The Price of Scandal (9 page)

Chapter Nine

N
EVE
lay with one arm curved above her head, a contented cat-who-has-had-the-cream smile curving her lips as she emerged from a slow, sensuous kiss.

Even now after they had made love he kissed her like a starving man.

‘You know what I’d like now?’

‘Give me five minutes…’ His glance drifted to her pink-tipped perfect little breasts and he added thoughtfully, ‘Or possibly two?’

Her eyes flew open. ‘Not that!’

That she could blush after the things they had just shared amused him; her husky laugh made the hairs on his nape stand on end.

‘Rejection!’ he said, adopting a crestfallen expression. ‘And after you told me I was the best—I suppose you say that to all the boys.’

Neve’s lashes lowered in a protective sweep and she wondered what his reaction would be if she admitted there were no others. ‘Idiot!’

‘So what do you want?’

‘Food. I’m hungry.’

‘You are very demanding.’

Severo raised himself on one elbow, watching as she gave a feline stretch and announced, ‘Actually, I’m starving.’

He shook his head and pushed a damp coppery curl from her brow. ‘I’ve never met a woman like you before.’

He would actually have been amazed to learn there was another woman like her. Neve was, he decided, a one-off—unique.

Never met a woman like her before? Slept with, more like.

Wariness drifted across her face, dulling the sparkle of pleasure shining in her eyes.

She had been surprised when he had not appeared to realise that it was her first time. There had seemed to be no reason to explain her embarrassing lack of experience afterwards, but maybe she should? Especially if he was, as his comment suggested, comparing her unfavourably with his previous, obviously more experienced lovers.

Would it make a difference if she told him she was a fast learner?

‘What sort of woman is that?’ she pressed cautiously.

‘One who demands I feed her after sex, but then,’ he mused, pulling himself upright, ‘I’m not usually around.’

There was a pause before Neve, distracted by the sight of him padding stark naked and totally unselfconscious across the room, responded to the strange comment.

‘Not usually around?’ With the candlelight making his skin gleam like burnished gold he made her think of a classical Greek statue come to life. She felt her libido stir lazily—he really was utterly magnificent.

‘I never spend the night.’

Neve’s eyes widened.
‘Never!’

Severo pulled a cold cooked chicken from the fridge. ‘Never,’ he confirmed, adding, ‘Chicken sandwich?’

‘Fine.’ Neve rolled onto her stomach and, chin resting in her hands, followed him with her eyes. The strange thing was he didn’t appear to think he had revealed anything very extraordinary.
‘Never?’

She was no expert, but that seemed more than unusual. Was he a man who had perfected sex but not even reached the learner class where relationships were concerned?

He flashed her a look, puzzled by her prolonged interest in the subject. ‘I like my space and I bore easily.’

The casual admission caused the breath to leave her lungs in one gasp. She pulled herself into a sitting position and asked, ‘Would you like me to sleep upstairs?’

Planting the plate of sandwiches on a table beside the sofa they occupied, Severo levelled his frowning scrutiny at her face.

‘What are you talking about?’

She tossed him a haughty look. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to bore you.’

He sat down beside her. ‘You’re beginning to now,’ he lied, unable to imagine this woman ever boring him. Aggravating, provoking and generally driving him crazy, but not boring!

Severo watched as she snatched a sandwich and bit into it, glaring daggers at him as she did.

‘Are you going to tell me what I’ve done or should I guess?’

‘Those poor women—how do they put up with you?’ The probable answer to that question still shook her body with intermittent after shocks—he not only looked like a god, he made love like one too. ‘Wham, bam, thank you, ma—’

The rest of her words were lost in the heat of his mouth.

When his head lifted they were both breathing hard. ‘You feel sorry for my lovers?’

She felt
jealous
of his lovers, past and future. Neve stared at him mutely, shocked by the flash of insight she could have done without.

‘Or is this about you?’

‘How could it be about me? This is a one-night stand.’ This little piece of magic would vanish like a dream once the real world intruded. But she didn’t want to think about that now. This was her time, a time to indulge her fantasies free from the normal constraints.

