‘Just me.’ Maddie realised that somewhere along the line food had been eaten and plates cleared away. She couldn’t remember when exactly that had happened. ‘My mother was from here, actually...’
‘Ireland?’ Startled, Leo caught her eyes.
‘As a matter of fact, she was.’
Maddie wondered what he would think if she told him that she was the owner of the very store he had been busy criticising only hours before. He didn’t look the type to scare easily, but men could be funny when it came to women being higher up the financial pecking order than they were.
‘Hence you’re returning to your motherland...?’
‘I thought it made sense. I wanted to get out of Australia after...after everything...’
Leo didn’t say anything, but his gaze was penetrating.
The waiter had approached, asking them what they’d thought of their meal, pressing them to sample some dessert but they both politely declined, asking only for the bill.
Maddie reached into her rucksack, withdrawing a wallet and extracting notes.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked with a frown.
‘Paying my way.’ Maddie looked at him, surprised at his reaction to what she thought was perfectly obvious.
‘When I go out with a woman I foot the bill,’ Leo asserted.
She stiffened. ‘Not this woman. I pay my half. That way I’m in no one’s debt.’
‘The price of a cheap Italian meal doesn’t put you in my debt.’ Leo tossed a handful of euros onto the silver platter—enough to cover the meal with an overly generous tip.
‘Have you never met a man who knows how to treat a woman?’ he asked, rising to his feet.
Maddie thought of her ex-boyfriend. Adam had loved paying for things for her. Flowers, chocolates, expensive meals out—but with the lavishing of gifts had come the manacles of control, the compulsion to turn her into something he wanted. And underneath all that had been his superiority—thinking that by making her into his doll he was asserting ascendancy over her, owning her.
But she’d remained the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and sure enough that was something that couldn’t be buried under gifts and presents. Inevitably she’d learned a valuable lesson in the perils of ever thinking that someone rich and well-connected could ever be anything but condescending and manipulative.
Anyway, all those wildly expensive gifts had made her feel horribly uncomfortable, and she certainly didn’t like the idea of Leo or anyone else paying for her. As she had found to her cost, there was no such thing as a free lunch.
‘Are you asking me if I’ve ever met a man who knows how to reach for his wallet and buy me pretty baubles?’ She slapped a few euros on the table. The waiter was going to be very happy indeed with the extravagant tip coming his way. ‘Because if that’s what you’re asking then, yes, I have. And it didn’t work out for me. Which is why I prefer to keep things simple and pay my way.’
She stood up, and Leo shrugged, but his deep, dark eyes were assessing and thoughtful.
‘Far be it from me to tear someone away from her closely held principles,’ he murmured.
They headed outside, walking in the balmy summer air in no particular direction.
Except with some surprise Maddie realised that her legs were somehow moving towards the honeycomb of streets where her grandfather’s house was. It was on the outskirts of the city centre and, whilst the location was to die for, the house was not nearly as grand as some of the others and was in a state of disrepair.
The old man, so she had been told by her solicitor, had gradually downsized over the years, more and more as his healthy income had been whittled away to next to nothing, lost in gambling dens and crates of whiskey.
Maddie had wondered whether the absence of his only child had perhaps fuelled that spiral of despair, which had made her even more motivated to accept the challenge that had been bequeathed to her.
She stole a sneaky glance at the towering, over-the-top, sex-on-legs guy next to her and suddenly felt ashamed that she had snapped at him for trying to be a gentleman when in all likelihood he couldn’t afford it any more than she could.
‘Sorry,’ she apologised sheepishly. ‘You hit a sore spot there.’
Leo paused and looked down at her, holding her eyes with his, his expression speculative.
Her body trembled as she gazed back up at him, her eyes undoubtedly betraying her want.
‘I’ll be on my way,’ Leo murmured, breaking eye contact to stare up the road which was still as busy now as it had been hours previously. New York was not the only city, it would seem, that never slept.
‘Leo...’ Maddie breathed.
She wanted him. She didn’t know whether it was because she was lonely or because the unexpected stirring of attraction had reminded her that she was still young after all. Maybe he had unlocked some realisation that she couldn’t remain a prisoner of her past for the rest of her life.
Or maybe he was just so damned sexy that she simply couldn’t resist the pull of raw, primal lust.
Two ships passing in the night, she thought...
‘Do you want me to kiss you?’ Leo asked on a husky murmur, still not touching her.
‘No!’ Thank goodness they had managed to find themselves in a quiet corner of the otherwise busy street.
‘Then you need to stop looking at me like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you want to eat me up...like you’d like me to eat you up.’
‘Leo...’
‘We’re both adults,’ Leo delivered on a rough undertone, ‘so I’ll be honest. You’re spectacular-looking and I want you more than I can remember wanting any woman for a long time. I want to touch you. I want to taste you...everywhere. But I don’t do long-term and in this instance we’re talking a one-night stand. A one-night stand to remember, but still a one-night stand. If you don’t like that, then walk away, Maddie.’
