The Italian's Virgin Acquisition Read online

  She cried out and he hefted her higher, pressing her against the wall to hold her steady.

  Some small semblance of sanity reached him and told him he couldn’t take her here against a wall, and he clamped his mouth over hers as he carried her into the bedroom.

  She lay dazed, spread out before him on the large bed, the silky fabric of her dress falling between her shapely thighs like a silver waterfall.

  Breathing deeply, he yanked his shirt open, uncaring that buttons scattered over the carpet. Shucking out of it, his hands reached for his belt buckle and he stilled. His raging hard-on pressed against his zipper as he drank her in: her hair now tumbled from its sleek knot and spread around her; her naked breasts rosy and full; her slender arms raised in supplication above her head.

  ‘You should come with a health warning,’ he growled. ‘One touch and you’ll be changed for ever.’

  Her eyes lifted to his, scorching a path up over his stomach and chest. ‘That’s you, not me.’

  Her legs shifted together and he ran his hand along the outside of her thighs, gentling her. ‘You’re going to have to open these, dolce mia.’ His eyes dropped to her legs. ‘If you want me to take care of that ache.’

  He came down beside her and she squirmed against him, her nails scoring his shoulders. Her movements were almost untutored; her soft pleas for more sounding as if she had never had a man touch her like this before.

  Knowing that couldn’t be the case in this day and age, Sebastiano reached for a condom and moved over her, his knee pressing high between her legs. ‘You like that?’ He nipped at the exposed skin above her hip, loving the way she moaned his name. ‘When I press here.’ He moved up to her breasts. ‘When I suckle you there?’

  ‘Yes. Please...’ Her hands reached for him, smoothing over his shoulders, following the line of muscle either side of his spine.

  Feeling as if he was about to possess something rare and unique, Sebastiano planted a soft, pre-emptive kiss beside her navel and dragged her gown down past her hips. It slithered to the floor but his eyes were riveted to the tiny white thong covering her femininity. His finger slid down the centre of the lace, his eyes trained on her face. She bit her lip to stop herself from crying out, her hips jerking upwards. He’d been right. She was all fire and wild passion, and now she was his. One-hundred-percent his.

  ‘Sebastiano!’ Her fingers dug into his scalp and she writhed against the moist kisses he planted along her collarbone, his fingers finding her slick and hot and ready. Her cry of pleasure as her body opened for his touch almost wrecked his self-control.

  ‘Oh, yes, I know what you want.’

  Nudging her legs apart, he ripped the thong from her body and rose above her. He settled between her thighs, latching on to a raspberry nipple as he pressed into the soft folds of her femininity, feeling her body give as it stretched to accommodate his.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead as he eased inside her slick centre. She undulated against him, as if the pressure was too much, and he gave up trying to go slow and plunged deep, immediately stiffening as he felt her jerk beneath the power of his thrust.

  Smoothing her hair back from her forehead, he took his weight on his elbows, staring down at her. ‘Poppy, amore mia, are you all right? Did I hurt you?’

  She gazed up at him, a mixture of wonder and wariness in her gaze. ‘I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt...now.’

  Sebastiano swore softly in Italian. ‘Poppy was that...? Were you a virgin?’

  She panted what sounded like a yes, her fingers digging into his lower back, her legs widening to take him deeper.

  ‘Wait,’ he ordered roughly. ‘Let your body get used to mine.’

  ‘Oh, that feels good again.’

  Sebastiano growled under his breath. The cool part of his brain shrieked entrapment, but the primal, instinctive part overrode it, telling him to go deeper and harder in a mating ritual too powerful to ignore.

  ‘Just relax, Poppy.’ He groaned as she pressed upwards, his hands finding her hips to force her to go slow. ‘Let me show you.’

  She moaned softly as he pushed slowly into her, her arms clinging to him, her legs high around his waist to take him all in.

  He whispered her name, petting her, watching her, learning what she liked. If sex had ever felt this good, he couldn’t remember it. ‘You’re mine now, bella,’ he growled. ‘Mine.’

