Ava wasted a lot of time lounging in the decadent bath, topping up the water to warm it when she got cold, ghting with al her might to escape her unhappy thoughts. She had screwed up again and she clenched her teeth hard and tried again to blank her mind. She donned her pyjamas, blew dry her hair and set her mobile phone alarm to wake her up early. But not early enough to run into Vito as she was convinced that he wouldn"t want to share the breakfast table with her. She took Harvey out for a last run before clambering into her comfortable bed to read until she got sleepy.
When the door opened rather abruptly, Harvey leapt up and barked and Ava sat up with a start. Just about the very last person she was expecting walked in, leaning back against the door to close it. Harvey barked again, tense with suspicion at the interruption. Ava leant out of bed to soothe him into silence and he subsided and slunk back to his favourite spot by the dying fire.
"I saw the light from outside and realised you were stil awake," Vito informed her as she glanced at her stil awake," Vito informed her as she glanced at her watch to note that it was after eleven. "Damien gave me a lift home from the vil age pub."
Absolutely ummoxed by his appearance in her bedroom wearing nothing more than his boxer shorts- his towel ing robe was, after al , stil lying in a heap on her oor-with his hair stil tousled and damp from the shower, Ava was as tense as a bowstring but trying against al the odds to act normal y. "Oh, yes, I met Damien when I was out walking today and he introduced himself. He"s very friendly."
His face tensed, his eyes narrowing with laser precision. "Was he flirting with you?"
"Possibly," Ava responded tactful y, because Damien had been irting like mad with her during their brief conversation, even confessing to her that young single women were scarcer than hens" teeth in the neighbourhood and that he had started at ending the church services in the hope of meeting more people, only to discover that the greater part of the congregation was as old as the hil s.
"I"l warn him o ... I don"t share," Vito delivered darkly.
Ava blinked. "You real y don"t need to warn him of ."
"I don"t do one-night stands either," Vito continued with lashings of a.s.surance.
In the act of dragging her eyes from his truly magni cent physique, Ava blushed like a tongue-tied magni cent physique, Ava blushed like a tongue-tied adolescent and could think of absolutely nothing to say to that when he was clearly, in spite of their earlier di erence of opinion, planning to spend the night with her."But I think, right now, I could be very much into fun, bel a mia," he con ded raggedly, the tough front lurching slightly.
"I don"t know how to do casual," Ava told him jerkily, her nerves get ing the bet er of her vocal cords but the sting of his reproof about casual s.e.x unforgot en.
"I don"t either," Vito murmured silkily, tossing something down on the bedside cabinet and throwing the duvet back and climbing into the bed beside her as though he slept with her every night and it were the most normal thing he could do.
"Vito ..." Ava began in a troubled voice.
Vito ran a nger caressingly down the length of her slender throat to rest where a tiny pulse was beating out her tension below her col arbone. Hot golden eyes looked level y into hers. "I don"t want to sleep alone tonight."
"Oh," Ava said stupidly, but in truth she was trans xed by the admission from such a source. Vito, who needed no one, listened to no one and who never confessed to human weakness was tel ing her something she had never expected to hear from him. He wanted-no, needed-to be with her and he could not have said needed-to be with her and he could not have said anything more calculated to appeal to her.
He brushed his lips very gently across hers, his breath fanning her cheek. "Do you want me to leave?"
Ava froze at the of er. "Er, no-"
"But hopeful y you don"t want me to stay because you wanted me at eighteen and couldn"t have me?" he pressed, evidently concerned that that might be the case.
He was asking her to divorce the past from the present and she wasn"t sure she could do that. "I just want you,"
Ava said gru y, shorn of her usual cool. "But I a.s.sure you that I got over my obsession with you at eighteen."
"I don"t like the idea that I"m taking advantage of you,"
Vito admit ed grimly. "Here I am, I"m not drunk but I"m not sober either, and I"m not even thinking about what I"m doing."
"That"s OK, no big deal," Ava soothed softly, patently unaware of how rare it was for Vito to do anything without thinking it through first. "It"s not important."
"I"m not about to fal in love with you and marry you or anything like that!" Vito warned her, derision at the idea giving his mouth a sardonic twist. "This is an a air, nothing more complex. Don"t overthink it."
"I never thought I would say it but you talk too much,"
Ava told him with sudden amus.e.m.e.nt. "I"m not that daft dreaming teenager you remember-I grew up and I"m not even twenty-two yet. I don"t want to get married for years and years and years!"
years and years and years!"
"I don"t ever want to get married," Vito traded, throwing himself back against the pil ows while wondering how he could possibly be irritated by her total lack of interest in marrying him. Natural y that was good news and she was blessedly free of the careful y presented hypocrisies with which his more usual style of lover sought to set him at his ease. Of course she was ten years younger than he was and that was a fair gap, he acknowledged, tension ltering through his momentary relaxation. In fact it was almost cradle-s.n.a.t.c.hing.
Ava leant over him, her hair brushing a big shoulder while she marvel ed at the conversation they were having. "I don"t want to marry you. I want to play the field and have fun first."