‘I always promised myself that I would never have a one-night stand,’ Maddie said, by rote, but her body was certainly not walking away. Indeed, it was staying very firmly put.
Leo shrugged, holding her gaze.
Confusion tore through Maddie, because she wasn’t lying. She’d never been a one-night stand kind of girl. From a young age her looks had attracted attention, and she had learned very fast that attention from the opposite sex more often than not bypassed the important stuff—like getting to know her, giving her credit for having a brain and seeing beyond the fact that she was, in Leo’s words, ‘spectacular-looking’. Adam had only served to cement those lessons in her head.
But...
But, but, but...
‘Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?’ she hazarded.
Leo’s eyebrows shot up. He refused to let her hide behind the cup of coffee scenario. ‘You want me. And I want you. I’ll accept the offer of coffee, but I’m not interested in a push-pull game of one step forward followed by two back.’
‘Nor am I.’ She tiptoed forward, filled with a sense of heady daring, and brushed his perfect mouth with hers.
CHAPTER THREE
AFTER A BRISK walk away from the city centre, they found themselves in a tree-lined avenue filled with mansions.
‘I don’t live in one of these.’
Maddie didn’t look at him as she said this but her cheeks were flaming red. She wasn’t lying, but she was uncomfortably conscious of the fact that she had played fast and loose with the truth.
She consoled herself with the obvious justification that launching into a garbled, long-winded explanation about inheritances and distant relatives was not relevant, given they were not going to be in one another’s lives for longer than this one night.
Which brought her full circle, questioning what she was doing. A one-night stand? Her proud, stubborn, fiercely indep
endent mother would have had a heart attack on the spot, because she had drummed it into her only child that you had to choose carefully when it came to giving your body to someone else.
‘You’ll make mistakes,’ Lizzie Gallo had told her daughter, ‘but it’s still important to go into every relationship thinking it could be the one.’
Reflecting now on that advice, Maddie had to concede that her mother might not have ended up where she had, if she’d a one-night stand with Maddie’s father rather than running away with him, only to be abandoned the second he realised that the fortune he’d banked on Lizzie’s father providing wasn’t going to be coming his way.
Disinheritance in the name of love hadn’t been his thing. He’d stuck around just long enough to determine that there was going to be no reconciliation between daughter and rich daddy, and then he’d scarpered.
‘But I gave it my all,’ her mother had said, in one of her rare moments of honesty—because Lizzie Gallo had never been someone to moan and look backwards. ‘And, for me, that was the main thing. You climb into bed with someone for a few hours and, believe me, you won’t feel great when you climb out of it so that you can do the walk of shame back home.’
Well, that, Maddie reflected, sneaking a sidelong glance at the virtual stranger who had somehow managed to ensnare her into jettisoning all her principles, had not exactly served her well when it came to Adam.
She’d thrown herself into her relationship with Adam and given it everything. She’d been so in love with the idea of being in love that she’d missed all the warning signs of a relationship that had been made anywhere but in heaven.
This time... This time she knew what she was getting into. No girlish fantasies and romantic daydreams about Prince Charming only for Prince Charming to turn out to be Mr Toad. She was with a guy who wasn’t interested in laying down roots and who’d made it perfectly clear what he wanted.
She felt the bloom of longing between her legs and swallowed down a rush of powerful excitement.
The houses they were passing now were getting smaller and finally, at the end of the elegant road, she swung up the only drive that was unkempt.
‘Not what I expected.’ Leo glanced at the edifice of what must once upon a time been a rather charming cottage but now looked like something from the Land that Time Forgot.
‘What did you expect?’
Maddie unlocked the front door and pushed it open into a hallway that was worn, but still carried the hallmarks of the house it had once been. A flagstone floor, an old-fashioned wooden umbrella stand, a sturdy banister leading upstairs, and worn paintwork with great big discoloured patches from where she had removed dark, lugubrious paintings.
‘Something a little less...imposing...’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘Why should it?’
She’d turned to look at him and Leo could not resist the urge to touch, to feel the smoothness of her cheeks. He ran an exploratory finger over her striking cheekbones and then outlined the contours of her full mouth. When she shivered, he smiled with undisguised hunger.
‘I don’t know how you do what you do to me,’ he murmured, trailing his finger down towards her tee shirt and stopping just where the shadow of her cleavage began, ‘but all I want to do right now is rip those clothes off you and take you right here, right now...’
Maddie’s breath caught in her throat and she unconsciously arched her body up, so that her small, high breasts pushed towards him in a bold invitation for him to touch.
It was clear she wanted him—so badly that it was a physical ache—and her whole body shuddered as he slipped his hand underneath her tee shirt and then cupped her breast briefly, before tugging the lacy bra to one side so that he could feel the softness of her skin and the tightness of her nipple.
Positioning himself in front of her, Leo reached under the shirt with both hands, pushing up her bra completely to free her breasts, all the while keeping his eyes firmly pinned to her face, because he was absolutely loving the mesmerised hot burn of desire in her bright green eyes.
