A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

‘Colin?’ She was disconcerted by the question because she didn’t think that Alessandro was the sort of man prone to showing much interest in what women had to say about their past relationships. In keeping with someone who planned nothing in advance, because who knew when someone better looking might come along and steal the limelight, she took him for a guy who lived totally for the present. At least in the arena of relationships.

‘I thought I did,’ she confessed, when the silence threatened to become uncomfortable. ‘But I was just swept away by someone cute who knew how to play me. I think I fell in love with the feeling of being in love.’ And, in fact, she hardly thought about him and now, sitting here, she could barely remember what he had looked like. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that that’s the problem with love. It doesn’t exist so it’s best to avoid it altogether and just hop in the sack with people you fancy.’

Alessandro smiled slowly and watched as hectic colour invaded her cheeks.

‘Would you follow my advice if I told you that?’

‘You might not believe in love, but I do.’

‘Yet you hopped in the sack with me.’

‘You don’t have to look so smug about it.’

‘I like the thought of you just not being able to help yourself...’ He calmly set his mug down on the table and traced the contour of her jaw with a finger.

‘That’s so arrogant,’ Laura told him unevenly.

‘I know. I’m arrogant. I want to kiss you and I’m arrogant enough to think that you’d probably like to kiss me back. Am I right? Or are you going to stand up and slap me across my face?’

‘Has anyone ever done that?’

‘No.’ He was smiling at her in a way that made her whole body feel as though it had been plugged into a light socket.

‘I don’t know why I’m attracted to you,’ she said with devastating honesty.

‘That’s a line of introspection you shouldn’t bother wasting time with. There’s no mileage in it. Go with the flow.’ He tugged her hair gently and she stood up on shaky legs.

She wasn’t just attracted to him, she thought, she was mesmerised by him. Was it because he was so out of her league? Or because the circumstances that had brought them together were so surreal? Or was he just so sinfully, unfairly good-looking that he just went around mesmerising women?

She linked her arms loosely around his neck and stepped between his legs. His body heat flooded her and she hiccuped a sigh of guilty pleasure.

They kissed slowly, taking their time. She pulled away briefly and glanced over her shoulder.

‘What if your father walks in?’

‘He won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know his habits. He heads out to his greenhouse and stays there for a couple of hours. I only just ventured inside the place a few days ago and found that he’s set it up like a room. The only thing it lacks is a bed. He’s got a chair there, a table with books. It’s life in a jungle without having to pay the airfare...’

Laura giggled. She didn’t want to talk about Roberto. She wanted to feel his lips on hers again and she moved closer, rubbing herself against his chest and kissing him as slowly as he had kissed her. His tongue inside her mouth was driving her half-crazy because she could recall what it had felt like to have it on her breasts, teasing her nipples and then sliding into her, flicking against her clitoris until she had been so close to coming she could have screamed.

She wished she hadn’t covered up so well that for him to slide his hand onto her breast would have been a mission. She wished she hadn’t worn a bra in the expectation that their episode of lovemaking was something he might have wanted to put behind him. She wanted her whole body to be accessible. She didn’t want to be confined in tight jeans. She wanted baggy, loose-fitting jogging bottoms so that she could have parted her legs and his fingers would have easily found her wetness and eased the ache down there.

But in the absence of suitable clothing she kissed him, not even bothering to come up for air because she didn’t want to break the physical contact.

Alessandro had never tasted anything so sweet. He absently thought that she had a unique smell, light, clean, radiating the coldness from outside. It filled his nostrils and was as powerful on his senses as a drug.