Their eyes caught for a fleeting moment before, his jaw set, he turned his attention back to his phone. It was a fleeting moment that made her insides feel even gooier and her heart even heavier.
She sensed his stare flicker back to her when she climbed into her bed.
Lying on her back, she opened her book. She couldn’t remember anything of the last chapter she’d read. Working her way back, she realised not a single word of what she’d read in his office had sunk in. She turned the pages back to the first chapter and started again. Tried.
She heard movement. A quick side-eye showed Gino had put his phone down and settled beneath his duvet.
The words on the page in front of her blurred. She blinked them back into focus. Three paragraphs in, and she had to go back to the beginning.
All she could see was Gino. His bare chest. His erection jutting through his pyjama bottoms. The way his eyes crinkled on the few occasions she’d broken through his austere front to make him laugh. Funny, but earlier she’d barely registered him wrapping his fingers around her wrist. Now she could feel it like a branding.
Maybe she shouldn’t have asked that question. Better not to have known. Better to have taken delight in her own attraction and the wonderful zings in her body that came from it.
Closing her book, she put it on the floor and turned the light out.
The pounding of her heart was a roar in her head.
Was his heart beating as fast as hers? Was it her face he was seeing behind his closed eyes?
“How many women have slept in this room?” she whispered through the darkness enveloping them.
His voice sounded hoarse. “Interrogation time is over, Chicca.”
It was the first time he’d not called her by the formal Miss Marino, and her heart caught tightly at his use of her family’s pet name for her.
But the inflexion of his tone was different to her family’s. When they called her it, it was just the diminutive of her full name, the way her father sometimes called her Franci. The way Gino said it sounded like the sweetheart endearment Chicca also meant.
Or was that just wishful thinking? Probably.
She swallowed. “I know. I’m just curious.”
“Don’t be.”
“I can’t help it. You know I’ve never been with a man.” Never experienced all that her body was designed to feel.
She heard him sigh. It didn’t sound like his usual exasperated exhale.
“What’s the man my family want me to marry like?”
A long time passed before he answered. “That is something you will have to determine for yourself.”
“I don’t want to marry a stranger. Please, tell me your opinion of him.”
“My opinion is not worth anything in this matter.”
“It’s worth something to me.”
“Well it shouldn’t be.” His voice suddenly became rough. “I kidnapped you, Miss Marino. I forcibly snatched you from the street and am holding you captive for a ransom. Don’t ever let yourself forget that. I am the last person in the world you should be seeking opinions about anything from.”
Chapter Seven
Francesca openedher eyes with a start. Her heart was pounding, a hot, squirmy sensation pulsing deep between her legs. As she tried to catch her breath, she tried, too, to catch the dream she’d been in the midst of, but for once her dream skittered away from her, leaving only blurry, fleeting images of Gino. He’d been in her bed, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t picture what he’d been doing there with her. Could only feel it.
Here, in the bed he’d joined her in her dream, she gazed at his sleeping form before quietly pulling her duvet off and getting to her feet. Tiptoeing to the bathroom, she turned to stare at him again before opening it. She could see him much more clearly from here, sprawled on his stomach, an arm hooked by his face, and her heart beat even more strongly for it.
Lungs filling and expelling in a sigh, she closed the bathroom door softly so as not to wake him, stripped off her pyjamas and got under the shower.
It was Gino’s shower gel she cleaned herself with. His shampoo. He didn’t use conditioner, but if he did, she would use that too. She was using his stuff because, as he’d reminded her, he’d snatched her from the street and kidnapped her.
