Chapter Eight
Valenti shifted his weight onto his elbows and looked down into her deep blue eyes. Sex-drugged, beautiful and turning increasingly wary.
He needed to move, put some much-needed distance between a bad decision destined to worsen if he remained where he was.
Yet, he couldn’t move. Or look away.
So he saw exactly when wariness morphed into hurt.
And the chafing he had experienced on the helicopter and so many times since expanded in his chest. He knew it was even more imperative that he rise, leave the bed, draw a definitive line under this catastrophe.
But the longer he looked into her eyes, the more impossible that decision grew.
With a growl torn from deep inside him, he rolled sideways, his arms dragging her against his body, almost of their own volition. He was merely caught in the throes, he decided. Hindsight was a bitch with infuriating twenty-twenty vision, yes, but the world hadn’t quite ended. Yet.
Besides, where the hell was he going to go?
Locking himself in his office was as futile as taking a walk outside. He would need to return to her, eventually. Until this nuisance was taken care of, straying far and leaving her vulnerable was unacceptable.
Is that what you’re telling yourself?
He clenched his teeth against the mocking voice as his breath caught when the hand splayed on his chest hesitantly slid up to the side of his neck. Then higher to cup his jaw. He kissed the inside of her wrist before he could stop himself, revelled in her shaky breath.
‘How’s that working out for you?’ At his frown, her mouth curved in a sultry smile, though her eyes remained wary.
‘What?’
‘Shifting the weight sideways?’ she clarified.
Bewildered laughter barked out of him. ‘Dios mío, do you ever stop?’
Her smile lost a layer of brilliance. ‘I’d rather see what’s coming than be caught unawares. Tell me you’re not plotting ways to tell me you regret what just happened.’
The statement was softly spoken but still packed a punch of challenge.
A significant part of him was disarmed with admiration for her courage. Very few women in his past liaisons, if any, would be bold enough to risk jeopardising their position this soon after sex. They would be simpering and escalating their seduction techniques to entice him into longevity.
But she was not just anyone. She was his ward. Wasn’t that what made this so catastrophic?
Basta!
He ought to see the bright side of this. She was making it easier for him. She already knew this was a mistake and was pre-empting a way to mitigate the disaster for both of them. Why not meet her halfway, put the barriers back in place? Go back to the way things were a week ago?
He hated the way his chest tightened, and his gut clenched at the very thought. It was just the aggravation of having to remain another couple of days in this charged atmosphere they’d existed in so far.
The voice returned to taunt him. Valenti pushed it far away in favour of a better solution to this dilemma.
Surely it was better to extend that truce to the bedroom as well? Keeping Lotte content enough in the cabin would ease his own peace of mind.
He had time, he decided, his senses easing a fraction as her fingers continued to caress his neck. And when the rest of his body followed into that curiously sated state, he allowed the reasoning to take root.
That state screeched to a disgruntled halt when she abruptly moved away, rising to sit on the side of the bed.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’
She shot him a glance over her shoulder, her eyes a fraction darker. ‘Making this easier for you. Isn’t that what you want? Some distance?’ she muttered.
Unease whistled through him at how accurately she read him. ‘I would be exceedingly grateful if you would stop assuming you know what I want,’ he replied anyway because no, he wasn’t one to admit dismay easily.
Her snort was as unladylike as it was adorable.
And he found himself moving once more, pulled by an invisible string that propelled him to her.
Sliding his arm around her waist before she could rise, he caged her between his thighs, pulled her back to his front, stifling a groan at the feel of her soft, silky, endlessly enticing skin against him.
He’d never fallen prey to any form of addiction, but in this moment, he got why it was a thing to be feared.
Triumph whistled through him as she settled against him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. But she only stayed for a moment before she started to strain against him.
‘Stay.’ The prompt was torn from somewhere unnervingly needy inside him.
She startled at the growled command, her eyes once more finding his. ‘Why should I?’
He could’ve gone for the lascivious truth, which was that contrary to what he’d believed, even hoped, he was nowhere done with her as his keenly stirring body was screaming at him.
Instead, he found himself stating a far more exposing alternative.
