by Fiona Brand
The thought that the condoms could be for Francesca Messena made her stiffen. If she’d had any doubts about making love with Tobias, they were gone in that moment. Francesca might have plans for Tobias, but right now, he was hers.
Six years ago, Allegra had taken one look at Tobias, her mind had gone blank and her body had reacted. It had been chemistry, pure and simple, and the plain fact was she had never fully recovered from it.
Somehow, despite all of the work she had done to move on, the attraction had lingered and she had become ensnared by it again.
But then, so had Tobias.
The bed dipped as Tobias came down beside her. She wound her arms around his neck and snuggled close, her breath coming in at the intimate heat of skin on skin.
A long drugging kiss later, and she lifted her hips so he could strip her panties down her legs, then there was no time to think. She grasped his shoulders as he slowly entered her. Then, she shifted a little, trying to ease the pressure, because it had been two years since they had made love. Two years, during which she hadn’t wanted to be intimate with anyone.
And before that? Well, she just hadn’t been intimate with anyone. She had been too driven, too busy and too annoyed with the expectation that she should have sex with a guy just because they wanted it. Consequently, the experience was still weirdly new.
His gaze locked with hers as he seated himself fully inside her. “Are you okay?”
She grasped his shoulders and braced herself, every cell taut and tingling as he began to move. “I’m fine.” She drew an impeded breath. “You’re wearing a condom, which is good, because I do not want to be an unwed mother. Just...don’t stop.”
And, right there, he stopped.
She caught the gleam of a wry smile. “Do you always like to be in charge?”
“Of course, I like to be in charge,” she muttered. “I’m from Louisiana.”
This time he definitely grinned, as if it was cute that she was from Louisiana. He should meet her mother. She frowned when he still didn’t move. She wriggled a bit closer. What was the holdup?
Inspiration struck. She had read a lot about nipples. Apparently, you could control men when you touched them. So, she touched them.
He made a sound somewhere between a strangled groan and a laugh, but at least he started moving.
She clung to his shoulders, and it was all she could do to contain the intense waves of sensation and emotion that broke through her. It had been so long since they had last made love, since she had felt truly desired. She had never thought of herself as a particularly sensual person, but when she was with Tobias she felt acutely sensitive and, somehow, more alive. Pleasure zinged through her and, when he touched her, she practically purred. And, until this very moment, she hadn’t realized how much she had missed Tobias despite the hurt, despite everything she had done to surgically remove him from her life.
Tobias found her mouth and kissed her then, suddenly, there was no containing anything as heat coiled and built unbearably, then splintered into the night.
Long minutes later, her eyes flipped open. She thought she had closed her eyes for just a few minutes, but in that time the phone lights had died, so she guessed it must have been an hour or more.
Outside, the wind was now gusting, and a light rain was still pattering on the windows, which meant the weather was blowing in off the sea. The air temperature had dropped, but she was toasty warm because Tobias’s arm was wrapped around her waist, as if he wanted to keep her close, even in sleep.
Turning her head on the pillow, she tried to see his face, but it was now so dark, she couldn’t make out actual features, so she consoled herself by snuggling in a bit closer. Although it was hard to relax, because she had loved making love with him, more than she could have imagined, and she wanted to do it again. And, now that she was awake, she didn’t feel one bit tired.
The rain stopped, and there must have been a break in the clouds, because the room lightened. Propping herself on one elbow, Allegra stared at Tobias. Moonlight shafted more strongly through the French doors, illuminating his clean-cut profile and rock-solid jaw, the inky crescent of his lashes.
She had an almost overwhelming urge to reach out and trace the line of his jaw, wake him up and kiss him. Anticipation was already humming through her at the prospect of being in his arms again, but that gave her pause.
The giddy happiness welling up inside, the desire to throw caution to the winds and live in the moment, made her go still inside.
What if this was just an attraction that was finally working its way toward a dead end and, after the month was up, they would both be over each other?
Or, maybe, just maybe, it was the real thing.
Her heart beat a little faster at the thought of settling down with Tobias, of a real relationship, maybe even marriage.
But she couldn’t forget that the last time she had imagined a future with Tobias, he had ditched her.
That meant she had to start thinking, and not just feeling. Tobias was a challenge: used to command, and with a quiet, seasoned toughness that she knew stemmed from his years in Special Forces. And she couldn’t forget that there had been no words of commitment, or love. Just the off-the-register attraction that had bound them together for six years.
As much as she wanted to reach out and touch him, to snuggle in close and rouse him with a kiss, she was suddenly certain that if she wanted to win Tobias, she would not do so by giving in and having sex with him again.
They had already made love, and nothing had changed.
Tobias had finally opened up about Lindsay, but getting information out of him had been like getting blood out of a stone. And the fact that he had left his fiancée because he had wanted her still niggled. Something about his confession just hadn’t added up...then it finally came clear.
If Tobias had been fighting an attraction to Allegra for years, why had he gotten engaged to Lindsay in the first place? And why stay engaged, when he knew that he wanted someone else?
