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“Am I right?”
“About what?”
“About how I just described us.”
Us. Why did such a simple word made her feel breathless? The safest move was to joke right along with him.
“Absolutely. I’m hungry enough to give up a tofu-and-egg-white scramble for a steak.”
“I won’t even comment on the tofu.” His smile dipped; his thumb followed the arch of her cheek. “And what I meant was, are you happy?”
She stared into his eyes. Considered all the possible responses.
In the end, though, she took a deep breath.
And said, “Yes.”
* * *
He asked her if she wanted to eat or shower first.
“I make a mean frittata,” he said, flashing that million-dollar grin. “And I’m sure I can find a couple of steaks in the freezer.”
The mention of food made her stomach growl. He heard it and laughed. She laughed along with him. Truth was, she was starved, but eating only meant delaying her departure by another half hour, and the trick now was to get out of here as quickly as possible.
Too much was happening too fast. She felt as if she’d stepped on a merry-go-round that was starting to spin out of control.
“They’re both great offers,” she said with a lazy assurance that she didn’t feel, “but I want to shower first.”
They were sitting on his bed facing each other, he cross-legged, wearing his zipped trousers, muscled arms folded over his bare chest, she with her feet tucked up under her and trying not to let him see the death grip she had on the edges of her gown.
“Fine.” He got to his feet and held out his hand. “Shower it is.”
“Oh, not together,” she said quickly.
His dark eyebrows rose.
“I mean—you know, I need space in the shower.”
“Not to sound immodest,” he said, sounding exactly that, “but my shower’s bigger than some bathrooms.”
Yes. She’d noticed when he’d tended to her foot, and again a few minutes ago when she’d gone into the bathroom to pee. She’d seen his shower and it was, indeed, bigger than not just some but most bathrooms.
Trouble was, she didn’t do that kind of thing.
Sharing a shower was too intimate, and yeah, she knew how weird that would sound, considering that they’d had sex twice already. Well, three times. Four times, if you counted what had happened in the hotel…
The bottom line was that she didn’t ‘do’ showers with a guy anymore than she ‘did’ spending the entire night with one, and it was troubling that she was already close to breaking that rule, considering a clock somewhere in his apartment had just struck three.
So she lied, told him she meant virtual space so she could wash her hair, condition it, do what she blithely described as a whole bunch of girl things that he didn’t need to observe, and he listened, nodded, appeared to accept what was, basically, a load of BS.
“Then it’s all yours,” he said.
She smiled, stood up—and he reached for her, drew her into the curve of his arm and kissed her.
She wanted to melt into him. To wind her arms around him. To tell him she had never felt like this in her life, as if she could relax, trust him, be with him fully in all the ways she’d never been with another man…
What’s the matter with you, Cheyenne?
She knew what men were, the reality of them. She knew the truth, and the only thing that separated this man from the rest was that he was exceptionally good in bed.
So she pulled away from his kiss, shot him her best model-in-the-eye-of-the-camera smile, and strolled into the bathroom.
She shut the door.
Eased out a breath and leaned back against it.
That was it.
He was very good in bed. Very, very good.
A lie.
There was more to it than that.
He seemed to be able to see through her. Into her. He knew when to demand. When to ask. When to take. When to give…
“Stop it,” she whispered, and she slid free of the remnants of her gown, turned on the spray in the big glass box of a shower and stepped inside.
The cascade of water felt wonderful.
She let it beat down on her, turned the water hotter, watched tendrils of steam curve up the glass like the stalks of exotic flowers. Shelves held shampoo, conditioner and soap. She picked up the bottle of shampoo, sniffed it. It smelled like him. Like Luca. Fresh and clean, a scent that spoke softly of mountain meadows and golden sunlight.
She slicked the shampoo through her hair. Tilted her head back and let the suds drain away…
And gasped at the feel of hard, slightly calloused hands closing on her hips from behind.
She knew the right thing to do. To say. Smile at him over her shoulder, ask him please to respect her request for privacy.