"If Damien Skeel comes on to you, you tel me," Vito spelt out rawly in a knee-jerk reaction that shook him because it seemed to come from some strange place inside him he didn"t recognise. "And you"re not going to be playing the eld and having fun with anyone but me until we"re over. Is that understood?"
A pang pierced Ava. She didn"t like to hear him talk of their a air being over before it had even real y begun. It hurt, just as breaking up would hurt, she reminded herself impatiently. She wasn"t a kid any more. She didn"t cherish a lit le soap bubble fantasy of Vito fal ing madly in love with her and sweeping her down the aisle to an altar. Even as a teenager she had not been that naive.
naive.
"Do you always lay down the law in bed like you"re in the boardroom?" Ava teased.
"I need to with you. You"re a new and very original box of tricks, cara mia," Vito contended, pushing her playful y at against the pil ows to extract a long, drugging kiss that sent her heartbeat into overdrive.
She felt tiny beneath him, crushed by his broad chest and the hair-roughened thigh that had slid between hers.
She was madly aware of her nipples tightening into tingling buds and of the hard press of his arousal against her. He wanted her. For a split second she simply luxuriated in that sweet wonderful knowledge. She wanted him and he wanted her. Final y, the time was right. And then in dismay she recal ed the rather childish tat oo on her hip and resolved to buy some large plasters as soon as she could to conceal that revealing marking before he could see it. He wouldn"t think of her as an adult for long if he caught a glimpse of that.
Vito sat up and tossed back the duvet. "What on earth are you wearing?" he demanded.
"My PJs."
"Gingham just isn"t s.e.xy," Vito p.r.o.nounced with authority and embarked on the but ons.
Ava lay there sti with embarra.s.sment while he stripped o her pyjamas and reminded herself that he had seen it al before and that it was sil y to feel so self-conscious. "Put the light out," she stil urged him.
conscious. "Put the light out," she stil urged him.
"No ... you"re a work of art and I want to savour you,"
Vito countered without hesitation, studying the long svelte line of her pale body. "I was in far too much of a hurry yesterday."
"I"m cold," she told him, hauling up the duvet at speed again.
"No, you"re shy and I never realised that before. Ava Fitzgerald ... shy," Vito commented with rich amus.e.m.e.nt. "Wow ... you"ve turned as pink as a lobster."
"If you refer to lobsters and me in the same sentence again you can go back to your own room!" Ava hissed vitriolical y, blue eyes sparkling like sapphires in her elfin face.
"It"s not happening." With a sudden laugh, Vito crushed her mouth beneath his again, his tongue delving deep in a devouring kiss that sent erotic thril s coursing through her al too ready body. When he discarded his rigid self-discipline and reserve, there was so much pa.s.sion pent-up inside him, Ava thought, thril ed by his approach.
His mouth closed over the swol en peak of her breast and she shivered as he tasted and teased her with his tongue. The glide of his teeth fol owed and she moaned, startled and aroused, the heat at the heart of her beginning to build. Her hips arched and he stil ed her.
"We"re going to do this right this time, bel a mia," Vito informed her, his exotical y handsome features taut with determination.
determination.
"Right?" Ava repeated in disbelief. "Keep the control freakiness for the of ice."
"I am not a control freak," Vito growled.
He so was. Ava cupped his face and connected with smouldering golden eyes that made her heartbeat hammer. He was beautiful. She just loved looking at him, and then he kissed her again with that sensual ful mouth and the ability to think fel away. As he began to lick and kiss his way down over her body her hands dug into his shoulders and suddenly it was a chal enge to breathe. She thought he might be going to do ... that, not something she could imagine doing with anyone, not even him. She tried to urge him back up again but either he failed to take the hint or he deliberately put himself out of reach.
"Vito ... I don"t think I want that," Ava mut ered tightly.
"Give me a one-minute trial," Vito purred, set ling hot, hungry eyes on her. "While you think about it."
Already pink, Ava could feel herself turn hot red and she just closed her eyes, not wanting to be inhibited and a turn-o . His hands smoothed over her thighs and eased them apart. I"m not going to like this but I"l put up with it, she decided, and then he touched her with his tongue on the most super-sensitive part of her body and she almost leapt in the air at the sensation. He made a soothing sound deep in his throat that she found soothing sound deep in his throat that she found incredibly s.e.xy. Slow-burning pleasure turned to raw ecstasy incredibly fast and she went wild, gasping and rising o the bed as an explosive climax engulfed her.
Dazed by it, she felt limp as he shifted over her and sank into her hard and fast. Nothing had ever felt as intense.
Her body had discovered a new level of sensitivity and in its already heightened state, his rapid powerful movements swiftly awakened the throbbing heat and hunger of need again.
"Porca miseria! You make me wild!" Vito panted.
Her every sense was on hyper alert and excitement as she had never known was clawing at her. She didn"t have the breath to respond. Her ngers raked down his back over his exing muscles as she reacted to sensations as close to pleasure as torment, wanting more, wanting, her entire body reaching as her back arched and the glorious splintering high peak of blinding pleasure engulfed her again as a shril cry was wrenched from her.
