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The knowledge that I had exhausted her didn’t help with the need surging through my body. Not at all.
I wanted to join her, wanted to wrap myself around her... But knowing I wanted it too much made me determined not to give in to the urge. I had never needed a woman like this before... Certainly not once the sex was over.
I didn’t like it. Because I had never needed anyone, relied on anyone but myself. And it made me feel vulnerable in a way I hadn’t been since I was a very young child.
Concentrating on the sinking empty sensation in the pit of my stomach I remembered from my childhood, I forced myself to leave her lying on my bed and walked from the room.
I took a long hot shower to wash off her scent in one of the guest suites. But as I dried myself, somehow I could still smell her intoxicating aroma.
I considered returning to the ball. I even flirted with the idea of seducing someone else to help me forget what had just happened. But even as the thought occurred to me, the hollow ache twisted inside me and I knew no other woman would be able to fulfil this need tonight.
I realised I had no desire to even look at another woman, because all I really wished to do was return to my own bedroom and discover the identity of the woman in my bed. To hold her, to see the need in her eyes, to make her want me again.
The thought horrified me, because it suggested a need for approval, for validation I hadn’t yearned for since I was too young to protect myself—or my mother—from the disgust of others.
I was not that pathetic child anymore, though.
Refusing to acknowledge the bitter emotions raging inside me, I dressed swiftly and took the back staircase to the underground garage.
I send a text to my housekeeping staff, informing them of the woman in my bed and how to handle her when she woke up in the morning. But as I climbed into my favourite sports car, and drove through the streets of Paris, away from her, I couldn’t seem to escape the brutal, pointless yearning I thought I had let go of long ago.
She was the cause. Whoever the hell she was. I knew this. Which meant I must force myself to forget her.
CHAPTER THREE
Then...
Jessie
IWOKESUDDENLYfrom the forceful erotic dream, impossibly turned on... I blinked, aware of every place where my body felt pleasantly achy, even a little sore.
Sunlight shone through the ornate shutters on the floor to ceiling windows of the palatial bedroom. The expensive linen sheets felt like gossamer against my skin.
Renzo Camaro’s bedroom. Where I had spent the wildest, most exquisite—and exquisitely disturbing—night of my life.
I stretched, the familiar heat firing over my skin.
Wow.
Recalling the sex was bad enough, but then I remembered the way he had insisted on taking care of me afterwards, and tucking me into his bed, with a gruff tenderness which had made my heart ache as well as every other part of my well-used body.
The man’s reputation as a lover was clearly well earned. But what had surprised me was that his reputation as a playboy, a user of women seemed less so. I had been prepared to leave as soon as he left the room, but he had seemed not just surprised but almost hurt by my attempt to flee.
I eased out of the bed, glad he wasn’t lying beside me.
I felt so awkward now. And also a bit raw emotionally. I knew I shouldn’t read too much into last night. It had only been a hook-up. No promises were made, and however inexperienced I was when it came to sex, I had always been aware that physical intimacy had no connection to emotional commitment. I had seen my mother discarded too many times to count, and been forced to pick up the pieces often enough, when the men she clung to walked away from her.
Plus however spectacular the sex had felt to me, it was probably nothing out of the ordinary for Renzo.
I headed to the bathroom and—after figuring out the array of intimidating knobs on the walk-in shower—let the jets caress my skin, aware of all the places where I felt strange and new.
Well, you certainly found out what all the fuss is about, Jess.
Forced to put on the gown from last night, and throw the remnants of my panties in the bin, I felt hopelessly self-conscious—hello, walk of shame—as I left the bedroom in search of my host.
I was eager to see him now, and yet also nervous. Aware that my heart was feeling tender too after last night, even though it shouldn’t. I wasn’t wearing the mask anymore. The whole idea of keeping my identity secret from him seemed ridiculous now, the antics of a silly virgin.
Don’t beat yourself up too much—you were a silly virgin.
