Modern Romance August Books 5-8. Julia James

shed his clothes and joined her in the bed that had provided their haven last night.

      Instead, he drew her in closer to him. Her body was pliant, lazily relaxed and soft, and he smiled down when he stopped kissing her, though he didn’t release her from his firm embrace. ‘Don’t you dare go to sleep when I’m gone.’

      ‘I shan’t.’ Bella smiled. ‘Don’t go just yet. Surely there is a little more time.’

      She was nervous of Matteo leaving. Worried that once he stepped outside the door he might change his mind.

      ‘I have to,’ he said.

      ‘What will Luka say?’ Bella asked. ‘He will surely try and talk you out of bringing us along.’

      ‘I shan’t be telling Luka until you are right by my side, Bella. This is my choice, it has little to do with him. If he says no, screw him, we forget London and just go to Rome. I’m leaving here so that I don’t have to answer to anyone...’ He looked so deeply into her eyes then and his words, though slow and measured, were also urgent. ‘If your mother says no, that she cannot leave, then at least you have given her a choice. You need to get out now.’

      Bella’s response was her kiss. She loved him unshaven against her skin and how, as they sealed their agreement with their mouths, he pressed her back onto the pillow. Bella’s fingers knotted in his damp hair and she tried to match the stroke of his tongue, but it had shifted from tender to the delicious threat of possession.

      He simply could not get enough of the night they had made beautiful.

      He swallowed her sighs as his hand burrowed into the sheet and moved between her legs and then his mouth moved to her ear.

      ‘I owe you one for this morning,’ Matteo whispered, because this morning she had made magic on him with her mouth. He then got back to kissing her so deeply, so thoroughly that she could not now think of his pleasure as his fingers slid inside her.

      She was hot and swollen from last night and his fingers were the reverse of a balm for instead of soothing they made her ache all over again. A delicious ache, though, for she knew, from last night, how it would end. She knew now that the pressure he was building within her would have her collapse into a void somehow lined in velvet any minute now.

      He loved how she whimpered, how her hand moved to his as his fingers grew rougher, yet they did not move to halt him, Bella simply wanted to feel the skill beneath her own palm.

      ‘I want you again,’ Bella begged as he worked her slick sex while, with his free hand, he lifted one slender leg and pushed her thigh open so that she was more available to his hand.

      ‘No time...’ Matteo was struggling to catch his breath. His intention had been to leave Bella hungry enough to follow him and also he wanted the scent of her on his fingers.

      He had never intended to be so close to coming himself.

      None more so than when she removed her hand from his and found his straining shaft and reached for his zipper, but he paused her in his own way—he slipped another finger in and stretched her swollen intimate flesh and in doing so made sure that the imminent pleasure was simply all Bella’s.

      Her thighs came together, entrapping his hand but not halting it. Her neck arched and he chased her mouth as it lifted and, capturing her open lips, he suckled her tongue. He felt her tiny quivers down below and yet he stroked longer and harder till she tightened around him over and over. He nearly came to the sensation as he remembered taking her last night and the feel of those same beats of pleasure around him.

      His fingers slipped out of her and he slipped a hand under her calf, straightening her leg so that it collapsed, loose limbed, to the bed and he watched her eyes slowly open and a lazy, sated smile spread over her lips.

      She had him.

      Even if he had just taken her, somehow with that smile she had him and for a second, just for a second, because mistrust came as second nature to him, Matteo wondered if he was being played.

      He trusted no one.

      He never had.

      Even his friendship with Luka was a guarded one and so he warned her.

      ‘Don’t let me down, Bella.’

      ‘I shan’t.’

      ‘So I’ll see you soon?’ Matteo checked, yet she hesitated for a moment before she gave him a small nod.

      ‘Don’t ruin this, Bella,’ Matteo warned. ‘No second chances. You leave with me this morning or you leave here for good...’ He tapped his head and Bella knew that if she didn’t follow him Matteo was telling her she would be dismissed from his mind.

      Tough talk, Bella thought, but she knew him better.

      Matteo might have been promoted to Malvolio’s right-hand man but she knew for sure now that beneath that cool exterior beat a beautiful warm heart.

      No matter what others thought of him.

      They had made love all night yet he was harder and more wanting as he left the room than when he had entered.

      Bella lay there as the door closed and how she would have loved to rest, to fall asleep in sheets that held the scent of them, to wake up slowly later and to recall in vivid detail the bliss of last night...

      Soon she would do just that, Bella told herself.

      The memories of last night, though, for now she must put away. Tuck them into the pages of her heart and turn the key.

      She would take them out and examine them later.

      There was no time for that now.

      And so, instead, Bella showered quickly and pulled on the tarty black dress that she had worn last night.

      It smelt of the cheap perfume that Matteo had loathed so.

      The lacy stockings and suspenders she had also worn Bella stuffed in her bag.

      And, knowing how things must appear, she did what would surely be expected of her—Bella emptied the bar fridge of the tiny bottles of liquor and took the nuts and treats. She picked up the money that Matteo had left on the bed and peeled off a couple of notes and put them in her bag, some she stuffed in her bra and the rest...

      Bella pulled the rubber stoppers off her ridiculously high sandals and rolled the rest of the cash into two tight tubes and squeezed them into her heels, then she replaced the stoppers and strapped on her sandals.

      She allowed herself one last glance around the room before she closed the door—oh, she had been terrified on entering it. Her cheek had been smarting from his slap, there had been angry tears falling from her eyes but now she stood smiling as she saw the chairs they had pushed back so they could dance together and make up for all the nights they had not had.

      Her first night of work had been a pleasure rather than the hell she had anticipated.

      Bella took the elevator down and her nostrils tightened as she walked into the bar. It was filled with the stale scent of last night’s celebrations that had been held to mark Malvolio’s release from prison and his not-guilty verdict.

      ‘How was it?’ Gina asked, referring to her night with Matteo, and Bella simply didn’t know how to answer such a question so she said nothing. ‘I hope he paid you well...’ Gina said. ‘Given that he kept you all night.’

      ‘I thought this one was on Malvolio.’ Bella shrugged and went to walk off but Gina halted her.

      ‘Are you trying to say that Matteo didn’t give you a tip?’ Gina frowned, clearly disbelieving Bella, and she held out her hand.

      ‘I thought that we would get to keep the tips.’

      ‘Half is for Malvolio and the rest we divide amongst us.’ Gina snapped her fingers and Bella opened her bag and handed over the money that she had earlier separated from the pile.

      ‘And?’