Ripped (8 page)

We were in Chelsea and I expected him to drive south because I didn’t know anyone who could afford to live here, but he suddenly swooped into an underground car park.

It was spacious and well lit, but away from the bright lights of the city, the truth suddenly hit me. I was with a man I barely knew.

The blood pulsed in my ears and then he reached across and undid my seat belt. ‘It’s cold. We should go up.’

Cold?
I wasn’t cold. I was burning hot.

I was also having second thoughts, despite reminding myself that the fact we barely knew each other was supposed to be a good thing. That was the
point
of emotionless sex.

And it wasn’t as if he was a stranger. We’d bumped into each other on and off for years, just never really spoken. But honestly, how well did any of us ever really know anyone? My Mum was married to my Dad for fifteen years before she found out he was having affairs. She’d trusted him. I’d been with Charlie for ten months and he’d behaved in ways that made it obvious to me I’d never known him. All we knew about another person was what they chose to show us. You could only know someone if they let you know them.

His apartment was on the top floor and my jaw was also on the floor because it was the penthouse, complete with balcony and views over the river towards my fairy-tale bridge.

‘Wow.’ As praise went, it wasn’t that eloquent, but it was all I could manage. Honestly, I was dumbstruck. How the hell could he afford this? ‘What sort of lawyer did you say you were again?’ He’d told me he was a good one. It was obvious he was a very,
very
good one.

‘Do you really want to talk about work?’

His voice came from right behind me and I turned and saw that he was holding a bottle of champagne.

I was surprised. ‘You didn’t drink anything at lunchtime.’

‘I knew I’d be driving you home.’

I licked my lips. ‘What if I’d said no?’

‘I was in possession of evidence that suggested you wouldn’t.’ His response was sure and confident. The corners of his mouth flickered and he eased the cork out of the champagne like a pro. By now I was so jumpy and on edge that when it popped, I flinched.

‘I don’t see how a few words typed into a search engine could be used as evidence. Several people had access to that laptop, including yourself.’

He raised an eyebrow and poured me the sparkling liquid into a tall, thin-stemmed glass.

I didn’t want to be impressed, but I was.

Rosie and I only drank champagne if someone else bought it and we never drank out of glasses like these. It made it feel special. He made
me
feel special. I wondered what he’d thought of our apartment with its non-matching plates and table designed to seat half the number of people we’d squashed around it.

His home was all polished wood and soft leather.

‘What are we celebrating?’ I watched as the bubbles rose and wondered what it was about champagne that lifted the mood. ‘Christmas?’

‘You. Naked in my apartment.’

My tummy tightened. ‘I’m still dressed.’

His eyes met mine and he handed me a glass. ‘Not for long.’

My pulse was racing and I lifted my glass. ‘Merry Christmas.’

‘
Buon Natale! Salute!
’

Oh, God, Italian was a hot language.

We drank and the champagne fizzed in my mouth and spread through my veins. Or maybe it was the chemistry that was fizzing, but whatever it was I could feel it all the way through me. ‘The only Italian I know is
Pizza Margherita
. And you’re the first Italian man I’ve met.’

The corners of his mouth flickered. ‘I’m Sicilian.’

‘Like Al Pacino.’

‘Al Pacino was born in New York.’

Shut up, Hayley
. ‘I’ll stop talking.’

‘Don’t,’ he breathed and he turned to put his champagne glass down on the low glass table. ‘
Don’t
stop talking. I like it.’

‘You like it when I talk crap?’

‘You’re not talking crap. You’re just nervous.’ He removed my glass from my hand and I should have objected, not just because I was enjoying the champagne but because after Charlie I didn’t want any man telling me when I could or couldn’t drink.

‘Actually—’

‘I like it when you don’t censor what you say and do.’

Just when I was ready to punch him, he said something like that.

‘You didn’t look as if you liked it when my dress gave way.’

‘I didn’t want all those wedding guests having heart attacks. I didn’t think the hospital could cope with a major incident that close to Christmas.’

I was laughing and blushing at the same time because it was impossible to remember it without also remembering the moments we’d shared. ‘I still don’t know what happened.’

‘The inevitable happened.’

