An Innocent, a Seduction, a Secret

He made a rude sound and came around in front of the desk. ‘Since you’re so curious I’ll tell you something that no result on a search engine will give you. I hated Christmas long before the accident. I hated Christmas because, apart from a few years in my early childhood, I invariably spent it in the company of nannies. Then, when my parents separated in the most high-profile and bitter divorce Argentina has ever seen, they sent me to boarding school in Switzerland, leaving me there for the entire school year.’

There was a ringing silence after Sebastio stopped speaking. He couldn’t believe he’d just let all that tumble out. But anger and a sense of betrayal still pulsed through his body.

He shouldn’t be feeling betrayal.

What he did feel was exposed. He’d spent the entire tedious evening cursing himself for not inviting Edie to the dinner party. He’d found himself imagining how she would look in a silky dress rather than paying any attention to his guests’ conversation.

And then he’d followed the sound of a noise to find her here, looking at images of his wrecked past. It was as if she’d pulled back the skin on a raw wound.

And yet he was acutely conscious that she was wearing only nightclothes and a thin robe. Her hair was deliciously dishevelled, her eyes heavy-lidded with recent sleep. So maybe she was telling the truth...

‘I’m sorry, Sebastio... I shouldn’t have come down here.’

Her husky voice scraped along his raw nerve-endings. And then he saw it in the depths of her dark blue eyes. Sympathy. Compassion. It rubbed raw against his jangling nerve-endings. Taunting him. Because in spite of everything, and in spite of finding her here like this, he wanted her with a roaring hunger that refused to obey his rational mind.

He needed to take away that sympathy and compassion. He didn’t deserve it. He wanted to see something far more explicit and earthy. Desire. The same need that was coursing through his own blood.

With a growing sense of desperation he needed to know that she wanted him too. That he wasn’t the only one going slightly crazy. It was the only thing that might soothe the ragged edges of his control.

He closed the distance between them and saw the flare of surprise in her eyes. And yet she didn’t move back. She stood her ground. Something inside Sebastio howled with a very male satisfaction.

He moved closer. Until he could smell her unique scent. Delicate, but not flowery. Contradictory. Intriguing. Seductive. Tugging on wispy bits of memory that he couldn’t pin down. It made him feel off-balance. As if she knew something he didn’t.

Sebastio was in the grip of a hunger and a need he hadn’t experienced in a long time. If ever. And it had never felt like this. Raging through his body, incinerating everything in its wake. As if he was being brought painfully back to life.

He

had no right being brought back to life. But even that insidious thought couldn’t stop him now.

He put down the glass he was holding and reached for her as he said, ‘Tell me you want this too...’

Sebastio’s hands curled around Edie’s arms. She was in shock. Within seconds the tension in the room had changed to a very different kind. The kind of tension that coiled low in her belly and made her skin feel too tight. She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move. Sebastio was looking at her with an expression of such raw hunger that she was awed.

He wanted her.

A terrifyingly exultant feeling was making her chest expand.

‘Edie...?’

He was waiting for her. Edie knew she could step back from his hands. She knew there were a million and one reasons why it was important not to let Sebastio know how susceptible to him she was. But right now she couldn’t think of one.

Shakily she said, ‘Yes...’

A look of very male satisfaction crossed Sebastio’s face. He lifted a hand and moved it around her neck, holding her. A thumb touched her jaw, tracing its line. Edie had never thought of her jaw as being sensitive before, but a shiver was moving up her body and her skin broke into goosebumps.

He tugged her towards him and they were so close she could feel his body touching hers. She was transfixed by his mouth, the sculpted sensual lines.

His head dipped towards hers, blocking everything out, and then his mouth was on hers, firm and hot and...electrifying.

She’d had a recurring dream for years of what it might have been like if he had kissed her in that club instead of turning her away. But no dream could have possibly come close to this reality.

He pulled her right into him, so that she was flush against his whipcord body. All she was aware of was heat and steely strength. There wasn’t a hint of softness anywhere. It didn’t intimidate her—it excited her.

She wasn’t shutting down now. Far from it. She was blossoming like a flower opening to the heat of the sun.

He drew back. It took an age for Edie to be able to open her eyes, and when she did all she saw were swirling grey pools.

‘Let me taste you...’