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For a moment he lay there as sleep crept over him—the way it always did, no matter how much he tried to fight it. And this time he really was trying to fight it because there was no way he wanted to find himself in Angie’s bed when the morning came. But his limbs felt heavy and lethargic and Riccardo knew that he was losing the battle as his eyelids became weighted down. Was this nature’s way of keeping you close to the woman you’d made love to? he wondered drowsily.
Beside him, Angie held her breath until the steady rhythmical sound of his own breathing told her that he had fallen asleep—but still she didn’t dare move, afraid of waking him, of shattering the spell. For surely some strange kind of magic had entered her life this evening? How else could she explain the fact that her beloved Riccardo was lying next to her, naked and contented after making love to her like…like…?
She swallowed. It had been the most wonderful experience of her life. Like everything she’d always known it could be. Like all the books said it could be—only she’d never really believed it before. She’d believed herself to be in love with him for years but the intimacy of actually making love with him had made that feeling increase a thousandfold. Her heart gave another skip—because she was daring to hope that it wasn’t all one-sided. Because Riccardo couldn’t have made love that way unless she actually meant something to him. Could he?
Carefully, she turned her head to look at him. Illuminated by the pale orange glow from the streetlight directly outside her window, he looked as if he had been fashioned in some precious metal—like those amazing statues you sometimes saw in museums. In this light his hair looked intensely black—as deep a colour as a moonless night—and the lush lashes which usually shaded the ebony eyes were now reposing in two dark feathered semi-circles on his cheeks. Never had she been given such a perfect opportunity to study him so closely and she drank in his beauty, noting how the high slash of his cheekbones cast perfect shadows on the golden skin.
Angie’s heart missed a beat. So now what? She longed to reach out and touch him. To stroke his hair. To run her fingertips lovingly along the sculpted outline of his jaw. Perhaps to daringly continue their journey by tiptoeing them down the hard torso and further still—to his own dark tangle of hair. Should she…should she waken him erotically, as she had read that men liked to be awakened?
Or better to let him sleep? He had been under so much strain recently—quite apart from the ructions about his sister’s wedding, he had been involved in several high-powered takeovers. And he was still probably jet-lagged. Wouldn’t it be better to let him sleep—and in the morning, well, who knew?
She smiled. It was Saturday and neither of them had to work. Then she could wake him up with tiny kisses—as many as she liked—and after that she could make them coffee. Why, she might even be able to persuade him to stay in bed while she nipped down to the corner shop at the end of the road. They didn’t sell the kind of high-end range of the market stuff he was used to—but they did stock croissants which tasted pretty good when you heated them up in the oven and served them with a dollop of cherry jam.
Angie gave a little sigh of contentment as she nestled down into the pillow. This morning she had been feeling close to despair and ready to start looking for a new job to get her away from the influence of her boss, and now…
Now?
She snuggled down even further. Now she felt as if the world had come alive with a powerful kind of magic.
What a difference a few hours could make.
CHAPTER FIVE
A MOTTLED ceiling swam into view and Riccardo quickly shut his eyes. But when he opened them again the ceiling was still there. And so was…so was…
So was he.
He held his breath for a moment as he realised that there was someone in the bed next to him and then he went cold when he remembered just who it was.
Angie!
Events from the previous day came flooding back in a dark and unwelcome tide. Giving her the dress. The Christmas party. Wine plus jet lag plus not very much supper. That damned dress! And then…then he had brought her home here and ravished her—and she had wholeheartedly let him.
His heart hammered in his chest as he lay there, dead still in the smallest bed he had slept in since child-hood—until he could risk turning his head without waking her.
Without the dress she looked less like the siren of last night and much more like the Angie he knew—though without her hair tied up. Her head was slumped back against the pillow, her face was flushed and the duvet had fallen down so that he could see one rosy little nipple.
Horror ran through him as his worst nightmare was realised.
He was lying naked in bed with his secretary!
For a moment he let his mind stray down tracks which would soon be out of bounds. The memory of her soft skin. Her unfeigned delight at his touch. The way she had kissed him—as if she had just discovered kissing for the first time. Resolutely he blocked the erotic recall.
Now what?
Gingerly, he began to edge one thigh towards the edge of the bed when he felt her stir beside him and instantly he stilled.
‘Morning,’ she murmured throatily.
Riccardo froze. She had that besotted note in her voice—a breathy kind of worship he recognised only too well. Women always used it after they’d had sex with him and there didn’t seem to be a thing he could do about it. He turned to look down at her, steeling himself against that puppy-eyed look she was directing up at him. Because it wasn’t her fault she was feeling that way; women were conditioned to react differently from men—everyone knew that. Give them a couple of orgasms and they started imagining all kinds of crazy notions. But with a little careful handling—those notions could be quickly consigned to the dust heap. And he needed to handle this very carefully indeed because he respected Angie.
As his secretary!
‘Morning.’ His smile was brief and perfunctory and—most important of all—non-committal. The kind of smile he might give if he was a couple of minutes late to a board-meeting. Leaning over, he planted a light kiss on the tip of her nose. It contained just the right amount of careless affection for her to be reassured that he didn’t think too badly of her—but without giving her any false hope that this might be leading anywhere. Because it wasn’t—and the sooner she understood that, the better. He pushed the duvet away and swung his long legs out of the bed, which hadn’t seemed at all cramped last night—but which now felt like a tiny cage of a place.
Angie looked at him. ‘You’re not getting up?’
‘I need the bathroom.’
