If he could do it, why couldn’t she?
Why notchooseto burn?
All she had to do was take care of her heart, she thought, as it beat too hard. Much too hard, there in her chest. She just needed to make sure this all stayed sophisticated. And that she didn’t get too...silly about this. About him. Because these were games people played all the time, and that meant she could, too. She was sure she could, no matter how dangerously attractive he was.
That in mind, Annika made her way back to her room and, without meaning to, curled up beneath the blanket on the bed and fell asleep.
Something she was only aware of when she woke up as the plane began its descent.
This time, when she walked out into the main cabin, Ranieri beckoned her into the seat beside him. And maybe she should have worried about how eager she was to take the place he offered her. Maybe she should have questioned why it was that the wedding she hadn’t even wanted had turned her around this much. It was only a wedding, after all. Not even one she’d had a hand in planning. She knew it was practically fashionable these days to have any number of weddings, follow them up with divorces, and treat it all like a series of amusing parties.
But Annika wasn’t that woman. She wasn’t sure, as she sat there next to Ranieri feeling a little bit silly and entirely too giddy, that she even wanted to be that kind of woman. She hadn’t expected to find her wedding moving, but she had. She couldn’t see rushing to have another one.
Still, what she really kept thinking about was the limousine afterward, his hand beneath her skirt, his clever fingers moving through her wet heat—
Or maybe, came a voice inside her,it’s the sex part you don’t know how to handle.
She blew out a breath. And dived into a related topic she really had no interest whatsoever in discussing. The innocence she’d held on to all this time, without even meaning to. Not really. The innocence she was suddenly horrified to imagine was the reason he had always looked at her with such disdain—since it was the very opposite of the sort of sophistication he was known for, wasn’t it?
“Is the reason you didn’t touch me again after what happened in the back of the car because...” Annika could feel embarrassment coil, hard and hot, deep inside her. “Is it because you could tell?”
He took his time turning his head so he could gaze upon her and she remembered, in a distant way, that she’d used to think that he looked brutal. That was how masculine he was. That was how intense he looked, always.
But these days all she saw was the stark beauty of the man. As if one taste of him had made it impossible for her to see anything else.
As if she’d imprinted on him.
Even when he raised those dark brows of his as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. An expression he wore often in her presence, but it was amazing how differently she felt about it now. When she could still feel the press of his mouth to hers. When she could still feel his hard fingers, deep inside her.
“Let me hasten to assure you, Annika, that I have been perfectly able to discern a woman’s pleasure for some time.” His voice was icy, but his golden gaze was hot. “In my opinion, a man cannot call himself a man unless he is capable of making a woman happy. It is my understanding that American men...” Ranieri shrugged. “Perhaps they do not deserve to use the term.”
That lined up with a great many things she’d heard over the years, particularly from her college friends.
But, “That isn’t what I meant,” she said. “Although it is interesting.”
Fascinating, more like it. She was still slippery at the very thought of the pleasure he’d given her, and there was a part of her that simply wanted to beg him to do it again. To keep doing it. To make her feel things she’d had no idea could be like that. His hand wasn’t like hers. It was so big. His fingers blunt and long.
He’d put theminsideher.
She had to fight back a shudder, though she could feel goose bumps all over her anyway.
“What did you mean, then?” he asked, in that way he had that made her think he knew the location of each and every goose bump on her body. “What do you think I could tell besides the fact you came apart in my hands? And so beautifully?”
Annika would have to add that to the list of things she’d had no idea people could just...talk about. She’d read a lot of books, certainly, but it hadn’t occurred to her that in real life, a man might actually say such things to a woman. Just sit here andsaythem.
And she realized she’d been too busy thinking it all through when those relentless gold eyes of his seemed to soften and he reached over to run his knuckles over her cheek.
That was also when she realized that she was blushing. A lot.
But she needed to take this seriously regardless of whether or not she was bright red, because she felt she had to make this declaration. She’d talked it over with her friends. There had been votes for and against. Some thought, given the realities of their relationship, that she wasn’t required to tell him anything. She could simply...see how it all went. Others were convinced that Annika, personally, would like it better if there were no surprises. Though she wasn’t sure she believed anything they said, because all of her friends seemed to think that Ranieri, renowned the world over for his many love affairs, would not react well to the news anyway.
I’m not sure that man has ever met another virgin in his life, one of her friends had said.
But then, Annika rather thought her friends wanted him to react badly and keep his distance as a result. They had all been united on one thing: that the man who had been such a thorn in her side these last few years didn’t deserve her.
Annika felt compelled to tell him anyway. Even if her friends were right that he would hate it.
Even if that means he never touches you again?a voice inside her asked.