Enthralled by Moretti

by Cathy Williams

  And he talked about unfinished business... Wasn’t it the same for her? Over the years, through everything that had happened, hadn’t he been the burr under her skin? Hadn’t she had broken nights dreaming of him? Hadn’t she replayed scenarios in her head during which what they had had came to fruition?

  More to the point, hadn’t all those scenarios sprung back into instant life the second she had laid eyes on him again? Common sense had wrestled with what she considered her stupid weakness, because he was as out of bounds now as he had ever been, despite the fact that Shaun was no longer on the scene. But common sense was failing to win the battle. She knew she looked at him, wondered...

  ‘Are you going to tell me that I’m not yours?’ Alessandro asked softly. Two adults, he thought, who wanted each other and this time no hidden obstacle lurking in the way. On top of that, so much for her to get out of it. So where was the problem? He had never had the slightest curiosity to plumb the hidden depths of any woman, yet now he had a sudden, urgent desire to reach into her head and discover what was going on behind that beautiful, enigmatic facade. The thrill of the unexplored was heady and erotic and it took a surprising amount of will power to remain where he was, holding on to silence as a weapon of persuasion.

  ‘It feels...odd. Just not right.’

  ‘But you can’t deny that what I’m saying makes sense. If we cut through all the redundant emotion, if we leave bitterness and the past aside, don’t we still fancy the hell out of one another?’

  Chase thought of his hands on her body, touching her. She had stayed far away from the opposite sex over the past eight years. Offers had been plentiful, some of them horribly insistent, but there was no way she was going to get involved with any man ever again.

  So here she was, nearing thirty, unattached, with barely any social life to speak of. Wasn’t it time for her to re-join the human race? And wouldn’t she be able to do that once, as he had put it, business between them was finally finished? If she were brutally honest with herself, hadn’t Alessandro been as much a reason for where she was now with her life, as Shaun had been? He had had such a dramatic hold on her all those years ago and the way things had ended between them had scarred her to the extent that she had just simply withdrawn.

  ‘It just feels so...cold and detached. So businesslike.’ She rubbed her lightly perspiring hands along the soft cotton of her jogging pants.

  ‘You’re looking for flowers and chocolates and courtship?’ His mouth curled into a cynical smile. ‘I believe I fell into that trap once before. I don’t repeat my mistakes twice.’

  Chase thought she could detect the rapid beating of her heart as he stared at her broodingly. She felt as though she had one foot raised over the edge of a precipice as she made her mind up as to whether to jump or not. Yet, she knew that that was a fallacy. She was older, wiser and tougher and, if this felt like a business arrangement, then it had to be said that business arrangements came with definite upsides. For starters, she would know all the parameters. She would not be hurt. She would be taking from him just as he would be taking from her and, when they walked away from each other, she would be freed from the strange half-emptiness of regret that had been her companion for the past eight years.

  It was a tantalising thought.

  As though she had opened a door to a gremlin, she was suddenly released from the constraints of having to fight the attraction that had been gnawing away at her. She imagined...and the images were so vivid that she felt faint.

  ‘I can’t think of anything I would want less than a courtship,’ she informed him with as much cool detachment as she could muster. Certainly not flowers or chocolate. He had given her those once before. He must have realised, in the aftermath of her dumping him, that those tokens had hit the bin before she had had time to make it back to her flat. Thank goodness she had bluntly refused to accept anything else. At least he would never be able to add ‘gold-digger’ to all the other bitter insults he had heaped on her.

  Watching her closely, Alessandro knew that he had won. She was going to be his. And yet, instead of the satisfaction of accomplishment, he was irked by the notion that she didn’t want a courtship because she had already had a courtship from the one guy who had really counted in her life.