‘Because it’s snowing heavily outside, and the forecast is for more of the same for the next twenty-four hours.
So your next walk is out of the question.
’ He leaned closer, caught her lobe between his teeth and was rewarded with a sexy little whimper.
‘You get to ask your next question in the comfort of this bed. After I’ve made us some breakfast.’
She shifted, the better to search his face, but in the process wriggling her delectable ass against his growing erection that had him catching another groan before it slipped free. ‘Really?’
He nodded. Then, with his wandering hands sliding up to cup her succulent breasts, he dragged his teeth down the smooth line of her neck. ‘Perhaps not in that exact order.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘I will give you three guesses, querida,’ he said.
With an entirely too arousing moan, she twisted in his arms and slid hers around his neck.
Two days. Forty-eight short hours to get this malaise out of his system.
Then he could get back to his perfected cycle of duty, responsibility and ensuring that permanent stone of guilt lodged in his chest would never be experienced by anyone he held dear.
Her insistence on helping with breakfast earned Lotte a narrow-eyed, growly Valenti, whose breath caught when she giggled and danced out of his reach only to stumble as her legs threatened to give way on rising from the bed.
‘Calma,’ he rasped as he caught her. ‘There’s no need to be up. You need to rest.’
‘All I’ve done since we got here is rest,’ she protested.
That earned her an openly sceptical raised eyebrow, his silver eyes deriding. ‘My memory begs to differ.’
She couldn’t help her smile turning full bloom. ‘Performing mental gymnastics with you is not as challenging as you think. Quite the opposite in fact.’
‘I’m glad to see you thrive on it, whilst giving me grey hairs.’
‘You mean more grey hairs? I’m sure I can find a few if I search hard enough,’ she teased, flicking her fingers through the inky black wavy strands that showed not a single grey.
His growl intensified as he reached for her. She darted out of the room, only to remember she was buck naked. But when she turned, he was filling the whole doorway, hands on hips, an open dare in his face.
She knew returning to the room would mean her not leaving at all, so she shrugged again and sprinted down the stairs.
He followed a handful of seconds later, wearing only his jeans. And it was her turn to have her breath strangle in her lungs as she stumbled backwards towards the kitchen.
‘Two can play at that game, querida. Remember that,’ he advised as he walked past her, trailing his fingers across her collarbone before his hand dropped to cup one breast in an openly hungry caress that made her rethink her decision to start tussling with a maestro.
Thankfully, he took mercy, plucked an apron from a nearby hook and slung it over her head, securing it primly at her waist. Then with a brisk smack of her bottom that had her yelping in delight, he went to the fridge and started pulling out ingredients.
They ate, not at the small dining table, but in front of a roaring fire, with Lotte planted firmly in his lap as he fed her bites from their overflowing plates.
She fought against the swell of contentment that insisted this was the happiest moment in her life. That, as impossible as it was, she wanted time to stop this very instant so she could savour it for as long as possible before the loneliness that dogged her life inevitably took over once more.
She knew she should be thankful for the stark reminder of what he’d said to her in the bedroom before he’d taken thorough possession of her.
This tryst would only be accommodated under his remote cabin roof; the moment they returned to the outside world, he would revert to the near stranger and strict guardian role he preferred.
This was simply a moment in time.
But not even the impending weight of it could dispel the need to obey when he stopped her from rising after their breakfast to take the dishes to the kitchen, instead coaxing her to lay her head against his chest as he wrapped one arm around her back and the other over her hip, his thumbs gliding seductively over her skin, easing her into a deep comfort and serenity she’d never known.
For the first time in her life, Lotte felt no inclination to fill the silence, to challenge this man who had ruled her life from afar for so long.
And when drowsiness overcame her, she didn’t protest when he rose with her in his arms and climbed the stairs, smiling when he tugged the apron from around her before tossing it away.
‘Are you sore?’ he rasped as he kissed his way up her shoulder and jaw to the corner of her mouth.
Lotte wanted to be sophisticated and worldly, but Valenti’s possession was very much evident in the tangible ache of her inner muscles. Biting her lip, she nodded, unable to stop the heat suffusing her face. ‘A little,’ she confessed.