Enthralled by Moretti

He wanted a show of good faith and she couldn’t blame him. She pushed open the doors to the small spare room, with its single futon, the desk at which she was accustomed to working until late into the night and the bathroom which was large and airy given the size of the house. They ended up in her bedroom.

Alessandro stood in the doorway and looked. The walls were a subdued cream but the four-poster bed was dressed and all romance. The prints on the walls were landscapes of deserted beaches. The dressing table, like the wardrobe, was old, doubtless bought at auction. He thought that he might be the first guy to step foot in this room and it gave him an unbelievable kick. Every single woman he had ever known had been keen to show him their bedrooms and the beds which promised inventive entertainment for as long as he wanted. Mood lighting had usually been a dominant theme. When he took in Chase’s wary expression, he could see ambivalence there.

‘Your sanctuary.’

‘Not any longer. You’re in it.’

‘By invitation.’ His hand reached to the button on his trousers, but first he removed the shirt in one easy movement.

Chase practically fainted. He was the stuff daydreams were made of and she had had enough of those over the years. His body was burnished gold and honed to perfection. When he moved, she could detect the ripple of muscle under skin. Her breathing picked up pace and her mouth went dry. Under her top, her bare breasts tingled, and she had the heady feeling that she wanted them touched, that she wanted her nipples played with.

‘Your turn...’ He liked the way her eyes skittered across his body as if helplessly drawn to stare at him. He remembered the way that used to do crazy things to him once and was uneasily aware that that should have changed—so why hadn’t it? He found that he was holding his breath as her tee-shirt slowly rode up her belly, exposing her pale skin a slither at a time. She wasn’t doing this because of undue pressure, yet there was an erotic hesitancy about her movements. The wealth of all her complexities crashed over him like a wave from which he had to fight to surface, to bring himself back in the moment.

He was a randy teenager all over again as he looked at her breasts, heavy and sexy and everything he had imagined. More. Her breasts were bigger than he had thought, tipped with perfect rosy-pink discs. She possessed a body that should never be constrained by a starchy lawyer’s outfit. Her proportions were all feminine curves: bountiful breasts, a narrow waist and proper hips that swelled tantalisingly under the dreary track pants. He wanted nothing more than to stride over to her and feel her nakedness pressed against him.

With some sixth sense, though, he was aware of her skittishness. He didn’t get it, but he could feel it. Any sudden moves and he got the feeling that she would take flight, even though she obviously wasn’t embarrassed about her body, wasn’t trying to be coy and hide her breasts behind her hands. He kept his eyes on her face as he removed his trousers and flung them to one side, still looking at her.

Chase felt her skin tighten at the glaring evidence of his arousal. His dark boxers could hardly contain it. She shakily reached to the elasticised waist of her joggers and stilled as he moved towards her.

‘You look as though you want to run away,’ he murmured. He swallowed hard because the tips of her breasts were almost brushing his chest and his hands itched to feel the weight of them. ‘Believe it or not, this is taking it slow by my standards.’

‘I believe you,’ Chase said huskily. She touched his chest with one finger and felt his soft moan.

‘Come to bed.’ He stepped away from her. ‘I’m not sure how long the slow plan can carry on for.’

When he turned his back to her, Chase knew that he was trying to hold himself back. She felt giddy with power. It was a wonderfully novel sensation and it afforded her a layer of strength she hadn’t known she possessed. With Shaun, it had never been like this, never, not even in the very beginning. But she didn’t want to think about her ex-husband. That was one very fast and very sure route to instant depression.

She slipped out of the jogging bottoms; his back was still turned when she crept into bed and under the covers.

‘Now...’ He wasn’t used to taking sex slowly. He had never had to pace himself. He failed to consider that pacing himself with a woman for whom he harboured nothing more than a desire to even the score made no sense. ‘Tell me...’ he flipped onto his side so that they were lying under the covers, front to front, their bodies not touching but both of them vitally aware of their nudity under the duvet ‘...about the prints on your walls. And the four-poster bed...’