Di Sione's Innocent Conquest (The Billionaire's Legacy 1)

Abby lay there, not thinking of the race ahead today but instead the man next to her now, and she didn’t want the alarm to go off.

Of course it did.

Matteo groaned at the intrusion and pulled her closer into him.

Their temperatures matched, their muscles were loose and relaxed and she felt him slowly harden and the nudge of him at the back of her thigh, which seemed to Abby to be at odds with his regular breathing.

Her breathing wasn’t in the least regular. She could feel his hand on her stomach and she lay locked in private thoughts and aching with want. She lay in a body that was finally ready to commit, next to a man who never would.

Abby turned over to face Matteo and his arms, even in sleep, moved to accept her.

He really was asleep.

All the tension from last night had left and his mouth was just a little open and she was so close to leaning over and kissing him awake, just giving in to and exploring the want that hummed through her now.

The snooze alarm went off and she watched his face screw up and his hand reached for a pillow, pulling it over his head and, in that moment, Hunter left every equation.

There were no more thoughts of revenge, no past to overcome, just the quiet of morning and a feeling of peace as she lay next to a man who plucked the strings of her heart.

Just that.

Abby rolled over and turned off the alarm and he pulled her back to his side. ‘Matteo, I’ve got to go.’

He fought to wake and the events of last night started to filter in. ‘I’ll walk you down,’ he mumbled and moved to sit up.

‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard.’

She just needed him; yet Abby knew Matteo had checked out on love.

‘Go back to sleep.’

She went and had a quick shower and dressed in the clothes that he had fetched for her last night and then came back into the bedroom, where he lay awake now, looking at her. He looked sulky and angry and she knew why—Hunter was around.

‘You’re going tomorrow, Matteo. I’m here for a few more days, dismantling the car and then straight on to Monte Carlo, so it seems a bit stupid to be walking me to my room today.’

He said nothing.

Matteo didn’t know what to say.

Abby was right—tomorrow at six in the morning he’d be gone and, more to the point, he had never been another’s shadow.

Silence hung between them.

It wasn’t a row; it was Check.

His heart was under threat of capture and Matteo didn’t like that feeling in the least.

‘Good luck today,’ Matteo said but it came out in a rather forced voice.

So, too, was hers. ‘Thanks.’

He lay there when she had gone. Yes, tomorrow he would be back in Manhattan and, Matteo decided, he was going to go and get laid.

It had been...

He didn’t really want to do the math. Matteo didn’t want to admit that since their first dinner in Dubai, he’d lost interest in that half of the world population that had once been his playground.

No, he wouldn’t be getting laid any time soon.