Enthralled by Moretti by Cathy Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

forgiven for thinking that the decor here suggests a completely different personality.’ He swung round to look at her as she hovered in the doorway, neither in the room nor out of it. ‘Someone fun...vibrant.’ He paused a fraction of a second. ‘Passionate...’
    Chase flushed, and was annoyed with herself, because she knew that that was precisely the response he had been courting. He was back and he was intent on playing with her like a cat playing with a mouse, knowing that all the danger and all the power lay exclusively in his hands.
    ‘And yet,’ Alessandro drawled as he prowled through the room before gazing briefly out of the window which overlooked the little street outside, ‘there’s something missing.’
    ‘What?’ The question was obviously reluctantly spoken. As he began to walk towards her, she felt panic rise with sickening force to her throat. All at once she was overcome with a memory of how desperately she had wanted him all those years ago. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted on a softly indrawn breath.
    Getting closer and closer to her, Alessandro thought he could touch the subtle change in the atmosphere between them. It had become highly charged and, for the first time in a very long time, he felt sizzlingly alive. Not one of the catwalk-model beauties he had slept with over the past few years had come close to rousing this level of forbidden excitement. The immediacy of his response shocked him, all the more so because he recognised that the last time he had felt like this was when he had been in the process of being duped by the very same woman standing in front of him now. Hatred and revulsion were clearly inadequate protection against whatever it was she had that was now pushing an erection to the fore.
    The bloody woman had been elusive then, for reasons which he had later understood, and she was elusive now, this time for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand.
    ‘Are you afraid of me?’ he demanded harshly and Chase roused herself from the heated torpor that had engulfed her to stare up at him.
    ‘What makes you think that I’m afraid of you?’ She tried to insert some vigour into her voice but she could hear the sound of it—thin, weedy and defensive, all the things she didn’t want him to imagine she was for a second.
    ‘The way you’re standing in the doorway as though I might make a lunge for you at any minute!’
    ‘I can’t imagine you would do any such thing!’
    Couldn’t she? It was precisely what he wanted to do: behave like a caveman and take her, because she was tempting the hell out of him!
    ‘I’m afraid of what you could do.’ She backtracked quickly as her mind threatened to veer down unexpected, unwelcome paths. ‘You’ve already shown that you’d be willing to punish Beth because you... Because of me.’
    ‘And yet here I am now. Do you think I’m the sort of man who reneges on what he’s said? I’ve told you that I intend to pay the full, agreed price. I’ll pay it.’ Not afraid of him? Like hell. She might not be afraid of him, but he was certainly making her feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to try and shimmy further away from him.
    He extended one lean hand against the wall, effectively blocking any further scarpering towards the front door. He could smell her hair. If he lowered his head just a little, he would feel its softness against his face. Of their own accord, his eyes drifted to the prissy blouse and the even prissier navy-blue jacket. He was well aware that she was breathing quickly, her breasts rising and falling as she did her utmost to keep her eyes averted.
    Just as quickly he pushed himself away, retreating from her space, and he watched narrowly as she relaxed and exhaled one long breath.
    He wasn’t going to lose control. He had lost control once with her and he wasn’t about to become the sort of loser who made a habit of ignoring life’s lessons and learning curves.
    ‘I was going to say...’ He led the