  Who gave a damn about the ex-husband? The bald fact was that the man was no longer around and the one woman who had eluded him was going to be his. He was not now, and never would be, in competition with a ghost. When he was through with her, he would discard her and she could return to the photo albums she had stashed in a drawer somewhere. He didn’t care. He would have got the one and only thing he wanted from her and for which, essentially, he was prepared to pay a high price, bearing in mind all the money that would need pumping into that shelter if it was to achieve habitable status.

  ‘Is that because you’ve decided to limit yourself to one and that role was filled by your dearest, departed ex—or because you’ve had so many in the intervening years that you’re sick of them?’

  ‘I’ve been so busy in the past few years that I haven’t had time for...for any kind of relationship.’ How strange it felt to be sharing this kind of confidential information! Over time, she had become defined by her need for privacy. She knew that most of her colleagues her age thought she was weird. She knew they thought that, with her looks, she should be putting herself out there instead of working all the hours God made before scuttling off to a house to which none of them had ever been invited. She didn’t care, and she had become so accustomed to self-containment that she now looked at Alessandro, wide-eyed, startled by her outburst.

  ‘You mean...?’ Curiosity kicked in with cursed force.

  ‘There’s actually nothing out of the ordinary about that. Relationships require time and I haven’t had a lot of that while I’ve been trying to climb up the career ladder.’ Chase knew how she sounded: tough, hard, cold. This wasn’t the person she had ever set out to be but she wasn’t going to apologise for the fact that her life hadn’t been a round of parties, late nights and sex with random men.

  ‘So ever since your husband died...?’ he encouraged.

  Chase tilted her chin defensively. ‘I know how it must sound to someone like you.’

  ‘Someone like me?’

  ‘I expect you have an active sexual life. Lots of women. You’re rich, you’re good-looking, you’re self-assured. You wouldn’t have a clue how I could...hold off on relationships for quite a long time.’

  ‘I managed it eight years ago. With you.’ He shook his head, impatient with himself. And he did, actually, understand. Grief and mourning could do all sorts of things and have all manner of consequences. That said...

  ‘It’s not healthy,’ he said brusquely.

  Chase reddened. ‘I haven’t asked for your opinion,’ she said defensively. ‘And the only reason I’m telling you this is because you might want to have a rethink.’

  ‘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.

  Chase could feel the raw energy emanating from him in waves but that soft laugh, that nostalgic memory he had laid out bare for her without really thinking, was strangely seductive, strangely relaxing. Fingers that had been curled into his polo shirt suddenly splayed against his chest and she struggled back from him.

  ‘Wait...’

  ‘I’m not sure I can.’ But he reluctantly drew back, his breathing ragged and uneven. She was stripped of her tough, outer shell, the consummate lawyer and assertive career woman. He glimpsed a uniquely feminine vulnerability that startled him, because she was the last woman on the planet he would ever have labelled ‘vulnerable’. Once upon a time, sure, but then once upon a time he’d been an idiot.

  ‘I’m not into playing games,’ he drawled just in case she got it into her head that she could string him along for a second time. ‘And, just in case you think that you might be able to pull off any “one step forward, two steps back” tactic, then forget it. This time round, you’re dealing with a different person, Chase. My levels of tolerance when it comes to you are non-existent.’

  ‘I know they are!’ Whatever the backdrop to what they had had eight years ago, it all seemed so innocent now in retrospect. ‘It’s just...’

  ‘Just what, Chase?’

  ‘Never mind.’ She wasn’t looking for sweet nothings whispered in her ear nor was she looking for any shows of affection. She told herself that she was perfectly comfortable with an ‘arrangement’, yet as she reached to hook her fingers under the tee-shirt to pull it over her head, she knew that she was breathing too quickly, close to freezing up.

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Alessandro groaned and caught her hands in his. ‘Why tell me that this is what you want if you have to squeeze your eyes tightly shut and give every impression of a woman who has to grin and bear it?’

  ‘I do want it,’ Chase insisted but she could hear the giveaway wavering in her voice and she hated it.

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’ He took in the hectic flush in her cheeks. What was going on here? Shouldn’t this be straightforward—two consenting adults getting something out of their system? ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You’re not really interested.’

