The Italian's Christmas Secret. Sharon Kendrick

which she’d fully exploited during that game of cards. She’d known it probably wasn’t the most sensible thing to defeat Matteo Valenti and yet something had made her want to show him she wasn’t as useless as he seemed to think she was. But she was now aware of her bravado slipping away. Just as she was aware of the tension which had been building in the cramped bedroom ever since she’d emerged from the bathroom.

      Her breasts were aching and her inside-out panties were wet. Did he realise that? Perhaps he was used to women reacting that way around him but she wasn’t one of those women. She’d been called frigid by men before, when really she’d been scared—scared of doing what her mother had always warned her against. But it had never been a problem before, because close contact with the opposite sex had always left her cold and the one time she’d ended up in bed with a man he had been snoring in a drunken stupor almost before his head had hit the pillow. So how was Matteo managing to make her feel like this—as if every pore were screaming for him to touch her?

      She swallowed. ‘We haven’t discussed what we’re going to do about sleeping arrangements.’

      ‘What did you have in mind?’

      ‘Well, it looks as if we’ve got to share a bed—so obviously we’ve got to come to some sort of compromise.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘And I was thinking we might sleep top and tail.’

      ‘Top and tail?’ he repeated.

      ‘You know.’

      ‘Obviously I don’t,’ he said impatiently. ‘Or I wouldn’t have asked.’

      Awkwardly, she wriggled her shoulders. ‘It’s easy. I sleep with my head at one end of the bed and you sleep with yours at the other. We used to do it when I was in the Girl Guides. Sometimes people even put pillows between them, so they can keep to their side and there’s no encroaching on the other person’s space.’ She forged on but it wasn’t easy when he was staring at her with a growing look of incredulity. ‘Unless you’re prepared to spend the night in that armchair?’

      Matteo became aware of the hardness of the overstuffed seat which made him feel as if he were sitting on spirals of iron. ‘You honestly think I’m going to spend the night sitting in this damned chair?’

      She looked at him uncertainly. ‘You want me to take the chair?’

      ‘And keep me awake all night while you shift around trying to get comfortable? No. I do not. I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen, cara mia. We’re going to share that bed as the nice lady suggested. But don’t worry, I will break the habit of a lifetime by not sleeping naked and you can keep the sweater on. Capisci? And you can rest assured that you’ll be safe from my intentions because I don’t find you in the least bit attractive.’

      Which wasn’t exactly true—but why make a grim situation even worse than it already was?

      He stood up and as he began to undo the belt of his trousers, he saw her lips fall open. ‘Better close those big blue eyes,’ he suggested silkily, a flicker of amusement curving his lips as he watched all the colour drain from her cheeks. ‘At least until I’m safely underneath the covers.’