  He brought her eyes to his, forging a deeper connection with her as he slowly started to move inside her, some primal part of him thrilling to the fact that he was her first.

  ‘Sebastiano...’ She hooked her ankles around his lean hips, her body straining for something no man had ever given her before.

  ‘That’s it, Poppy,’ he murmured. ‘Give yourself to me, let me pleasure you. I’ve got you, dolce mia, I’ve got you.’

  ‘I can’t... I don’t think...’ She panted his name and then he felt it, the moment her body tightened before flinging her into a mind-bending orgasm.

  Sebastiano rode it out with her, holding her, soothing her, glorying in the wonderment shining out of her blue eyes.

  The ripples of her body pushed at his self-control, making her soft and open for his possession. And Sebastiano did possess her, driven by the demons of his past and a woman who made him want more than any other... Then suddenly it was just her and him, and right before he found his own powerful release she wound her arms around his torso and held him tight with her whole body, sending him to a place he’d never been to before.

  ‘Oh, my...’ she murmured drowsily, her arms loosening their hold around his neck.

  Sebastiano slipped from her body, his heart still pounding inside his chest.

  She whimpered as he disposed of the condom, quickly returning to tuck her replete body against his side.

  ‘That was your first time,’ he said, trying to sort through the myriad emotions coursing through him. Disbelief. Pride. Wariness. Contentment.

  His mind couldn’t seem to decide how he was supposed to feel about taking Poppy’s virginity but, damn it, he wished she had told him. ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Mmm...’ She snuggled closer against his side, one arm flung across his middle. ‘I didn’t think of it.’

  ‘You didn’t think of it?’

  Now that he couldn’t believe. How could a woman who was about to have sex for the first time not think of something so important?

  ‘Well, I thought about it, but then...’ She sighed with her whole body. ‘Then I forgot until you pushed inside me.’

  Just hearing those words on her lips made him hard again. He clenched his jaw. He didn’t do virgins as a general rule—he’d never had a virgin before in his life—and the fact that Poppy had chosen him to be her first...

  ‘Why me?’ he asked softly, holding his breath as he waited for her answer.

  When all that came was the soft, even sound of her breathing, he glanced down to find she had fallen asleep.

  Fallen asleep?

  That was usually his modus operandi, his body too sated to do anything but shut down. Only he wasn’t sated right now, he was raring to go again, his brain trying to convince him that he could wake her up, roll her onto her back and slip inside her warm, welcoming body without any need for foreplay.

  Emotions he couldn’t—and didn’t particularly want to—identify rolled through him. The night had been going well right up until his grandfather had made his speech and reminded him all over again how he had stuffed up in his youth.

  Feeling the old sense of remorse rise up in him again, he turned his head into Poppy’s hair and inhaled her unique female scent, smoothing his fingers down her spine.

  She shifted against him, sighing deeply, and he immediately felt calmer, as if she were the port his icy heart was seeking like a battle-weary ship caught in a storm.

  Shaking his head at his uncharacteristically whimsical thoughts, he knew that only one thing here was true. Poetic.

  Sex had been very effective at keeping h
is demons at bay.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A PERSON SHOULD feel good the day after they reached a much-longed-for milestone. Great, even.

  Sebastiano felt like crap. The only milestone his brain could focus on was the one that had been reached in his bed last night, and that one wasn’t even his.

  He told himself that if Poppy wasn’t troubled about losing her virginity then he shouldn’t be either. Unfortunately logic was in short supply right now and he scowled darkly as he sipped his rapidly cooling coffee and stared out at the slate-grey sea, almost indistinguishable from the sky above.

  As far as he could tell, Poppy hadn’t stirred from his bed yet and he wasn’t completely surprised. He’d woken her twice during the night to have her again and he’d had to force himself to leave her before doing so again this morning. Only the notion that he wanted her a little too much for comfort, and the knowledge that she must be sore, drove him from the tangled sheets and out onto the sofa made of bricks.

