‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he added. ‘I don’t want to talk tonight. Tonight is for us, Jordan. You and me together again, as we once were. Don’t say no. Say si. Si, Gino. As I taught you all those years ago.’
Jordan’s head whirled. That was another way she’d been different with Gino than with any other man since. The way he’d been able to make her submit to his will. Not like some whipped slave, but willingly and wantonly. She had wallowed in the role of being his woman. Wallowed in his possessiveness and his protectiveness. With him she’d always felt safe and secure, and totally, totally loved.
She’d been devastated when he left, devastated and despairing. That year she’d failed her exams and had to resit.
She hadn’t had another boyfriend during her remaining years at university. Then, when she had eventually started dating again, she’d gone out with sweet, gentle men who were, perhaps, just a little weak. Men she could dominate and dump, once things got too serious.
Because she wasn’t going to marry any of them. How could she, when she didn’t love them?
Then Chad had come into her life. Smiling, charming, successful Chad, who’d impressed her with his intelligence and sophistication.
Sex with him was quite good.
She’d thought she loved him—till he’d proposed and she had suddenly been faced with a lifetime of sleeping with him.
If she were brutally honest, there was something irritatingly clinical about Chad’s lovemaking—as if he was following a textbook on sex. Sometimes she faked her orgasm, so that he wouldn’t ask her if she’d had one.
Gino had never asked her. He’d known she had.
Jordan trembled at the thought of how many times she would climax if she went up to his hotel room with him.
‘Come on,’ he decided for her. ‘Let’s go.’
Taking her arms from around his neck, he grabbed her left hand and began pulling her towards the exit.
‘My things!’ she protested, and indicated the table where, hopefully, her bag and jacket would still be on that chair.
They were.
He scowled as he watched her draw her jacket on. ‘Why do you wear such unflattering clothes?’
Her eyes flicked over his outfit. Tight black jeans, a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket. He’d always been a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy. They suited Gino’s tall, macho body.
‘Female lawyers wear clothes like this to work,’ she said. She didn’t add, Especially ones who looked like her. The law was still a man’s world, no matter what feminists liked to think. Even women clients preferred a male lawyer.
‘You look better in a dress,’ he returned, taking her elbow and steering her towards the exit. ‘Or at least a skirt. You should never wear trousers, Jordan.’
Heat flooded her body as she recalled how, after Gino had been living with her for a while, he’d forbidden her to wear underwear. She’d fought him over that. At first. But he’d managed to convince her, and she’d started going round with nothing on under her clothes. Which was why she’d worn dresses and skirts back then, and not jeans or trousers.
Oh, heavens, she felt hot, so hot.
Thankfully, the air outside the bar was much cooler. Jordan scooped in some calming breaths as Gino urged her along the marble-floored arcade which led to the hotel foyer proper. If she was going to do this she would rather do it with a clear head, not because she was mindlessly turned on.
But it was no use. She was mindlessly turned on.
She tried warning herself that he might have become a heartless womaniser, was just spinning her a line to get her into bed for the night.
But she wasn’t convinced. He’d seemed so sincere just now. Sincere and very passionate.
At the same time Jordan was desperate to find the answers to all those questions about Gino which had plagued her for the last ten years.
He’d promised to explain everything in the morning.
Meanwhile…
It was the meanwhile which was sending her into a spin.
Was she really going to do this? Go to bed with Gino within ten minutes of running into him again?
Her heart fluttered wildly as her eyes raked over him. He was everything she remembered. And more…more handsome, more mature…and even more masterful.
She would not have believed herself capable of being seduced so quickly these days, even by Gino.
But seduce her he had, in no time flat.
Jordan knew that if she spent the night with her wickedly sexy former lover then it would be Chad who’d be history. She’d had a slim chance of forgetting Gino when he’d been safely consigned to the past. No way could she forget him now.
Still, maybe she wouldn’t have to forget him this time. Maybe they really could take up where they left off.
Oh, she hoped so.
‘What are you doing up here in Sydney?’ she asked, almost running to keep up with him. ‘And why are you staying here? This is a very expensive hotel.’
‘Don’t ask questions, Jordan,’ he returned, his tone impatient. ‘Not right now. Leave it till the morning.’
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. In truth, she didn’t want to talk. But she didn’t want to think, either. And silence encouraged thinking.
Thinking brought doubts and worries. She could imagine what Kerry would think if she saw her now. She’s say she was insane!
When they reached the bank of lifts, one of them was empty and waiting. Gino took no time steering her inside, inserting his key card and pressing the tenth floor. The moment the doors closed he pulled her forcefully into his arms.
‘I can’t wait another second,’ he growled, his mouth already descending.
What was it that made one man’s kiss different from another?
Jordan had once tried to analyse this when other men’s kisses never did for her what Gino’s had done.
Now she knew: it was not just a matter of technique, or the sensual shape of his mouth. It was the passion behind those kisses, that all-encompassing hunger which came not just from his lips and tongue, but from his whole body.
Jordan was panting by the time he wrenched his mouth away.
His black eyes blazed down at her. ‘I should never have left you,’ he said. ‘Never!’
The lift had stopped by then, and the doors slid open. Two couples were waiting there to get in, all glammed up for a Friday night on the town. The women glanced at Gino as they exited, the men at Jordan.
She cringed a little when she saw her reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite. She looked dishevelled—some strands of hair falling down, her mouth devoid of lipstick, her eyes dilated and glittering with desires as yet unsatisfied.
Gino enfolded her hand in his and drew her along a carpeted hallway, stopping in front of room number 107.
As he bent his head to insert his key card again, Jordan noticed that his hair was shorter than he’d once worn it. She wondered if he was still a construction labourer. Maybe he was a foreman by now.
Another thought popped into her mind as he opened the door and waved her inside. Surely he must have a girlfriend back in Melbourne. Men like Gino didn’t live celibate lives.
As jealous as this idea made her, Jordan held her tongue, not wanting to spoil the moment with any upsetting truths. All she needed to know for now