An Innocent, a Seduction, a Secret Read online

  She wrapped her arms around Sebastio’s neck and arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest. He curled an arm under her back, drawing her even closer, and when the pinnacle came it hit so hard and fast that all she could do was bite his shoulder to stop herself from screaming until she was hoarse.

  * * *

  The first thing Edie noticed when she woke was how heavy and replete she felt. Utterly exhausted and yet...energised. It was disconcerting. She opened her eyes and it took a moment of disorientation before the previous hours came rushing back in Technicolor.

  The shutters on the windows were pushed back, and there were no curtains, like in the other rooms, so she could see that it was still dark outside.

  She pulled the sheet up to her chest and looked around. She was alone, but she heard a noise from the bathroom. The door opened and Sebastio walked out with a towel around his waist, bare-chested. He must have been in the shower.

  Instantly Edie felt awkward. She didn’t know how to navigate this new post-coital world. This new cataclysmic world.

  ‘You’re awake.’

  Edie tried to sit up, holding the sheet to herself. She looked around ineffectually for something to put on and Sebastio came into her line of vision, holding out a robe.

  She took it. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ve run you a bath—you’ll be sore.’

  Edie could feel it. The tenderness between her legs. But it wasn’t sore. It felt...amazing. But Sebastio sounded cool. Solicitous. She was afraid to look at him as she dragged on the robe while trying not to expose herself. Ridiculous, considering that not long ago she’d been totally at his mercy, naked and utterly vulnerable.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I should go back to my own room. I can have a bath there.’

  Except right now the thought of washing Sebastio’s touch and scent off her body was anathema to Edie.

  He said from above her, ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’

  She looked up but she couldn’t make out his expression in the dim lighting. A shiver of trepidation went down her spine. ‘What?’

  She saw his jaw clench. ‘We didn’t use protection.’

  It took a second for the meaning of this to sink in, and as it did Edie’s hand instinctively came up to touch the scar under her collarbone. She stopped herself from touching it at the last moment.

  She forced words out through a dry mouth. ‘It’s fine. You don’t need to worry about that.’

  He frowned. ‘Are you on the pill?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. But I had some...medical issues when I was a teenager and I can’t get pregnant.’

  Her periods were still completely irregular, even four years on, and the doctor had told her that it was highly unlikely she would conceive because of the treatment she’d undergone. Certainly she didn’t expect her minute chance of getting pregnant to have occurred in this situation. It was unlikely enough to be impossible.

  ‘Are you sure?’ He sounded sceptical.

  Edie nodded and stood up, belting the robe around her. She could see the detritus of her clothes spread around the room and cringed inwardly, remembering how she’d all but stormed into Sebastio’s study and demanded he sleep with her.

  Sebastio studied Edie. To his surprise he found that he believed she was telling the truth about not getting pregnant. He wondered what had affected her fertility, but then he saw her biting her lip and put out a hand, tugging it free. Even that small movement made his recently sated body come back to roaring life.

  She said, ‘I... I should go back to my room.’

  He shook his head, battling an irrational urge to lock his door and never let her out of his sight. One thing was certain after that conflagration: once would not be enough with this woman. Not by a long shot.

  ‘There’s no need for that... Have your bath and then we’ll get some food. I have no intention of letting you rest for too long.’

  She looked at him, her eyes growing wide as she understood his meaning. Quickly followed by a faint blush.

  Sebastio groaned. ‘Edie...bath. Now. Unless you want to test your energy reserves before we eat?’

  CHAPTER SIX

  EDIE LOOKED ACROSS at Sebastio where he sat at the end of the dining table. He’d insisted on bringing food up here from the kitchen and she felt like giggling when she thought of how they must look, eating omelettes and bread and drinking wine in a room that was more used to high-society gatherings.

  After her bath Sebastio had dressed Edie in a pair of his sweats, tying the waist tight, and one of his sweatshirts. It drowned her, but she guiltily relished his scent around her. He’d put on jeans and a loose shirt.

  He sat back now. ‘What?’

  Edie shrugged, feeling embarrassed to have been caught staring. She said the first thing she could think of. ‘Your bedroom—it’s not done up like the other rooms... Why is it so bare?’

  He shrugged. ‘When I gave instructions to redecorate the lodge I told the interior designers they had carte blanche in every room except my bedroom. I have no interest in how the house is done up. I mainly use it for corporate events. I prefer to keep things simple. My penthouse is modern, clean—it reflects more of my personal taste.’ He waved a hand to indicate the plush luxurious furnishings in the rest of the house. ‘This place, these furnishings, it’s what people expect to see.’

  ‘Just like the Christmas decorations, even though you hate Christmas?’

  He took a sip of wine and she saw the gleam in his eye—a warning not to stray too far down this path. ‘Exactly.’

  Through the window behind Sebastio Edie could see dawn stealing across the sky. The entire world was white and still, and as she took another sip of wine she’d never felt more decadent. Or more alive.

  Sebastio put his wine glass down and stood up, holding out his hand. She took it, letting him pull her up. Without words he led her back up the stairs to the bedroom.