Then there was the fact that, when he had finally broken things off, he had not tried to start a relationship with her. He had just spent one night with her and walked away.
As if he didn’t consider her relationship material.
As if he saw her the way some guys at university had, as some kind of clichéd beauty queen, who was only good for a casual fling. And, suddenly, a whole lot of other things fell into place.
They had been at each other’s throats at the lawyers. Then, suddenly, he had wanted sex with her in the parking garage. Almost as if he had decided that, since she was in his house for the month, why not have sex with her, and get her out of his system?
The more she thought about it, the surer she became.
She was certain that if she did continue to have sex with Tobias, which would be the easy option, he would be only too happy, because it would confirm the image he had of her and make it easy to walk away at the end of the month.
And just like that, she was back.
Now, hopping mad, she moved carefully, so she wouldn’t wake Tobias, who she no longer wanted to touch, and slipped from the bed. Her bare feet landed on cool, marble-smooth floorboards. She straightened, becoming aware of the faint stiffness that went with making love when she was unaccustomed to doing so, a stiffness she had only ever experienced once before.
That small fact made her even madder. The fact that she had only ever made love with Tobias was...worrying.
Since she liked it so much, why hadn’t she slept with anyone else?
Tiptoeing around the room, she found her phone, picked up her clothes and sneakers, then went to the bathroom to freshen up and change.
As she zipped up her dress and pulled on her sneakers, she noted that one of her key problems was that she’d never had a casual approach to sex, because that just wasn’t how she was wired. For starte
rs, she was naturally suspicious of intimacy; she just didn’t like people close when she didn’t know them very well. And, after the “problem” in San Francisco, she had gotten even more hard line.
And yet, she had made love with Tobias, and made herself vulnerable to him in ways that he hadn’t seemed to notice.
For a start, she had been a virgin.
Another thought occurred to her. Tobias had made a point of letting her know how important his engagement to Lindsay had been. Apparently, his attraction to Allegra had been a betrayal that Lindsay had not been able to forgive. But Tobias had not at any point asked her about her own engagement to Mike.
Her brows jerked together. She wondered how Tobias could not care that they were both, supposedly, betraying Mike in an even worse way?
Of course, the engagement wasn’t real, but he didn’t know that.
She briefly considered that Tobias had gotten swept away by passion and had simply forgotten she was engaged.
Or maybe he hadn’t forgotten the engagement at all, but saw making love to her as a legitimate way to cut Mike out and claim her for himself.
She drew a slow breath as she examined the possibility. Tobias behaving that way made a curious kind of sense. His actions had not been above board or even honorable.
What they had been was alpha.
Ten
Allegra tiptoed downstairs, wincing when a floorboard creaked beneath her bare feet. When she reached the kitchen, she grabbed the jewelry box from the counter and let herself out the door onto the deck. Minutes later, sneakers on her feet, she was walking along the moonlit path back to the main house. At the top of the hill, the brightly lit windows of the mansion were like a warm beacon.
She checked her watch. It felt like hours had passed, but it wasn’t quite midnight. She had only been in the beach house for just over three hours. Having some of the best sex of her life, and for only the second time in her life, with the same man.
As she climbed onto the terrace, she paused for a moment to take in the view, which was breathtaking. The sky was filled with ragged clouds. Despite that, the moon was full and had turned the sea to molten silver, and etched the sweep of lawn with the jagged silhouettes of trees and the pitched roofline of the beach house.
She had left the fascinating painting of Alexandra behind, but she would retrieve that tomorrow. The main thing was that she had the jewelry, and she couldn’t wait to get to her room so she could clean up the ring she had discovered and see if she could use it as a fake engagement ring.
Anxious to reach the sanctuary of her bedroom before Tobias caught up with her, she stepped inside and hurried through the dark corridor and up the stairs. She was well aware that she did not have a good track record with Tobias. If he caught up with her now, she would probably not be able to resist him. They would make love again, and that could be fatal.
In order to reverse the mistakes she’d made, she needed to move forward with the relationship strategy she had already put in place, otherwise what they had might stall and die. That meant no sex until Tobias was ready to use words like love and commitment.
She continued up the sweeping elegant stairs. Once inside her room, she closed the door, set the jewelry box down on her bedside table and flicked on the bedside lamp. She also remembered to put her phone on charge, since using the flashlight had drained the battery.
Shivering slightly, because the rainy weather had definitely dropped the temperature, she drew the curtains.
She found fresh underwear, and the soft T-shirt and cotton shorts she liked to sleep in, and walked through to the bathroom. After quickly showering and washing her hair, because she wanted to leave super early in the morning before Tobias got up, she toweled herself dry. Once she was cozily belted into a light cotton bathrobe, she strapped her watch onto her wrist. That had gotten to be a habit, because she still liked to keep an eye on her heart rate. She then stood in front of the mirror as she combed out her hair and dried it.