"On a scale of one to ten that was a twenty," Vito husked in her ear. "I"m sorry, I was rough-"
"I liked it," Ava mumbled in a forgiving mood, both arms wrapped round him, happiness dancing and leaping through her limp, satiated body like sunlight on a dul wintry day.
"You"re miraculous, gioia mia," Vito said thickly, an almost bemused look in his stunning dark eyes as he bent down awkwardly and dropped a kiss on her nose.
bent down awkwardly and dropped a kiss on her nose.
But he then freed her from his weight and proximity so fast that her hands literal y trailed o him and she half sat up in surprise as he strode into the bathroom. He had used contraception, she reminded herself dizzily.
Miraculous? Was that good? Her mind was ful of words like, "astonishing, magni cent, unbelievable". Even so, she wished he hadn"t left her so suddenly. As that thought occurred to her Vito reappeared and swept up his robe to put it on. Ava blinked. He wasn"t coming back to bed? Perhaps he was hungry.
Vito had got halfway to the door before Ava spoke.
"Where are you going?"
"To bed." Vito half turned back to her, a brow slightly quirked as though he wondered why she was asking such an obvious question of him.
Such fury shot through Ava that she felt light-headed with it. "Oh, so that"s it for tonight, is it? Having got what you wanted, you just walk out on me?"
Vito swung al the way round and level ed stunned dark eyes on her. "I always sleep in my own bed ... it is not meant as an insult or any kind of statement."
"You mean you never spend the night with anyone?"
Ava prompted, ut erly disconcerted by the news.
"I like my privacy," Vito admit ed a shade curtly, unable to understand why she was complaining when no other woman ever had.
"Wel , you can have al the privacy you want from me,"
"Wel , you can have al the privacy you want from me,"
Ava snapped back at him. "But let me make one thing clear-if you walk through that door you don"t get back in again on any pretext!"
His eyes shimmered and narrowed, his face tensing with the surprise and considerable hauteur of a male unaccustomed to any form of rejection from a woman.
"You can"t be serious."
"That"s the way it is, Vito. Take it or leave it. I thought the practice of droit de seigneur went out with the Crusades and you"re not going to treat me like a late-night snack and get away with it!" Ava slung tempestuously as she punched a pil ow, doused the light to leave him poised in darkness and lay down again.
Vito opened the door, hesitated-fatal y, he later realised. He thought of waking up beside Ava. He shed his robe where he stood.
As Ava felt the mat ress give beneath his weight she thought about the power of "miraculous" s.e.x over a male and it made her want to punch him more than ever. He was spoilt by too much money and too many eager-to-please women.
"Am I expected to cuddle as wel ?" Vito enquired with sardonic bite.
"If you value your life, stay on your own side of the bed," Ava advised bluntly.
Silence fel , a silence laden with nerve-racking undertones. Ava grimaced in the darkness and wished undertones. Ava grimaced in the darkness and wished she had kept quiet. You could lead a horse to water but you couldn"t make it drink, she reminded herself wryly, a situation not improved by the fact that he was stubborn as a mule. He didn"t do the cuddly sleeping-together stu but she didn"t think she could do an a air without a ection at the very least. Who are you kidding? she asked herself. She was only at the castle for another two weeks and the minute the party was done, she would be history. She needed to learn how to take each day as it came just the way she had done in prison, but there was no way on earth that she would live according to his rules alone.
"I shouldn"t have lost my temper with you about Ol y"s room," Vito mused very quietly.
"I shouldn"t have gone ahead and touched it without speaking to you about it rst," Ava traded, her sti ness receding a lit le.
"I used to go in there and sit in the months after the funeral," Vito volunteered curtly. "Fortunately I managed to wean myself o that habit, so there was no reason to leave the room the way it was while he was alive."
Ava grit ed her teeth and bit back hasty words because Vito was a sti -upper-lip kind of male. "Why should you have had to wean yourself o going in there?" she nal y asked. "There was no harm in it if it gave you comfort."
"It was a weird thing to do," Vito a.s.serted in a tone that warned her that he expected her to agree with him on warned her that he expected her to agree with him on that score.
Ava su ered a truly appal ing desire to hug him but she imagined him shaking her o and didn"t move a muscle in his direction. "No, it wasn"t weird. It was completely natural. He was on your mind. You didn"t need to ght o the urge as if it was wrong. You"re just terri ed of feeling emotion, aren"t you? But al you did was make it harder for yourself."
"I am not terri ed of feeling emotion!" Vito grated in disbelief.
Ava begged to disagree in silence. Macho man had not been able to cope with the threatening desire to sit in his kid brother"s room occasional y and quite typical y he had wal ed his grief up inside himself, convinced that that was the best way.
"I"m not," Vito repeated doggedly, wondering why he had conversations with her that he never had with anyone else while trying to recal emotional moments without success.
Ava smiled and went to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
FLOWERS would be old-fashioned, Vito reasoned ve days later, during a boardroom meeting at his London headquarters that he was nding unbelievably tedious.