moved forward, the open shirt fluttering back from his strong muscled torso. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t you spend three years in prison in punishment for your crime?’
Ava lost colour and her gaze dropped uneasily from his. ‘Obviously I did.’
‘So, you were tried and sentenced and you paid the price society demands. Where does it say that you have to go on paying?’ he enquired impatiently. ‘I put you in the principal guest room because if I treat you with respect everyone else will take their lead from me and award you the same level of respect.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ she protested in a gruff undertone.
‘It is,’ Vito contradicted with serene confidence. ‘Don’t allow your insecurities to make it seem more complicated.’
A tempest of rage roared through Ava like a dam breaking its banks and she flung her head back, coppery hair dancing round her slim shoulders. ‘I don’t have insecurities!’ she slammed back at him, defending the pride that was all she had left.
‘Ava,’ Vito countered very drily, ‘you’ve always been a seething mass of insecurities.’
‘That is not true … that is so totally untrue!’ Ava hurled back at him tempestuously.
‘Madonna diavolo … tell the truth and shame the devil,’ Vito urged, lifting a hand and trailing a long finger mesmerically slowly along the length of her full lower lip.
Ava jerked her head back, startled by the tingle of awareness his touch ignited, which was already travelling straight to the heart of her body. ‘Don’t touch me …’
‘You don’t mean it,’ Vito husked, shifting closer still to angle his handsome dark head down and lower his mouth to hers. ‘You and I both know you don’t mean it.’
VITO settled a hand on the shallow indentation at the base of Ava’s spine and tilted her forward into potent contact with his lean, powerful body. The heat and the ferociously physical feel of him against her shrivelled her defences, even before the hungry urgency of his mouth on hers blew them away completely. Locked to him, she swayed, knowing she had never dreamt that a kiss could make her feel so much. His pure passion called out to her and awakened a desperate craving for more.
She kissed him back eagerly, too worked up even to worry that her kissing might be of the amateur variety, too afraid that he might back off again as he had done twice before. As that subconscious fear penetrated she closed her arms round him, inviting, encouraging, no rational thought involved in the action. The piercing invasion of his tongue inside her mouth sent the blood racing like crazy through her veins and accelerated her heartbeat. Nothing had ever felt that necessary to her, nothing had ever felt that right.
‘Per l’amor di Dio, Ava,’ Vito growled against her mouth. ‘You drive me crazy.’
‘Is that bad?’ Ava queried, stretching up on legs that suddenly felt too short to plant a kiss against the unsmiling corner of his handsome mouth.
Vito twisted his head to capture her lips again with a deep groan that vibrated inside his powerful chest, big hands cupping her hips to force her closer so that she was sensually aware of his arousal. Involuntarily she rejoiced in his affirmation of her feminine power. The musky designer scent of him flared her nostrils and she shivered as he suckled her lower lip and the moist sweep of his tongue tangled with her own, other sensations that were yet more seductive taking charge of her as she pressed the tingling heaviness of her breasts into the hard wall of his chest.
She didn’t feel the zip of her skirt going down, only registered its fall round her ankles a split second before he lifted her clear of its folds and brought her down on the bed. Boy, was that a smooth move, she thought helplessly, just a little unnerved by such active proof of his experience and the fact that she was already on the bed without having decided to let him take her there. So, stop this now, stop acting like you can’t control this, a dry little voice pronounced inside her confused head. A few kisses were one thing, more than that something else entirely. And although when she was younger she had often fantasised about occupying a bed with Vito in it, reality was a great deal more daunting. She could not forget Olly calling his big brother a predator with women. As Vito flipped off her shoes she sat up against the pillows and drew her knees up in a nervous gesture. Discarding his shirt, he came down on the foot of the bed and that fast, her troubled eyes drawn to his gleaming honey-coloured torso, she was lost to all common sense.
Her fingers spread across his warm flesh but he had his own ideas. He smoothed her slim legs flat and embarked on her shirt buttons, kissing her every time he released one. Air rushed in and out of her lungs and caught in her throat. She braced her hands on his satin-smooth shoulders. Her shirt vanished and with it her sensible cotton bra. He caressed the soft ripe swell of her breasts with appreciative hands, long fingers expertly teasing the throbbing peaks until a little moan escaped low in her throat. He took that as an invitation to dip his dark head and continue the delicious torment with his tongue. As he caressed her the tide of sensations rippled down her body and she felt an urgent heat building between her thighs.
‘Don’t stop touching me, gioia mia,’ Vito urged, golden eyes smouldering with hungry appreciation as he looked down at her.
Colour flushed her cheeks and her fingers slid down over the tense muscles of his stomach and over the smooth cotton of his trousers to the hard bulge below. With a roughened exclamation, Vito released the button on his chinos and ran the zip down, his eagerness exciting her. Skimming the briefs out of her way with an unsteady hand, she ran an exploratory fingertip over his erection. He was velvet on steel, smooth and hard. While he lifted his hips every time she touched him it did not seem the right moment to consider the fact that there was a good deal more of him in that department than she had dimly expected. Ignorance pushed aside, because she was ready to learn from discovery, she bent her coppery head to take him in her mouth.
‘No, I want you now,’ Vito protested, drawing her up to his level again to crush her generous mouth under his with erotic force. ‘Is this what you want?’
Ava blinked, languorous blue eyes momentarily bemused. What she wanted? No problem answering that question and no hesitation for she suffered not a shade of doubt: him, absolutely only him. ‘Yes …’
His fingers drifted down the long line of her slim thigh and she trembled, wanting, needing almost more than she could bear, wondering wildly if everyone felt every tiny caress so strongly and craved as much as she did. Or had the years she had spent shut away from the world made her rather more desperate? The thought shamed her, somehow forcing her to think of the caution she was abandoning. But then just once she wanted to go with the flow, experience rather than pre-plan. She gazed up at him, outwardly tranquil until she collided with the hot glitter of desire in his eyes. He was gorgeous. He was everything she wanted. How could she fight or deny what she was feeling?
‘I love your body, cara mia,’ he told her huskily. ‘You’re beautiful.’
In that moment he truly made her feel beautiful and she smiled dreamily, not believing but willing to credit that in the heat of passion she had magically acquired a special lustre in his eyes. As she watched him wrench off his chinos her heart began to beat very fast again. She didn’t want to think and she tuned out her anxious thoughts but they broke through to the surface of her mind regardless, insisting on being heard. This was sex, nothing more to Vito, she reasoned reluctantly. She knew that, had to accept it. It never was anything more to him and she wasn’t naïve enough to think that anything more than intimacy might come from it. The exhilarating spark of attraction that had always leapt between them was finally finding expression and it felt inevitable, something that would have happened no matter what she did.
Her panties seemed to melt away during another bout of heated kissing. She loved the taste and fire and strength of him. He