  ‘Let me be the one who decides that.’ He nuzzled her ear and smiled as she quivered, because it tickled.

  ‘I’m... I’ve...’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘I’ve never really been into sex,’ she said in a rush. ‘I know you can’t bear me, and your tolerance levels are low, but I can’t just fall on this sofa with you and have wild sex.’

  ‘Never really been into sex?’ Alessandro’s voice held accusatory disbelief. ‘You were a married woman,’ he pointed out with ruthless directness. ‘Married at what age—eighteen? Younger? Are you telling me that you were a gymslip wife who didn’t enjoy sleeping with her husband?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Shaun,’ Chase said quickly. Or, she mentally tacked on, anything to do with my past, the past you think you know but don’t.

  Alessandro looked at her in silence for a long time. She was flustered as hell but trying hard to put on a show of strength and assertiveness. Did he need all of this? It was just sex and, yet again, that surge of curiosity that was more insistent than the cold logic he wanted to impose. ‘Why don’t you want to talk about him?’

  ‘Because...there’s no point. I’ll just say that things are never what you think they are.’ Too much information. ‘But it’s been a long time for me...’ she concluded hurriedly.

  ‘You just want me to take it slowly, do you?’

  Chase nodded.

  ‘In that case, what about a show of good faith?’ He shot her a slow smile. ‘Taking it slow is one thing,’ he murmured, playing with a strand of her hair whilst he tried to halt his runaway mind, which wanted to ask her what she had meant by her enigmatic remark about things never being what you thought they were. ‘A standstill pace, on the other hand, just won’t do. So why don’t we both get naked and see what happens next?’ He watched her carefully, wanting her more than anything, prepared to do the complex if that was what it took. ‘If you’re not comfortable down here, then you could always give me a tour of upstairs and we can end up in your bedroom. How does that sound?’

  Chase nodded. ‘You might be disappointed at what you see.’ She tried to make her voice as nor
mal as possible but her pulse was racing as they quietly padded upstairs. ‘The whole of my upstairs could probably fit into your downstairs cloakroom.’

  He wanted a show of good faith and she couldn’t blame him. She pushed open the doors to the small spare room, with its single futon, the desk at which she was accustomed to working until late into the night and the bathroom which was large and airy given the size of the house. They ended up in her bedroom.

  Alessandro stood in the doorway and looked. The walls were a subdued cream but the four-poster bed was dressed and all romance. The prints on the walls were landscapes of deserted beaches. The dressing table, like the wardrobe, was old, doubtless bought at auction. He thought that he might be the first guy to step foot in this room and it gave him an unbelievable kick. Every single woman he had ever known had been keen to show him their bedrooms and the beds which promised inventive entertainment for as long as he wanted. Mood lighting had usually been a dominant theme. When he took in Chase’s wary expression, he could see ambivalence there.

  ‘Your sanctuary.’

  ‘Not any longer. You’re in it.’

  ‘By invitation.’ His hand reached to the button on his trousers, but first he removed the shirt in one easy movement.

  Chase practically fainted. He was the stuff daydreams were made of and she had had enough of those over the years. His body was burnished gold and honed to perfection. When he moved, she could detect the ripple of muscle under skin. Her breathing picked up pace and her mouth went dry. Under her top, her bare breasts tingled, and she had the heady feeling that she wanted them touched, that she wanted her nipples played with.

  ‘Your turn...’ He liked the way her eyes skittered across his body as if helplessly drawn to stare at him. He remembered the way that used to do crazy things to him once and was uneasily aware that that should have changed—so why hadn’t it? He found that he was holding his breath as her tee-shirt slowly rode up her belly, exposing her pale skin a slither at a time. She wasn’t doing this because of undue pressure, yet there was an erotic hesitancy about her movements. The wealth of all her complexities crashed over him like a wave from which he had to fight to surface, to bring himself back in the moment.