’ she said, in a small voice.

He seemed to soften a little at that, and brushed back a few little tufts of hair which had fallen untidily over her forehead. ‘Sì, I know. And for what it’s worth, it was pretty damned amazing for me, too. I’ve never had sex with a virgin before but I understand it’s uncommon for it to be as good as that the first time. So you should feel very pleased with yourself.’ He began to stroke her hair. ‘And you’re tired.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘And you need to sleep. So why don’t you do that? Lie back and let yourself drift off.’

His words were soothing but Keira didn’t want to sleep, she wanted to talk. She wanted to ask him about himself and his life. She wanted to know what would happen now—but there was something in his voice which indicated he didn’t feel the same. And mightn’t stilted conversation destroy some of this delicious afterglow which felt so impossibly fragile—like a bubble which could be popped at any moment? So she nodded obediently and shut her eyes and within seconds she could feel herself drifting off into the most dreamy sleep she’d ever known.

Matteo watched as her eyelashes fluttered down and waited until her breathing was steady before removing his arm from where it had been resting around her shoulders, but, although she stirred a little, she didn’t waken. And that was when the reality of what he’d done hit him.

He’d just seduced a member of staff. More than that, he’d taken her innocence.

Silently, he cursed. He’d broken two fundamental rules in the most spectacular way. His chest was tight as he switched off the lamp and his mind buzzed as he attempted to ignore the naked woman who lay sleeping beside him. Yet that was easier said than done. He wanted nothing more than to push his growing erection inside her tight body again, but he needed to work out the most effective form of damage limitation. For both of them.

He stared up at the shadowy ceiling and sighed. He didn’t want to hurt her and he could so easily hurt her. Hurting was something he seemed to do to women without even trying, mainly because he couldn’t do love and he couldn’t do emotion—at least that was what he’d been accused of, time after time. And Keira didn’t deserve that. She’d given herself to him with an openness which had left him breathless and afterwards there had been no demands.

But none of that detracted from the reality of their situation. They came from worlds which were poles apart, which had collided in this small bedroom on the snowy outreaches of Devon. For a brief time they had come together in mindless pleasure but in truth they were nothing more than mismatched strangers driven by the stir of lust. Back in Italy he had been given an ultimatum which needed addressing and he needed to consider the truth behind his father’s words.

‘Give me an heir, Matteo,’ he had breathed. ‘Continue the Valenti name and I will give you your heart’s desire. Refuse and I will sign the estate over to your stepbrother and his child.’

Matteo’s heart kicked with pain. He had to decide how much he was willing to sacrifice to maintain his links to the past. He needed to return to his world. And Keira to hers.

His jaw tightened. Would he have stopped if he’d known he was her first? He might have wanted to stop but something told him he would have been powerless to pull back from the indescribable lure of her petite body. His throat dried as he remembered that first sweet thrust. She had seemed much too small to accommodate him, but she had taken him inside her as if he had been intended to fit into her and only her. He remembered the way she’d touched him with that tentative yet sure touch. She’d made him want to explode. Had the newness of it been responsible for her joyful response—and for the tears which had trickled against his shoulder afterwards, but which she’d hastily blotted away?

Suddenly he could understand the potent power wielded by virgins but he could also recognise that they were a responsibility. They still had dreams—because experience hadn’t yet destroyed them. Would she be expecting him to take her number? For him to fly her out to Rome for a weekend of sex and then see what happened? Hand in hand for a sunset stroll along Trastevere, Rome’s supposedly most romantic neighbourhood? Because that was never going to happen. His jaw tightened. It would only raise up her hopes before smashing them.

He heard her murmur something in her sleep and felt the heavy weight of his conscience as he batted possibilities back and forth. What would be the best thing he could do for Keira—this sexy little driver with the softest lips he’d ever known? Glancing at his watch, he saw from the luminous dial that it was just before midnight and the rest of the house had grown silent. Could he risk using the landline downstairs without waking everyone? Of course he could. Slipping from the sex-scented bed, he threw on some clothes and made his way downstairs.

He placed the call without any trouble, but his mood was strangely low after he’d terminated his whispered conversation and made his way back to the bedroom. With the light from the corridor flooding in, he stared at Keira’s face, which was pillowed on a bent elbow. Her lips were curved in a soft smile and he wanted to kiss them. To take her in his arms and run his hands over her and do it all over again. But he couldn’t. Or rather, he shouldn’t.

He was careful not to touch her as he climbed into bed, but the thought of her out-of-bounds nakedness meant that he lay there sleeplessly for a long, long time.

CHAPTER FOUR