‘Not true. I’m not saying it hadn’t crossed my mind but not in a million years did I really think it would happen.’

He paused. ‘I wasn’t talking about the dress.’

‘Neither was I.’ I was eye level with his throat and I could see the dark stubble shadowing his jaw. I’d seen the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, but I decided there weren’t many better views than this one. ‘I just didn’t ever see us together. I didn’t think you liked who I was.’

‘I didn’t like who you were when you were with Charlie, because that wasn’t the real you. You were constantly trying to rein yourself in.’ He stroked his finger over my jaw, studying me and I gulped, wondering how he knew so much.

‘Maybe you’re not going to like the real me.’

‘Hayley, I saw who you were the first time I met you. I spotted you across the room and you were so full of energy, so excited about your topic that I moved closer because I had to hear what you were saying.’

‘Probably something boring.’ The truth was I’d noticed him, too. ‘It was at Charlie’s party. Two years ago.’

‘Twenty months, two weeks, two days.’

I choked on the champagne. ‘Is that a lawyer thing? Remembering the tiny details?’

He looked at me steadily. ‘Some things stay in my head.’

‘You didn’t talk to me that night.’

He gave a funny smile. ‘You were talking to Charlie. And after that, I never saw that same excitement again. You reined it in.’

‘Charlie didn’t get too excited about satellites. Except the sort that gave him the sports channel.’

‘He molded you into a different person and you were so anxious to keep the relationship going, you went along with it.’

Ashamed though I was to admit it, it was all true. I suppose I’d needed to know I could hold on to a man if I’d wanted to. Turned out I couldn’t.

Little by little, I’d subdued my real self. I’d stopped talking about my work when we went out and smiled when Charlie had talked about his. It had happened a bit at a time, so I barely noticed I was doing it. I was like the Arctic fox who changed his coat from brown to white in the winter to blend into his surroundings. On the inside I was the same, but on the outside I blended with the crowd. I’d never been in a relationship that worked on any other level. Never been with anyone, apart from my sister, who only ever expected me to be
me
.

But I had no idea how Nico knew that.

‘I thought you disapproved of me being with him.’

He lowered his head and leaned his forehead against mine. ‘I did. It was like giving a Ferrari to someone who only ever drives to the supermarket. A tragic waste.’

‘No man has ever compared me to a Ferrari before.’ To me, it was a compliment. And so was the way he was looking at me, as if I was the best Christmas present any guy could be given.

‘He was wrong for you in every way.

I wasn’t going to argue with that. Especially not right now when Nico was moments away from kissing me. I wished I had a tenth of his control. Given that I’d been waiting all day for this moment I thought I was showing great restraint. I discovered I actually quite liked the slow, desperate build of anticipation and maybe he did, too, because instead of bringing his mouth down on mine, he gave a half smile and slid his fingers through my hair. It didn’t matter what he did with his fingers, which part of me he was stroking—it always had the same effect on me. I’d thought about nothing but being kissed by him for the past four days and the wait was killing me. It didn’t help that we’d driven each other mad all day.

I broke first.

One moment I had my hand locked in the front of his shirt. The next I was undoing buttons. Finally. The big reveal. ‘You saw me naked from the waist up. You owe me.’

His mouth hovered close to mine, but still he didn’t kiss me. He was either a skilled torturer or he knew everything there was to know about delayed gratification. ‘I always pay my debts.’ His eyes were half shut and the way he was looking at me made my stomach flip.

I had his shirt undone to the waist and my fingers went all fumbly, mostly because I saw sex in his eyes. I lost patience and yanked the shirt. Buttons skittered and bounced over the pale wooden floor, but I was too busy looking at the smooth, powerful contours of his chest through the shadowing of dark hair.

Oh, Santa, Santa, what have you brought me this year
….

His eyes darkened. ‘You just ripped my shirt.’

‘Sorry.’ Never in the history of apologies had an apology sounded less sincere. I wasn’t sorry at all, and just to prove it I slid my hands slowly up his chest. I felt hard muscle and the steady beat of his heart. ‘You saw me in a ripped dress, so now we’re even.’

‘You seem to have a thing about ripping clothes.’ The gleam in his eyes made it hard to breathe.