  Remembering how those sheets had become so tangled, and her soft cries of pleasure as he’d shown her what her body was made for, had him hardening once more like one of Pavlov’s dogs on speed. It would be pointless to deny that he wanted more than one night with her, but his guard was up, and putting some emotional distance between them seemed like the best move he could make.

  He hadn’t meant to complicate their arrangement with sex, but what was he to do when she’d bailed him up against the drinks cabinet and told him she wanted to experience real pleasure?

  The woman never stopped surprising him. But the last thing he wanted was for her to read more into last night than what it was—phenomenally hot sex—and, having been a virgin, she undoubtedly would. So he’d tread carefully and let her down gently. Not that his kindness made him feel any less of a bastard. The fact was, he’d taken advantage of their situation and now he had to deal with the consequences. Which made what he had to tell her when she woke up all the more complicated.

  Hearing a noise behind him, he turned like a man about to face a firing squad.

  Maledizione. What was wrong with him? So he’d stuffed up—again. Time to take it like a man.

  ‘Hi.’

  Her soft, almost shy smile told a thousand stories and he knew none he’d want to hear. She wanted more. More than he could ever give. His gaze raked down over her thin cotton dressing gown. His heart lurched. She looked sleep-mussed and utterly beautiful. ‘You’re awake.’

  Way to go, Castiglione; state the obvious, why don’t you?

  ‘Sort of.’ She touched her hair self-consciously. ‘I’m not a morning person.’

  ‘That’s good, because morning finished about a half an hour ago.’

  ‘Really?’ She glanced around searchingly, presumably for her watch or phone. ‘My body clock is all out.’

  He frowned. ‘Because you’re usually just finishing up a late shift?’

  ‘Mmm... I suppose. Is that coffee hot?’

  ‘Yes.’ He poured her a cup and she moaned with pleasure at the first sip. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  They were acting like polite strangers and he found it impossible to get a read on her. Normally a woman would be wrapping herself around him about now and telling him how wonderful he was.

  ‘So.’ She broke the growing silence between them. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘Usually...’ Sebastiano began, wanting to shake up her insouciance when he had taken her damned virginity last night. ‘I take the woman I’m with back to bed,’ he continued softly. ‘And repeat everything that happened the night before. Several times.’ It was a lie. Usually he couldn’t wait to go for a run and get to the office. Except this morning it wasn’t true. This morning he’d happily drag her back through that door and repeat the night they’d just shared ad infinitum.

  ‘Oh.’ Her eyebrows rose. ‘No wonder that woman was crying on the phone.’

  It took him a minute to place her comment and when he did he shook his head. ‘Why do you never say what I’m expecting you to say?’

  Poppy sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  It was no great feat to guess what Sebastiano was thinking. He’d given in to the emotion—and alcohol—last night and slept with her, and now he regretted it. No doubt he regretted telling her about his parents too, but at least she understood him a little better now. Understood that he carried guilt and pain around for his part in their deaths, but really, he’d only been a normal teenager rebelling against the bounds of his parents’ restrictions. It was something she could easily imagine Simon doing. That it had ended in such tragedy was a tragedy in itself.

  Given that last night had been the anniversary of their deaths, she was under no illusion that had another woman offered herself to him he would have chosen her to ease his burden instead. Poppy had just been in the right place at the right time—or not, depending on how you viewed it.

  And she refused to view it as a bad thing. How could she, after the way he had made her feel? He was every woman’s dream man. And not because of his money, as he thought, but because of his strength, his determination, even his arrogance. He was the kind of man a woman could rely on, if he ever chose to let one get close enough to fall in love with her.

  A lump formed in her throat. For a while in his arms the night before her world had seemed perfect. He had been perfect. Caring. Considerate. Passionate. He had made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world and she couldn’t regret that. No doubt it was how he made every woman feel.

