A warning shivered through her.
How easy it would be for her to let hunger overcome sense and give in to the hot need pulsing at her core. But this kiss wasn’t about sating her needs, or his. It was about taking control. Proving a point. To herself as much as to him.
She wrenched her mouth away, stepped back and watched a range of expressions roll over his chiselled features. Her heart slammed against her ribs and she balled her hands, concentrated hard on calming her breathing.
Leo made no such effort. His breath fired from his chest in short, harsh bursts and a dark flush rode high on his cheekbones. She took in his bunched shirt, wet lips, stunned gaze. He looked like a man who had been thoroughly kissed.
Please, voice, don’t tremble. ‘I can handle this, Leo.’
She leaned in and rubbed her thumb over his mouth, wiping away the moisture from their kiss. His eyes darkened and his hands reached for her, but she backed off before he could touch her.
‘Thanks for supper,’ she said lightly. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in. It’s been a long day and I’m rather tired.’ She paused in the doorway, forced a smile onto her lips. ‘Goodnight.’
By the time Helena closed the door of the guest bedroom her heart was pounding so hard she felt short of breath and dizzy.
With swift, robotic movements that required blessedly little co-ordination, she brushed her teeth, shed her clothes and pulled on pyjama shorts and a matching cami. Then she crawled under the covers of the huge bed and groaned into a pillow.
These seven nights in Rome were going to be agony.
CHAPTER SIX
LEO PUNCHED HIS pillow three times, and when that failed to appease him he sat up and hurled it across the room. The pillow sailed through the air, hit the far wall with a dull, satisfying thud, and slumped to the bedroom floor.
Juvenile behaviour, but it felt good.
He swung his legs off the bed, glanced at the digital clock telling him it was five minutes past six a.m.—ten minutes since he’d last glared at it—and pulled on some sweats. He needed to expend some energy, and since bed-wrecking sex with his house guest wasn’t an option—not a wise one, at any rate?
??he’d have to settle for exercise.
Hard, punishing, sweat-drenching exercise.
Damn the minx.
He slung a towel over his shoulder, padded down his hallway to the small, well-equipped gym at the far end and set himself a gruelling pace on the treadmill.
Forty minutes later every muscle from his groin to his Achilles tendons strained and burned. Without slowing he swigged from his water bottle, yanked his tee shirt over his head and threw the sweat-soaked garment to the floor.
Perhaps if he’d made time for a mistress in recent months he wouldn’t be struggling now to harness his libido. But his work in the lead-up to the takeover had consumed him day and night, leaving scant time for distractions of the female variety no matter how tempting or willing. A blonde, career-driven attorney in New York had been his one indulgence—a brief bedroom-only affair that ended by mutual agreement after his last visit eight, maybe nine weeks ago.
Nine weeks.
He cranked up the speed on the treadmill. No wonder he was fit to explode after Helena’s little sexpot performance in the kitchen last night. His memories of their lovemaking had remained vivid over the years—more so than he cared to admit—but he couldn’t recall her ever having kissed him so senseless. Even now he could feel the imprint of her mouth, her tongue driving him wild, firing his body into a state of near-painful arousal.
With a grunt he stopped the treadmill, grabbed his towel and tee shirt and headed back to his room for a cold shower.
Helena was a paradox...a hotbed of unpredictability. Cool and flighty one minute, scorching the next. Estranged from her father yet willing to do almost anything, it seemed, to delay his day of reckoning. What game was she playing? So far nothing about her actions made sense. Nothing sat quite straight in his mind. And wasn’t that the reason he’d brought her here? To keep her close until her true motives were revealed?
He snapped off the water, towelled himself dry and dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt. Feeling rejuvenated, he glanced at the clock. Still early, but he had emails to sift through, a mountain of paperwork to sort. He’d allow her another hour of beauty sleep. Two at the most.
And then, cara mia, it’s game on.
* * *
‘Morning, cara.’
Helena opened her eyes. Scowled. Shut them. She was dreaming again. Except this time Leo wasn’t hot and naked and tangled in her sheets. He was sitting on the bed, fully clothed.
She threw her arm over her eyes.