As she did so, her gaze was drawn to a red mark on her neck, and another on her jawline. Small abrasions that were probably caused by the five-o’clock shadow on Tobias’s jaw.
She drew a swift breath as heated memories surfaced. Tobias kissing her neck, nuzzling her jaw, biting down delicately on one lobe...
A soft click made her start. The sound had come from downstairs and was probably a door closing, which meant Tobias had walked back to the house. Instantly, her heart sped up.
She quickly switched off the bathroom light, then walked through to her bedroom and killed the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Maybe she was overreacting, but if Tobias knocked on her door, she didn’t trust herself not to let him in. If he saw that her lights were off, chances were he would just go straight to bed.
Long seconds later, she heard his footsteps as he walked past her room, then the sound of his door closing.
Contrarily, she felt annoyed that he hadn’t even so much as paused at her door. Feeling her way in the dark, she found her bed and sat down, keeping an eye on her watch, which glowed in the dark. A minute or so later, she heard the sound of a shower then, a few more minutes later, a door closing. When a further five minutes had passed without any sound, she flicked her lamp back on.
Hefting the jewelry box, she set it down on the bed. It looked even richer and more beautiful in the soft glow of the lamp. After she had removed the diary and set it down on the bedside table, she began emptying the velvet bags onto the white coverlet.
White wasn’t the best background color to view the jewelry, and she wasn’t a jeweler, so she couldn’t be sure—maybe they were just paste—but the “diamond” jewelry looked breathtakingly real. She picked up the ring, which stood out as being different from the other pieces because it was smaller and plainer. With its cushion-shaped diamond and simple gold band, it was quite definitely an engagement ring.
Feeling almost as if she was trespassing on someone else’s memories, she slipped the diamond ring onto her ring finger. It was too tight, which was a shame, but it looked pretty. She would have to get it resized before she could wear it.
Slipping the ring off, she returned it to its velvet bag. She then collected up all of the other jewels, placed them back into their velvet bags, then stowed them all in a zipped pocket in her handbag. She would take them into her favorite jeweler, Ambrosi, first thing in the morning. Hopefully, they would be able to assess the “diamonds” for her and resize the ring. Luckily, Ambrosi was in the Atraeus Mall, where she had arranged to meet Mike for their “getting the ring date,” so that would save her some time.
She put the antique jewelry box away in the walk-in closet, then checked her phone, which was now showing some charge. She texted Mike, to give him a heads-up to check the schedule she had given him, because he needed to meet her at the Atraeus Mall tomorrow at twelve p.m. sharp.
Dragging back the coverlet, she climbed into bed and switched the lamp out, but just as she was finally sliding into sleep, inspiration struck, and she sat bolt upright in bed.
Eighteen months ago, a girlfriend had treated her to an online seminar called How to Get Your Alpha Man. It had been run by Elena Lyons-Messena, who was a psychologist and something of a spa guru.
Pulled from Elena’s own personal experience, it had been blunt and to the point. You didn’t get your alpha man, who was a natural leader of the pack, by being soft and doing whatever he wanted you to do.
You got him by taking charge, by being opinionated and even difficult, because alpha men liked a challenge. If they thought you were just going to sleep with them and be all soft and cute, you could kiss the relationship goodbye, because they would be doing what alpha men did, looking for the next challenge.
From memory, there had been two key tactics, both based around availability.
Firstly, you had to make it clear that you would not always be available to him, but that
you would fit him in when you could.
Secondly, make it clear that your schedule included other men. Once an alpha knew that you were available to other men, and that those men found you intensely desirable, it was a game changer.
Elena had been firm on the point that the strategy worked, because it catered to the alpha’s natural instincts to fight for the woman they wanted, and to win her. As ruthless as the tactics were, she had suggested that the strategies could actually be viewed as a form of kindness toward your alpha male, because you got him through the whole pursuit-and-choice thing quickly, and then everyone could relax.
She had also noted that, if none of the strategies worked, you needed to save yourself and leave him. At this point, the best-case scenario was that the alpha would wake up to what he had lost, come after you, and propose. Worst-case scenario: you would discover that you had gotten it completely wrong, and you could then get on with the rest of your life.
Now, thoroughly awake, Allegra flicked on her bedside lamp and found the book that went with the workshop. She flipped to the chapter on commitment. The first paragraphs seemed to leap off the page.
Warning: Sleeping with an alpha before they have committed is risky, because they can view the sex as “the prize,” and you could end up being the victim of a one-night stand. If you have slept with your alpha too soon, you need to quickly find a way to reject him.
With alphas, “no” is a good word.
Shades of her mom!
According to the book, she had already committed the cardinal sin with Tobias, twice.
She had given him the prize of sex, and he hadn’t had to pursue her to attain it, because both times she had practically seduced him. If there was a hunter in their “relationship,” it was her.
That had to change.
She didn’t know what the result of tonight’s lovemaking would be but, given their track record, and the fact that Tobias was meeting Francesca some time tomorrow, she did not think Tobias had commitment in mind.
