Stella squealed in gleeful delight as she hurtled down the ski slope at a ground-eating pace of four miles an hour. She hadn’t worked out the mechanics of stopping yet, and she opened her arms wide to lose herself in a giant bear hug from Leonardo. But, unlike all the other times they’d tried this maneuver, this time her feet kept going and she fell backwards to the snowy ground and pulled Leonardo down on top of her.

She laughed so hard that tears threatened to freeze at the corners of her eyes. “Oh, that was fun!” she exclaimed, looking up into Leonardo’s smiling face. His brilliantly blue eyes were crinkled, and he seemed a completely different man than the person she’d known in Sicily. He was lighthearted, carefree and happy. He still liked to be in control on matters that he thought important, though, a fact shown by how he’d dressed her in thickly padded winter clothes that made her feel as if she were a walking marshmallow.

Leonardo rested his weight on one elbow as he stretched out beside her. On the kiddie slopes that they were on, there was very little risk that anyone would come crashing into them.

Stella titled her head back to open herself to Leonardo’s kiss as he dipped his head to capture her lips. She curled her gloved fingers into his coat and would have curled her toes, too, if her boots would have allowed for it. They’d spent the better part of a week together so far, sharing every waking moment, but the tingles that the man gave her every time he touched her hadn’t gone away. They hadn’t even diminished, and not for the first time Stella wondered if she could have finally found love. But despite that, and regardless of what Leonardo had said about the past being behind them and having no place in their present or future—or the fact that she’d agreed with him—Stella didn’t feel good about leaving parts of her past unfinished. She knew that the Romano del Mare could be restored to the grand resort it once was while still honoring the unique beauty of its heritage. She wasn’t ready to give up, and she had to figure out how to convince Leonardo that it was still a battle worth fighting.

“Let’s do dinner at home tonight,” Leonardo said, rubbing the tip of his nose back and forth over hers. “I’ll cook for you.”

“Only if we can have dessert first,” Stella teased, wiggling her brows suggestively and then laughing when Leonardo gave her bottom lip a little nip.

The drive back to the cabin was as picturesque as anything Stella had ever seen. Even though she was from America, she’d never visited the West and had certainly never been to the Rocky Mountains. They were grander than anything she’d ever imagined, but by the time they reached the cabin, all of her attention had shifted to Leonardo.

“Stay,” Leonardo ordered as he got out of the driver’s side and walked around to her side. Opening the door, he scooped her up into his arms. It never ceased to surprise her how strong he was. She felt safe and secure resting against the wall of muscle that was his chest, and she kissed and nibbled his ear as he carried her into the house, doing her best to stroke his ego as she tried to distract him with her feminine wiles. But the only thing she managed to do was elicit a low growl from him.

Letting her feet swing to the ground, he pressed her against the wall. Without hesitation, Stella began pulling his open coat off his shoulders as Leonardo worked to release her from hers. In under a minute, his discarded coat was joined by his shirt, and Stella dragged her nails down his thick pecs, earning her another growl from him before he captured her wrists and pinned them above her head against the door.

Stella titled her head to the side as Leonardo’s lips traced a blazing trail down the side of her face to her neck. She moaned softly when he kissed and nipped her delicate, tender flesh.

He was the most delicious man she had ever known, not that she’d known many. But the quiet man she was falling so hard for had an intensity beneath his quiet waters that she delighted in coaxing to the surface.

She wiggled her hands above her head where Leonardo held them in place with one of his massive hands, leaving the other free to roam her body and to strip open her shirt before unlatching the front hooks of her bra with a twist of his fingers.

Cool air tickled and teased her nipples before Leonardo’s thumb circled and then traced over one. But his touch there didn’t linger. Instead his hand trailed down her stomach to the top of her thick snow pants. He unfastened the top button and then took his time peeling the zipper down while Stella’s breath came faster and faster. The way he touched her always made her head feel dizzy and floaty, as if her body couldn’t contain the amount of pleasure he gave her.

Then with the front of her pants open, what happened next came as no surprise to Stella, and yet she gasped and then whimpered as Leonardo slid his hand inside of her panties. His fingers parted her folds as she opened her stance for him. He explored the folds of her lips, tracing her core until she was trembling and panting with need. Lifting his head from where he’d been nuzzling her neck, he locked her gaze with his as his exploring fingers plunged into her depths.