He kissed her neck.
“Cheyenne,” he whispered.
He turned her to him. And perhaps if he had done something sexual, touched her in a way that said this was about sex, she’d have made that request.
But he didn’t.
He put his arms around her. Bent his head and took her mouth with such tenderness it brought tears to her eyes.
“I missed you,” he said, and she knew she was lost.
* * *
He took her to bed.
Not for sex.
Instead, he drew back the duvet, gathered her against him and whispered, “Go to sleep, dolcezza.”
She wanted to ask him that meant, dolcezza, wanted to tell him that it was long past time she went home, but all she could manage before closing her eyes was a jaw-creaking yawn.
He smiled, kissed her eyelids, and that was the last thing she remembered until she woke to the morning sun.
She sat up in the bed.
“Luca?”
He was gone. Her heartbeat stuttered.
Payback?
Then she heard a man singing. Was it Luca? It couldn’t be the radio or the TV or an MP3 Player. The singer was obviously not a professional, just someone who loved… Don Giovanni? Rigoletto? She wasn’t very good at identifying operas, but someone was definitely singing an Italian aria just a little off-key, and who could that possibly be but Luca?
Amazing, to awaken in a man’s bed for the first time in her life and do it to the sound of a classic opera.
Cheyenne laughed.
How lovely. How unexpected. How…
How wrong.
What was she doing? Better still, what had she done? Staying the night. Sleeping with him. Really sleeping with him, not just using the word as a euphemism for sex. Letting him control the situation.
Control her.
She tossed back the duvet and only then remembered that she had nothing on. Was that little pile of clothing at the foot of the bed meant for her?
It had to be.
Gym shorts. A T-shirt. Leftovers from some mistress? Not unless the mistress had been as big as he was.
The clothes were his.
She pulled on the shorts. They hung almost to her ankles and, of course, they were enormous, but he’d thought of that—he’d left a canvas belt beside them.
Efficient of him, she thought coolly.
She used the belt as a tie, wrapped around her waist. Not that she wanted to think about ties just now and, Jesus, how had she ever permitted him to do that to her?
You let him do it because it had been exciting. Freeing—and wasn’t that ridiculous? Being a man’s captive was surely not freeing.
She needed coffee. Buckets of it, hot, black and strong. And, she thought, as she pulled the T-shirt over her head, that would be her very first stop. She’d grab a taxi, tell the cabbie her address, but tell him to stop at the nearest Starbucks before he took her home.
The T-shirt was a million sizes too big, but it covered her and that was what mattered.
All it all, it was one hell of an outfit, especially when she added her stilettos—Luca must hav
e located them. Her evening purse was there, too, right beside the shoes.
What remained of her blue silk evening gown was draped over a chair.
She felt her face heat.
Quickly, she snatched up the gown, balled it up, went into the bathroom and stuffed it in a glass and silver trashcan.
What a pitiful sight. A humiliating sight! But there was nothing to do but leave it behind. It was only a length of fabric. What mattered was getting out of here before Luca appeared.
Back into the bedroom. Take a look around. Did she have everything? Shoes? Purse? God, what a sight she was, she thought as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrored wall opposite the bed.
It wasn’t the first time she’d seen her reflection there. Last night, after they’d had sex the first time, Luca had brought her to that wall, stood behind her, cupped her breasts in his hands and told her to look at herself, to see how beautiful she was.
How much she was his creation, he’d meant, but he was wrong.
Starting the day in Texas, ending it in New York, the change in time zones and then the shock of coming face-to-face with the last man on earth she’d wanted to see…
Was it any wonder her behavior had been so bizarre?
But the world had righted itself, she thought as she combed her hair with her fingers. And she supposed she owed him some sort of thanks for having taught her that there was more to sex than she’d known.
And it was sex, not what he’d insisted on referring to as making love.
Not that she’d ever want to do that again.
The tied wrists. The gown torn from her body. The sense of being overpowered. Dominated.
A slow, hot burn flooded her skin.
