The sense of eerie calm lasted as he slid into her. The pain much less than she had anticipated as her body stretched to accommodate him. Loving him hot and hard inside her, loving his weight pressing her down. Then, as he slid deeper into her slick, tight wetness, a switch flicked on in her brain. No longer calm, Anna was consumed by a frantic wild desperation to take all his hot velvet hardness into her.
‘More!’ she gritted, bucking beneath him, her nails digging into his shoulders, and he responded to her urging.
The end came so abruptly, so strongly that she saw black dots dance before her eyes as the pleasure of that final release drove her to the brink of consciousness. But she didn’t fall, she flew, feeling his hot release as she reached the stars.
‘Well, it’s obvious why you were a virgin. Like the man said, you’re frigid.’
Anna opened one eye and stretched languorously. ‘I’m laughing inside.’ Actually inside she was feeling muscles she hadn’t known she had.
He stroked her body. ‘So what’s the story? There must have been men.’
Anna raised herself up on one elbow, feeling weirdly comfortable with their naked states and his interested stare...
‘You never seen a naked woman before?’
‘I’ve never seen a naked you before. Good God, Anna, what were the men in your life thinking of?’ How was it possible for this innately sensual creature to be untouched? It was as if, like a fairy-tale princess, she had been asleep. Hell, he was no prince. ‘You do know that this is just sex?’
‘I mentioned that I had a romance. It wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be—I was engaged.’ The hand on her bottom stilled. ‘The computer matched us. It was a celibate relationship, more a meeting of minds, but he respected me,’ she mocked with a laugh. ‘Though not, as it turned out, as much as he respected the underwear model he ran off with a week before the wedding.’
‘What a loser!’
Anna rolled on her back, his automatic scorn healing the unacknowledged wounds the rejection had inflicted on her pride. ‘I like to think so.’
‘His loss, my gain.’ Expression intent, he paused, his hand halfway to her plump breast. ‘You do know that—’
‘You want me for my body? No problem. I want you for yours.’ The lie came easily. She’d have done anything, said anything, to have this last a bit longer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TWO WEEKS LATER the lie came a lot less easily.
Over that time the sex stayed incredible but Anna was tortured by the knowledge that, for him at least, it would burn itself out and she was constantly alert to the signs, preferring to jump before she was pushed.
That way she would be left with memories and a modicum of pride. The decision made her feel mature and in control.
In the end she wasn’t prepared at all. Anna didn’t see the end coming until it was thrown on her bed, shiny and sparkling in the guise of diamonds. Her reaction was neither mature or controlled.
* * *
‘I miss you so much when you’re not here. I wish...I really wish...love...’
As the sleepy words translated in his head ultra-controlled, fearless Cesare experienced a moment of sheer gut-wrenching alien panic, followed a second later by utter rejection.
* * *
He might not have even heard the sleepy confession or the wistful addition had he not been too exhausted to move her after a wild and lengthy session of love-making. He did now, disconnecting their damp bodies as he slid off her. The sex these past weeks had been nothing like anything he had ever experienced, but it was just sex. She knew that. Feeling his resentment rise, he looked at her sleeping face with a mingling of messy emotions. Anger, fascination, compulsion.
And, oblivious, she lay curled up, her head tucked into the angle of his shoulder. Part of him, the cowardly part, desperately wanted to ignore what he had heard. The seemingly innocent words were not the problem but the response they required was.
He did not miss her.
Missing required a need, and Cesare did not need anyone.
* * *
The night before had been incredible so when she woke to find him fully dressed and announcing that he would be in London for the rest of the week she didn’t know how to respond.
Ruling out grabbing his leg and begging him not to go, she pulled the sheet up to her chin and struggled to sound okay with the idea of not seeing him for the next five days...and nights!
‘I-I didn’t realise.’ She swept the tangle of curls from her face, glanced at the clock and saw it was still only five in the morning. ‘I’ll make you coffee.’