‘Didn’t know you had one.’
‘It’s handy when I’m flying in late from abroad or working through the night. But you’re not in the mood for dining and clubbing, are you?’ Vito murmured lazily.
‘I’m in full party-pooper mode,’ Ava admitted with a grimace. ‘Sorry. I’d just like to go—’
‘Home,’ Vito slotted in. ‘When situations change, I adapt quickly.’
Her fingernails curled in silent protest into the wool jacket on her lap. His home, not hers. The locality had nothing to offer her now. She no longer had a home base. So what had changed? she asked herself irritably, angry that she still felt so bruised and alone. The people she had believed were her family until earlier that day had long since made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with her anyway, consequently it was over-sensitive to still be feeling so gutted about it. Suck it up, she told herself irritably.
Studying the tension etched in her delicate profile, Vito wanted to shake Ava like a money box the way you do to extract the last stubborn coin. What was wrong with the rational approach of telling him what the problem was so that he could sort it out? That would settle things and she would return to normal and stop being so polite and silent. Maybe he should have let her dump him. He had never been dumped. Was that why he was still with her even though she was being an absolute pain? She was screwing with his head. He knew she was doing it but had yet to work out how.
Dusk was falling by the time Ava mounted the steps to the entrance of Bolderwood Castle. She walked in the big front door and was instantly enfolded in a ridiculously soothing sense of security. A log fire was crackling in the huge hall grate, flickering warm inviting shadows over the ornamented garlands and the tall ivy-draped glass candle vases on the mantelpiece. It looked beautiful and painfully familiar at one and the same time. She could remember roasting chestnuts by the fire with Olly, laughing when he sang a Christmas song off-key. While she was thinking, Harvey hurtled past her and bounced up to greet Vito first with fawning enthusiasm. Ava looked on without comment, having already accepted that Harvey was, at heart it seemed, a man’s dog, for as soon as Vito had become a regular fixture in Harvey’s life Harvey had firmly attached himself to him.
‘Don’t put hair on me,’ Vito warned the dog, patting his head to make him go away again, but Harvey was a needy dog and he kept on pushing for more.
‘He doesn’t shed hair—we think it’s the poodle in him.’
‘Poodle?’ Vito repeated in disbelief, surveying Harvey, who was a large animal by any standards and very disreputable in appearance with his floppy ears and messy curly coat. ‘Aren’t poodles little and fluffy?’
‘There are big ones too but … Harvey is a mongrel.’
Harvey looked up at Vito with round brown pleading eyes and nudged his thigh again. Vito sighed heavily. ‘All right. He can stay.’
Shaken, Ava stared up at him. ‘For good … here? Are you serious?’
‘I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t,’ Vito imparted wryly.
Ava gave a yelp of delight, hurled herself at Vito and locked her arms round his neck in a display of natural exuberance. ‘You won’t regret it, Vito. He’s very loyal and loving and he’ll protect you if anyone ever threatens you.’
Vito stared down at the animated triangle of her face, transfixed by the complete transformation that had taken place. ‘Nobody has ever threatened me.’
‘He’ll want to sleep beside your bed.’
‘That’s an undesirable trait, Ava.’ But he locked his arms round her slim supple body and drew her up to his level to extract a passionate kiss, noting that her bright blue eyes were almost laughably disconcerted by his sudden unexpected assault. ‘Of course you can sleep beside my bed any time you like … but I’d prefer you in it, gioia mia.’
In that instant being wanted felt unbelievably wonderful to Ava’s battered emotions and in response her own hunger consumed her in a great greedy flood. As Vito toyed with her soft full lower lip, teasing, stroking the delicate interior, she angled her head back, shamelessly inviting more. With an appreciative growl, he curved his strong hands round her bottom and hoisted her up against him, making her violently aware of the fullness of his erection.
‘Bed … now,’ Vito husked against her lush mouth as he carried her upstairs. ‘I can’t wait …’
And secure in his arms, Ava wondered when the attraction between them had become so powerful that her body simply reacted without her awareness, the peaks of her breasts straining full and tight with arousal, the secret place at the heart of her intensely hot. She could no longer control the desperate urgency and need eating her alive from inside out. He set her down on the bed, where she peeled off her jacket, kicked off her high heels and shimmied out of her dress like a shameless hussy eager to meet her fate. He stood in front of her, stripping, and he didn’t stop until he was naked, a lithe bronzed vision of muscular male perfection, uninhibited in his urgent arousal. He leant over her, crushing and tasting her luscious mouth, his tongue dallying, delving deep to ramp up her yearning. And throughout that exercise he was undressing her with deft hands, peeling away her new and delicate floral underwear. Long fingers playing with the protruding pink buds of her breasts, he made her gasp and part her slender thighs, hips digging into the mattress beneath her.
‘You’re so sexy,’ he groaned against her swollen mouth when he lifted her up against him, the long thick column of his erection hot against her stomach. ‘I’ve never wanted a woman like this … I’m burning up.’
He brought her down on her knees on the bed in front of him, reaching down to stimulate the tiny, unbearably sensitive nub at her core. An almost anguished whimper of sound was wrenched from her tight throat. Her breath was coming in shallow pants, her whole body poised on the edge of an anticipation so intense it hurt. He stroked her and she flinched, aching and hypersensitive to the caress.
‘You’re so ready for me, bella mia. That really fires me up,’ Vito growled in her ear as he nudged her thighs further apart, his hands running up and down her slender spine and dropping lower to touch the swollen buds of her breasts.
‘Please …’ she moaned, wild with impatience, twisting her head round, catching a glimpse of the smouldering dark golden eyes fixed to her.
His hands firm on her hips Vito thrust into her hard and deep and groaned with earthy satisfaction. Her inner muscles gripped him as a shockwave of amazing sensation engulfed her. She threw back her head and moaned. As he sank into her raw excitement made her heartbeat race. She quivered, insanely receptive to his dominance, and then sobbed as the melting waves of delirious pleasure engulfing her swept her up higher and higher until she reached the ultimate peak. While Vito thrust into her with a final forceful twist of his hips and a savage shout of release, Ava was shattered by the power of her own climax. An ecstatic cry tore from her lips and she slid forward onto her stomach, all strength drained from her satiated limbs.
‘Your passion is the perfect match for mine,’ Vi
to breathed with satisfaction, kissing the nape of her neck with lingering appreciation and slowly pulling back to release her from his weight. Just as suddenly he fell still again.
Recognising the change in the atmosphere, Ava turned over to stare up into his stunned dark eyes. ‘What?’ she pressed with a frown.
In answer, Vito used his strong hands to turn her back over onto her stomach again. ‘You finally took the plaster off … I had no idea it was hiding a tattoo.’ A wondering forefinger traced the pattern of the ink marking on her left hip. It was a heart pierced by an arrow with a name in the centre. His name.