Alessia.

The scent of the flowers intensifies, and I close my eyes to inhale their sweet, intoxicating perfume.

When I open them, she’s gone.

* * *

I wake with a start. Morning is bleeding through the cracks between the blinds. Alessia has trespassed onto my side of the bed, and she’s nestled under my arm, her hand balled in a fist on my abdomen, her head on my chest. Her leg intertwined with mine.

She is all over me.

And fast asleep.

And my cock is wide awake and rock hard.

“Oh, God,” I whisper, and brush my nose against her hair.

Lavender and roses.

Intoxicating.

My heart rate flips into overdrive as I make a mental list of all the possibilities this scenario presents: Alessia in my arms. Ready. Waiting. She is so tantalizing, so close…too close. If I roll over, she’ll be on her back, and I can finally bury myself in her. I stare up at the ceiling, praying for self-control. I know if I move, she’ll wake, so I torture myself some more and lie still, enjoying the sweet, sweet agony of having her sprawled all over me. I gather a lock of her hair between my fingers, surprised by how soft and silky it feels. She stirs, her fisted hand flexes, and her fingers splay out on my belly, tickling the beginning of my pubic hair.

Fuck!

I’m so hard and want nothing more than to grab her hand and wrap it around my erection. I’ll probably explode if I do.

“Mmm,” she murmurs. Her eyelids flicker open, and she looks dreamily up at me.

“Good morning, Alessia.” I’m breathless.

She gasps and scrambles to put some space between us.

“I was enjoying your visit to my side of the bed,” I tease.

She pulls the covers up to her chin, her cheeks rosy, her smile shy. “Good morning,” she says.

“Sleep well?” I ask as I roll onto my side to face her.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Hungry?” I know I am. And not for food.

She nods.

“Do you really mean yes?”

She frowns.

“You said in the car yesterday that in Albania it’s the opposite.”

“You remembered.” She sounds pleased and surprised.

“I remember everything you say.” I want to tell her that she looks very lovely this morning. But I refrain. I’m behaving.

“I like sleeping with you,” she says, confounding me.

“Well, that makes two of us.”

“I did not have bad dreams.”

“Good. Me neither.”

She laughs, and I try to recall the dream that woke me. All I know is that she was part of it. As usual. “I dreamt about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure it was not a nightmare?” she teases.

I grin. “Quite sure.”

She smiles. She has a bewitching smile. Perfect white teeth. Pink lips that are parted possibly in invitation. “You look very desirable.” The words come out of my mouth in an unguarded moment. Her deep brown eyes dilate, captivating me.

“Desirable?” Her breath catches.

“Yes.”

The silence stretches between us as we gaze at each other.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers.

I close my eyes and swallow while her words from last night echo in my head.

I have never slept with a man.

“You’re a virgin?” I whisper, and open my eyes to study her face.

She blushes. “Yes.”

Her simple affirmation is like an ice bath to my libido. I’ve only slept with one virgin, and that was Caroline. It was my first time, too, and it was a disaster that nearly got us expelled from school. After that my father took me to a high-class brothel in Bloomsbury.

If you’re going to start fucking girls, Maxim, you’d better learn how to fuck.

I was fifteen, and Caroline moved on….

Until Kit’s death.

Bloody hell.

Alessia’s a virgin at twenty-three? Of course she is. What did I expect? She’s different from every woman I’ve ever known. And she’s looking at me all big eyes and expectation. I wonder again at the folly of bringing her here.

Alessia frowns, anxiety etched on her face.

Shit.

Reaching forward, I brush my thumb against her pouty bottom lip. She inhales sharply. “I want you, Alessia. Very much. But I want you to want me, too. I think we need to get to know each other before we take whatever this is any further.”

There. That was the grown-up response. Yes?

“Okay,” she whispers, but she looks uncertain, and possibly a little disappointed.

What does she expect of me?

