A Legacy of Secrets(13)

‘Santo, please...’ Ella really didn’t want to talk about it now. ‘I have to think about my career. Can we...?’

‘I meant, do you have to leave the room?’

‘You didn’t mean that.’ Ella blushed as he smiled. Usually she rebuffed any flirting easily. It was just a little harder to do this morning and not just because they were on a bed in a very dark room, more because she felt as if she had glimpsed today the real Santo, the one behind the very expensive but very shallow facade.

‘I would miss you.’

‘For a little while.’ Ella smiled.

‘There could be advantages though....’ As he spoke, Ella’s heart thumped in her chest, knew what he was leading up to. ‘Remember how you told me you would never get involved with someone you work with?’

‘I do.’

Her second day at work, they had gone for dinner after, had sat side by side and pored through his diary, Ella taking notes, trying to be efficient but terribly aware of his beauty and trying to ignore it, just trying to work, when his hand had reached for her face.

She’d tried to emulate the hairdresser, had done everything they had said, except her curls hadn’t been quite so glossy and kept escaping the hair tie. She’d felt his hand move to her cheek, his fingers capturing a lock of her hair.

‘Don’t.’

Refreshingly he hadn’t made an excuse and neither had he apologised as he dropped contact. Instead he’d asked a question. ‘Why?’ His eyes had frowned a little, a curious smile on his lips at her response. No doubt it was one he wasn’t used to.

‘I don’t have to give an answer to that.’ Ella had more than met his eyes. ‘But if you try anything like that again, you’ll have my notice with immediate effect.’

How she rued those words now.

‘We have a problem,’ Santo said and she looked at him. Though it was terribly hard to think of Santo and morals at the same time, Ella realised, he did actually have some. For apart from a few stunning suggestions, apart from the odd gentle flirt, not once since that day had he put so much as a finger wrong.

She just wanted him to put that finger wrong now.

And he did.

Just one finger dusted her forearm and Santo waited for her hand to halt his, gave her every opportunity to stand, to change her mind. She’d been very clear as to her boundaries, but his breath stilled as he felt them tumble down.

Hell had been the night, and the morning pure misery, but now... He felt the tiny hairs on her arm rise beneath the pads of his fingers and the constant shiver between them deepen as her silence let him go on.

‘Immediate effect...’ Santo said and he wasn’t checking her leaving date, more the flare of her skin to his, but she did appreciate the check-in. All she wanted now was to find out how it felt to be kissed by a man as expert and beautiful as Santo.

‘I already told you—today never happened.’

He was wary to move too fast and kiss her, and anyway, there was more that his hand wanted to do. It moved up to her neck, his fingers to her cheek, and it lingered a long time on that same lock of hair, where once she had halted him, and then to lips that had never met his. He felt them, slowly explored them.

Ella sat there, her heart pounding, because she had never expected this. She had never known fingers on her lips could be so sensual. Oh, she had heard much about the man, had dreamt about him a little more than she would ever admit to, but she had just never thought of him like this.

She had never thought that he might be slow and unhurried and make her burn between her legs without even offering his mouth.

His fingers worked the flesh of her lips as if he were stroking her below, teasing and worrying the curve of her Cupid’s bow. Then he slipped his finger in and she caught it loosely with her teeth and licked around it, sucked lightly on it. Her tease worked too, because Santo pulled her to him then and replaced his fingers with his tongue. It was a very deep, intimate kiss, his tongue lolling around hers. His hand was on her head, pushing her deeper towards him.

It was, Ella thought as she sank beneath his hand, as if they had kissed five hundred times before, for both knew exactly what the other wanted. She loved the noise of them, the moan he sighed into her mouth. But just as she went to end it, just when she knew she had to, his other hand found her breast and, not in the least bit tenderly, he stroked it. She succumbed to his palm and fingers for there was nothing subtle and as her body responded she was very aware that he was naked beneath the bedding and also, thanks to earlier, very aware as to how delicious the view was under there.