Chase could feel the raw energy emanating from him in waves but that soft laugh, that nostalgic memory he had laid out bare for her without really thinking, was strangely seductive, strangely relaxing. Fingers that had been curled into his polo shirt suddenly splayed against his chest and she struggled back from him.
‘Wait...’
‘I’m not sure I can.’ But he reluctantly drew back, his breathing ragged and uneven. She was stripped of her tough, outer shell, the consummate lawyer and assertive career woman. He glimpsed a uniquely feminine vulnerability that startled him, because she was the last woman on the planet he would ever have labelled ‘vulnerable’. Once upon a time, sure, but then once upon a time he’d been an idiot.
‘I’m not into playing games,’ he drawled just in case she got it into her head that she could string him along for a second time. ‘And, just in case you think that you might be able to pull off any “one step forward, two steps back” tactic, then forget it. This time round, you’re dealing with a different person, Chase. My levels of tolerance when it comes to you are non-existent.’
‘I know they are!’ Whatever the backdrop to what they had had eight years ago, it all seemed so innocent now in retrospect. ‘It’s just...’
‘Just what, Chase?’
‘Never mind.’ She wasn’t looking for sweet nothings whispered in her ear nor was she looking for any shows of affection. She told herself that she was perfectly comfortable with an ‘arrangement’, yet as she reached to hook her fingers under the tee-shirt to pull it over her head, she knew that she was breathing too quickly, close to freezing up.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Alessandro groaned and caught her hands in his. ‘Why tell me that this is what you want if you have to squeeze your eyes tightly shut and give every impression of a woman who has to grin and bear it?’
‘I do want it,’ Chase insisted but she could hear the giveaway wavering in her voice and she hated it.
‘Then what’s the problem?’ He took in the hectic flush in her cheeks. What was going on here? Shouldn’t this be straightforward—two consenting adults getting something out of their system? ‘Tell me.’
‘You’re not really interested.’
‘Let me be the one who decides that.’ He nuzzled her ear and smiled as she quivered, because it tickled.
‘I’m... I’ve...’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘I’ve never really been into sex,’ she said in a rush. ‘I know you can’t bear me, and your tolerance levels are low, but I can’t just fall on this sofa with you and have wild sex.’
‘Never really been into sex?’ Alessandro’s voice held accusatory disbelief. ‘You were a married woman,’ he pointed out with ruthless directness. ‘Married at what age—eighteen? Younger? Are you telling me that you were a gymslip wife who didn’t enjoy sleeping with her husband?’
‘I don’t want to talk about Shaun,’ Chase said quickly. Or, she mentally tacked on, anything to do with my past, the past you think you know but don’t.
Alessandro looked at her in silence for a long time. She was flustered as hell but trying hard to put on a show of strength and assertiveness. Did he need all of this? It was just sex and, yet again, that surge of curiosity that was more insistent than the cold logic he wanted to impose. ‘Why don’t you want to talk about him?’
‘Because...there’s no point. I’ll just say that things are never what you think they are.’ Too much information. ‘But it’s been a long time for me...’ she concluded hurriedly.
‘You just want me to take it slowly, do you?’
Chase nodded.
‘In that case, what about a show of good faith?’ He shot her a slow smile. ‘Taking it slow is one thing,’ he murmured, playing with a strand of her hair whilst he tried to halt his runaway mind, which wanted to ask her what she had meant by her enigmatic remark about things never being what you thought they were. ‘A standstill pace, on the other hand, just won’t do. So why don’t we both get naked and see what happens next?’ He watched her carefully, wanting her more than anything, prepared to do the complex if that was what it took. ‘If you’re not comfortable down here, then you could always give me a tour of upstairs and we can end up in your bedroom. How does that sound?’
Chase nodded. ‘You might be disappointed at what you see.’ She tried to make her voice as normal as possible but her pulse was racing as they quietly padded upstairs. ‘The whole of my upstairs could probably fit into your downstairs cloakroom.’