She thought of Milly and stiffened.
Misunderstanding her silence, Cristiano pulled away. “Don’t you dare tell me you don’t want this,” he chastised.
“I do,” she said honestly, knowing that her heart was leading her terribly astray and not caring. “But not there.”
Again, he misunderstood. His brows knitted together as he stared at her. “Because of him? Did you share that room with him?”
“There’s the guest room downstairs,” she reminded him, not wanting to speak of Angus again, and Cristiano carried her there without another moment’s hesitation. Ava briefly remembered that the reception area was public, and that they could have been interrupted if bad timing had intervened. It didn’t; they weren’t.
He slipped into the spare room, and pushed her back against the door, as he had in the kitchen. “You should have told me you were divorced,” he said darkly, cupping her face while he kept her pinned with his body.
Ava closed her eyes. “Don’t talk. I don’t want to think, Cris. For whatever reason, you make me feel like I don’t care about anything exc
ept this. I just want to feel. Please.”
His laugh was a frustrated sound. “Yes,” he agreed finally, pulling away from the door and easing her onto the bed. It necessitated his breaking the physical contact and she made a noise of protest instantly. “I have a week to enjoy what you can do to me, Ava, and I don’t intend to waste a moment.”
A week.
A week.
She held onto the words like a mantra. Only a week, and then he’d be gone. And she could spend that week building enough new memories with him to sustain her for the rest of her life.
She would never love another man. She would never let another man make love to her. This was it. Her one chance to enjoy what Cristiano could offer.
“Make love to me, Cris. I don’t want to regret anything when this week’s over.” She pulled at his shirt, and lifted it over his head, then lifted onto her elbows so she could run her tongue over his broad, muscled chest.
“I want to feel everything you can do to me,” she promised, gripping his shoulders and bringing him down on top of her. “You said last night that we had so much to learn; so much more to discover. Show me.” Her eyes were wide as she stared into his. “Show me now.”
He felt something strange in his chest; something he didn’t want to analyse. “On one condition,” he promised, sliding a finger beneath her underwear and into the heart of her being.
She nodded, no longer capable of speech.
“I never want to hear you mention Angus Edwards again. I want to forget, when I am with you, that you were ever with him. He is nothing to us. He wasn’t then; and he isn’t now. You loved me, as I loved you. Your marriage to him was … an irrelevancy.”
He was so right.
“Promise me you will not mention that man.”
She nodded, but her heart was breaking. With such passion and such love, how had they managed to ruin everything?
“He’s just a friend. You don’t need to feel threatened by him.”
His face darkened. “You are still friends.”
“Yes.”
He slid another finger into her core, and began to massage her most sensitive nerve endings. He had a truly unfair advantage, with so much more experience and an apparently flawless memory for what drove her wild. She dug her nails into his shoulders, as she felt a flash of orgasm pierce her mind.
“Not for the next week,” he demanded, leaning forward and pulling a nipple into her mouth. He rolled his tongue around its edge, then pressed his teeth against it just enough to send a wave of pleasure from the tip to her heart.
“Don’t think about him,” she begged through rasping breaths. “Just this.” And she lifted her hips in a silent plea for him to take her once more.
He laughed thickly. “That will come,” he murmured. “But I want to show you how truly fearsome your pleasure can be now.”
“Fearsome?” She murmured, her breathing ragged as the orgasm began to take over her body.
“Mmm,” he promised. His eyes lifted to the top of the bed. He gripped her wrists and guided them to the metal bars. “We are going to play a game,” he said with the kind of smile that sent her soul soaring into space.