‘Well, it’s done now,’ Ava said baldly, refusing to cringe in mortification and mustering every ounce of her pride to her rescue. Evidently she wasn’t the veteran of the sheets that he had assumed that she was and if he was disappointed he would just have to live with it.
‘But why … me?’ Vito growled suspiciously.
Ava angled up her hips to distract him and his broad shoulders tautened as he attempted to withdraw from the hot, tight embrace of her body. A second such movement from her became his undoing. He sank back into her enticing honeyed heat with a splintering groan of tortured desire and rage burned like a banked-down fire in his accusing gaze.
Ava evaded that look and shut her eyes. She had signed up for the whole experience, hadn’t she? She wasn’t about to allow him to wreck everything. Although did she really have any influence over Vito? Given the chance, it seemed he would have stopped, rejected her. Was virginity such a turn-off? Or was he afraid that her inexperience would prompt her to demand more from him than he was prepared to give? She had heard the old cliché that suggested virgins were more likely to become too attached to their lovers, seeking ties that went beyond the physical. That, she immediately sensed, was most likely what he feared. Well, he would soon discover that she cherished no such illusions where he was concerned.
‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ Vito ground out.
‘We don’t always get what we want,’ Ava pronounced woodenly, shifting her hips as a wonderful little tremor of devouring hunger and excitement shimmied up from her pelvis again like a storm warning. ‘Don’t spoil this … ?.’
Torn between wanting to strangle her and wanting to keep her in bed for a week, Vito swore in his own language even as the natural promptings of his powerful libido took over. He had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her at that moment but she felt like a guilty forbidden pleasure again. He didn’t screw virgins, he didn’t take advantage of inexperienced or vulnerable women.
Ava gave herself up to the pleasure, arching up in welcome to the enthralling glide of his body into hers. The ravenous excitement grew and grew as he thrust with simmering heat and strength and her body clenched and tightened round him, sending waves of exquisite sensation rolling through her body. His insistent rhythm quickened and her heart slammed inside her chest, the driving force of desire controlling her until at last she reached a quivering peak of spellbinding joy that spilled through her like an injection of happiness. Spasms of ecstasy were still rocking her when he shuddered over her in his own climax and she held him close, knowing she never wanted to let him go again but that she had to hide the fact.
‘That was … different, mia bella,’ Vito pronounced raggedly, pressing a slow measured kiss to her brow and then vaulting out of the bed to stride into the bathroom.
Ava breathed in slow and deep. She had revelled in that brief moment of togetherness but he had instantly shied away from that cosiness and she was not surprised; she was forewarned. Different? Not exactly a compliment she would queue up to receive, she acknowledged unhappily. As Vito reappeared she sat up, the sheet tucked beneath her arms, and said with deliberate carelessness, ‘Different? It was just a bit of fun.’
An arrested expression froze his features, drawing her attention to the black shadow of stubble outlining his chiselled jaw and strong sensual lips. His eyes were as hard and bright as black diamonds between his screening lashes. ‘Come ha detto? … I beg your pardon?’ he said levelly.
‘The sex,’ Ava murmured glibly. ‘It was just a bit of fun, nothing you need to get worked up about.’
‘You were a virgin!’ Vito slammed back at her censoriously.
‘And next week I’ll be twenty-two-years old,’ Ava informed him. ‘How many twenty-two-year-old virgins do you know? It was past time I took the plunge.’
Already struggling with the turbulence of his emotions and a savage sense of guilt, Vito was inflamed by her reckless defiant attitude. Had he really believed her to be vulnerable? She talked as though she were coated in armour and she made it sound as though she had deliberately chosen him to deflower her. Furthermore she had reduced what they had shared to a basic meeting of bodies and, although on one level he accepted that that was what it had been, he could not subdue his angry sense of resentment. He had not meant to injure her in any way but he had made the crucial mistake of letting his high-voltage sex drive override his intelligence.
‘I didn’t look for the honour of becoming your first lover,’ Vito spelt out with grim forbearance. ‘In fact if I’d known I would never have touched you. I assumed you were experienced.’
Ava propped her chin on the heel of her hand, bright blue eyes misleadingly wide and calm, all anxiety and despondency suppressed for she refused to parade her true feelings in his presence. ‘I am now,’ she pointed out, high colour blooming over her delicate cheekbones as she made that claim.
‘Casual sex is definitely not what you need right now,’ Vito informed her with harsh biting conviction.
Her eyes veiled while she wondered how anything she did with him could be considered casual. Certainly not on her terms but on his? That was a very different matter. For Vito, sex could never have been anything else but casual with her. ‘You don’t know what I need—how could you? Look, give me something to wear so that I can return to my own room …’
Vito strode into the bathroom and emerged again to toss a black towelling robe on the bed. Her generous mouth arranged in a tight line of restraint, Ava dug her arms into the over-large garment and pulled it carefully round her to conceal her body before sliding out of the bed and knotting the sash at her waist. With fast-shredding dignity she stooped to pick up her discarded clothes and shoes, her heart like a crushed rock inside her weighing her down intolerably.
Ava shed the robe and stepped straight into the shower in her room. She was shell-shocked by what had happened between her and Vito Barbieri. Somehow, heaven knew how, her teenaged self had taken over her all-grown-up self and triumphed. Feeling the ache at the heart of her body, she grimaced and washed her body as roughly as someone trying to scrub their sins away with soap and water. When she was dry she pulled on jeans and a tee, fed the dwindling fire with a log and sat down beside it with Harvey. So, she had finally had sex and he had made it amazing but her emotions were in total turmoil. Idiot, she castigated herself as she smoothed Harvey’s shaggy head and he rested back against her, brown eyes lovingly pinned to her tearstained face. I will not cry over Vito Barbieri, Ava told herself furiously. I made a mistake but he made a mistake as well.
She would act as if it had never happened, she decided in desperation. That was the only way to behave: as if it had been an inconsequential and meaningless episode she was keen to forget. She should never have gone to his bedroom, never have stood there shouting at him, challenging and provoking him. Just then the question of which room she occupied seemed unutterably trivial and not worth the fuss she had kicked up over it. Vito wasn’t used to being challenged, she reminded herself ruefully. Vito dug in like a rock bedding down when you crossed him.
The knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. It was a maid with a tray.
‘Mr Barbieri thought you might be hungry,’ she explained, setting the tray down on an occasional table by the window and whisking the insulated cover off the plate.
‘I could have come downstairs for it,’ Ava said guiltily, looking down at the beautifully cooked chicken meal, her taste buds watering in spite of herself. As a teenager she had been downright uncomfortable at being served by the staff while she stayed at Bolderwood but now she was rather more practical in her outlook. Jobs at the castle were highly sought after because Vito paid well and offered good working conditions as well as apprenticeships in the key country skills still in demand on the estate.
‘No need with a big staff and only two people to look after.’ The girl laughed,