“Because I can leave now, if you need to sleep.”
“Or?”
His eyes were lightly mocking. “Or, I can stay a little longer.”
She sighed softly. “Yes, please. Stay.”
He’d meantto stay only another hour at most, but somehow, he’d fallen asleep, and he cursed to realise the sun was already up, meaning his ability to hide from her little ward was made far more difficult.
Beside him, Charlotte swore.
“We fell asleep.”
He felt unusually guilty. He’d never dated a woman with a child, he realised. Sex was easy when it was only two people to consider, but the addition of a third, and a child who couldn’t know what they were doing, made everything higher stakes and far more complicated.
Besides which, he’d never dated a woman anywhere like this—usually Alessio entertained in his own luxurious home, where he had an army of servants and yet an overarching assumption of complete privacy. Tiptoeing around took him back to his teenage years, when he would sneak women into his bedroom under cover of darkness, to avoid his father finding out.
Not, he later realised, that his father would have particularly cared. He’d always been proud of Alessio’s reputation with women.
“I meant to leave,” he said with true remorse. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she waved a hand through the air. “But I’m afraid you’re trapped here now.”
He arched a brow. “That holds more appeal than you might realise,” he smirked, grabbing her wrist and pulling her down on top of him so she laughed. He lifted a hand and covered her mouth, smothering the sound, and a second later, chose another method, kissing her instead, until her laugh was swallowed up deep inside of him.
He wanted her like he’d never wanted anything in his life.
Internally, he swore, because she was more addictive than he’d known a woman could be. While he liked sex, he’d always been reasonably ‘take it or leave it’ as to the partner. As callous as it sounded, one woman wasn’t more special or desirable than the next. He just liked sex. But sex with Charlotte was…something else, and despite the fact heknewshe had commitments and had to get up, he wasn’t capable of listening to common sense. He moved quickly, rolling her onto her back and reaching over her for the condoms he’d stashed in her bedside table, putting it on as quickly as he could and then pushing between her legs.
“Charlotte?” He asked sternly, because hell, he wanted her so much he hadn’t even stopped to make sure she felt the same.
Her eyes though were fevered, her cheeks flushed, and she lifted her hips, drawing him inside and exclaiming with relief, as though they hadn’t slept together in eons, not simply hours.
It was quick. Far too quick for a man like Alessio, but they moved as one, passion driving them to new heights, his body taking everything she had to offer, kissing her so she wouldn’t cry out, his hands running over her completely, marking her in some silent, complicated way as his, until he felt her muscles spasm around him, and his own control burst from his grip, his own explosion intense and impossible to curtail.
He collapsed on top of her, heavy and spent, and lay there for the longest possible time—not long at all—before rolling to the side, aware she needed to get to work and the boy who had no idea there was another man in the house.
“I—could get used to waking up like this,” she said with a face that was still flushed by passion, her pale hair forming a curtain too quickly for him to see anything other than the hint of a smile. And then, she was up, dressing with lightning speed, moving to the door and blowing him a kiss before doubling back, grabbing the mystery he’d been half-reading the night before and tossing it towards him.
“Keep yourself busy. I’ll let you know when the coast is clear.”
The idea cameto him somewhere around page one hundred and seven, and not for any specific reason related to the story. While his eyes were reading the words on the page, his mind was going over the night they’d shared, their bodies’ insatiable needs for one another, and more than that, he was thinking about her life here in this tiny town, in his mother’s pub, raising her nephew, sacrificing everything for everyone and despite the fact Alessio had been solely focused on himself and his business, for as long as he could remember, he wondered what it would be like to do something for Charlotte. Something really special. Something that she’d remember forever.
And okay, it would be a little something for him too, because whisking her out of this place for a day, and maybe a night if he could make it work with her schedule, would give them the time and freedom to explore this without restraint.
He wanted to hear her scream with pleasure again, like she had on the first night. He wanted to know he was the reason for that.
But first, he had to convince her…
Chapter8
“ARE YOU WORKING TODAY?”
Charlotte sipped her coffee, glad he’d stayed in her room while Dash got ready for school, glad he was still in her apartment now, even though she should have been downstairs already, attacking the kitchen duties.
“I’m doing dinner. Why?”
“Could someone cover your shift?”