THE VESTIGES OF the nightmare clung to her like a grey, snaking mist, obscuring her vision. Obliterating rational thought. Laurel felt Cristiano’s arms close around her and they were warm and strong, encasing her in a way that made her feel safe. Protected. Cherished.
Some small part of her brain whispered for her to resist this new offensive of his but the nightmare was still too strong—the memory of Bavasso’s sneering face, his hands pawing at her—and Cristiano was murmuring to her, his voice steady and low, a humming in her chest. Then he gently shifted her over so he was lying on the bed and she was in his arms, her body close to his, and that felt so very right.
Laurel nestled against him and closed her eyes, not wanting to move. Definitely not wanting to think. The nightmare was still there, lurking, like the monster under the bed, the skeleton in the cupboard. She shuddered and Cristiano’s arms tightened around her.
‘It’s okay,’ he whispered. ‘You’re safe here.’
Even in the grip of her nightmare she knew she shouldn’t believe him. She shouldn’t trust him. And yet she did, because right now she needed someone to trust. Someone to hold her and tell her she was safe. So she burrowed deeper into the strong wall of Cristiano’s chest, closing her eyes and her heart to the memory of his cold, flat statements; to that awful, clinical look on his face in the mirror as he’d touched her body.
Cristiano stroked her back, her hair, whispering soothing words in Italian. It sounded like water rippling over stones, like music. She closed her eyes and tried to make the monster retreat. But Bavasso was still there, lingering on the edges of her mind. It had all happened so quickly.
After his assurances that they would all go upstairs for champagne, that this was a family celebration, it had turned into something else in the space of a second. The door to the hotel suite had closed behind her and, before Laurel had so much as been able to blink, he’d been grabbing her, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body. She’d frozen, unable to process what was happening; then, when she’d felt Bavasso squeeze her breast, she’d started to fight, kicking and screaming, nails contacting with flesh. Bavasso had let out an agonised roar, and that had only spurred her on. It had been make or break. Life or death. Eventually she’d made it out through the door, with his hot breath on her neck, his curses renting the air.
‘Laurel. Laurel.’ Cristiano’s hands cradled her face and Laurel realised she was weeping, silent tears streaking down her face. She tilted her face up to his as he gently wiped her tears away with his thumbs. It was a gesture so tender and intimate, it made everything in her yearn.
No one had ever touched her like this, yet this was Cristiano, a man who had shown her very little understanding or compassion. A man who seemed to think she was little better than a whore. A man whose caress made her feel as if he were touching her with sweet fire, warming and burning her all at once. And suddenly she wanted to be burned.
The distant part in her brain that had been reminding her how stupid this all was, how dangerous, fell silent. Her lips parted. Cristiano’s compassionate gaze stilled, fastening on her mouth. The whole room seemed to shimmer.
‘Laurel...’
She liked the way he said her name. She liked it far better than bella. When he said her name, she felt he knew her. She felt known, and that felt wonderful. Her body arched, just a little, towards his. It was enough.
Cristiano let out a tiny sigh and then he lowered his head, his hands still cradling her face, and brushed his lips against hers. This kiss was entirely different from the calculated and passionate assault in the hallway. This was a balm, a gift—one she accepted, her lips parting under his, her hands coming up to clutch handfuls of his T-shirt. Cristiano’s breath came out in a shudder and the kiss deepened, turning both hungry and yet still so achingly sweet. She wanted to be kissed like this for ever—and yet already she wanted more.
Cristiano’s breathing was harsh and ragged as he shifted on the bed, pulling her closer to him so their legs twined together and their hips nudged, the press of his arousal against her stomach electrifying. Pulses of desire were zinging through her, short-circuiting her thoughts. Gone were reservations, regrets, resistance. She slid her hands under his shirt, felt the taut muscles and satiny skin of his abs, and let out a shuddering sigh. Cristiano drew his breath in sharply as she let her hands drift across his chest, revelling in the hot, hard feel of him.
‘Laurel...’ This time her name was a warning. She didn’t like that quite as much.
‘Please,’ she whispered, her eyes fluttering closed. ‘Please touch me.’
She wanted to be touched. She needed to feel desired and treasured and loved, just for a little while. She knew it wasn’t real; of course she did. She wasn’t that naïve, that stupid. But just for a few hours, a few moments, even, she wanted this. Him. She wanted pleasure and closeness and touch. And she didn’t want to think about the consequences.
‘You make me feel beautiful,’ she whispered as his lips moved over her skin, from her jaw to her throat. Her hands bunched on his arms, her palms rounding over his taut biceps. ‘You make me feel desired.’
‘You are desired,’ Cristiano said, his voice a husky growl, his lips brushing her heated, over-sensitised skin. ‘I promise you that.’
