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Men spoke of making love, but the truth was that as far as they were concerned, “making love” was a euphemism for a four-letter word or, in polite company, a three-letter one.
S-e-x.
It was what men and women did in bed. It was what he and Anna had done. In bed, and out of it. Against the wall, with her legs wrapped around him. Against the vanity, with his hands on her hips. In the shower, with the soap turning their skin slick …
Was he insane? He had to be, or why would he be driving along at a zillion miles an hour and turning himself on with hot images of a woman he was sorry he’d ever met?
The gates to his villa loomed ahead. Draco slowed the Ferrari, depressed a button and the gates swung slowly open.
The point was they’d had sex. And then she’d brought them both down to earth by accusing him of figuring the night they’d spent together might have been a quid pro quo.
What it had been, he thought grimly as he pulled up before the villa and killed the engine, what it had been was pure, raw hunger.
It had filled him, nearly consumed him, though he’d refused to admit it, even to himself, until Anna had opened the hotel door, looking beautiful without makeup, with her hair a sexy tumble of untamed curls; looking delicate and strong—and no way was he going to try to figure out how a woman could seem strong and fragile at the same time.
Anna did, that was all.
She was too complex for her own good and certainly for his, and knowing that, he’d still wanted her.
And she had wanted him just as intensely, just as passionately, even though he was supposed to be her enemy.
She had an honest, open attitude toward sex. He liked that about her, too. And damnit, it was ridiculous to fault her for putting into words what a man might well have thought—that maybe being intimate had put an end to their legal dispute.
Only a man would think that way. Or, at least, speak so bluntly.
Was that what this was all about?
Was he angry because Anna Orsini was a gorgeous, desirable woman, never mind all that nonsense about her simply being attractive, who spoke a man’s thoughts and expressed a man’s hunger? He’d never dealt with a woman like her before.
Did it make him uncomfortable?
Or did it go beyond that?
Was it because in some deep, dark foolish part of him, he wanted to know if she was like this with other men? Was she as ready, as hot, as wet for them as she had been for him?
Not that he gave a damn …
Draco slapped his hands against the steering wheel.
There was no logic to it. There could not be any logic to it. He’d made a mistake, and that was that.
He should never have permitted the controversy with Cesare Orsini to go this far. He should have ignored that last letter. Failing that, he should not have gone ahead and met with Orsini’s representative without his own lawyer present.
But he had, and now he’d compounded the mess by sleeping with Anna.
He was tired of the nonsense. Of all of it. A thug who had spent his life stealing from others and thought he could go on doing it. A woman who thought he might see sex as a bargaining tool …
Draco narrowed his eyes.
Was that the real purpose of that little speech? Had she hoped that he truly had seen the night as a kind of trade? She’d given him a night to remember; he would give her the land?
Hold on, a voice inside him said, she never even suggested that. It was you, dummy. You haven’t just leaped to a conclusion, you arrived in that fantasyland all by yourself. And you didn’t just arrive there, you landed with both feet. Remember what you said about her doing her father’s dirty work in her bed?
A mess. At total, stinking mess.
Draco got out of the car and slammed the door behind him.
Who cared who had done what? He’d had enough of the Orsinis, father and daughter.
