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She huffed with exaggerated frustration but eased herself into the leather bucket seat. It was as luxurious as she’d expected.
“Nice car,” she muttered disapprovingly, when he’d joined her in the prestige vehicle.
He nodded. “It’s custom.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Of course it is.”
He pulled out into traffic and revved the engine. It pulsed with a deep, powerful throb that perfectly suited the man behind the wheel. Aurora reached out and gripped the handle on her door. She’d never liked fast cars, but having seen what they could do to a person first-hand, she now had a particular loathing for travelling at speed.
“You’re not racing now,” she whispered, her face pale.
He tilted her a begrudgingly amused look. “No, I’m not.” His eyes searched her face, surprised to realise that she seemed genuinely afraid. He slowed the car a little. “Are you still at the same flat?”
She nodded.
He took the roads as though they were burned into his brain. For someone who travelled around the world, he was annoyingly au fait with the back streets of London. It took him no time at all to travel from Brixton to Canary Wharf. He pulled up in a loading zone near the entrance.
Ten minutes had done a lot to ease the fog in her mind, but nothing to calm the adrenalin that was pulsing through her. She reached for her seat belt clasp at the same time he did. Their fingers connected and she flinched in her seat, earning a glare of reproach from him.
“What’s the matter? You were about to go home with that barman but you’re jumping out of your skin because our hands touched?”
She swallowed nervously. “I was not about to go home with him,” she said unevenly.
“If I hadn’t interrupted, you’d be banging him right now.”
Her cheeks flushed at the accusation, and shame swirled in her gut, for the sheer reason that he might have had a point. It was uncharacteristic, but then, Leo had always inspired unpredictable reactions in her.
“Why did you interrupt? Were you jealous?”
“Jealous?” He laughed, a sound that sent shivers down her spine for it was so without humour. “Not at all. I don’t care if you screw half of London. If reports are to be believed, you did that shortly after leaving me crippled in hospital.” He shook his head and leaned forward towards her, as though pulled by a strong magnetic force. “No. I was not jealous.” He lifted a finger and ran it insolently from her cheek, to her décolletage, and lower still, to the gauzy fabric that covered her modest breasts. Her nipples were erect beneath the shimmering material and he traced his finger around one, running circles over her sensitive skin. She gasped as sensations rocketed through her. “Your body is beautiful but I no longer desire you, Aurora.”
She smothered the moan that was on the tip of her tongue. Low in her abdomen, arousal was building, and desire was flourishing like a flower in spring. “Then why did you interrupt my conversation?”
His lips lifted in a half smile. “You could say I took pleasure from messing up your plans.” He undid his own seatbelt so that he could press his body across the car, and tease her neck with his lips. “You were always a very sensual thing, weren’t you? Are you feeling frustrated now? That your target for a night of cheap, meaningless sex isn’t around?”
God, he was so wrong. He had no idea about her, but she wasn’t about to enlighten him. If she told him that he, and he alone, had been able to arouse her to a fever pitch of sensuality, he would hold it over her for life. He put a hand on her thigh and stroked his fingers against her bare skin, moving them higher and higher, until his thumb padded against the silk of her underwear.
“Do you still love to be kissed here?” He asked distractedly, looping a finger beneath the flimsy fabric and touching her most intimate flesh.
“Why don’t you come upstairs and find out?” She heard herself issue the invitation and froze in his arms. What the heck had come over her? She’d been down this path and she knew how it ended. Getting involved with Leonardo Fontana was a completely disastrous idea.
He ran his mouth over the sensitive skin beneath her ear and inhaled her sweet fragrance. “As tempting as that is, I have a rule about sleeping with women who are so drunk they can barely stand up.”
Disappointment seared inside of her. “I’m not that bad.”
“You used to be able to handle your liquor,” he drawled with a shake of his head. “Not any longer, apparently. Go upstairs, Aurora. You’re fit for sleep and nothing else.”
The sense of rejection was fierce. She groped for the handle and made a muffled sound of annoyance when she couldn’t find it.
Leo reached across her and opened the door easily, shooting her a look of frustration. “Good night.”
She swung her leg
s out, and stood. The cold air was fortifying. “So that’s it?” She demanded, her expression showing her anger.
“For now.” He grabbed for the door again and pulled it shut. He drove off before she’d reached the security doors of the luxurious high rise.
She rode the lift in a state of shock.
