The Italian's One-Night Consequence Read online

  ‘I’m hanging on to my self-control by a thread,’ he confided. ‘Turn around and I won’t be able to predict what might happen. Your eyes do something to me...’

  Maddie laughed. And as his hand moved from breast to ribcage she parted her legs and whimpered with pleasure.

  ‘I wish I could see your face,’ Leo said huskily, and she laughed again.

  ‘I’m glad you can’t. I’d be embarrassed.’

  Leo grunted. He was accustomed to flamboyant women who weren’t easily embarrassed—and certainly not by antics between the sheets. He found her diffidence a turn-on.

  Gently he slipped his hand underneath her white panties, felt the brush of downy hair against his fingers, and as he slid one long brown finger into her wetness he couldn’t prevent a groan of pure sensual enjoyment.

  He found the throbbing bud and she moaned as he began playing with it. She parted her legs further and he cupped her briefly before carrying on with what he’d been doing.

  Maddie feverishly wriggled out of her underwear. Sensation was tearing into her and she found that she could scarcely breathe. When she looked down to see the motion of his hand as he played with her she wanted to pass out from the sheer erotic pleasure of it.

  Letting go of the last of her inhibitions, she gave herself over to what he was doing to her body. The rhythmic stroke of his finger against her core was taking her higher and higher, and her breathing was staccato as she moved against his hand, bucking and arching, and then, as a low groan was wrenched out of her, she toppled over the edge and spasmed against his fingers in an orgasm that went on and on and on, an unstoppable spiral of pleasure.

  Spent, Maddie lay against him, her eyes closed. And then, as she floated back to earth, she turned around and straddled him.

  Strangely, she wanted him even more now, but she would have to give her body time to recover. She linked her fingers behind his neck and smiled.

  ‘That was...wonderful...’ she confessed.

  Leo placed his hands on her waist. He could very nearly circle it with his hands, she was so slender.

  ‘For me too.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was selfish of me to come, but I couldn’t hold off.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to,’ he said roughly. ‘You’ll come again, but next time I’ll be deep inside you, and when you do I’ll see your face and watch when the moment happens.’

  Maddie blushed, because she had never indulged in this sort of sexual banter, and the way he was holding her gaze was such a turn-on that she could almost come again without him having to touch her.

  She buried her face against the side of his neck and felt a pang, something so sharp and painful that she almost drew back—a pang of missing.

  She swept that silly feeling aside and this time she was the one to touch and arouse. She stripped him of his clothing, looked in wonder at his impressive size. When she ordered him to lie back on the sofa, he laughed.

  ‘I guess we should migrate upstairs to a bed,’ she said at one point, in between licking him, teasing him with her mouth and kissing him.

  ‘Why? This sofa does very nicely indeed...’

  Was that because a sofa somehow carried on the one-night stand theme? Maddie wondered.

  She lost herself in the wonder of his glorious body. He was lean and strong, and the dark hair on his chest felt like a declaration of masculinity. He was all man. Alpha male to the very core of him. And she couldn’t get enough of his body, of him.

  This time things moved at a pace that allowed them to explore one another as if they had all the time in the world.

  Where his fingers had been, his mouth explored. He tasted between her thighs until she was practically crying for him to take her all the way. She tasted him as well, and his hands curled into her long hair, directing her so that she knew what felt good for him—although she quickly discovered that she seemed to have a second sense for pleasing him.

  Or maybe it was simply the fact that the novelty of this situation had made him so aroused that whatever she did and wherever she touched it would have the same dramatic effect.

  Leo wanted to hang on. Hell, it shouldn’t be a problem. He was a master when it came to self-control in the bedroom—a guy who knew how to orchestrate sex and time it to perfection. Not so now.

  He couldn’t hang on. He couldn’t find his self-control or any kind of control for that matter. He couldn’t think. He just had to have her before he splintered into a million pieces.

  Whatever world he had entered, it was in a different league from anything he had ever experienced in his life before. Savage want poured through his body in waves that carried the ferocity of a sledgehammer, knocking him for six and wiping out his formidable composure.

  The disconnect between his head and his body had never been greater, but all that was forgotten when he thrust into her and felt her body arch up to meet his, moulding and fitting against him as smoothly as a hand fitted into a glove personally made for it.

  Leo felt as though she had been fashioned for him, her body so perfectly tuned to his that the straightforward business of making love was elevated into an experience beyond description.

  His climax was the most powerful he had ever had, and he only surfaced when it was over and his body was well and truly spent. Then he turned her to face him so that their naked bodies were pressed together.

  ‘Maddie...’ The self-control that had been left at the front door now made its presence known. ‘We didn’t...hell...’ He groaned aloud and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘It’s never happened before but I didn’t use protection. Are you...this is not be a question I should ever have to ask...but are you on the pill?’

  Slumberous green cat’s eyes focused on him and she frowned. ‘No. No, I’m not.’

  How could she have taken a chance like this?