‘It’s Christmas. You’re allowed to rip open your Christmas presents. And anyway, I figured if you can afford to live here, you can afford another shirt.’ I pushed the shirt off those muscular shoulders and sucked in a breath because there, curling over the top of his biceps, was a symbol inked into his flesh.

I think my heart might have stopped. It definitely did something strange in my chest.

‘OK, well, that’s—’ I breathed and stared at it for a moment. Then I lifted my hand and traced it with the tips of my fingers. ‘Surprising.’ Not in a million years would I have expected this man to have a tattoo. ‘I thought you were this ruthlessly controlled, conservative, Eton-then-straight-to-Oxford type.’

‘Did you?’ His husky question slid against my knees and weakened them.

I thought about the wedding, when I’d spent a good ten minutes staring at him acknowledging the raw, elemental quality that lurked beneath the beautifully cut suit. About that car journey, when the tension had almost fried both of us. I’d always known what lay beneath the surface.

‘I guess I made assumptions.’

‘People do that. They look and they think they know. And sometimes they don’t look because they don’t want to know.’

‘Charlie—’

‘I don’t want to talk about Charlie any more.’

Neither did I.

I wondered how a man who never showed emotion could be so perceptive. So in tune with my feelings. It unsettled me. I was used to people believing in the person I presented to the world. I chose how much of myself I revealed. Discounting the day of the wedding where I’d revealed far more than I’d wanted to, I didn’t show much.

I thought about all the parts of myself I’d never shared with anyone. Thoughts that were all mine and not for sharing.

‘Tell me about the tattoo.’

‘A tattoo is just on the surface. You and I are going deeper than that.’

I swallowed.
We were?

‘A tattoo isn’t who I am any more than a ripped dress is who you are.’ His mouth was closer to mine. I could feel the warmth of his breath against my lips.

I’d got used to thinking relationships were mostly fake and superficial, but this didn’t feel either of those things. There was nothing fake about the way his tongue traced the seam of my lips. Nothing fake about the way his hands eased my hips into his, and certainly nothing fake about the thickness of the erection I felt throbbing against me.

I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his shoulder. The tattoo shocked me because it was so unexpected. I’d always known there was so much more to him. I ran my fingers down the swell of hard muscle, feeling the leashed power under the dark ink of his tattoo. I heard the slight change in his breathing and could feel him fighting for control.

‘You hold yourself back.’ I thought about how ruthlessly he held himself in check and wondered what had made him like that. ‘Who are you really?’

‘Does it matter?’ He cupped my face in his hands and his voice had a raw edge to it that was impossibly exciting.

I remembered my resolution to have uncomplicated sex with a hot man. They didn’t come any hotter than Nico.

‘No.’ I silenced the questions in my head, telling myself they weren’t relevant to the moment. ‘I want you.’

The corner of his mouth tilted into the sexiest smile I’d ever seen. He might not smile often, but when he did he did it
really
well. His mouth hovered wickedly close to mine until I was afraid I might knock him over and damage him in my haste and desperation to finish what we’d started at the wedding.

And then finally, after days of my waiting and thinking of nothing else, he lowered his head and kissed me.

Chapter Seven

As I’d been thinking of nothing else for days I thought my mind had probably exaggerated his skill at kissing. It should have been a disappointment. It wasn’t. It was as good as I remembered. Better, because this time he was half-naked, too, and I finally had full access to his ripped body. His hand was hard on my back and I could feel the warmth of his palm pressing through my shirt, flattening me against him. God, he was strong. He had the body of a fighter. I knew. I’d seen plenty when I’d been to Rosie’s gym and I knew this man could have kept pace with all of them.

After the almost intolerable build-up of the past few days I was desperate, but he kept it slow, torturing both of us with pleasure.

I moaned as his mouth slid to my neck. ‘I hate to rush something so good, but I think I might need you to—’ The words died as my shirt slid to the floor. I hadn’t even felt him undo the buttons and he must have done it with one hand. I remembered what else he could do with his fingers and shivered in anticipation. He was smooth, skilled and in control whereas I just wanted to crawl all over him like a desperate puppy and lick his face. OK, not just his face. All of him.