Now what?
Gingerly, he began to edge one thigh towards the edge of the bed when he felt her stir beside him and instantly he stilled.
‘Morning,’ she murmured throatily.
Riccardo froze. She had that besotted note in her voice—a breathy kind of worship he recognised only too well. Women always used it after they’d had sex with him and there didn’t seem to be a thing he could do about it. He turned to look down at her, steeling himself against that puppy-eyed look she was directing up at him. Because it wasn’t her fault she was feeling that way; women were conditioned to react differently from men—everyone knew that. Give them a couple of orgasms and they started imagining all kinds of crazy notions. But with a little careful handling—those notions could be quickly consigned to the dust heap. And he needed to handle this very carefully indeed because he respected Angie.
As his secretary!
‘Morning.’ His smile was brief and perfunctory and—most important of all—non-committal. The kind of smile he might give if he was a couple of minutes late to a board-meeting. Leaning over, he planted a light kiss on the tip of her nose. It contained just the right amount of careless affection for her to be reassured that he didn’t think too badly of her—but without giving her any false hope that this might be leading anywhere. Because it wasn’t—and the sooner she understood that, the better. He pushed the duvet away and swung his long legs out of the bed, which hadn’t seemed at all cramped last night—but which now felt like a tiny cage of a place.
Angie looked at him. ‘You’re not getting up?’
‘I need the bathroom.’
Angie smiled. Of course he did. And how very intimate that sounded. ‘It’s down the—’
‘I think I can probably find it by myself,’ he offered drily.
He didn’t seem at all fazed by his nakedness and Angie lay there and watched him leave the room—studying his muscular physique with greedy eyes. Those darkly powerful, hair-roughened legs contrasted with the paler globes of his buttocks where clearly he must have been sunbathing. She should have felt shy, anxious, insecure—but somehow she didn’t. How could she, when he had made love to her so amazingly the night before—had made her feel like a real woman for the first time in her life? Riccardo was naked in her apartment and yet it seemed like the most natural thing in the world!
Wishing she’d had time to brush her teeth, she raked her fingers back through her tousled hair, plumped up the pillows and then arranged herself as decorously as possible against them, longing for him to kiss her again. But her heart sank in dismay when he walked back in the room and she saw that he was picking up a pair of silky boxer shorts which he’d dropped on the floor the night before and which he now looked as if he was about to put on.
She sat bolt upright, unable to keep the alarm from her voice. ‘You’re not…not…going, are you?’
‘I have to.’ He needed to. He needed to get his head straight and to extricate himself as quickly as possible to restore the right and normal order in his life. Because surely she could see that this episode—while enjoyable—was most definitely regrettable. And needed to be cut down and forgotten while it was still fresh enough to be killed off.
But sitting up like that had made the duvet tumble down to her waist and her hair to spill like wild honey all over her breasts—so that for one split second he forgot again that this was Angie. And that split second was enough. Enough to start the urgent tide of sexual desire from sweeping through him. He felt it instantly in the stiffening of his body and he saw from the widening of her eyes that she had noticed it, too.
‘Do you really have to go?’ she whispered, pride forgotten in her aching desire to be in his arms again.
Riccardo’s mouth hardened along with the throb at his groin as he registered the provocation in her question and reminded himself that this wasn’t some little innocent he was dealing with—but a sexually mature woman with desires of her own. Just like his. ‘If you carry on staring at me with those big eyes and flaunting those amazing breasts of yours, then I may not be able to tear myself away, mia bellezza.’
Some unknown glint in his black eyes set off a tremor of apprehension whispering over her skin, but Angie resolutely pushed it away. She didn’t want doubt—she wanted him. And he wanted her, too—she could see it in his eyes, even if his body wasn’t making her so blatantly aware of that fact. So why not show him that she could be his equal in the bedroom, even if he was her boss in the boardroom?
‘Who’s asking you to?’ she challenged softly.
A heartbeat of a pause. Then, dropping the shorts, he crossed the room and stood looking down at her—noting the invitation in her darkened eyes and parted lips. The rosy tips of her breasts were peaking beneath his gaze and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to put one sweet nub into his mouth and to lick and suck her there. Whipping back the duvet like a matador, he got on the bed and straddled her, gazing down on her with hungry intent, and then he caught her in his arms.
‘Riccardo!’ she gasped as he pushed her back down against the mattress.
‘Riccardo!’ he mocked, because in that instant he was angry—with her and with himself—for giving into temptation like this when he had already decided it was time to leave. Especially when the clarity which came with morning told him that this was simply prolonging the madness. But desire weakened a man. And no matter how much he knew he should just get up now and walk away—there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to prevent his lips from brushing over her nipple. ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it?’ He felt her squirm beneath his touch as his hand moved down to capture her molten warmth. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Y-yes. Yes.’
‘This, too?’
Angie closed her eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘And this?’ The movement of his fingers became more insistent. ‘What about this?’
‘You know I do!’ Gasping again, she blocked the doubts which were now rearing their heads. Telling herself instead that it was glorious to be able to reacquaint herself with his body. To run the flats of her hands possessively over the hard flanks of his thighs. To have him kiss her again and then to feel his welcome weight as he slid on top of her, her body accommodating him as he entered her with such power, her heart thundering as he drove into her and again took her to that exquisite place and allowed her the slow, idyllic tumble down.
Afterwards, she trembled, reaching out her hand towards him—wanting intimacy of a different kind. And some kind of reassurance that they hadn’t just done the most stupid thing in the world. ‘Riccardo…’
A nerve flickered at the cheek she was stroking. ‘Mmm?’
‘That was…that was…’
He planted a quick kiss on top of her head and moved away from her. ‘That was great sex, piccola—which probably should never have happened.’
At first she thought he was joking. Teasing her. But one look at the horribly familiar stubborn expression on his face told her that he was deadly serious—even if the fact that he was now climbing out of bed hadn’t driven the point home with scalpel-sharp precision.
‘You’re going?’
This time the boxer shorts did make it onto his body—and were swiftly followed by the rest of his clothes—although he made a faint sound of disapproval when he slid the silk of his now completely crumpled shirt over his broad shoulders.
‘I have to.’
He didn’t say why and Angie began to sift through her memory to try to remember what appointments