Laurel let out another shuddering sigh as Cristiano’s mouth moved lower. He slipped his hands under the silky T-shirt she’d slept in, and when his palms cupped her breasts she moaned out loud. How could this feel so impossibly good? So wonderfully right? But it did. It did... And yet the aching restlessness surging through her body and settling between her thighs made her realise even this wasn’t enough.
She wanted it all.
Cristiano slid her T-shirt higher and then his mouth was on her, teasing, tormenting, touching her in a way she’d never been touched before. Laurel arced off the bed, her hands clutching his head, anchoring him to her. Still needing more.
‘Cristiano...’ She gasped out his name and his head moved lower, his tongue teasing her navel, then moving even lower, lips brushing the tender skin of her belly. He was going to touch her—kiss her—there. It seemed like the most intimate, sacred act. The most revealing and vulnerable. Laurel’s whole body tensed as taut as a bow, waiting, straining...
And then Cristiano hesitated, his lips pressed to her stomach, just below her belly button. ‘Are you sure about this...?’ he began, and Laurel let out a ragged laugh.
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve just been through an ordeal...’
Now he mentioned that? Now he showed compassion and understanding? ‘Don’t you dare develop a conscience now,’ she said, her voice coming out in ragged pants. ‘Don’t you dare.’
He laughed softly. ‘Very well. I won’t.’ And then his mouth moved lower, his tongue knowing exactly what to do, how to send lightning streaks of pleasure ripping jaggedly through her, and Laurel let out a sound she’d never made before—half-scream, half-sob. Her body felt as if it were splintering into crystalline fragments, a rainbow of sensation arcing through her. She let out another shattering sob, and then Cristiano was on top of her, a heavy yet comforting and necessary weight that she welcomed utterly, and then, yes—finally, amazingly—he was sliding inside her, the sensation both so unexpected and wonderfully right.
She felt a twinge of pain, a chafing sensation as he moved within her, and Cristiano paused. Cursed. That, Laurel suspected hazily, wasn’t supposed to happen.
‘You can’t be...’ he breathed, his body poised over hers, the muscles in his arms corded, a sheen of sweat on his brow.
She tilted her face up to his, her body pulsing with need, pulsing around him. A strong, sweet craving made her arch her hips as she tried to draw him deeper into herself, searching for an elusive something she couldn’t even articulate but knew she needed. ‘I can’t be what?’
Cristiano’s face was contorted, his teeth gritted with the effort of holding back. ‘Vergine,’ he bit out. ‘Tell me you’re not.’
She didn’t know much Italian, but that word was pretty self-explanatory. For a second Laurel thought about lying. Cristiano hardly seemed like a man with many arrows on his moral compass, but perhaps this was one of them: deflowering virgins. Yet, when it came down to it, she didn’t think she could lie. And in any case she didn’t think such a lie would be believable. Her body told its own truth.
‘Does it matter?’ Laurel asked softly, because to her it didn’t. She’d needed this. Asked for it. Demanded it, even. So why was Cristiano looking so anguished? This had been her choice, not his. ‘Remember what I said about that conscience?’ she gasped out.
‘I remember.’ His expression had turned grim, and Laurel faltered. He was inside her, for heaven’s sake. Was he really going to stop now? It was a little late for regrets.
‘Cristiano...’ She put her arms around his shoulders, smoothing her palms down his back, drawing him closer to her. Gasping as, his jaw still clenched, he slid deeper inside, filling her up. And then, with a groan, he started to move.
And the slightly strange sensation of being filled up exploded into something else entirely. Something huge and wonderful and soul-changing as Laurel started to match his rhythm and then began to fragment all over again.
* * *
A virgin. He never would have guessed. Certainly hadn’t expected it. With his body still pulsing with the aftershocks of the most explosive orgasm he’d ever had, Cristiano rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Tried to untangle the churn of what he felt—guilt, pleasure, anger and a deep, primal pride because he’d been her first. Her only.
He gave up the task because the feelings were too tightly twined to separate. And he needed to figure out what to do now.
He glanced at Laurel, who was also staring at the ceiling, a pensive look on her face. Her body was flushed and rosy, her lips swollen, her hair spread on the pillow in a glorious, golden swirl. Looking at her made him want her all over again, even as the sweat dried on his skin and his heart still thudded.
A virgin. What was he supposed to do with that?
‘Well.’ She let out a soft, satisfied little sigh that, impossibly, made him smile. ‘I’m glad I experienced that.’
As if he were a tourist attraction, a Ferris wheel or a rather interesting museum. He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or flattered. She turned to him, her eyebrows raised, a small and endearingly uncertain smile on her face. ‘Are you?’
