Enthralled by Moretti

And yet, why should he be? They had parted company the day before and everything had been just fine and dandy. There’d been no inconvenient intuition then. So, really, what could have materially changed since then?

He spotted her the second she walked through the door. For the briefest of moments he felt a sharp, inexplicable pang of nostalgia for the carefree girl in shorts and tee-shirts who had been his companion for the past few days. She was in full lawyer mode: prissy grey suit, even prissier white blouse, black pumps. He wondered how long he could wait before he ripped the whole lot off her and bedded her.

On cue, his erection pushed hard against the zip of his trousers and he shifted position uncomfortably to release some of the insistent ache in his groin.

He had not expected this crazy lust to be an ongoing situation after the countless times they had now slept together. He had assumed she would be more than just disposable: he would take what had once been denied him and then discard her without preamble. It wasn’t working out quite as he had envisaged, but he shrugged that off. The unexpected could sometimes be a good thing and getting turned on by her on a semi-permanent basis was definitely not to be sneezed at, especially for him, a man whose tastes had become lamentably jaded over time.

He watched with masculine appreciation as she glanced around her. Already he was undressing her in his mind. Slowly. Revealing those generous pale breasts inch by succulent inch; exposing the pink nipples to take them one at a time in his mouth as they pouted temptingly up at him.

He pictured the prissy grey skirt hitting the ground, followed by whatever suitably functional underwear she happened to be wearing... He could almost taste the honeyed sweetness between her legs, hear her broken little whimpers of pleasure as his tongue found her sweet spot and worked it until the broken little whimpers became moans and cries of pleasure. The more horny he became, just sitting and watching her and letting his imagination run wild, the faster he knew he would have to sort out whatever was on her mind just so that he could get her back to his place. They might not even be able to make it to the bedroom.

He grinned as she spotted him and lazily attracted the waitress’s attention without taking his eyes off Chase’s face. Her looks were really quite startling. There was a sexiness to her, a perfection to her features, that made her naturally guarded expression all the more beguiling. He could see other men surreptitiously following her with their eyes as she weaved her way towards him.

‘Alessandro...’ Chase said weakly. She could feel her heart thumping like a sledgehammer inside her.

‘So you’ve handed in your notice.’ He broke off to order her a cappuccino. ‘And you don’t look very happy about it.’

‘I...I...’ She could barely string two words together. This was so much worse than she had envisaged. There was just no way that she could pretend to be cool, calm and collected. Her nerves were all over the place.

‘Sit down. Tell me about it. Why?’

‘I...I didn’t have much of a choice,’ she admitted truthfully. ‘Personal reasons.’

‘What personal reasons?’

‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

‘Are you ill?’ He felt a sudden mixture of fear and irrational panic. ‘Is that what this is all about?’

‘No,’ she said, waving a wistful goodbye to what could have been a fantastic excuse. As if lies hadn’t landed her here in the first place. ‘No, I’m not ill.’

‘Then what? What personal reasons, and why don’t you want to discuss them?’ Alessandro scowled. Since when had he ever been interested in women’s life stories? Mysteries dangling at the end of a line like bait to hook him in had always left him cold.

He eyed her narrowly as a new thought began to take shape in his head. ‘If you’re not ill,’ he said slowly, ‘and yet you’ve reluctantly had to hand in your notice, then there’s only one explanation that springs to mind...’

Temporarily diverted, Chase looked at him in bafflement. ‘Is there?’

‘Someone’s made a pass at you. Who is it?’ His voice was low and controlled but he clenched his fists. The second he had a name, he would personally make it his business to make sure that the culprit paid.

‘Made a pass at me?’

‘Even wearing that starchy suit, you’re still sexy as hell, Chase. And I won’t be the only one who can see that. So, spill the beans. Tell me who it is. Your boss? One of your colleagues? What did he do? Did he touch you inappropriately? Try to feel you up?’

He imagined one of those rich kids thinking that he could have a go at the sexiest woman in the office and he was overwhelmed by an explosive rage. He had met enough twenty-something lawyers in his time to know that the majority of them thought that they were studs.