He probably hadn’t anticipated the first danger he’d come across would be in the form of the woman he was seeking to protect, she thought with a sudden burst of morbid humour.
God, what if hedidhave a latent concussion? Niccolo was a natural side sleeper, but what if the wound on his side made him roll onto his back?
The morbid humour vanishing as quickly as it had emerged, Georgia sat up and gazed at the wall separating them. Her heart was racing, the beats pounding in her ears. All she could picture was Niccolo lying in a pool of his own blood and choking on his own vomit, and the longer the picture stuck, the tighter she hugged herself to stave off the growing coldness.
She had no notion of throwing the duvet off and climbing out of bed, not until she’d pushed through her bedroom door and was standing in front of his ajar door.
Her hands fought a war with her brain over whether or not to knock, but either he saw her shadow or simply sensed her presence because, before she’d decided what to do, his voice rang out. “You can come in if you want, Georgia.”
She pushed the door open.
He was lying in the large bed on his back, his head turned to her.
Their gazes locked.
Her chest filled, the tears she’d fought earlier stabbing the back of her eyes again. Even with his face etched with exhaustion, Niccolo was the most beautiful man in the world.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head in miserable agreement. She hadn’t slept properly since Paris, but this was different. So many thoughts. So many fears. It was all too much.
His lips curved in a fleeting smile. “Neither can I.”
“Can I sleep in here with you?” she whispered, the question coming before it had fully realised itself in her brain. As contradictory as she knew it was, what with all her combustible internal reactions to him, there was something about Niccolo’s hulking presence that made her feel a little less vulnerable and a little calmer in herself. Shutting her brain off from the world felt a little less frightening with him there. The biggest current fear, that he would choke on his own vomit, would also be salved. She would be right there if concussion did strike and he needed her.
There was no gentle teasing at her change of mind about the sleeping arrangements. Instead, he stretched an arm and pulled the duvet back in invitation.
Her heart beating harder than ever, Georgia padded over and climbed in beside him. She could smell mint, and it lightened the weight in her heart a little more to know he’d found toothpaste and a toothbrush, too.
Resisting the marrow-deep yearn to envelop herself to him, she settled on her side with her back to him. Instantly, the lids of her eyes became heavy. She cleared her throat. “Don’t sleep on your back, Nic.”
The mattress moved as he obediently rolled over. “Worried about me dying in my sleep?” he asked with tired dryness.
He’d rolled close enough that his warm breath danced into her hair. Her heart caught in her throat again. The beats were so huge that it felt like they could explode out of her chest. “Only because I wouldn’t know how to get rid of a six-foot-four corpse,” she managed to jest.
His laughter at this was light, but it brought a smile to her face. Niccolo’s laugh had always made her smile.He’dalways made her smile. Made her laugh. Made her giddy. Made her fall in love…
Georgia’s last painful thought as sleep finally claimed her was that remnants of that love still chimed strongly in her thrumming heart.
Chapter Five
Niccolo’s eyessnapped open before he was even fully roused from his sleep. The pain above his hip throbbed, his reason for being in this bed flashing like a movie in his mind. But it was a hazy movie because at some point in the hours they’d slept, Georgia had rolled over. Her repose face was only inches from his.
His heart tightened then softened as he noticed the hand resting beneath her cheek. She had such pretty, delicate hands.
Not for the first time, he thought how angelic she looked in sleep. When they’d been lovers, he’d adored waking to her sleeping face. He couldn’t count the times he’d simply gazed at her, his body coming to life as he soaked in the slightly too-long upturned nose and heart-shaped lips that were succulent in their softness. In those days, she’d slept like an angel too, her clear, unblemished complexion the perfect canvas of tranquillity. There had been no furrow between her eyebrows, not like there was now. When had that furrow appeared? Had it always been there, but he’d simply failed to notice it?
Staring at her now, he could feel his body coming to life as it had done all those months ago. As it had singularly failed to do since he’d called time on them. The ache in his head andthe throbbing wound in his side diminished as heat of a kind he hadn’t experienced in so long crept through his veins.
When they’d been lovers, he’d soaked in all her angelic features and then pressed his mouth to those succulent lips, waking her with a kiss. It was a kiss that always led to more.
The furious kiss they’d shared when he’d pinned her to the sofa had been his first real kiss in four months, and suddenly he could taste it. Taste her.
He could be blindfolded and still recognise Georgia’s taste, and he inched his face a little closer, memories of just how good they’d been together spilling out of the box he’d done his damnedest to lock them in.
Taking her for the first time had been beyond anything. Niccolo had never had sex with a virgin before. He’d been so mindful of his capacity to hurt her that he’d taken greater care of her than he’d taken of anything in the whole of his life. She’d had no doubts. She’d eagerly welcomed him into her tight depths with hitched, husky moans of encouragement he could still hear as vividly as the night she’d made them. Even with the slight ache in his bottom lip where she’d bitten him – unlike the kicks to his ribs, which, he suspected, she’d restrained herself from really letting loose on as there was no pain in them, there had been no restraint in her bite – his mouth tingled with the compulsion to feel the soft succulence of her lips one more time.
Dio, he wanted to feel the soft succulence of Georgia in her entirety one last time. Caress her soft skin. Knead the breasts like pillows and suckle deep on the rose-red nipples. Slide deep inside her and make her his again…
