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‘I...I know what you’re doing.’
‘All I’m doing is ascertaining how, exactly, you would like me to relieve you of your virginity. I can do it now if you would like.’ He pressed his groin into the small of her back so as to leave her in no doubt how ready he was. ‘Right here, over the desk? Up against the wall? On the floor?’
Much as he hated himself for it, his body was responding to her in the basest of fashions.
He would control it, just as he controlled everything else.
He would not give in to temptation.
He would make the good doctor see just how wrong she was about him.
Hannah Chapman was one of the few people in the world who made a difference.
He would not be the one to taint her, no matter how much he desired her or how much she wanted it.
He was better than that. He was better than the man who had created him, who would, no doubt, have already relieved Hannah of her virginity if he’d been in Francesco’s shoes.
He would not be that man. And if he had to come on heavy to make her run away, then that was what he would do. Reasoning clearly didn’t work with her.
‘You’re trying to scare me off.’
Francesco stilled at her astuteness.
Although her breaths were heavy, he could feel her defiance through the rigidity of her bones.
It was with far too much reluctance that he released his hold and turned her back round to face him.
Hannah’s hair tumbled back around her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide. Yet there was no fear. Apprehension, yes, but no fear.
‘You are playing with fire, Dr Chapman.’
She gave a wry smile. ‘I’m trained to treat burns.’
‘Not the kind you will get from me. You’ll have to find another man to do the job. I’m not for hire.’
His mind flashed to the man who’d been groping Hannah earlier—who, he imagined, would be more than happy to accede to her request. He banished the image. Who she chose was none of his concern.
All the same, the thought of that man pawing at her again sent a sharp, hot flush racing through him. She was too...pure.
A shrewdness came into her eyes, although how such a look could also be gentle totally beat him.
She tilted her head to the side. ‘Do I scare you?’
‘On the contrary. It is you who should be afraid of me.’
‘But I’m not scared of you. I don’t care about your reputation. I’m not after a relationship or anything like that—the only thing being with you makes me feel is good. After everything you’ve done for me, how can I not trust that?’
He shook his head.
This was madness.
He should call his guards and have her escorted out of his club. But he wouldn’t.
Francesco had heard stories about people who saved lives being bound to the person they’d saved, and vice versa. And while he hadn’t saved her in a technical sense, it was the only explanation he could think of for the strange chemistry that brewed between them. Total strangers yet inexplicably linked.
Something had passed between them, connecting them.
It was his duty to sever that link. His duty. Not his guards’.
He would make her see.
‘You think I’m worthy of your trust?’ Unthinkingly, he reached out a hand and captured a lock of her hair.
‘I know you are.’ Reclosing the gap between them, she tilted her head back a little and placed a hand on his cheek. ‘Don’t you see? A lesser man wouldn’t try to scare me off—he would have taken what I offered without a second thought.’
His skin tingled beneath the warmth of her fingers. He wanted to clasp those fingers, interlace his own through them....
‘I’m not cut out for any form of relationship—my career matters too much for me to compromise it—but I want to feel.’ She brought her face closer so her nose skimmed against his throat, her breath a whisper against his sensitised skin. ‘I want one night where I can throw caution to the wind. I want to know what it’s like to be made love to and I want it to be you because you’re the only man I’ve met who makes me feel alive without even touching me.’
Francesco could hardly breathe. His fingers still held the lock of her hair. The desire that had been swirling in his blood since he’d nuzzled into her neck thickened.
When had he ever felt as if he could explode from arousal?
This was madness.
‘If I believed you felt nothing physically for me, I would walk away now,’ she continued, her voice a murmur. ‘I certainly wouldn’t debase myself any further.’
