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‘What? No. What brought that on?’
‘I can read you, Eva. I can read you like a book.’
She turned her face away, acutely conscious of Roman’s light grip on her naked arms. Lack of self-belief was the least of her problems. The night had closed around them and there was no one in sight... No sounds except for the soft susurration of the surf. Would he kiss her? Would he kiss her again because he wanted to and not to mock her?
Roman answered the question by dipping his head to stare into her eyes. He made her wait. He made her wait until she swayed towards him. She held her breath as he teased her mouth, inviting her to kiss him back. She was longing to enter his dark and very sensual world, where there was no compulsion to join him, but there was an open invitation. Was it possible to be intoxicated by the senses? She thought it might be as Roman kissed her in a way that left no room for reasoned thought. He was rampantly male and unapologetically sexual. He towered over her, and yet there was no suggestion he would use his hugely superior strength to overwhelm her.
Perversely, this made her fantasies run riot, along the lines of being pinned down and subjected to every type of pleasure known to man—and a few she didn’t know about that she felt sure he would. Holding her around the waist, Roman used one hand to cup her face, so gently her will ebbed like the tide. Leave it much longer and she would be lost. He made her want more...so much more.
Until his hand slipped down to cup her buttocks. What was natural and instinctive for him was frightening for her. It was too intimate. It was everything she craved, yet feared, and, having lost her confidence, she pulled back.
‘Eva?’ Roman’s lips brushed her mouth, fogging her brain.
A woman of her age afraid of sex?
‘Why are you frightened of me?’
‘I’m not—okay, maybe I’ve heard things—’ Desperate lie, and she hated herself for it.
‘Do you believe everything you hear, Eva?’
He looked at her slender shoulders, pale and vulnerable in the moonlight. He felt strangely protective towards a woman who had done nothing but fight him. He wanted her, but only if Eva came to him because she wanted to, and without the doubts that seemed to dog her. Eva wasn’t just another notch on his bedpost. She already connected with some deep part of him that no one else had ever reached. He wanted to bring her pleasure. He wanted to hold her in his arms and—
‘Stop!’ he yelled as she wandered towards the edge of the cliff. He knew this path like the back of his hand. She didn’t. He didn’t need a grudging shaft of moonlight to tell him that was she far too close to the edge. Catching hold of her, he drew her back. His voice gentled. ‘Are you going to swim from here? Seriously, don’t wander off. Not here. It’s too dangerous.’
They had left the party lights a long way behind. There was just the sea in front of them spread out like a glittering cloth touching a star-frosted sky. And one step away from Eva’s feet was a yawning void leading to a boulder-strewn beach.
‘I...’ She turned her face up to him and swallowed awkwardly. She’d clearly had quite a shock. He wanted to kiss her but this time held back.
‘What do you say to someone who just saved your life?’ she asked him.
‘I think we should take it slowly from here?’
Pressing her lips together, she sighed with exasperation, and then said, ‘Agreed.’
‘Don’t sound so worried, Eva. I’ll keep you safe—so long as you don’t wander off again.’
They stood in silence for quite a while. They had both said more than they had intended to, she guessed, and then Roman’s idea of safe was to lead her on towards the palazzo. She had always thought herself in charge of her own fate, but tonight that wasn’t going so well.
‘I do have to thank you for saving me.’
‘However annoying you are, I’m not going to let you fall over a cliff, Eva.’
There was a smile in his voice. She was relieved to hear it. She enjoyed the light banter with Roman, and wanted to tell him that she did trust him, but that she didn’t trust herself not to make a mess of things. Stepping off a cliff was the least of it.
‘Just one more request,’ he said.
She glanced up.
‘Can you stop sighing like that? I can’t tell if those sighs mean you’re excited, reluctant or just plain exhausted.’
‘All that dancing and kissing?’ she mocked lightly. ‘I think I can handle it.’
She knew where this was leading; she’d always known. She could have pulled back at any time. But had she? When they reached the palazzo she’d tell him the truth. It really was that simple. She’d tell Roman frankly that she wasn’t going to have sex with him, and that for all her talk she just wasn’t that type of girl.
