‘Needs must.’ Niccolo misread the soft tremor in her voice. ‘I’m a man who never takes chances.’
An experienced man, Ellie thought. A man who thinks ahead and plans ahead and controls every aspect of his life.
Except he was about to make love to a woman who had never been there before and she was sure that would give him pause for thought. If not more than that.
Ellie didn’t think he would guess because she was so ready for him.
She was wrong. He thrust into her, a fierce, deep thrust, and she cried out, body stiffening in automatic rejection of something she had, deep down, been apprehensive about.
Niccolo stopped immediately. For a few seconds, he was confused. Had he hurt her? He was big. He knew that. But there had never been a woman who hadn’t stretched to accommodate his girth, who hadn’t, indeed, revelled in the feel of his hard shaft inside her.
Then he understood, and he immediately eased himself out of her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked quietly, tilting her so that she had no option but to look at him.
Ellie licked her lips and glared at him with defiance. ‘Tell you what?’
‘That you’re a virgin.’
‘Because I knew you’d burst out laughing.’
‘Am I laughing now?’
‘Because,’ Ellie admitted with painful honestly, ‘I’d made my mind up to sleep with you. I’d made a choice I’d never come close to making at any time in my life before and I thought that if you knew that...if I told you that...well, you’d run away.’ She looked at him sullenly, breath held.
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because you’d get spooked, Niccolo. You’d start thinking that I might become one of those clingy women who start thinking there’s more going on than there really is—one of those boring nuisances who get over-involved and refuse to let you do the decent thing and ditch them without a backward glance.’
Niccolo flushed darkly. ‘Whoever said that I was like that?’
‘No one has to,’ Ellie told him kindly, regaining some of her humour, and relieved that the elephant in the room was out in the open and he hadn’t, as she’d thought, grabbed his belongings and run for dear life.
‘So you think you know me, do you?’ Niccolo said softly. ‘You come with a very large suitcase stuffed full of preconceptions, Ms Eleanor Wilson. If I recall, you thought you had a handle on what my resort was going to be like. A squalid, steamy meeting point where rich, idle, young, unprincipled things could have casual sex. You also reckoned that you were far too principled to ever indulge in sex unless a full-fledged relationship was on the table...’
‘My principles are still intact.’ She stroked the side of his face. ‘I made a conscious choice. If I’d decided to stay away from you, then we wouldn’t be doing this. In fact, we could be lying naked on a bed together and I would be able to stay away from you.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Niccolo drawled.
‘Fact.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘That’s because you have an ego the size of this villa.’
‘That small?’ Niccolo loosed a warm, teasing laugh. ‘Disappointing. I always thought it was a lot larger than that.’
Ellie glowed. Niccolo had a point, hadn’t he? She’d found it easy to put things into boxes. Life was easier that way. No nasty surprises. What had started out as a defence mechanism had more or less become a way of life. She was on her own because, somewhere along the line, she had failed to see that within those boxes there was room for all sorts of permutations. It didn’t mean that the integrity of the box had to be compromised.
Yes, she’d come to the resort with a certain image in her head. And, yes, she had pigeon-holed a man who was turning out to be more than just sexy and rich. Niccolo Rossi, she was finding, had all sorts of complexities she’d never expected. His sense of humour was one of them.
‘And here’s where you’ve made another mistake,’ Niccolo murmured. ‘I’m not scared off because you’re a virgin.’
‘You’re not?’
‘I’m honoured that you have chosen me,’ he told her seriously.
‘And you’re not scared that I’m suddenly going to do something stupid?’
‘Like fall in love with me?’ Niccolo laughed. ‘No. No, I’m not. We’re both alike insofar as we know the boundaries of this game. Neither of us came here looking for anything. Anything found us. But I’m no more suited to you than, as you’ve pointed out on a thousand occasions, you’re suited to me. This will be our adventure while we’re here in paradise.’
‘And once we’ve left?’
‘Life goes on.’
Sex for the sake of sex. Anathema to her very soul. But the siren call of adventure was irresistible.
It made sense in this new world of hers, where the parameters had shifted and grey areas had been allowed to blend with the black and white ones.
Besides, cutting to the chase, did she have a choice? The man was temptation personified.
‘Trust me,’ Niccolo murmured. ‘I’ll be gentle.’
He talked as he slowly eased himself into her. He felt her relax and her excitement made it easy. Nerves had got the better of her but the nerves were gone and it was almost as though he knew her body as well as he knew his own.
He pushed deeper, felt her tightness and thrilled to the soft moan that escaped her lips, but he waited until she wanted him to move faster and harder, waited until she could no longer bear the restraint.
For Ellie, nothing had ever felt so good. Sensations raced through her, lightning-quick, splintering through her body and carrying her up, up and up on a rising crescendo of unbearable pleasure. For the first time in her life, she had shaken off the shackles of caution and common sense and she felt wonderfully alive.
This wasn’t the Eleanor Wilson she was accustomed to being, the Eleanor Wilson who had a wardrobe full of sober suits and buttons-to-the-neck blouses for every possible work occasion. This wasn’t the Eleanor Wilson who clicked her tongue with impatience when she listened to her parents telling her that she should have a little fun before it was too late. This Eleanor Wilson took risks and liked it.