  Edie knew what this was—a very finite and fleeting moment of madness while they were in this bubble. She had to keep reminding herself of that, no matter what happened.

  * * *

  When Edie woke again it was dark outside. Shock hit her when she realised that a whole day had passed.

  She suspected that if the world hadn’t ground to a halt as spectacularly as it had outside Sebastio wouldn’t have been so keen to let the days and nights melt into one another, blurring the passage of time. She had the sense that ordinarily the boundary lines with his lovers would be very well marked.

  And she didn’t think it was because she was different—no matter what her tripping pulse might tell her. It was because they’d been forced into this abnormal situation by forces outside their control.

  Sebastio had turned on the TV earlier, and they’d watched news of massive blizzards and treacherous conditions across Britain. There was a national alert for people to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary.

  Edie had had a text from her parents, asking if she was okay, and she’d blushed as she’d responded. They thought she was tucked up in her flat.

  She turned her head now and looked at Sebastio, lying beside her. Her breath hitched. He was so beautiful. The covers rode down low, barely covering his sex. She could see the start of the dark hair curling between his legs and it was incredibly erotic.

  She was amazed that he retained that slightly guarded look even in his sleep, and had to stop herself from reaching out to smooth the line in his brow.

  What he had done to her...what they had done together... Her mind was still shying away from looking at it too closely. Like not looking directly at the sun. The pleasure he’d wrung from her body with such ruthless precision... It overwhelmed her even now just to think of it.

  For a long time, when she’d been ill, she’d never thought she’d feel comfortable or at ease in her skin a
gain. Sebastio had returned something very precious to her: her confidence in herself as a sexual woman. She wasn’t cold, or frigid. She hadn’t been irrevocably damaged...

  Her heart squeezed. Apart from her fertility. Which was not something a man like Sebastio ever needed to care about. She would be long gone from his life before anything like that would need to be discussed.

  At that moment Sebastio made a low groaning sound. Edie tensed. She realised that there was a faint sheen of persipiration on his skin. The frown lines on his face seemed deeper.

  Then he jerked upright in the bed with such a sudden movement that Edie sat up too, her heart pounding. He cried out in Spanish, in a hoarse voice, a stream of words that Edie couldn’t understand.

  All she could make out was ‘Por Dios!’ and ‘No!’

  He was gasping now, caught in the grip of whatever nightmare was in his head. Edie tentatively reached out a hand and touched him on the shoulder. His skin was burning up.

  Suddenly he went very still, his breathing laboured. Edie could see his focus coming into the room. She wasn’t sure if she should have touched him, but he’d sounded so anguished...

  ‘Sebastio...? You were having a dream.’

  Sebastio was still somewhere halfway between that horrific night and the present moment...holding Maya’s lifeless body in his hands while hearing Victor scream in pain from the car...and there had been nothing he could do.

  Slowly it receded and the room came into focus. And something else. Edie’s voice. Cool and calm. Her hand on his shoulder.

  It was too much. He couldn’t bear to look at her and see the way her eyes would fill with something he couldn’t accept. How could he ever accept anything but condemnation?

  He jerked away from her hand and pushed back the covers, getting out of bed. His legs were pathetically weak. He said curtly, ‘Go back to your own bed, Edie. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’

  He couldn’t even look at her. He went straight into his bathroom and closed the door. He stood in the dark for a long moment, letting his heart come back to normal... He hadn’t had that dream for a long time. And he’d never had it in the presence of a lover.

  Edie... It wasn’t her fault he’d had the dream. Nightmare. But she’d got under his skin to a raw part of him where too many wounds lay in wait. He could still feel the touch of her small cool hand on his shoulder. Like a balm. A balm he didn’t want or need.

  He cursed and ignored the urge to go and check to see if she’d gone back to her own room. He flicked a light on and looked at his reflection in the mirror. His messy hair and stubbled jaw. Eyes still wild after the dream.

  Any measure of peace he might have felt over the past thirty-six hours had been just an illusion. A by-product of sating his lust for the first time in four years.

  And Edie wasn’t solely responsible for that, he told himself with not a little sense of desperation. Any woman would have made him feel the same way. It was purely biological.

  The awful tentacles of the nightmare still clung to him like a grey mist, mocking him.

  He cursed and went into the shower, flicking it on. The water pummelled his body, but not even that could dispel the lingering horror...

  Edie sat on the bed, torn even though Sebastio had told her to leave. He’d looked...tortured. She heard the shower. She got up, intending to leave and give Sebastio his space, but then from inside the bathroom she heard the sound of a guttural cry.

  A shiver went through her. It sounded animalistic. Pure pain.

  Knowing he might not thank her for it, but unable to leave, Edie tentatively opened the bathroom door. She saw Sebastio in the huge walk-in shower. His back was to her and his hands were on the wall. Water ran down the planes and muscles of his back and buttocks. There was no steam. He had to be standing under a cold shower.