  Okay, time for her to get back to the reality of her life. And the reality was that the only thing she could rely on with any degree of certainty was herself. Life was harsh and people could be brutal. Why open yourself up to that kind of pain unnecessarily, as her mother had done over and over?

  And clearly Sebastiano’s polite stranger routine was his way of trying to avoid a nasty scene between them now. But she had no intention of bawling him out, or blaming him for last night. After all, she had slept with him willingly, and she would put him out of his misery and show him that she was not going to be one of his women who clung and begged him to love them.

  A tight, invisible band formed around her chest as if of their own accord her ribs had contracted to hold everything inside.

  ‘So I think it’s safe to say,’ she began amicably, ‘That last night was a mistake, don’t you?’

  ‘You’re damned right it was a mistake.’

  ‘Okay then...’ She hadn’t expected him to agree quite so vehemently but, whatever; move on.

  He ran a hand through his already tousled hair. ‘What I meant to say was that I don’t bed virgins.’

  ‘Okay—I’m not sure how to respond to that.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Do you want an apology?’

  ‘No I do not want a damned apology,’ he grated. ‘Damn it, Poppy, what kind of game are you playing? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Didn’t we already cover this off last night?’

  ‘Not to my satisfaction.’

  Poppy expelled a pent-up breath. ‘Look, Sebastiano, I’m not great at the whole morning-after thing so—’

  ‘That would be because it’s your first.’

  ‘Right.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Another one. Okay—’ she held her hand up as he glowered at her ‘—I don’t know why this is such a big deal for you. It was my virginity to give away. And if you’re worried that I’ll expect more from you than one night, rest assured that I don’t.’

  ‘I could have hurt you.’

  ‘I think we covered that off too...’

  ‘And we’ll cover it off again until I’m satisfied.’ He growled. ‘Are you sore?’

  She was, but it was such a pleasurable ache it made her want to do everything they had done to cause it all over again. ‘I’m fine, Sebastiano, but clearly you’re not. And I think it’s because you’re afraid that I’m going to fall for you and start demanding rings and pre-nuptial agreements.’ His jaw tightened.
‘It’s tempting,’ she said with a slight laugh. ‘But I promise you I won’t. I know what this is, and if there’s one thing I excel at its temporary relationships. Especially fake ones.’ She’d meant that last to be humorous, but he wasn’t laughing.

  Thankfully her phone chimed a message and she dove on it like a seagull on a salted chip, a soft smile curling her lips when she read the name on the screen. ‘It’s Maryann,’ she said, as if he would want to know. ‘She and Simon are feasting on pancakes and ice-cream.’

  Her eyes shone just thinking about them and she realised how much she looked forward to seeing Simon and giving him a hug. ‘What time should I tell them we’ll be returning? You said yesterday it would be in the morning but I guess we’ve missed that time slot. Although I would like to take a shower if there’s time.’

  ‘There’s time.’

  He stared at her, brooding, and Poppy forced herself to smile. An hour to get ready, two to fly to London, another hour in traffic and maybe, just maybe, after that her shoulders would no longer be pinned up around her ears. ‘Great.’

  ‘Because we’ve hit a snag.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘A snag?’

  ‘A problem,’ he clarified. ‘It seems my grandfather organised a business meeting in Venice later this week but it’s been moved to tonight.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Since I’m the new CEO, and the guy happens to be a friend of mine, I have to take the meeting.’

  Poppy couldn’t see any problem with that. ‘Well that’s great, isn’t it? It’s what you wanted. Control of your family’s company.’

  ‘Yes, but you have to come with me.’

  ‘Me? I’m heading back to London.’

  ‘You were heading to London, now you’re heading to Venice. For a night.’

  Poppy’s lips went dry. ‘But it’s a Sunday.’ Exactly a week since they’d met. ‘I only know one person who works on a Sunday.’

  He gave her a sardonic look and she crinkled her nose.

  ‘I was only working that day because I had something to finish up. Usually I’m home studying, or sleeping.’