  But then, he thought, she’d taken it for the same reason he had. Because lust had been so much more overwhelming than common sense. Their bodies had been on fire and the notion of protection hadn’t even registered.

  ‘There’s not a lot we can do now...’ She sighed and squirmed, the heat of his body already scattering her thoughts and fogging her mind.

  Leo was astounded at the speed with which he was prepared to immerse himself in that vague assurance, but he reminded himself that he had friends who’d taken months, and in a couple of cases years, to achieve what he’d always been scrupulous in protecting himself against.

  He placed his hand on her waist and shifted. This was a one-night stand. Right about now he should be getting his act together and telling her that it was time for him to go.

  ‘Maddie...’

  ‘I hope you have a good trip back to...to...’

  Maddie was quick to silence any little voice that wanted to promote something more than the one-night stand that was on the table.

  She feathered a kiss on his mouth. ‘To wherever it is you’re going next.’

  ‘London.’ Leo cleared his throat. ‘I’m going straight down to London from here.’

  ‘Well, in that case I hope you have a very good trip back down to London. Say hi to Big Ben for me.’ She traced an idle pattern on his hard, naked chest.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Leo inserted gruffly, without batting an eyelid, ‘that I could explore Dublin for a few days, however...’

  It could work. He could do a few background checks on the store, fill in the blanks. It wouldn’t hurt. And while he was here he could wine and dine this woman who had just made the earth move for him. Wine and dine on a budget, of course, bearing in mind that she thought that he was in the same financial bracket as she was.

  The thought held a great deal of appeal for Leo. He wasn’t ready to chalk this heady experience down as a one-night stand. He was a man who had always had everything he wanted—and certainly every woman he had ever wanted. Having it all, howeve
r, had definite downsides...one of which was a jaded palate. Maddie, from the other side of the world, was like a dose of pure, life-giving oxygen.

  Doubtless this sense of exhilaration would wither and die after a couple of nights, because they had absolutely nothing in common and sex, however earth-moving, was just sex after all, but in the meantime...

  He pulled her back towards him, wanting her all over again. The more he thought about it, the more appealing was the idea of playing truant for a couple of days, of taking time out from life as he knew it.

  ‘Really? You might stay here for a while?’

  Maddie felt as though a cloud she hadn’t even realised had been there had suddenly lifted to reveal a bank of unexpected sunshine.

  ‘There’s nothing more exciting than exploring a new city.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ Maddie said.

  Leo grinned. ‘Let’s go for a bit more enthusiasm,’ he encouraged,

  Maddie hesitated. She’d geared herself up for a one-night stand, at the end of which she’d wave goodbye to this stranger who had filled her life with joy for a brief period of time. A two-or three-night stand posed a few more issues, and top of the list was the fact that she hadn’t been entirely truthful with him.

  ‘Okay.’ She smiled and wriggled against him, and felt the jut of his erection against her belly. ‘I’d really like that. But there’s something I feel I ought to tell you...’

  ‘Please don’t tell me that you’re a married woman with a jealous husband hiding in a cupboard somewhere.’

  ‘Of course I’m not!’

  ‘Then what?’

  He gently pushed her onto her back and rose up over her, nudging her with the tip of his throbbing erection, swiping it slowly against her core until she was losing track of what she wanted to tell him.

  No condoms? No problem. There were myriad ways to pleasure one another without penetration, and in the morning they could stockpile protection.

  ‘I’m not quite who you think I am. I mean, you’ve got the major details, but there’s one little thing... You know the store?’

  ‘The store?’ Leo nudged a little further into her moistness, clearly only half registering what she was saying because his body was already taking over and deciding where its priorities lay. Not in a heart-to-heart discussion.

  ‘Where we met.’

  ‘Ah, that store. What about it?’

  ‘I’m not actually a shop assistant there.’

  ‘No? Shoplifter?’

  Maddie laughed. In the short space of time she’d known him she’d found that he had a brilliant sense of humour.

  ‘Owner, as a matter of fact.’

  Leo stilled and slowly pulled back so that he was staring down at her, scarcely believing his ears. ‘Owner...?’

  Sensing the shift in atmosphere, Maddie laughed nervously. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she assured him. ‘I haven’t suddenly turned into a crashing snob.’

  ‘Owner? Please explain. I’m all ears.’

  He slung his muscular legs over the side of the sofa and began getting dressed.

  Maddie didn’t try to stop him—if he wanted to leave then he should leave—but she felt as though a black hole had opened up beneath her feet.

  ‘My grandfather owned the store.’

  Maddie was beginning to feel uncomfortable now, and disadvantaged because she was still naked and vulnerable. So she too began to sling on the clothes she had earlier discarded in such excited haste.

  From having their bodies pressed so closely together they might have been one, they now stood awkwardly in the dimly lit living room, facing one another like sparring opponents in a ring.

  Maddie had no idea why or how this had occurred. But past experience had taught her the wisdom of developing a tough outer shell, and it came into effect now, stiffening her backbone, lending defiance to her glass-green eyes.