But risks came with health warnings, didn’t they?
Through the glorious waves of pleasure swamping her, that barely audible voice of common sense tried to make itself heard, but Ellie firmly squashed it and succumbed to the heights to which she was being blissfully carried.
His controlled thrusts had her arching and groaning, writhing as he moved deep inside her.
She climaxed with explosive force, shuddering against him and clinging to him so that her fingers dug into the taut muscles of his shoulder blades. When she cried out, it was as though she was hearing the guttural cries of someone else, not her.
Through slumberous eyes, she watched as Niccolo climaxed on a single forceful thrust, his big body rearing up and tensing. He was a thing of beauty, whether he was cool and composed or sexy and teasing or, like now, hot, sweaty and in the throes of passion.
‘That was so good.’ He breathed huskily, easing himself off her and disposing of the condom before turning onto his side so that he was looking at her.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Any regrets?’ Post-coital conversation was somewhat foreign terrain for Niccolo. He’d never made a conscious effort to avoid after-sex chit chat. It was just something that had never really happened. It was as though, once the physical lust had been sated, he’d become filled with an urgent restlessness to get up, get showered and carry on with the more pressing demands of work which were never very far away.
This, he acknowledged, was an unusual situation and, as such, required an unusual response. He decided that it was a mark of him, as a man, that he could rise to the occasion and not fall in line with his natural inclination to get out of bed and have a shower.
‘None.’ Ellie looked at him earnestly. In the moonlight, his eyes glinted and the angles of his beautiful face were
blurry. His body, lightly touching hers, was having a dramatic effect, turning her on even though she was sore from penetration. ‘I’m glad we made love.’ She sighed. ‘I wouldn’t say my virginity has been an albatross round my neck, but I realise that I should have just been far more relaxed about sex and accepted that physical chemistry can exist in isolation from everything else that matters.’
She tried and failed to think back to any time at all in her past when she had struggled to resist the sort of elemental, overpowering need that Niccolo had roused in her. She frowned. Surely there must have been at least one guy who had caught her eye? Made her think twice about her dearly held principles? One bad boy?
‘You sound as though you’ve read that noble statement in a book somewhere,’ Niccolo said drily. ‘But, good. I’m glad you have no regrets. Nor do I.’ He shot her a wolfish smile that made her toes curl. When he smoothed his hand along her thigh, she quivered in sensual reaction.
If this was the power of lust, then the power lay conclusively in his hands, Ellie thought with a twinge of dismay. He’d done something to her from the very moment she had first laid eyes on him in that gym. Being in his company, seeing first-hand all those sides of him that made him so dangerously three-dimensional, had compounded the spell he had managed to weave over her. Not only was she not thinking straight, she wasn’t thinking at all, and that scared her.
Niccolo was surprised to discover that having her once wasn’t nearly enough. He was raring to go again. ‘If you’re not up to another bout of love-making, then I know myriad ways we can pleasure one another without penetration.’ He nuzzled the slender, pale column of her neck and lightly covered her breast with his hand. Ever so gently, he rolled his thumb over her nipple, teasing it until it was stiff and erect. ‘I could taste every succulent inch of your body and then you can come against my mouth. How does that sound? Hmm?’
Too good, Ellie thought, backing away, because somehow, somewhere in the dim recesses of her desire-addled brain, she knew that if she attached herself willingly to the noose he was tossing round her neck then he would be able to take her where he wanted. That was just the way he was. She would become another mesmerised clone and it would be goodbye to the free-thinking, outspoken woman who had somehow ended up in bed with him.
Against reason.
Yes, she had chosen to end up bed with him, but no, she wasn’t going to choose to allow him to dictate the pace of whatever passing flirtation was going on here.
In the heat of the moment, she’d barely given passing thought to the fact that, once they were off this island, they would probably see each other in the course of work. It was be Niccolo’s worst nightmare—to have indulged in a few days of heady passion only to find himself trapped into having occasional dealings with her because of work commitments.
Well, she wasn’t going to give him cause to think that he would have to start taking evasive measures because she might become a pest.
‘It sounds wonderful.’ Ellie firmly removed his hand from her breast and tucked it where it belonged, which was anywhere but on her body. ‘But I’m going to have to pass up on that tempting offer.’
Niccolo’s eyebrows flew up and he looked at her in astonishment.
‘Where are you going?’ he growled as she slipped her legs over the side of the bed.
‘Back to my bedroom, of course.’ She glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled sweetly. ‘I’m really tired. It’s been great, but I think I should get a good night’s sleep if I’m to be of any use tomorrow. I mean, I’m here to do a job, after all.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘WHERE ARE WE GOING?’
This as Ellie jumped into the four-wheel drive, twisting to look at Niccolo as he slid into the driver’s seat.
