His touch had set her flesh alight. She had not been able to control her reaction to him. It had taken over her common sense, her principles and morals.
She had wanted him.
She still wanted him.
The pulse of her blood was still reverberating through her body like a tiny bell struck by a sledgehammer. She could still feel where his long, thick finger had been. If she squeezed her thighs together, she could recreate the delicious sensation of him touching her so boldly, so possessively. And that was just his finger! What if he were to...?
No.
She slammed the brakes on her traitorous imaginings. She could not, would not, go there. He was off-limits for a host of reasons.
He was her enemy.
He only wanted her to prove a point.
She was a trophy he wanted to collect just like a big-game hunter. He would hang her up on his wall of sexual conquests. He would mock her as soon as he had finished with her.
He didn’t have a heart. He was not capable of feeling anything for her other than lust.
Bella wrenched herself out of her clothes, tossing them to the floor as she stomped to the en suite. But showering did nothing to quell the aching, pulsing need of her flesh. If anything, it made it worse. She was hyper-aware of her body, of all its nerves and sensations and needs. It was as if her skin had turned itself inside out.
She wrapped herself in a towel and went back to her bedroom, but it was impossible to even think of sleeping. She looked at the bed, and her brain immediately conjured up an image of Edoardo lying there waiting for her. He was so tall he would have taken up most of the mattress. In his arms downstairs she had felt tiny and dainty, feminine and all hot, sensual woman.
She imagined him naked on her bed, his muscled body lean, cut, carved and aroused.
She let out a stiff curse, veered away from the bed and looked out of the window. The moon was high in the sky, casting a silvery glow over the rolling fields. She rested her forehead against the glass of the window and closed her eyes and groaned.
She heard a sound of a door opening and closing downstairs and opened her eyes. She watched as Edoardo took Fergus outside for his last comfort stop. He waited near the parterre garden, his tall figure so still and silent as the dog went about his business in the shadows.
Bella was transfixed.
The moonlight captured Edoardo’s arresting features in relief. He looked like a dark knight or warrior fighting some internal battle of his own. His jaw was locked tight and his fists were thrust into the pockets of his trousers. His broad shoulders were fixed in position, the length of his spine straight and grimly determined. His brow was heavily furrowed, tense in fierce concentration.
Then, as if he sensed her watching him, he turned and locked gazes with her.
Bella felt the shock of the visual connection like a punch to her solar plexus. Her heart kicked like a horse’s hoof against her breastbone. Her breathing stalled and her mouth went dry.
His eyes read her mind as surely as his hands and mouth had read her body only half an hour ago.
She jumped back from the window like someone leaping away from a roaring blaze. She clutched at her chest, sure her heart was going to flop like a goldfish tossed out of its bowl and land on the carpet at her feet.
What was wrong with her?
She wasn’t a teenage girl experiencing her first crush. She was an adult, a mature, sensible adult who was about to become engaged to a man she loved and admired. She had no right to be lusting after a man she didn’t even like.
It was shocking.
It was immoral.
It was tempting.
She grabbed twin handfuls of her hair and castigated herself. ‘No. No. No.’
She heard the stairs creaking as Edoardo’s firm tread came up to her floor. Her heart skipped another beat. She held her breath, her body poised, every nerve super-alert, her self-control and resolve gone to some far-off place she couldn’t access even if she wanted to.
But then there was silence.
Nothing but an empty, hollow silence, apart from the lone hooting of an owl as it flew past her window, the sound of its wings moving through the air like a velvet cape being swished around someone’s shoulders.
CHAPTER SIX
BELLA wasn’t sure what woke her. She hadn’t even realised she had been asleep, but she must have been because when she opened her eyes and checked the clock, it was close to four in the morning. She pushed back the covers and sat up, straining her ears in the eerie silence.
She didn’t hear a thing for a full minute or so and then she heard a faint groan. Her skin lifted in goose bumps, as if a ghost’s hand had touched her.