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Of course it wasn’t. If what they’d shared was so ancient, she wouldn’t have practically begged him to make love to her only hours earlier.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Not here,” he shook his head. “Come outside with me. Let us walk.”
Ava thought of Milly, fast asleep in her room upstairs. “I can’t,” she demurred. “I have … stuff to do. If you want to talk, you’ll have to do it here.”
He compressed his lips with disapproval. “You are deliberately avoiding me?”
“No,” she denied. Then she nodded. “Maybe. I don’t know.” Finally, she stood, and brought herself around to the other side of the desk. “I’m trying to make sense of everything.” She didn’t touch him. She didn’t dare. But they were close enough that she could have. “Last night was a mistake. It was just some kind of weird habit, or something. It shouldn’t have happened.”
He narrowed his eyes, but didn’t speak.
His silence unnerved her. As he’d no doubt intended. “I mean, I don’t know what happened. I must have been out of my mind.”
Still, he didn’t touch her, but she felt as though he was. Her skin was pricked with a million tiny little goosebumps. “What happened,” he said finally, his voice accented from emotion. “Is that we forgot how much time has passed.”
“Yes,” she said on a whoosh of relief. “That’s it. It’s been years, but having you back here … It felt just like it used to.”
He nodded slowly. “Except now there is no fiancé. No husband. No one that is relevant to us, except ourselves.”
Not strictly true, she thought, picturing Milly’s sweet face. “There is no us,” she said instead. “Not these days.”
Now, finally, he reached for her. His hand curled around her hip, and he stepped forward almost immediately afterwards, so that their bodies fused. His eyes were so much closer; she could see the flecks of gold and rust in them. “You are lying to me.”
She glared at him angrily. “You’re here for a week. Do you really think I’m going to fall back into your bed just to help you pass the time?”
“Yes,” he said, and his smile made her stomach flip-flop.
“No,” she demurred, tracing the outline of his lips with her eyes.
He noticed, and smiled, dropping his mouth to hers. He didn’t whisper, but against the corner of it, he said, “You want me. Possibly more now than then. You might want to hate me, but your body is mine.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head weakly. “I was confused last night …”
“You were desperate.” At her instant look of indignation, he laughed softly. “As was I. I have known many women, Ava Henderson, and none makes my blood boil like you. I wondered if you would still have this power over me, despite the fact I no longer love you as I did then.”
Her stomach contracted painfully at his words. “And?” She prompted when he didn’t speak.
“And you make me want to rip our clothes off here and make love to you all afternoon. I don’t care who comes into the house. I want you. And I think you want me.”
Ava’s sensible, cautious nature was at war with his words and his wisdom. Of course she damned well wanted him. “It was never about not wanting you,” she said seriously. “It was about whether or not it made sense.”
Cristiano’s smile was indulgent. “You think this makes no sense?” He purred against her earlobe, wrapping his arm properly around her waist and clamping her to his body, so that he could dance her backwards. He moved them through the kitchen door, and then spun, so that he could press her back against it. “Tell me, Ava, what has ever made more sense than this?”
His tongue was demanding and fierce as he plunged it into her mouth. His hands were rough on her body as they pushed at her clothes, desperate to find skin. He groaned as he connected with her flat stomach, and then ground his hips against her as his fingertips grazed her nipples.
“Lock the door,” she mumbled against his mouth, as her fingers loosened his button. Her fingers curled into his pants until the found his arousal and she touched it with relief.
Cristiano made a strangled noise of surprise, but he didn’t move away and Ava continued to touch and feel. His hands worked quickly, pushing away her underwear so that he could nudge his tip towards her moist, ready core. He reached down and parted her thighs.
His invasion was swift, and welcome. Ava wrapped her arms around his neck and he plunged himself deep inside of her, until she made a whimpering sound of pleasure that was intimately familiar to him. She was so close, and he wanted so much more. “This will never be enough,” he rasped, his hands fondling her nipples as he pushed into her again. The door banged behind her; Ava couldn’t care. Somewhere, in the small fraction of her brain that was capable of rational thought, she reminded herself that they would be alone for another two hours, at least, while Marie tended to the cottages and Jackson dealt with the vines. Milly’s nap cycle was reliably long.
It was just them and this insane spring of desire.
He ran his hands down her back and then scooped her buttocks, lifting her as though she weighed little more than a feather. He held her against him, while he moved within her; with her legs wrapped around his back and her arms holding onto him for dear life, he erupted, a guttural cry strangling into the space of the kitchen.
“How can you say this doesn’t make sense?” He kissed the words into her mouth, punctuating each one with a flick of his tongue. “Is your room still the same?”
