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She shouldn’t be feeling so exhilarated. Shouldn’t be allowing that fever to rage even more fiercely through her bloodstream.
‘Dio mio, veramente exquisitivo,’ he breathed.
‘Remi...’
‘Be calm, my beautiful innocent. I’ll safeguard your treasure,’ he muttered thickly.
He didn’t remove his touch. Instead he levered himself over her, that enthralling finger moving in and out of her as he started to kiss her again, his tongue mimicking the action of his finger.
Maddie had no warning, no way to prepare herself when bliss shattered what remained of her world. With her fingers buried in his hair, Maddie gave herself over to intoxicating sensation, a slave to the magic of his fingers as he sent her soaring high.
She was aware that a hoarse scream ripped from her but she didn’t care. It was all she could do to hold on to him as her world exploded in fragments of colour.
When she came to, she was alone on the sofa. Remi stood framed between the two heavy drapes at the window, his gaze on the street below. Whether he was granting her time to compose herself or was once again caught in the grip of furious guilt—she suspected the latter—she was thankful for the reprieve.
Quickly she straightened her clothes, passed a shaky hand over her hair just as he turned around. For a full minute he simply looked at her, until a different, more self-conscious flame rushed over her skin.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked, the shakiness racking her body infusing her voice.
‘You’re a beautiful and desirable woman.’ His voice was heavy, gravel-rough.
Her skin burned hotter. ‘That sounds like an accusation.’
His hand slashed the air. ‘Perhaps I’m still trying to understand—’
‘Look there’s no great mystery, okay? I had a boyfriend—’
‘A boyfriend?’ He spat out the word as if it was poisonous, his eyebrows knotting in a thunderous frown.
‘Yes, you know what those are, don’t you?’
Her sarcasm bounced off him, his expression remaining the same as he slid his hands into his pockets. ‘Tell me. I want to know.’
‘Greg and I grew up together. I thought we were friends. We fell out of touch for a while, but when I needed a friend I called him. We grew...close. I thought I was in a trusting relationship with him. Until I found out my plight was fodder for his amusement with his rich friends. Not only that, turns out Greg makes a habit of seeking out women and talking them into taking risky financial ventures with his company. Unfortunately I was one of those naïve victims.’
Maddie couldn’t disguise her bitterness, nor shake off the heavy weight of her own failure and Greg’s betrayal. She’d trusted him enough to hand over the last of her father’s savings, with his reassurance that his stockbroking firm would double her money within a few months, ensuring she would have enough for his rehabilitation, filling her with wild hope.
She’d lost everything.
Remi exhaled sharply. ‘Did you report him to the authorities?’
She shrugged again. ‘It was all above-board, apparently. Greg claimed I’d willingly signed on the dotted line and that I knew the high risk of the investments he was making on my behalf. There was just enough truth in his story and, using our history, he convinced the authorities that I was a bitter ex-girlfriend with a grudge. He got away with it. And I was left with nothing but the clothes on my back and, yes, my virginity.’
Remi walked towards her, his eyes fixed on her face. ‘Is he the reason you’re caught in this lifestyle?’ he asked thinly.
‘It would be easy to blame everything on him. But, no, he just happened to be one straw in the bundle that eventually broke me.’
One sleekly masculine eyebrow rose. ‘You think yourself broken?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m currently living with a strange man who likes to throw his weight about, berate me when I’m fifteen minutes late and is paying me for the privilege. What would you call that?’
‘I call it negotiating for what you want without compromising what’s important to you. And I’m not strange,’ he tagged on.
Maddie bit her lip against the smile that wanted to escape. ‘Careful, Remi, or I might think you respect me.’
The corner of his mouth twitched for half a second before that bewildered frown returned ten-fold and he turned away sharply.
‘There you go, treating me like I’m a leper again.’