She gasped, arching her chest, and he met it with his own as he pressed himself against her and stole the breath from her mouth in a kiss that mimicked the thrust and touch of his hand below. But what started off rough softened into a steady teasing that made her insides ache to be filled in a way that only he could do. She needed him, wanted him, but he was taking his time. Then, suddenly, his mouth was gone and Leonardo was on his knees in front of her. His strong hands pulled her ski pants off her hips and down her legs until finally he freed one foot from her shoe and pants alike. She thought that would be the end of it, that he would shift his attention to freeing her other leg and foot, but he didn’t. Instead, he threw her knee over his wide shoulder and kissed his way up the tender skin of her inner thigh as she sank her fingers into his hair and held on.

It didn’t take him long to reach her center, where his tongue swirled around her swollen nub as the tips of his fingers once again traced her lips around her core. The moment his mouth closed on her in a suctioned kiss, his fingers slipped inside of her again.

“Leo…” she whimpered on the faintest of sighs. How she had gotten so involved with him, she still didn’t know. It had started as a fling for both of them, she was sure, but when did a fling become an actual relationship? He made her laugh and added happiness to her life more and more with each passing day, and now she couldn’t imagine giving it up… especially not when he was doing what he was doing to her.

Her hands tightened in his hair as she pulled his face harder against her sex. She needed more than just his fingers inside of her. Rippling spasms were traveling through her core but his fingers couldn’t give her what she needed. She needed him, his thickness, his heft. She needed to be opened by him as he pushed his full, hard length inside of her.

“Leo, please!” She didn’t know what she was begging for. She certainly hadn’t said the words, she only knew that she was in a desperate state of want. “I need you! Please!”

Even though she’d asked for it, in her own way, she almost cried out complaint when Leonardo’s mouth abandoned her throbbing, swollen clit and his stroking fingers slid free of her core. But a second later he was standing before her in all his glory with his own pants pushed off his hips. He stepped on her pants and pulled her other leg free of its entangled trap when he picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and a second later the round tip of his hardness pressed against her softness.

She felt herself part for him, felt him push into her, and it was the most exquisite sensation of her life. A feeling of fullness permeated her. A contentment that came with being where one belonged. She belonged with Leonardo. She was sure of it, and as he thrust himself into her depths, she didn’t fight her body’s need to let go. She accepted all that he had to give her and took him not only into her body but into her heart and soul as well.

It was an hour later before the two lay sated in front of a crackling fire in the middle of the grand room. Leonardo had laid out a plush wool rug that was nearly as thick and cushioned as laying on a thin mattress pad yet insanely more luxurious.

With her head on his shoulder, she traced invisible designs on his chest with her fingertips.

“I see you thinking,” he said as he ran his fingers over her arm.

“Mmmm,” she said, smiling as she propped herself up on her elbow in order to better see him. “I was just thinking about how amazing it is to be here with you.”

“Did it surprise you, cara? Because it surprised me.” Leonardo chuckled.

“And to think you were willing to leave me behind without a glance back,” Stella teased.

Leonardo shrugged. “Sometimes it is best to cut your losses.”

Stella waited for Leonardo to say something more to soften his words, but nothing came. She stared at him laying with his eyes closed as he rested, and thought that maybe he hadn’t meant to be so dismissive of what they almost hadn’t had together. She liked spending time with him… and she liked him, maybe even a little bit more than “liked” him. He had a piece of her heart now that she was never going to get back, and for her, her heart was a precious thing indeed.

“Cut your losses, like with the Romano del Mare?” She waited to see if Leonardo’s body would stiffen as his muscles tensed with unexpressed feelings at the unfinished business that had been left behind, but he didn’t. He stayed completely relaxed. Could he really have simply let it go as if it had never mattered? The thought gave her a chill. If he could shut off his feelings about the landmark property that had galvanized the Romano name with international fame, a property that had been in his family for generations, then how easy would it be for him to shut his feelings for her off? After all, he’d already done it once. He’d walked away from her with plans to never see her again without even so much as a word goodbye or a chance to let her explain herself. She’d never even considered that he could do it to her again… that he could leave her again with the same ease and emotional theatrics as quietly closing a door.

As she sank back down to rest her head on his shoulder, Leonardo’s arm wrapped around her to snuggle her into his side, but Stella didn’t feel its warmth. It had gone cold to her, just as Leonardo’s once warm heart had done.

Leonardo wasn’t the man she’d imagined he was. She’d made a mistake. Again.