A Dangerous Solace

Oh, God. I feel like I was born to do this with this man.

Having him inside her, she could feel herself building towards the impossible, rarely ever more than a faint echo for her before, but becoming stronger and stronger, pulsing through her nerve endings as he bore down upon her. God, this never happened to her. But it was happening. She dug her nails into his back as if she’d never let go, as sensation exploded in long, pulsating ribbons of intense pleasure that went on and on. He thrust again, once more, and gave up his release with a deep groan of satisfaction before slowly, heavily, he came down on top of her.

Ava could feel his heartbeat pounding against hers. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, smoothing his hand along her thigh, stroking her as they both still trembled with the force of what had happened in this bed. Ava was all too aware that he was still pulsing inside her, and she was experiencing sweet aftershocks.

She buried her face in his shoulder, feeling hot and sweaty and shuddery, definitely not in control.

‘Mia bella, Ava,’ he said hoarsely.

His beautiful Ava.

And she was.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NOW WHAT?

The questions started the minute he left the bed.

Ava’s eyes went a little round and glassy as she watched him move from the bed to the bathroom, his easy steps sending the musculature of his body into a stretching, look-at-me-and-learn rhythm of bunching and contraction. His naked body was truly a masterpiece of the male form.

The empty expanse of mattress stretched out around her. Instinctively she pulled the rumpled quilt over her naked body, wondering how to dial down this overwhelming need for him to hold her.

In his arms she stopped thinking, she just felt—and God knew she hadn’t felt this good in years.

He’d given her the holy grail of sexual joy—an orgasm during sex.

Not one, Ava, but two—maybe it was three.

Was that it? Was that why she was feeling so...emotional? Because that was how she was feeling—soft and clingy and a little bit weepy.

Clearly she was a lunatic!

The bed dipped as he slid in beside her, as at ease with his nakedness as she was not.

Don’t panic, her good sense told her. It was what she told her junior associates. You have the tools to get out of this. You just need time to process what’s happened and a solution will come to you...

Oh.

Ava’s eyes went wide as he encircled her with his arms and splayed his hand in her hair, stroking her, looking at her as if she belonged to him. He began to croon things to her in Italian. Sweet things. She knew they were sweet because of his tone, because of the way his hand smoothed the back of her neck, his lips brushed against her temples. His voice was so deep, yet he spoke so softly, and he touched her as if she were something infinitely precious.

The saliva built up in the back of her throat and Ava swallowed painfully hard.

No one had ever treated her like this. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t let this go on. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t her.

‘Gianluca?’ Her voice was all scratchy, she didn’t even sound like herself.

‘Luca—I want you to call me Luca, innamorata.’ He touched her ear with his lips and an involuntary little whimpering sound escaped her. She felt him smile.

‘Is that the drill?’ she forced out, her heart just about hammering out of her chest. ‘Once you get a woman into bed she gets access to the secret name?’

If she’d thought she could cloak her anxieties in a joke it had backfired.

It came out too snarky, too aggressive. But how could it emerge as anything else when all she was feeling was exposed and, under that, soft and fuzzy...and terribly, terribly vulnerable? If this man dropped her she could break into oh so many pieces.

He said something under his breath in Italian. She knew it was a curse because she could feel the freeze shoot through his bigger body before so warm and enveloping against her own. He eased himself up abruptly onto his elbow and she was instantly thrown into the even more vulnerable position of having to gaze up at him and having nowhere to go.

‘Why are you doing this?’

His tone brooked no argument, and the man who had whispered sweet nothings to her was suddenly the man she had insulted.

Like a flash of light in a dark room she understood her caustic comments had hurt his pride. His very old-world Latin machismo, which made him seem impenetrable, was also what made him vulnerable to her attacks. She didn’t mean to attack him. She only wanted to protect herself...

‘I’m not doing anything,’ she said in a small voice.

‘You speak of other people while you are in my bed. You speak of me as if I am some sort of predator.’

His features were pulled taut and Ava could see she had drawn blood.