After only just under a week on the island, he was darker than he had been, his lean, hard body a burnished gold. He bore no resemblance to the urbane, sophisticated be-suited businessman who strode through the corridors of power in London like the king of the jungle. He was in a pair of loose, khaki shorts and a faded, striped tee shirt and he was no longer meticulous with his shaving. Right now, at a little after two in the afternoon, faint stubble shadowed his jawline. He looked breathtakingly sexy. She had an overwhelming urge to reach out and stroke the side of his face or his arm, but gestures like that felt too intimate.
When she had left his bedroom five days ago, she had set a standard that had to be maintained. The standard was she kept a bright and cheery smile on her face and gave no inkling that what had begun as an adventure was turning into something a lot more serious for her.
She didn’t quite know when the line had been crossed. She kept telling herself that it hadn’t been crossed, that she was still enjoying a random sexual encounter, and the reason she was so affected by it was because it was so out of the ordinary.
That was what she told herself, but in the early hours of the morning a little voice in her head told a different story.
She had feelings for him. Somehow, they had crept in through the cracks and taken over her head and her heart. She still stuck to her guns and slept in her own bed every night, but she would desperately have liked to stay in his, woken to him in the morning, felt the freedom of reaching out to touch his body and having him turn to her with sleepy arousal so that he could take her.
The end of this little bubble in which they had taken refuge loomed on the horizon like gathering storm clouds on a sunny day. The days and nights had reached their conclusion.
‘It’s a surprise,’ Niccolo drawled.
Ellie laughed nervously and he slanted her a sideways glance and smiled. ‘Don’t look so nervous. I’m hoping you’ll be pleased with it. You deserve a nice surprise, Ms Eleanor Wilson. We leave the island tomorrow and you’ve done a first-rate job.’
‘There wasn’t much to do. The place lends itself to superlatives. I’ve started putting together some ideas for the brochure you want to distribute alongside the advertising platform. I think you’ll be pleased.’
Niccolo’s lips thinned. She was talking work. That was his thing. Work was paramount and always had been. However, he had to fight down a feeling of irritation that the very one thing he should be relieved she was still focusing on got on his nerves.
When he took her to bed she was the most abandoned, passionate creature he had ever slept with. He couldn’t get enough of her. But when they weren’t between the sheets, she reverted to type, always reminding him that she was there, first and foremost, to do a job.
‘A man could almost feel used,’ he had joked, although there was an undercurrent of truth there that really wound him up because, for the first time in his life, there was an element of uncertainty that made him feel like he was walking on shifting sands.
He didn’t like it.
But it didn’t make him want her any the less.
‘Are you going to launch into a slide-show presentation?’ he asked with a sarcastic edge.
Ellie ground her teeth together. She dearly wanted to tell him that it was all right for him—sex, for him, was just a physical act to be enjoyed. For her, there had been a seismic change, and talking about work was her way of clinging to normality. Without that lifeline, a parallel universe opened up in front of her that was frankly terrifying. It was one in which she ended up devastated because she had fallen in love with him.
Her brain skidded to a halt and her breathing quickened as she desperately tried to reject that appalling notion.
‘I haven’t got the equipment,’ she said lightly, staring out of the window and closing her eyes as the breeze blew her hair in scattered strands across her face. ‘Tell me where we’re going.’
He laughed, that sexy, husky laugh that always sent little chills of pure pleasure racing up and down her spine, and the awkward moment and all her unsettling thoughts were set aside. They drove away from the compound and town to a part of the island she hadn’t yet visited. A new batch of guests was due to arrive in a couple of hours, Niccolo was t
elling her, so he intended her to have time out before then and he knew just the spot.
The vehicle followed a dirt path and then bumped its way to a rough siding that gave out onto a beach.
It was perfectly empty, except for a boat dragged onto the sand and tethered to a tree.
‘We’re going out to sea.’ He killed the engine and turned to her.
‘You know how to handle a boat?’ Ellie breathed.
‘When are you going to start realising that I know everything?’
‘You’re so egotistic, Niccolo.’
He had fetched towels from the back of the car and was leading the way towards the boat which was a basic little contraption with an outboard motor, a simple shelter and bench seats. It was nothing like the sort of boat she would have pictured him enjoying, and she said so as he detached the boat and pushed it out into the calm-as-a-lake turquoise sea, holding her hand as they waded in the shallow water and hopped on board.
‘Sometimes simple is good,’ he murmured, striking out into the great blue ocean on a sea that was as still and as smooth as glass.
‘You’ve told me that you never eat in.’ Ellie slid a glance across to him and gazed at his perfectly chiselled profile as he stared out to the open sea from behind his dark sunglasses, one hand resting lightly on the wheel, the other on the rudder. ‘People who like simple things enjoy eating in.’
‘If I’m on my own,’ Niccolo drawled, ‘I’m either working, in which case I eat the nearest thing that happens to fall into my hand, or else a member of my family has decided to take me under her wing and feed me up. If I’m with a woman, we eat out. I like the atmosphere of a restaurant. It’s not conducive to thoughts of domesticity.’
‘Why are you so apprehensive about the concept of domesticity?’
‘Why the question-and-answer session?’
‘Forget I asked.’ Ellie shrugged, hurt because it had been a simple question and he had rebuffed her without bothering to try and paper over his abruptness.
A Deal for Her Innocence Page 13