  No. Her heart squeezed. She went in and dropped her robe to the ground. She went over to the shower and it was freezing. She reached for the control and turned the water to warm.

  Sebastio looked around, and the pain etched on his face nearly felled her.

  He said roughly, ‘I told you to leave, Edie.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  The water was warm now, steam starting to rise. Edie stepped behind Sebastio and put her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his back. She could feel the tension in his body, the rigid rejection of compassion or comfort. But she just held on tighter. Water was plastering her hair to her skull, running down into her eyes. But she didn’t care.

  He brought his hands to hers and she thought he was going to pull them apart. But after a long moment he covered them with his and a shudder racked his body. And then another.

  After long moments of just standing like that Sebastio switched them round, so that Edie was standing against the wall and he was in front of her. He put one arm on the wall behind her head and his other one on her hip.

  The pain on his face had turned into something else. Something more primal. His eyes burned and a whole new tension came into the space between them. A tension she recognised and that made her nerve-endings sizzle.

  ‘I need you, Edie. Now...here. But I don’t think I can be gentle... If you want to go, go now...’

  Edie understood in an instant. It resonated inside her. He needed to expel whatever darkness held him in its grip. He needed her. Her heart expanded in her chest before she could stop it. She knew the wise thing to do would be to walk away, but she could no more do that than stop breathing.

  She put her hands on Sebastio’s chest and felt his heartbeat thundering. ‘Take me. I’m yours.’

  He looked as if he was wrestling with himself inwardly for a moment, and Edie reached down and took his erection in her hand, slowly stroking him. His eyes became glazed, his breathing laboured.

  And then all bets were off. Edie had flung herself into the eye of the storm and all she could do was hang on.

  Sebastio was remorseless. He came down on his knees, pushed her legs apart and buried his face between her legs, sucking and licking at her very core until she was begging for mercy and her legs were shaking.

  In the shattering aftermath of her orgasm Sebastio lifted her against the wall and instructed her roughly, ‘Put your legs around my waist.’

  Her breath caught as he positioned himself and drove up into her body with such precision and strength that she could only wrap her arms and legs tight around him and rush headlong with him, wherever he was taking her.

  It was brutal, the pleasure he wrung from her body before taking his own. That was the only way Edie could describe it. Brutally exquisite. All-encompassing. Shattering.

  She was barely aware of him holding her there. His body jerking spasmodically against hers. The warm rush of his release inside her.

  Eventually he let her down, but her legs wouldn’t take her weight and so he wrapped her in a towel and carried her to the bed. She had a vague memory of Sebastio whispering something before she fell into a deep dreamless sleep, and she thought it might have been thank you.

  * * *

  When Edie woke again bright sunlight was streaming in through the bedroom window. The events of the previous night came rushing back. She remembered Sebastio telling her to leave. And then how he’d shuddered in her arms in the shower. The desperation on his face. The scorching hot combustion. And then...oblivion.

  She was naked under the covers and she blushed, thinking of what had happened, how intense it had been. How...raw.

  And again later, when they’d both woken ravenous for each other. It was as if an immense hunger had been uncovered and would never be sated...

  The bed beside her was empty, and Edie looked around the room. In the stark daylight she realised just how bare his bedroom really was. He’d told her his style was pared back. Simple. But this was like a monk’s cell—in total contrast to the rest of the house.<
br />
  She wondered if there was something more to it than just his style preference. Somehow it felt almost...punishing. Like the way he’d been standing under that cold shower last night.

  There was no sound from the bathroom. She was alone. A tiny cold dart scored her heart as she had to acknowledge the fact that Sebastio might have sought comfort from her but he wouldn’t welcome admitting it.

  And what had she expected? That he’d be lying here, watching her sleep, waiting for her to wake? That he would want to tell her all the gory details of why he’d had a nightmare? She was no stranger to those—she’d had them for years during her treatment, and she’d certainly never wanted to articulate them to anyone.

  She got up and found the sweatpants she’d been wearing before, and the loose shirt that Sebastio had been wearing, pulling them on haphazardly. His scent was on her skin. The scent of them. She didn’t want to wash it off.

  She left the room in search of Sebastio, feeling a little nervous at the thought of seeing him again after last night. But she couldn’t dampen the flutter in her belly. The very illicit feeling that they’d shared something the previous night. Something profound.

  She finally heard his voice through his study door, deep and authoritative. At the last moment she didn’t knock and go in—she turned and went down to the kitchens.

  A half hour later she was climbing back up to the main hall with a tray holding two plates of warm pancakes, maple syrup, crispy bacon and a steaming pot of coffee. Along with two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice.

  She couldn’t stop the goofy smile on her face at the thought of surprising him with breakfast, and was almost across the hall before she noticed that the front door was open and Matteo was stepping inside, stamping his feet and shaking off some snow.

  He smiled at Edie. ‘Buon giorno! You survived!’

  Edie blinked. The sight of another person was so incongruous that it took her a long moment to realise what was happening. She could hear vehicles outside. Voices. She could see patches of green. The snow was thawing. Had thawed.