LITMIR.BIZ

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stiffened but he didn’t turn around; instead he carried on walking but there was a dangerous, unchecked energy between them and Matteo could feel his heart thumping as he pressed floors five through to twelve and the elevator started moving again.

      Matteo got to Abby’s room.

      The turn-down service had been and there was a chocolate on her pillow and it was all calm but his heart still thumped in his chest and so he poured a glass of water and took a drink.

      Abby had told him that they always stayed at different hotels.

      He closed his eyes and tried to tell himself to calm down. They were in the same profession, Matteo said to himself. Of course their paths would cross.

      The self-talk didn’t reassure.

      Matteo went to the wardrobe and pulled out a top and a skirt and then he went to her underwear drawer. Next he went over to the bed and wrote a silly note and left it on her pillow, then back up to his suite he went.

      One look at his face and Abby knew something was wrong.

      ‘Here.’ He handed her her clothes; he was about to suggest that she get changed and then he would walk her down, or maybe that it wasn’t such a good idea for her to be staying at this hotel and that they could switch, but the long sentence sort of shrunk into three words.

      ‘Stay here tonight.’

      ‘Matteo?’

      ‘Hunter’s here.’

      ‘There was a problem with security and so they...’

      ‘No, no...’ Matteo wasn’t buying it for a moment. ‘Did you really think he was just going to let you take him down without a fight, Abby? Did you think, when you were hatching your master plan, that Hunter was just going to sit back and let you beat him?’

      ‘It’s not going to happen again,’ Abby said.

      ‘I’m not saying that it is,’ Matteo said. ‘But you’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest and he’s angry.’

      ‘Did you say anything?’ Abby demanded.

      ‘He knows that I know what happened.’

      ‘What did you say to him?’ Abby shouted. ‘Matteo, you didn’t do...’

      ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he snapped. ‘He already thought I knew at the press conference. I just let him know tonight that I did. Abby, that guy swaggers around... I swear that he’s going to do whatever it takes to mess with your head.’

      ‘He’s already messed with Pedro’s,’ she admitted.

      Matteo was right, Abby realised—it was no accident that Hunter was here.

      ‘Stay,’ Matteo said. ‘I’m not going to try anything.’ And then he shouted, nicely if that was possible, ‘I just want you in my bed with me!’

      ‘Matteo, you’re not always going to be around,’ Abby pointed out.

      But he was the master of instant fixes. ‘Let’s just get through tonight.’

      Matteo was shaken, in a way that he never had been about another.

      Sex really was the last thing on his mind tonight.

      It wasn’t anything to do with that.

      In fact, for Matteo, it was more concerning than that, because when he stripped off and got into bed, he just needed her skin beside his.

      Abby stood there as Matteo stripped off.

      Completely.

      She guessed it wouldn’t enter his head to get into bed any other way.

      She could ask for pillows between them, or get into bed, her robe tied and her reluctance evident, only she wasn’t reluctant.

      It was her feelings for Matteo that scared her.

      Not him.

      She took off her robe and got in beside him and he switched off the light and just rolled into her.

      He kissed her shoulder, the back of her hair and he ran a hand the length of her thigh and to her waist and then the thump, thump of his heart slowed and Abby lay there, listening to him sleeping with his hand resting on her stomach.

      Abby slowly acclimatised to the feeling of sharing a bed with someone. She kept waiting for his hand to move, or for Matteo to change his mind about not trying anything. But Matteo was sleeping the sleep of the dead and so she found out what it was like to be held naked through the night with no expectation.

      It was possibly the nicest gift of all and in that moment her world was the nicest place.

      In the dark, next to him.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      AT FIRST ABBY thought that she had jolted awake but then realised that the movement had come from Matteo.

      He was still asleep but Matteo just had the familiar sensation of falling.

      Only it wasn’t him falling from a tree this time.

      He was standing at the door to an elevator and watching the carriage drop down with Hunter and Abby in it and grabbing out for the cable and missing.

      Yes, he jolted but then in that same instant felt her warm next to him and knew it was a dream and straight back into deep sleep he went.

      Abby lay there, not thinking of the race ahead today but instead the man next to her now, and she didn’t want the alarm to go off.

      Of course it did.

      Matteo groaned at the intrusion and pulled her closer into him.

      Their temperatures matched, their muscles were loose and relaxed and she felt him slowly harden and the nudge of him at the back of her thigh, which seemed to Abby to be at odds with his regular breathing.

      Her breathing wasn’t in the least regular. She could feel his hand on her stomach and she lay locked in private thoughts and aching with want. She lay in a body that was finally ready to commit, next to a man who never would.

      Abby turned over to face Matteo and his arms, even in sleep, moved to accept her.

      He really was asleep.

      All the tension from last night had left and his mouth was just a little open and she was so close to leaning over and kissing him awake, just giving in to and exploring the want that hummed through her now.

      The snooze alarm went off and she watched his face screw up and his hand reached for a pillow, pulling it over his head and, in that moment, Hunter left every equation.

      There were no more thoughts of revenge, no past to overcome, just the quiet of morning and a feeling of peace as she lay next to a man who plucked the strings of her heart.

      Just that.

      Abby rolled over and turned off the alarm and he pulled her back to his side. ‘Matteo, I’ve got to go.’

      He fought to wake and the events of last night started to filter in. ‘I’ll walk you down,’ he mumbled and moved to sit up.

      ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard.’

      She just needed him; yet Abby knew Matteo had checked out on love.

      ‘Go back to sleep.’

      She went and had a quick shower and dressed in the clothes that he had fetched for her last night and then came back into the bedroom, where he lay awake now, looking at her. He looked sulky and angry and she knew why—Hunter was around.

      ‘You’re going tomorrow, Matteo. I’m here for a few more days, dismantling the car and then straight on to Monte Carlo, so it seems a bit stupid to be walking me to my room

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