Alessandro looked at her thoughtfully.
‘We should talk.’
The smile on Georgie’s face tightened but she kept it pinned there. Her eyes, though, were glassy and she lowered them. A conversation had to be had. Would it be too much to hope that he might want to see where this wonderful thing between them might lead?
‘Good idea,’ she managed in a normal voice. ‘You read my mind.’
‘Drink some of your wine and let me just feel you for a bit first.’
He slipped his hand underneath the vest and covered her breast with it, teasing her nipple until she was moaning softly and squirming. When he pushed up the top so that he could suckle the pink, throbbing tip, she slipped down the sofa and relaxed back to enjoy what he was doing.
Georgie’s mind went blank, the way it always did the second he started touching her.
She let one arm dangle off the side of the sofa and watched him as he laved her nipple with his mouth. Her legs parted and she waited with mounting pleasure for him to touch her. She knew how his hand felt as it trailed along her body, she knew where it would linger and how that touch would lighten or strengthen depending on where he touched.
Right now, he was touching her just where she wanted to be touched, circling her belly button, dipping into the small indent with feathery softness before continuing a downward spiral to the elasticated waistband of the culottes.
He slipped a finger inside her, rubbed her clitoris. She looked through half-opened eyes at the bulge of his hand under the culottes and that, in itself, was a turn-on.
She sighed, closed her eyes and moved to keep rhythm with his gently exploring fingers, angling her body to maximise her pleasure, and as his rubbing got stronger and firmer, she sucked in her breath and came in a long, convulsing shudder that drained everything out of her on a high of intense, shattering ecstasy.
She struggled back up into an upright position when she eventually returned to Planet Earth to find him smiling at her like the cat that got the cream.
The talk…a conversation that needed to be had…
She thought about the chasm between them, the chasm that they had both chosen to forget about temporarily but which was now rising up from the depths to confront them.
Why let him take the initiative? She was never going to open herself up to being vulnerable in front of a guy again, never look across to see him kissing another woman or else just walking away from her, smiling and waving and knowing he’d stuck the knife in because she’d given herself away.
Inside, she could be as vulnerable as she wanted and give as much airtime to hurt as she wanted but, no…she would be in charge of the narrative.
‘It’s our penultimate night here tomorrow. I guess that’s what you want to talk about?’ Her heart was racing, thumping so hard it felt as though it would smash right through her ribcage. ‘I might need to actually do some work. I have reports to write and I need to start planning next term’s curriculum. Once the ski season starts coming to an end, I have to get into gear for a change of tempo when the outdoor activities change and I think that this is going to be my last season there, anyway.’ Voice perfectly normal but, inside, everything in wild turmoil.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I need to start putting down roots. Proper roots. This has been fun and it’s served a purpose, as you know, but…’ Her voice tapered off.
Alessandro frowned.
In the pit of his stomach, he felt an unsettling flare of panic.Putting down roots? Quitting her job at Whistler? How had that been the last thing on his mind? And when she spoke about putting down roots, where exactly were those roots going to be planted?
The depth of his reaction set alarm bells ringing in his head. Why was that? This was only ever going to be a brief fling. In fact, it wasn’t going to be anything at all…it was meant to be no more than an enforced situation that they would both endure before walking away back to the reality they’d left behind.
Shutters slammed down, an automatic self-defence mechanism to protect himself from hurt.
He barely acknowledged that it was there. He just knew to back away from questions to which the answers might not be what he wanted to hear and the question he wanted to ask her waswhy would you leave me?
He detested himself for the vulnerability in himself he was suddenly exposed to and he didn’t know where it had come from.
He’d always known how to keep the vault in which his heart lay under lock and key. Now it felt as though a crack had opened up in the layers of steel.
To acknowledge that crack was one thing, of course. However, to explore where that crack might lead was off the cards.
‘Of course,’ he said abruptly. He reached to tuck some of her unruly blonde hair behind her ear, keeping his voice controlled and light until his absolute self-control was back in place, although he knew that his hand was just a little bit unsteady. ‘What happened between us was never on the cards in the first place. When you talk about putting down roots, what roots are you talking about? Career roots?’
‘I suppose so.’ Georgie wasn’t looking look at him. ‘Find a place in London. Find a job that pays enough to afford somewhere not too crime-ridden. I can spend the next few months, until September at least, saving madly so I might be able to muster a deposit and, of course, the money I got for this stint will go a long way to realising my dream. So thank you for that.’
‘London…’