And I know I need to put some distance between us to think about this. Here in my bed she’s a distraction, a pouting, soft-lipped, and beautiful distraction. I sit up and cup her face in my hands. “Let’s just enjoy this holiday,” I murmur, and kiss her, and clamber out of bed.

Now is not the time.

It’s not fair to her.

And it’s not fair to me.

“Are you leaving?” Alessia asks as she sits up in bed. Her hair tumbles down around her small frame like a veil. Her eyes are round with concern; she looks effortlessly sexy, swamped in my pajama shirt.

“I’m going to grab a shower, then cook us breakfast.”

“You can cook?”

I laugh at her shock. “Yeah. Well, I can cook bacon and eggs.” I give her a sheepish smile and stride into the bathroom.

* * *

Bugger.

More self-abuse in the shower.

Water streams over my body, and with one hand spread on the marble tiles supporting me, I come quickly, thinking of her hand on my stomach and her hand wrapped around my dick.

A virgin.

I frown. Why am I making such a big deal of this? At least she hasn’t been brutalized by those fuckers. Anger flares in my gut as I think of the men coming after her. She’s safe here in Cornwall. So that’s something.

Perhaps she’s religious. She did say her grandmother was a missionary, and she wears a gold cross around her neck. Or maybe premarital sex is a taboo in Albania. I have no idea. I wash my hair and my body with the soap Danny left for me.

This is not what I had in mind when I brought her down here. Her inexperience is an issue. I like sexually adventurous women who know what they’re doing, know what they want, and know their limits. Breaking in a virgin is a big responsibility. I towel-dry my hair.

It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Might as well be me.

I stare at the cad in the mirror.

Dude. Grow up.

Maybe she wants a long-term relationship.

I’ve had two relationships, but neither of them for longer than eight months. So not that long. Charlotte was socially ambitious, and she moved on to a baronet from Essex. Arabella was too into drugs for my liking. I mean, who doesn’t like a bump now and then, but every day? No way. I think she’s in rehab again.

A relationship with Alessia. What would that entail?

I am getting way ahead of myself here. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I head back into the bedroom. She’s gone.

Fuck. My heart rate doubles.

Has she fled? Again?

I knock on the door of her room. No reply. I enter, and I’m relieved to hear the shower.

For fuck’s sake, get a grip.

I leave her and go to get dressed.

* * *

Alessia doesn’t think she’ll ever leave this shower. At home in Kuk?s, the bathroom had a rudimentary shower and the floor had to be mopped after each use. At Magda’s the shower was over the bath. This shower has its own enclosed space, and the hot water cascades over her from the biggest showerhead she’s ever seen. Even bigger than the one in Mister Maxim’s bathroom at his apartment. It’s blissful and like nothing she’s experienced before. She washes her hair and carefully shaves her body with the disposable razor Magda gave her.

She scrubs herself with the body wash she’s brought from home. Her soapy hand moves over her breasts, and she closes her eyes.

I want you, Alessia. Very much.

He wants her.

Her hand moves down.

And in her mind it’s his hand on her body. Touching her. Intimately.

She wants him, too.

She recalls waking up in his arms and feeling the warmth and strength of his body against her skin. Her belly flutters at the memory as her hand moves. Faster. Faster. And faster. She leans against the warmed tiles. And raises her head. Her mouth open as she gulps in air.

Maxim.

Maxim.

Ah.

Her muscles clench deep inside as she comes.

Catching her breath, she opens her eyes.

This is what she wants…isn’t it?

Can she trust him?

Yes.

He’s done nothing to shake the trust she’s placed in him. Last night he rescued her from her night terrors, he was kind and gentle. He let her sleep with him to keep her nightmares away.

She feels safe with him.

She hasn’t felt safe for so long. It’s a novel feeling, even though she knows that Dante and Ylli are still out there somewhere looking for her.

No. Do not think about them.

She wishes she knew more about men. Men and women in Kuk?s don’t interact like they do in England. At home men socialize with men, women with women. It has always been this way. Not having brothers and kept separate from her male cousins in social situations, her experience was limited to the few male students she met at university—and her father, of course.