And every night since.
Alessandro would put Julian to bed, read to him and then he would pounce again, no matter where Nat was. The kitchen, the shower, the laundry, the sitting room. A week later there were very few places in the house they hadn’t done it.
Thank goodness Julian slept like the dead.
It never crossed Nat’s mind to refuse, especially considering she’d been so adamant she wouldn’t cross that line. But… she’d been around long enough to know that the magic they’d made that first time didn’t come along very often.
Why deny herself this little oasis of pleasure?
As long as she remembered it was about two convenient bodies finding a little mutual gratification for a finite period of time, she’d be fine. She was an adult. And for once in her life she was making a decision with her head and not her poor, easy heart.
Who’d have thought that would be so liberating?
Was she worried it was too soon for him after his wife’s death? No. Because this wasn’t love – it was…recreation, and God knew both of them deserved a little of that.
Plus, there was something compelling about the way Alessandro fucked that was addictive. He was so… driven. Intense, like the rest of him. Desperate, almost. When his body covered hers, it was like he was trying to absorb her into him. He wasn’t satisfied with quick and easy and rolling over and going to sleep. They went at it for hours each night until sheer exhaustion took over.
And his attention to detail was amazing.
Nat doubted she’d ever been so thoroughly bedded in her life. It was like, by reaching for the maximum level of pleasure, he was hoping to purge the grief.Not just sideline it. He was still hurting and it was as if he’d found the perfect antidote for it – her body.
And that was okay too. If her gratification helped him heal, who was she to argue? She wasn’t in it for anything profound either, so why should he?
The knock-on effect for Julian was incredible, too. The sex was making Alessandro more relaxed. He didn’t seem so grim. He was more… laid-back. He smiled more. Laughed. And Julian was slowly becoming less serious, less wary in return.
They were careful, of course, to keep their relationship from little eyes. Nat was always back in her bed by 5a.m. It was hard and getting harder, especially when Alessandro was so warm and vital, his big arm tucked around her waist, his bigger body curled around hers.
And at that hour of the morning he was usually raring to go again with another treacherous seduction muddling her senses.
‘Stay longer,’ he’d whisper, his accent more pronounced when first waking.
Nat would smile as his lips nuzzled her neck, his hands kneaded her breasts and his erection brushed her belly. The temptation to stay was great but…
‘Julian,’ she’d murmur.
‘He never wakes before seven,bella.’
Which was true, but Nat knew it was best not to be found together. Choosing to snatch these moments with Alessandro was fine – she was an adult. Julian was a boy who dearly needed a mother and who plainly adored her. And that wasn’t fair. What did four-year-olds know of adult games? Adult relationships? It wasn’t right to confuse him any more when his world had already been turned upside down.
So, she dutifully dragged herself out of her lover’s bed, out of his possessive male embrace, every morning. And even when he looked up at her with a sexy half-smile and smouldering sable eyes that told her more than words what he wanted to do to her, she still turned away.
But it was getting more and more difficult…
Alessandro had tried to not let the chemistry between him and Nathalie spill over into their work and for the most part it was successful. The fact she only worked two day shifts a week in the department and usually on the triage desk, made it easier to avoid direct contact. But today, on this crazy, crazy day, she’d been allocated to the cubicles and they seemed to have giant magnets attached to their butts.
Today it was simply impossible to ignore her and their attraction. Impossible to not be utterly distracted by her and the memories of what happened when the lights went out at home.
Which was exactly what his house felt like know Nat Davies was in their lives.
Impossible not to know that asking Nat Davies to stay was the best thing he’d done in a very long time.
‘Twenty-year-old female, right lower quadrant pain, rebound tenderness, hypertensive, tachycardic, febrile.’
She pushed the chart at him trying to be brisk and professional in her handover, but when Alessandro met her eyes he could see the simmer in her gaze and knew her mind wasn’t on her work, either. Everywhere she’d moved today he’d felt her eyes on his body to the point of being ready to combust. To drag her to the nearest private place and get his hands on her.
Alessandro smiled. ‘Probably appendix.’
She nodded. ‘Probably.’
