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So unfussy.
So suddenly scary.
This was nothing that Alessio had ever felt before. He could have stayed right there...with her so soft against him...for ever.
A perfect moment.
And one that he wasn’t going to allow. Letting his body guide him, feeling compelled to touch, was one thing. Lust was instinctive, and even if this felt raw and wild, he knew that it was nothing that could threaten his self-control. In the end, he could put lust right back in its box, close the lid and walk away.
Hadn’t he done just that, many, many times before?
So what if this felt different?He had already worked out that it was down to the novelty value. He’d been knocked sideways by an attraction he hadn’t seen coming. He’d assumed one thing about the woman snuggled against him, only to find that all his assumptions had been wrong.
Therein lay this weakness now, and it was a weakness that went against every single principle he had ever held dear.
No attachment. No vulnerability. Nocaring.
This felt suspiciously like all three.
No question, he was off target with this, but he’d always been a guy who believed in the motto that it was better to be safe than sorry.
He stiffened, edged himself apart from her—just fractionally, but enough to convey a message. And of course she read that message, loud and clear, and likewise detached herself, with a breathless little laugh that was half awkward, half embarrassed.
Just the sort of laugh he wanted to kiss away.
He clenched his jaw and fought down everything in him that was in danger of softening.
‘I’m suddenly thirsty,’ he said abruptly. ‘Think I’ll head downstairs for some water...’
Sophie pulled back as though she’d been stung. She knew what this was about. Just for a second she had utterly relaxed against him, had wrapped herself around him and cuddled him, and he had shot back, his immediate and instinctive response to repel any such intimacy.
Sex was hot and hard and rapturously enjoyable. But cuddles? Tenderness? Those were things that were very different, and he was making sure that she noted the distinction...making sure she didn’t get ideas into her head that this was anything more than it actually was.
A time-limited fling between two very different people.
It hurt.
It hurt because she’d gone and invested more into this non-relationship than she’d dreamt possible. It hurt because she’d clung in a way she’d never planned on clinging. And now he’d sensed it and pulled back because it wasn’t what he wanted.
‘Sex is thirsty business!’
She injected airiness into her voice and hoicked herself up on her elbows as he swung his beautiful body off the mattress, padding around in the semi-darkness to grab whatever discarded clothes he could put his hands on.
Sophie stared from under lowered lashes, her eyes adjusting to the darkness and making out his silhouette and the grace of his body as he slung on the jeans he had earlier thrown off in his urgency to join her on the bed.
He wasn’t looking at her at all.
He spun round but only half turned when his hand was on the doorknob, to ask her if he could bring her anything.
‘I think I’ll head back to my room,’ she said casually. But really she was waiting for him to leave, suddenly conscious of her nudity.
Alessio didn’t say anything, then he nodded and shrugged and turned to open the door, letting in a stream of light that surely shouldn’t have been there, because they were always really careful to switch all the lights off in the wide corridor.
Leonard’s room was at the end of the corridor, and they had become accustomed to stealth—the trademark of the clandestine affair.
She heard Leonard before she saw him—heard him booming to Alessio that he had heard voices, had been worried that someone might have broken in.
Alessio’s voice, in return, was cool and confident and amused as he reassured his father that the house was safer than a bank vault.
