‘Not following you.’
‘I’m a little rusty in that particular area.’ She gave a brittle, nonchalant laugh, but inwardly every part of her felt exposed, vulnerable and uncertain. What on earth was she doing? She wasn’t like the women she imagined him being drawn to; she lacked the finesse and the experience. Did she want to risk the humiliation of having him look at her with amusement and disappointment just because she needed to know what she had missed all those years ago? Because, sure, the shelter would be a happy bonus, but she was already yielding for reasons that were far more complex than the desire to save her friend’s shelter. Shelter or no shelter, she would never have allowed herself to be manipulated into doing something she didn’t want to do.
Alessandro frowned. He had been quick to assert that his proposal was a non-negotiable arrangement designed to assuage the inconvenient need he had to sleep with her and thereby get her out of his system. He had been even quicker to inform her that he would not be investing it with any bells and whistles. It would be sex, no more or less. Yet, he found that he didn’t care for the cool approach she was taking. Hell, she was still sitting a million miles away from him!
‘I’ll cope. Does that mean that you’ve made your mind up?’
‘Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I’ve been curious. Maybe we do need to...eh...take what we have a step further.’ Her heart was beating like a drum. ‘But if I accept,’ she continued firmly, because it was important for him to know that she wasn’t making a decision based on blackmail or unfair persuasion, ‘it’s not to do with the shelter. Much as I love Beth, I would never do something I didn’t want to because of her.’
‘Right now, the only thing that matters is that we’re going to be lovers.’ He gave her a slashing, sexy smile and patted the space next to him on the sofa. ‘So why don’t you come and sit next to me and we can continue bonding with a little less physical distance between us?’
Chase thought she could actually hear her own painful breathing. Fear and apprehension at touching him, being close to him, warred with unbridled excitement. She had stepped off the side of the precipice and she had no idea what she had let herself in for but it was an adventure she needed to have. It was a situation over which she could only hope to exercise control and, for someone who had constructed walls of control all around her, it was a daunting prospect. But she had done daunting before. Many, many times. She could handle daunting.
‘How long do you think this will take?’
‘Come again?’ Alessandro had never had to fight this hard for anyone. Sexual attraction had proved stronger than his very justifiable bitterness and dislike. He had had to swallow a lot and yet, having done that, having got her to the place he wanted, surely the going should get less tough?
‘How long do you think it will take before we get past this...thing? A night? A couple of days?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Alessandro raked his fingers through his hair and frowned at her. ‘And why are we talking about timelines, anyway? All I want to do right now is touch you, so why don’t we dispense with the conversation and get down to business?’ He sprawled back, arms extended on the back of the sofa, legs loose and open.
He was the very essence of man at his most physical, Chase thought with a shiver, utterly and beautifully masculine; she licked her lips cautiously. She wanted this so badly. It felt as though it was something she had never stopped wanting. She tentatively closed the distance between them to sit like a wooden doll next to him.
‘I feel I should tell you,’ she whispered as Alessandro lazily removed one arm from the back of the sofa to trail it along her neck.
‘You talk a lot,’ he growled and then, almost from nowhere, plucked from thin air, ‘You always did. As though you had too many words inside you that needed to get out.’ He laughed softly, caught unaware by the memory. ‘Do you remember the way you would mention a case file and then force me to have an opinion so that you could practise shooting it down in flames?’
Hell, what was he going on about? He angled his body round and pulled her towards him and it was like the promise of heaven. The undiluted thrill of having her in his arms was incomparable and he urgently sought her mouth, plundering it while his hands moved down to circle her waist. His erection was steel-hard and painful. More than anything else, he wanted to rip down those unattractive jogging bottoms, pull aside her panties and then just thrust into her, hard and fast, until he got explosive relief. There would be time enough to do the whole gentle foreplay stuff later.