And Severo was definitely her fantasy made flesh—perfect flesh.

‘Possibly…’

Neve stared; the intimate ache between her thighs was making her thought processes slow. ‘What do you mean “possibly”? How often are we likely to be snowed in together?’

‘I don’t generally need snow to keep a woman happy in bed.’

The arrogant assertion drew a scornful laugh from Neve. ‘My, you really do think a lot of yourself,’ she sneered, thinking, I only have a night—why am I spoiling it arguing?

Anger tautened his jaw. ‘I have never told lies to get a woman into bed.’ And he had never made so much effort to convince one to stay there.

The question was why?

The answer was not complicated: she was the best sex he had ever had.

‘I want to spend the night with you.’ He did not realise until he spoke how true this was.

Neve stopped chewing.

‘Because there’s no place else to go?’

He leaned across and brushed a crumb off her chin. ‘Because I want to.’

It was enough for him; he did not feel the need to dig deeper—why should she? His glance drifted across her face.

‘And I do have six months to make up for.’

And I have a lifetime to make up for, she thought. Cramming a lifetime into one night would take some doing, but she was willing to try. It was strange—hours earlier she had never even thought of herself as a sexual being, now she glowed with the discovery of this essential womanly part of herself.

‘That’s a lot of making up,’ she said, lifting a hand to stroke his cheek.

‘One night might not be enough.’

Neve’s hand stilled. ‘What are you saying?’

What was he saying?
‘We could meet afterwards.’

Neve looked away, but not before he had seen the doubt in her eyes.

Having to persuade a woman—he could not even bring himself to think
beg
—was a totally alien experience for him.

Severo did not like it.

‘We don’t know anything about one another. We might not even live in the same country!’

‘So tell me about yourself.’

The instruction made her blink. ‘It’s really not that sim—’

‘I know you have a stepdaughter, so do you have any other family?’ Hovering on the outskirts of Severo’s thoughts was the knowledge he was actively seeking information he normally avoided.

‘Just a brother. Our parents died when I was fourteen.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘What is this—online dating?’ Neve protested.

‘It does not matter how much information you feed into a machine, it cannot predict the spark of sexual attraction that draws two people together. Compatibility is not about a postcode, science or a shared love of literature, it is about chemistry.’

Without thinking, she found herself nodding her total agreement.

‘I live in London.’

For someone who had just been pretty dismissive about postcodes, he seemed pretty smug about this news. ‘I have several homes. One is in London—we are neighbours.’ His glance shifted from her face to the depleted plate of sandwiches and back. ‘You have eaten enough now?’

She nodded.

Without warning he took hold of her hips and dragged her down the sofa before lowering himself on top of her. ‘Finally, I cannot kiss you when your mouth is full.’

It wasn’t and he did, then he began to kiss other parts of her and Neve thought she might die from the sheer bliss of it.

When Severo awoke during that half-light time just before dawn he had lost the feeling in one arm. He eased it out carefully from under Neve’s body, trying not to disturb her.

She was sleeping like a baby with her head on his chest, her warm body curled up trustingly against him in exactly the same position she had been in when she had fallen asleep a couple of hours earlier.

He looked at her and felt no lessening of the insatiable desire that had driven him last night to make love to her until exhaustion had claimed them both. He had a healthy sexual appetite, but last night had been different. A woman had never aroused him this way or, for that matter, satisfied him as totally—and still he wanted more of her.

She had fallen asleep in his arms but part of him was amazed to see her still there with her hair tumbled around her face and spread out across his body this morning.

But then this was a first for him. Severo had had his share of relationships, but he slept in his own bed and did not warm to the idea of pillow talk.

A person did not want to spoil great sex with conversation and he did not require reassurance concerning his performance.

Last night had been great sex—no, last night had been phenomenal sex! He had never been with a woman who was so natural and passionate, so incredibly…giving? Yes, she gave and held nothing back but asked for nothing in return.