  ‘I’m listening,’ Leo said softly.

  ‘I never met him. He and my mother fell out before I was born and never reconciled. But when he died a short while back he left the entire store to me, along with this house.’ She gestured to encompass the building in which they were standing. ‘And a few other bits and pieces. I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront with you, but I didn’t see the point of launching into my back story.’

  ‘I had no idea...’ Leo said slowly.

  Tommaso’s granddaughter. This changed everything, and already the shutters were falling into place. He didn’t believe in age-old enmities, and he certainly didn’t believe in taking sides in a feud in which he had played no part, but something stirred in him—a sense of injustice done to his grandfather. Was this what they meant when they said that blood was thicker than water?

  That aside, he intended to buy the place—whoever or whatever stood in his way—and the woman standing in front of him now was no longer the lover he wanted to keep in his bed but his adversary in a deal he intended to close.

  ‘I don’t see that it changes anything.’ Maddie winced at the plea hidden behind her words.

  ‘It changes everything,’ Leo said softly, heading towards the door.

  ‘Because you’ve found out I’m not impoverished?’ Maddie threw at him, half following, but only because she was so angry and bewildered.

  ‘You’ll find out why soon enough...’

  Pride held her back and killed the questions rising fast inside her, but when she heard the front door slam she sagged onto the sofa.

  She didn’t care. He meant nothing to her! She wasn’t going to beat herself up about her decision to go to bed with him and she certainly wasn’t going to waste time asking herself what he’d meant by that parting shot.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MADDIE HAD HUNDREDS of steps to take and a veritable long and winding road to go before she could ever begin to return the store she had inherited to its former glory. But, despite the fact that she had no formal training in business, she discovered she had an innate talent for the work and enjoyed the straightforward process of planning a way forward.

  If you could call climbing a mountain straightforward...

  Certainly over the next fortnight work occupied her mind to the point where she could almost come close to forgetting about her encounter with Leo.

  Almost but not quite.

  In the quiet hours she spent in the house, meticulously working out how to pull it apart so that she could put it together again, he invaded her thoughts like a stealthy intruder, finding his way into all the nooks and crannies of her mind.

  She had no regrets about what they had done. She had taken a risk and lived in the moment and she had enjoyed every minute of it. But she had to ask herself whether she had somehow inherited her mother’s gene for always picking the wrong man. First Adam and then Leo.

  With finances for moving forward with the store’s overhaul now in place, thanks to a sympathetic bank manager who was as keen as she to see the store resume its rightful place as the leading light in the city centre, there was just one hurdle left to overcome.

  ‘There’s a buyer waiting in the wings,’ her lawyer, Anthony, had told her three days previously, ‘and he is prepared to be hostile to get the store.’

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  The house had been remortgaged, dozens of valuable paintings and artefacts which had been bought when her grandfather had been living in boom times had been sold, and sufficient capital acquired to support the loan from the bank. Maddie had got little sleep while putting it all together, and she wasn’t going to have the rug pulled from under her feet at the last minute.

  But Anthony had told her that with a good enough offer on the table he would find it hard not to advise a sale. He had then gone into the complexities of the money she was being lent, and interest rates and time frames, and Maddie had zoned out, focusing only on the fight that lay ahead of her.
/>   More than ever, as she fought to get things in order, it seemed to her that she was doing something the grandfather she had never met had intended her to do.

  She’d never known what it was like to have any sort of extended family. Her mother had been tight-lipped on the subject of her own family, which had been diminished to just her father by the time she had left for Australia with the man who would eventually turn out to be precisely the fortune-hunter she had been warned against.

  Maddie had always secretly felt saddened at the thought of her grandfather perhaps trying to keep in touch. Who knew? Her mother had died relatively young. Perhaps if she hadn’t she would have eventually swallowed her pride and returned to England.

  Just being in the house where her grandfather had lived had warmed Maddie towards the man she had never known. In her mind he had been a kindly gentleman who had been big-hearted enough to leave all his worldly goods to her.

  No one was going to deprive her of her legacy and everything that was wrapped up with it. This slice of her past had completed her—filled in the dots about where she had come from. It wasn’t just a business deal for her. It was a reconnection with the past she had never known, and it was giving her a sense of direction and purpose in a life that had always held a lot of unanswered questions.

  Which didn’t mean that she wasn’t feeling sick to her stomach as she and Anthony strode into the imposing glass house on the outskirts of the city centre where a meeting of the buyer’s lawyers had been arranged on neutral territory.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked nervously as they entered the building and were faced with grey modernist splendour.

  She’d dressed in her most serious outfit, bought especially for the occasion—a sober grey suit, a crisp white shirt and very high black heels that would give her the advantage over any hostile bidder because in her heels she was at least six foot tall. Provided she didn’t sit down, she was sure she would appear a sufficiently commanding figure and be able to announce to the assembled crowd that she wasn’t someone to be messed with.

  She could tell that Anthony, who only just reached her shoulder, approved of the tactic.