He stroked her nipples with the pads of his thumbs and her lips parted on a sigh of pleasure.
‘Liking it?’
‘Don’t stop.’
If he couldn’t understand the primal urgency of his reaction to her, then the same must be said for her. Leo didn’t need any more encouragement. He removed her tee shirt in one easy movement and for a few seconds just looked at her perfect breasts, no more than a handful, tipped with rosy buds. His erection was hard and heavy and painful, and he had to breathe in deep to control the fierce sweep of lust.
Her head was flung back, her eyes closed as he slowly backed her towards the staircase, and then she was standing, holding on to the banister, her body beautifully positioned for him to attend to her naked breasts.
Which he did.
He suckled one stiffened nipple, licking and teasing it with his tongue, while he readied the other for his ministrations with his fingers. Her soft moans were doing all sorts of wonderful things to his body and right now he couldn’t get enough of her. It was remarkable.
Leaving one throbbing nipple behind, he gave a repeat performance on the other, drawing it deep into his mouth while his tongue continued to torment her.
Maddie reached down to undo the button of his jeans but Leo stopped her.
He would have liked to kid himself that this was to do with his mastering the situation and taking his time, but he had to admit wryly to himself that it was more to do with breaking things off briefly so that he could gather his crazily scattered self-control. Any more touching and he would have to fight not to explode without warning.
‘What about the coffee?’ he reminded her shakily, and Maddie blinked, roused from her slumberous enjoyment and clearly desperate for him to carry on touching her.
‘Coffee?’ she parroted weakly, which actually made Leo burst out laughing.
He kissed her on the mouth—a teasing, gentle kiss that made her squirm because it was so tender.
‘You can’t promise a man coffee and then renege on the offer...’
‘Of course not.’
Maddie grinned and slung her arms around his neck to pull him towards her, before shuffling her heated body back into her bra and tee shirt while he watched with avid, devouring hunger. Then she reached out to pepper his sexy mouth with little, darting kisses before slipping her tongue in.
‘You’re a witch,’ he muttered against her mouth.
In the grip of a situation he could never have predicted, Leo followed her towards the back of the house and into a kitchen which, as with the rest of what he’d seen, was in dire need of attention.
‘Tell me what you’re doing in a house like this,’ Leo said, his eyes returning to her slender frame, her back towards him as she made them both mugs of coffee.
Maddie stilled, but only for a fraction of a second, and then she said lightly, ‘I can thank a relative for the use of this house. It’s not much, but it’s brilliant just having a roof over my head. Even a roof that springs leaks when it rains. You should see the corridor upstairs. I’ve learned just where to position the buckets and pans.’ She spun round to hand him his mug. ‘You never told me whether it bothers you?’
‘I believe I said, why should it?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you might get it into your head that I’m a snob because I happen to be staying in a house like this. You might think that we’re from different worlds and that wouldn’t be the case.’
‘Whether it’s the case or not,’ Leo countered smoothly, ‘it doesn’t really matter, does it? We’re here to enjoy ourselves, not analyse one another’s beliefs.’
He let her lead the way into a sitting room, where she opted for switching on one of the lamps on the table rather than the overhead light.
The sofas were deep and squashy, but there were
an abnormal amount of small tables and a feeling of a place stuck in time. Leo had no idea where this helpful relative was, but he sincerely hoped he was on an urgent spending spree to replace the furnishings.
He placed his cup on one of the many tables and sat next to her on one of the sofas. Sprawled against one end, he crooked his finger and she wriggled up towards him. He swivelled her so that she was lying against him, her back pressed against his body, nicely pushing down on his hard, thick erection.
He took her coffee from her and settled them both into a more comfortable position.
If this house belonged to him, he decided on the spot, he would put a floor-to-ceiling mirror on the opposite wall for an occasion such as this, when he would have enjoyed nothing better than seeing their reflection, watching the little changes on her beautiful face as he touched her.
He removed the tee shirt once more, wondering why she had bothered to put it back on in the first place when it was always just going to come off again, and cupped her breasts in his hands, playing with them and working her up bit by bit.
Looking down at her, with the soft, flowery scent of her hair filling his nostrils, Leo could see the faint blush of her skin. She was still golden, but paler where her clothes had protected her from the sun, and against the paleness of her breasts her nipples were deep rosy discs. He badly wanted to suckle on them again but he would wait.
At least, he reflected wryly, he wasn’t on the verge of coming prematurely. A temporary reprieve from the unthinkable.
She was wearing button-fly jeans and he began undoing the buttons one at a time until he could glimpse her white knickers.
‘Take your jeans off,’ he murmured. ‘I’d do it myself, but my hands are otherwise occupied at the moment.’
He moved them back to her breasts as she wriggled out of the jeans, leaving her underwear on. The jeans fell to the floor and then she squirmed a little, like a cat preparing to settle on a feather cushion. She reached up and began to turn around, but he stilled her with his hands, silently instructing her to stay as she was.
The Italian's One-Night Consequence Page 4