There had been conversation last night and laughter. He knew she had a brother called Charlie who could, if only he found something he really wanted to do, be brilliant. He knew that she was ticklish and she loved milk and dark chocolate but hated the white stuff.

Clenching his hand to speed the return of the circulation to his arm, he shifted his weight slightly and pushed the hair gently from Neve’s face, revealing smooth cheeks flushed with sleep.

She murmured something in her sleep and snuggled closer, seeking his body warmth. The heating had switched itself off at some point in the night and not as yet switched on; the room was chilled.

He pulled the rug that had slipped up over her smooth shoulder. He began to stroke her skin, marvelling at the satiny texture as he continued to study her sleeping face.

As his glance drifted to her soft mouth he felt desire sweep through his veins like a narcotic. He was tempted to kiss her awake, but he restrained the impulse; she’d only had a couple of hours’ sleep and if she intended to look for the lost step-kid, as she obviously would, she’d need all the rest she could get.

And support too, if the story turned out not to have a happy ending.

Did he offer support? Severo had no idea, this was unfamiliar ground for him, but one thing he was certain about: a one-night stand was not going to satisfy his hunger for her. The problem was he was positive that Neve was not the sort of woman who would be satisfied with his standard formula for a relationship.

She would want more, and not just sleepovers. The question was, was he willing to give it—give that part of himself that he had always held back?

She opened her eyes and he greeted her with a soft, ‘Hello,
cara
.’

Big, impossibly blue, they blinked up at him for a moment with total lack of recognition.

Then, as if a light had gone on behind them, the confusion cleared and she smiled at him, the uncomplicated warmth and pleasure in her face taking his breath away.

He was ready. Being on the receiving end of a smile like that was worth a few concessions, and why not? It wasn’t as if he were going to ask her to have his children.

‘You weren’t a dream. I’m so glad.’ She stretched, wincing slightly as muscles that had never been used before made their presence felt.

Taking pleasure in her feline grace, Severo reached out and brushed the hair from her eyes. Neve brushed her cheek against his hand and pulled herself up into a sitting position. ‘What time is it?’

‘Early, still dark.’

She turned her head, saw where his eyes were trained and with an, ‘Oh!’ slid down under the blanket.

Severo grinned. ‘After last night you can blush?’ He had explored every delicious inch of her body and she had been equally curious about his; he had delighted in her total lack of inhibitions.

Neve gave a crooked little smile, her brows twitching into a feathery line above her tip-tilted little nose. ‘Last night was…’ A flush spread across her skin as the memories drifted back. It wasn’t just the things she had done—the word wanton sprang to mind—it was the fact that everything had been so natural. When she thought about it now in the cold light of almost-day she still felt a sense of
rightness
. ‘Was that really me?’

‘Unless you have a twin sister.’

‘No sister.’

‘Just a brother.’

Neve regarded him in amazement. ‘How do you know that?’

‘You told me. You were quite talkative at one point.’

She covered her face with her hands. She had had so much adrenaline circulating in her system she’d been high as a kite in the post-coital period. ‘Oh, God I must have bored you silly.’

Men, she knew, at least anecdotally, liked to fall asleep afterwards. Now she knew that this did not apply to all men; Severo had not seemed at all sleepy!

‘You were many things, but boring was not one of them.’ He raised himself on one elbow and took hold of her small hand. ‘Last night, I…’ He caught sight of the bruise dark against the pale skin on the inner aspect of her wrist and froze.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, alarmed by his immobility and the grey tinge under his golden skin.

‘Did I do that?’ he asked in a stark whisper.

‘What?’ Neve followed the direction of his gaze, her frown clearing when she saw the bruise. ‘Oh, that. It’s such a nuisance—I bruise really easily. No, I think I got that one when I smashed your car, so some people might say I deserved it. When you see your car you probably will.’

At the explanation some of the tension slid from his body. ‘I was concerned—I have never lost control with a woman before.’ She was so damned fragile and small the possibility that he might have hurt her tore him up inside.