Once she had it on she did not feel appreciably less vulnerable.
The ease with which he had taken it off haunted her.
How could she want this man who had hurt her so much? What was she, some kind of masochist? He shrugged off his jacket and left his shirt unbuttoned. He hadn’t been wearing a tie.
While fresh air piped into the vault in case of just such an emergency, the air-conditioning was minimal. It was not stifling, but it was not comfortably cool either and there was some justification for him leaving the shirt undone. That did not make it any easier for her to deal with all that sexy male muscle on display .
Ignoring him and his half-naked appearance, she staggered to the back of the vault. Her legs were still shaky from her close brush with death and lovemaking.
She stepped into a commode the size of an airplane bathroom that had been walled off in one corner of the vault complete with a hi-fold door for
privacy. Pushing the door closed she leaned against it. After several deep breaths she leaned over the tiny sink and splashed cold water onto her face .
There was no mirror but she could feel her hair falling down around her face. She pulled out the combs holding it in a now lopsided bun and finger-combed it. She left it down knowing there was no chance she could get it back into a tidy up-do without a mirror or comb.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled the hi-fold open.
He was standing just on the other side.
Waiting.She sidestepped him.
lt’s free if you need it.”
‘When I was eighteen years old, I had a girlfriend.”
‘That’s not exactly breaking news, Salvatore. Women flock to you like bees to honey.”
He didn’t respond to her sarcastic jibe. ‘Her name was Sofia Pennini . She was beautiful. She was sexy and she was experienced. She was also four years older than I was.”
His opening up like this so shocked her that she found herself stopping in front of him and listening with more attention than she’d been willing to give him in a year.
Muscles in his jaw corded with tension.
‘she seduced me the second time we went out.”
Elisa’s snort of disbelief came as no surprise to Salvatore. In their relationship, he had done all the seducing .
He shrugged in acknowledgement of her skepticism.
‘I had spent my teenage years surrounded by males. The training I received was accompanied by an austere life that did not include exposure to a woman’s sophisticated wiles.”
‘you’ve certainly made up for it since then.”
‘I can do without the commentary. I am trying to tell you something.” And he did not like sharing this memory with her. It made him a fool, but she deserved to know the truth.
‘When I met Sofia I thought I knew the score but the truth was I was a babe in arms compared to her. She knocked me sideways with lust. I could not get enough of her.”
Elisa huffed out a breath and glared at him.
‘l’m supposed to want to hear this?” This evidence of jealousy gave him a small seed of hope.
‘lt is important for what I experienced with her had a great deal to do with how I reacted to you last year.”
Sexy lips firmed in a grim line, she nodded. ‘Go on.”
‘We had been sleeping together for about six weeks when she told me she was pregnant with my baby.”
‘I bet you believed hen” He refused to be baited by the sarcasm.