Was he? Most definitely. Sex with Laurel Forrester had been...mind-blowing. The best sex he’d ever had, and he’d had a lot. But she’d been a virgin. And he shouldn’t have taken advantage. She’d been having a nightmare, remembering an attack only hours earlier. And he’d just stolen her innocence.
Laurel might doubt it, but Cristiano had a code of honour and his behaviour just now—hell, his behaviour since Laurel had stumbled into his flat—violated it. That was not something he could accept.
And, as for how she’d made him feel, the places she’d reached inside him, well, that was something he could not even begin to think about.
‘It’s taking you a while to answer, so I’m guessing not.’ Laurel’s voice wobbled a little and she sat up, reaching for the T-shirt Cristiano had tossed over her head at some point. He couldn’t even remember when. The last hour felt like a golden blur of exquisite feeling. He hadn’t been in control of anything, and that was something else he couldn’t accept.
This wasn’t who he was—someone controlled by desire, motivated by lust. Unable to keep from wanting a woman. Just like his father.
‘I did enjoy it,’ he said, his voice coming out flat. ‘Obviously. But you should have told me you were a virgin earlier.’
Laurel shrugged the T-shirt on and then turned to him, one golden-brown eyebrow raised. ‘And you would have believed me?’
No, he wouldn’t have. Not in a million years. ‘Still,’ Cristiano said, because he couldn’t think of anything better and, damn it, she should have told him. He should have known.
‘I think it’s my decision whether I release that information or not,’ Laurel said a little coolly. ‘Not yours. It’s my body, after all.’
‘But I have a responsibility—’
‘No, I have a responsibility.’ Laurel cut him off. ‘To myself. And I chose to have sex with you so, guess what, Cristiano, you’re off the hook. Although why you’ve put yourself on the hook, I have no idea. You didn’t seem to be so consumed by morals earlier in the evening when you were suggesting one of your arrangements.’
He deserved that, but it still chafed. ‘This is completely different.’
‘Is it? Why? Because I’m not who you thought I was?’
He thought of the photo of her with those patients. No, she wasn’t who he thought she was. At least, it seemed she was more than that. ‘Why were you with Bavasso tonight?’ he demanded. ‘Why were you acting like...like his trollop?’ The words burst out of him unfairly, but he was jealous. And angry.
Hurt flashed across her face, then her expression shuttered and she looked away. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘I do.’
‘Too bad.’
‘Damn it, Laurel,’ he snapped, his temper starting to fray. ‘I deserve to know.’
‘Why? Just because you slept with me?’ She lifted her chin, eyes flashing. ‘I doubt you demand such rights of the legion of women you’ve slept with.’
‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘And you don’t know anything about me,’ she answered, rising from the bed. She tugged the T-shirt down in a useless attempt to cover her bottom. ‘So we’re even. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to go.’
‘I do mind.’ He settled against the bed, arms folded. He still didn’t know exactly what he wanted from this situation, but it definitely wasn’t to be kicked to the kerb. He was the one who decided when things ended. If they ended.
Laurel stared him down, her lower lip pushed out, her eyes narrowed. ‘What do you want from me?’ she demanded in a low voice.
Hell if he knew. ‘Why are you a virgin?’
‘Why?’ She stared at him incredulously. ‘Why do you care?’
‘Humour me.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘There’s no pleasing you, is there? You branded me a whore and, now you know I’m a virgin, you so obviously aren’t happy with that either.’
He didn’t need his unreasonableness pointed out to him. ‘Why?’ he gritted.
‘Why not? Is there a law that says twenty-four-year-olds can’t be virgins?’
‘Practically. Most women...’
‘I am not most women.’
She was an utter enigma, and he didn’t like that. He needed things to be straightforward. Women to be what they seemed. He needed Laurel to be what she’d seemed, what he’d assumed, because the alternative made his stomach cramp with acidic regret for the way he’d behaved. The things he’d said—and done.
She drew herself up, all haughty dignity, and then ruined the effect by tugging again on her T-shirt. Her legs looked endless and golden, and he couldn’t keep from remembering how silky her skin had felt.
‘So you’re just going to stay here?’ she asked in a chilly voice. ‘In my bed?’
‘My bed, actually.’
She pressed her lips together, looking suddenly far more vulnerable than proud, and Cristiano wished he hadn’t tried to score such a petty point. He was above such tactics, surely? And yet... Laurel had unsettled him so much. He felt completely wrong-footed. Wrong everything.
He glanced out at the sky, now the palest of blues. It was a little past seven in the morning after the longest night of his life. ‘Perhaps you should get some more sleep,’ he said, rising from the bed in one fluid movement, then reaching for his drawstring bottoms. ‘We can talk later.’
Laurel folded her arms, a movement meant to make her look strong, but she looked as if she was holding herself together. Literally. ‘About what?’
‘Everything,’ Cristiano said, then he strode from the room.