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‘Let me guess...because every woman you go to bed with is desperate to get your ring on her finger?’
Unapologetically, he shrugged. ‘This I cannot deny.’
‘Which I suppose implies that having a colossal ego must top the list of most women’s marital requirements?’
He gave a slow smile. ‘I don’t think it’s the size of my ego which accounts for my popularity with the opposite sex,cara.’
‘Oh!’
He could feel waves of indignation radiating towards him, meshing with the far more tangible ripples of desire which were making him want to kiss her again. Tangling his fingers in the silky ropes of her hair, he pulled her towards him and her lips trembled as he grazed his own against them. ‘Stop focussing on the unimportant,’ he instructed huskily.
‘I suppose you’re going to tell me whatisimportant?’
‘You know damned well what’s important.’
‘How can I, when this is the first time I’ve ever done this?’
‘Then why don’t I tell you? Hmm? I want to be inside you again. I want to fill you completely until you can feel nothing else but me. I want to hear you cry my name when you come, like you did just now. That breathless little moan which seemed to go on for ever.’ His voice dipped. ‘Don’t you want that, too, Nicola?’
She blinked at him—as if she couldn’t believe quite how explicit he was being, but her eyes were wide and dark, the words rushing from her lips, as if she couldn’t hold them back any longer. ‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she whispered. ‘I want that very much.’
This time he touched her with a deliberate lack of speed, though never had his control been quite so tested. Not a single inch of her flesh did he leave unexplored—first by his fingers and then his lips. Her body was so streamlined, he thought hungrily. So...perfect. He watched as her nipples hardened into silver bullets in the moonlight. He stroked his fingertips over soft, slender thighs which parted for him, and when he placed his mouth against her silken core, he could taste her honeyed musk.
As she whimpered beneath the flicker of his tongue, he could feel something unfamiliar—an alien sensation which rolled over him like a heavy wave and threatened to pull him under. Dampening down his own needs, he concentrated solely on hers, but by the time she pulsed helplessly beneath his tongue Alessio could deny himself no longer. His hands were unsteady as he eased on a condom and thrust into her waiting heat. Had he ever been this hard before? he wondered dazedly. Had he ever buried himself so deeply in a woman that it was difficult to know where he ended and she started? Pleasure caught him in a ruthless vice and his cry was wild as the seed pumped from his body.
He must have fallen asleep—unheard of—because when he opened his eyes, the milky wash of a golden dawn was lighting the horizon. Her skin and hair gilded by the rising sun, Nicola was lying on the far edge of the bed with her back to him, but her posture told him she was awake. And even though he had convinced himself he didn’t care enough to pursue this particular topic, he broke the rule of a lifetime by doing exactly that.
‘So why?’ he questioned, stretching his arms above his head and giving a lazy yawn.
Nicola had been lying there wide-eyed while Alessio slept, preparing her answers for questions like these, like an ambitious pupil swotting for an exam. She turned to face him, unable to prevent the instant clutch of desire on seeing him naked against the snowy bedding.
The most important thing she needed to remember was that this fling was going nowhere—and not just because he lived in Manhattan and she in London. Or because he was an eligible billionaire and she nothing but a glorified shopgirl. There wasn’t going to be any kind of future for a couple like them, so why spoil what they had now with harsh reality? He wasn’t really interested in her sexual history, or, indeed, any kind of history. He was probably only asking to be polite, or to pass the time. After all, they had to talk aboutsomethingin between orgasms.
So she pushed away the kittenish mood which seemed to have crept up on her, the one which wanted to purr that she’d been waiting all her life for a man like him. Imagine how that would go down!
‘You mean, why was I a virgin?’ she verified slowly. ‘Or why did I choose you?’
‘Both.’
She didn’t miss the brief nod of his head—as if her measured response was reassuring, making her think she’d pitched it just right. All she needed to do was to convince him that she wasn’t going to read too much into this. ‘I guess I was too busy with my career to have any time for men,’ she answered truthfully, but didn’t elaborate. She didn’t tell him she’d been determined to avoid the social norms of the run-down estate where she’d been brought up, where relationships meant bust-ups and money problems. Bruised eyes and unplanned pregnancies. Or to tell him that her independence was vital to her and she was determined to never rely on men as her mother had done.
Because none of those things were relevant.
‘You haven’t answered the second part,’ he observed.
Nicola hesitated. Neither was she going to tell him he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever met and it would have been easier to have stopped breathing than to have resisted his kiss. Would he be appalled to learn that she had melted a little to discover he’d lent his plane to his secretary for her sick mother? Probably. He might even accuse her of sentimentality, because lending a plane would mean nothing to a man like him. She could also confess that her heart had gone out to him after witnessing those awful scenes at his mother’s house, but he might interpret that as pity. And Nicola despised pity—a smug emotion she’d been subjected to often enough in the past.
So she swept her fingers back through her tousled hair and told him a different type of truth—a statement she wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing twenty-four hours ago. But what was the point of being naked in bed with someone if you couldn’t say some of the things which were on your mind?
‘Obviously, as time went on and everyone was—’
‘Falling by the wayside?’ he mocked.
‘I wasn’t making any moral judgements!’ she answered quietly. ‘But as I saw more and more of my friends having sex, I started wondering if I was missing out. I suppose I decided I needed a bit of an...an education.’
He still wasn’t reacting.
‘I w-wanted to find out if it lived up to all the hype,’ she concluded, her stumbled words filling the awkward silence. ‘That’s all.’
