Chapter 7 #2
Nat stayed in the sitting room till late that night, watching television, too keyed up to sleep. Julian had long since gone to bed, and Alessandro, after a brief appearance to eat his dinner, had taken his laptop into his equally barren study and stayed there.
A boring movie was on and Nat had a headache from forcing herself to concentrate on it and not on what had happened in the kitchen earlier.
On how her skin still flamed where Alessandro’s mouth had been.
But force herself she did. Because it was better than thinking about how his voice had oozed over her like warm treacle and how she hadn’t bothered to stop him because she’d wanted his mouth on her skin.
Wanted to bury her fingers in his hair, hold him there. Arch her back. Beg for more.
God… this was madness. Madness that shouldn’t have happened.
Because she knew her heart, knew how easily it got in too deep, how prone it was to building castles in the air.
And that was plain stupid with a man who was obviously still so messed up over his wife’s death that he hadn’t even been able to look at her after.
Hell, he’d run away to his office rather than face her.
She needed to remember that. No matter how much he stirred her pulse and her senses and every feminine instinct she had. It was time to rely on other instincts – survival instincts.
The movie ended and she reluctantly made her way to bed.
Alessandro’s door was open at the end of the corridor but, doggedly, she diverted her attention, checking on Julian instead.
Flo, who’d been on his bed last time she checked, was no longer there and Nat vaguely wondered where she was as she pulled up Julian’s covers and turned out his lamp.
Wandering into her bedroom, she expected to see Flo stretched out on her bed. But, no, the cat wasn’t there, either and she knew she wasn’t downstairs because she’d just come from there.
‘Flo?’ she whispered into the darkened hallway, sticking her head out of her doorway.
A distant meow turned her head until she was staring at the open door at the end of the hallway. Well, crap… Flo was in Alessandro’s bedroom.
Just keep it out of my room. That’s what he’d said. And given how much she’d screwed up today by not pushing Alessandro away, by groaning and practically arching her back as his tongue had licked sauce off her boobs, she needed to take action here.
She needed to get Flo out.
She was sure Alessandro was still in his study, so it was just a matter of sneaking in, grabbing Flo then getting the hell out of Dodge. Tiptoeing down the hallway she was grateful for the snowy white carpet. It muffled her footsteps to perfection.
Now, if only it could do the same for the erratic hammer of her heart.
As she drew level with the doorway she whispered, ‘Flo,’ again.
An answering meow came back from the bedroom and Nat thought seriously bad thoughts about her pet for a moment or two.
A low lamp threw a small glow around the room as she poked her head around the corner to find it empty of a large Italian male but definitely containing one small tortoiseshell cat.
Crap. Flo was sitting in the middle of Alessandro’s bed like an Egyptian cat goddess, licking her paws like she was the rightful owner.
‘Flo,’ she hissed as she took a step inside, absently noting the minimalist quality of the rest of the house carried through to his bedroom. ‘Come here – now!’ she demanded, keeping her voice low as she sidled up to the bed.
Alessandro’s bed.
Flo stopped her fur-licking momentarily and regarded Nat with half-closed eyes before stretching her leg in the air and cleaning it with long firm kitty strokes from her little pink tongue.
Shit!
Nat almost screamed in frustration, knowing she was going to have to climb on to Alessandro’s enormous bed and retrieve the recalcitrant pet.
As she hovered in a quagmire of indecision, a door opened from the middle of the far wall and a semi-naked Alessandro stepped out.
His hair was wet and the only thing stopping him from being totally nude was one white towel riding low on his lean hips.
Nat’s mouth dried to dust. She didn’t mean to ogle but she also couldn’t look away. The soft lamp bathed his body in a beautiful bronze glow and, backlit by the en suite’s light, his face looked darker and more dangerous than ever. His gaze was intense and unnerving in his grim-faced way.
‘Oh… er, sorry. I didn’t know you were… Flo came in.’ She averted her gaze to point at the guilty party like a lawyer holding up Exhibit A in a courtroom. The guilty party purred loudly into the tense silence. ‘I was just trying to… retrieve her.’
He didn’t say anything for several beats, during which Nat was fairly certain her heart had stopped. When he did say something, it wasn’t what she expected or wished to be reminded of.
‘I… apologise for this afternoon.’
Dear Lord, she did not want to talk about this now – not with him in a towel. In fact, she didn’t want to talk about it at all. She was perfectly fine pretending it hadn’t happened.
‘I gave you assurances that your virtue would be safe.’
‘It’s fine,’ she dismissed, her voice practically a squeak, her eyes lifting and fixing on his face. And not on anything below his chin.
But he shook his head, clearly wanting to get it off his chest. ‘No. It’s just that… I mustn’t… I can’t… get involved. My wife…’ He paused, raked a hand through his hair. ‘It was inappropriate… It won’t happen again. You have my word, Nathalie.’
And that’s where it all fell apart for her. He couldn’t call her Nathalie and not expect her to melt into a puddle. Not the way he said it – like a sigh. Like a whisper from the devil. Not after what had happened this afternoon.
‘Nathalie’ inflamed, it didn’t soothe.
A startling urge to cross the room and whip his towel away was so strong she could actually see herself doing it in her mind’s eye. See herself sinking to her knees. Thankfully Flo chose that moment to meow loudly and spring up from her reclining position to strut within reaching range.
Thank God for kids and animals – where would they have been today without either of them? Naked on the kitchen floor, that’s where. Going at it on his bed.
She blinked at the images before ruthlessly dragging her wayward mind back on track.
‘Of course. It was just…’ She stroked Flo’s fur as she cast around for something to say, some syndrome or insanity plea to blame it on. But with him nearly naked before her, her brain wasn’t functioning that well. ‘Impulsive.’
She picked Flo up and squeezed her tight.
‘And you’re right, it won’t happen again. Can’t.’ If she said it out loud maybe she’d believe it, right? ‘Also, sorry,’ she said again as she slowly backed away, ‘for the…’ She gestured at his nakedness as she continued her backward trajectory. ‘Flo’s intrusion. That won’t happen again either.’
And with that promise made, she did exactly as he had done earlier – she turned on her heel and fled the room.