a man who always lost interest in every woman after he bedded her.
She’d given him her virginity. Her trust. Her … heart?
No. Annabelle shuddered. Please God, she couldn’t be that foolish. She wouldn’t give her heart to a man who would betray and desert her in a matter of days, if not hours.
Would she?
“So what happens now?”
Still half-asleep, Stefano opened his eyes lazily at the trembling sound of Annabelle’s voice. Both of them were still naked and lying across his bed amid the ransacked white cotton sheets. He smiled to himself. Dios mío, he’d never felt such passion for any woman. Beneath that cool reserved exterior, she had even more fire than he’d ever imagined.
When he’d first kissed her in the meadow beneath the wide blue sky, breathing in the scent of the flowers—the scent of her—Stefano had thought he would die if he didn’t have her. But making love to Annabelle had exceeded his wildest expectations.
Now, to his shock, he wanted … more.
“What happens now?” he repeated, a tender smile on his lips as he looked down at her cradled to his bare chest. He frowned as if in thought, then grinned. “We go downstairs for dinner?”
“We slept together,” she pointed out.
“Yes,” he murmured, kissing her temple. “I noticed that.”
But Annabelle’s beautiful face had an unhappy, pinched expression. “You must have a usual procedure after you’ve bedded a woman. How does this end?”
Stefano blinked. A usual procedure? Sí, he did have one. After he made love to a pretty woman who was barely more than a stranger, he always got dressed, told the woman he’d never forget their night together, left the hotel room and promptly forgot her.
But this … this was different. This was Annabelle.
She was a virgin. He’d made love to her in his own bed. Most of all: he knew her. For the first time in his life, he’d become friends with a woman before he’d slept with her. He’d been forced to wait so long to seduce her, he’d had to fight so hard to win her, that he’d actually started to … care.
“So.” Annabelle took a deep breath, her lips turning downward unhappily in the deepening shadows of his bedroom. “What happens now?”
“I don’t know,” Stefano said slowly. Trying to brush aside her question, he gave her a sudden wicked grin. “We could always do it again.”
But she pulled away from him. “I’m serious,” she insisted.
“So am I.” Looking at her now, soft and naked in his bed, was the culmination of all his dreams. He stroked her soft skin, caressing her naked body. He could see the faintly pink pattern of scars on her skin, like the veins of a flower. She was so sweet and soft, like a pale pink rose.
He would never forget the taste of her. He would never forget the feel of her pebbled nipple in his wet mouth or the soft pleasure of her breasts. He’d never forget the sound of her gasp when he’d pushed her legs apart and licked her, when he’d thrust himself to the hilt inside her tight sheath. The pleasure of that had nearly overwhelmed him. He would never forget how it had felt to fill her, to hear her cry out his name, to bring her to gasping fulfillment before he’d shuddered and shattered inside her with his own orgasm.
He was already hard for her again. How? How was that possible? Usually, he lost interest in a woman immediately after he’d bedded her. But this time, instead of being satiated, he didn’t want to let Annabelle go.
He softly kissed the top of her head, and even that small movement caused a new shudder of desire to course through his body. He said in a low voice, “How is it possible that you were a virgin, Annabelle?”
She swallowed. Folding her arms, she looked up at the white plaster ceiling. “I know. It’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it? Most women my age have boyfriends, husbands, children. I’ve never had anything. Or anyone.”
“So—why did you choose me?” he whispered hoarsely, hardly able to believe it.
She looked at him for a long time, then finally said, “I’ve been chased by many men, but never one like you. You pursued me with such single-minded passion. Such … devotion. And such skill. I could not resist you. In the end, I didn’t want to resist, no matter what it might cost me.” She took a deep breath. “How long do you want me to stay?”
He frowned, not understanding. “In bed? Stay as long as you like.”
She looked at him in the shadows of twilight, then gave a harsh laugh. Abruptly, she sat up. Her gray eyes became hard and flat as slate.
“Let’s be honest and call this what it is,” she said coldly. Her cheeks flushed red over her faint pink sunburn. “A one-night stand.”
“No.” He immediately sat up beside her. “Not a one-night stand. That’s not what I want.”
She exhaled, and the coldness in her eyes fell away. She suddenly looked vulnerable and painfully young. “It isn’t?”