Matteo rested his damp forehead against Grace’s equally hot one. “Are you okay?”
Grace gave a snort of laughter. “I probably have brick dust embedded in my backside, but otherwise, yes, I’m more than okay.”
Matteo released a shaky laugh. “I can’t believe we just did that. It might be dark, but it’s also the middle of November and bloody cold out. Although I didn’t really notice that at the time,” he admitted ruefully before he frowned again. “Anyone might have come along and seen us together.”
Grace couldn’t believe their reckless behavior either. It was the exact opposite to the calm and ordered life she had carved out for herself since coming to England.
Then Matteo Zalotti came into the bookstore where she worked, and the façade of her life had begun to crumble. Tonight, it had disintegrated into that same brick dust Grace thought might be embedded in her skin.
It was also awkward as hell to disengage their two bodies under these circumstances.
Somehow they managed it, and while Matteo was adjusting his clothing and disposing of the condom in a dumpster farther down the alley, Grace managed to push her ripped panties into her shoulder bag and straighten her own clothes.
Within minutes, apart from Matteo’s disheveled hair and the beard burn Grace could feel on her skin from the evening stubble on Matteo’s chin, they once again looked respectable.
They might look that way on the outside, but the sensual awareness still sizzling in the air between them was almost electric in its intensity.
But their desperate physical need of each other and the increasing wildness of their lovemaking had changed nothing. Matteo was still head of the Zalotti crime organization, and Grace was still as determined not to be drawn into that life.
She could see by Matteo’s pained expression that the same thing had just occurred to him.
That he knew, despite the intense physical chemistry between them, they were still, and always would be, the same two unsuitable-for-each-other people.
She grimaced. “Well, this isn’t in the least awkward.”
Awkward didn’t even begin to describe how Matteo felt right now.
He had resisted the pull of Grace for as long as he was able—a whole thirty-six hours—but by this afternoon, he had been climbing the walls in his need to see and be with her. Two hours later, he’d given up that fight to come and seek her out at the time he knew she would be closing and locking up the store for the weekend.
Lurking in a back alley waiting for a woman like some bloody thief in the night wasn’t exactly his usual style, but then nothing about his craving for Grace was normal.
The past two days had been frustrating as hell. Not just this physical ache for Grace, but Leon Brunelli’s enigmatic behavior last night. Each comment Leon gave, each question he asked, seemed to be made with the expectation of receiving one answer and then the other man frowning in disappointment when he was given a different one.
Unless that was just Matteo’s guilty conscience making him think that was what was happening?
It could be, and yet Matteo didn’t think so. There had seemed to be an uncharacteristic edge to the older man last night, one that Matteo hadn’t been able to penetrate, as they ate dinner together or afterward.
But Leon Brunelli wasn’t his priority right now, Grace was. In truth, she had been Matteo’s first thought in everything since the moment he first saw her eight days ago.
And yet he had nothing to offer her.
No present.
No future.
Nothing.
“Don’t look so worried, Matteo.” Grace’s laugh sounded hollow in the darkness. “We’re both adults, and we both consented to what just happened.”
He knew that, had made very sure of Grace’s consent before he took their intimacy any further.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she dismissed.
That was the problem. It did mean something to Matteo.
It also wasn’t enough. Already, Matteo wanted her again. Wanted inside her. Worse, he needed to be inside her. Needed it desperately.
His lips thinned. “I don’t—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, boss, but an urgent call just came in for you.”
Matteo saw Grace’s head rear back as she turned to peer down the alley to where Luca now stood. Matteo had told both his bodyguards to wait in the SUV, but for all the awareness he’d had of his surroundings as he and Grace made love, Luca could have been standing there watching them the whole time. He could see by the flush in Grace’s cheeks that she was wondering the same thing.
He glared at Luca. “Tell whoever it is that I’ll call them back.” He hadn’t finished speaking to Grace yet.
“This person demanded you take the call.” Luca grimaced.
“I said—”
“Take your call, Matteo,” Grace told him. “I need to get home anyway.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
She frowned. “This is goodbye, Matteo.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“Grace—”
“Don’t.” She avoided his hand when he reached out to grasp hold of her arm. “I meant it, Matteo. This is goodbye,” she repeated firmly.
She nodded to Luca as she walked past him before continuing to the end of the alley and then disappearing as she turned left and was quickly swallowed up by the throng of Saturday-evening pedestrians.
Giving Matteo with no choice but to stand there and watch her leave him.
Chapter Fourteen
“This estate and house are impressive for the middle of London,” Leon Brunelli commented as he entered the comfort of Matteo’s study. The arrangements for this meeting had been the reason for Leon’s urgent telephone call to Matteo the night before.
Matteo had assumed this was a business meeting to discuss their very positive conversation yesterday afternoon with Gregori Markovic and Nikolai Volkov. But he wasn’t so sure when he saw Leon was dressed more casually than Matteo had ever seen before, in a navy blue T-shirt, dark blue leather jacket, black jeans, and biker boots.
Matteo was relieved now that he was also dressed in faded denims and a pale blue shirt and had chosen to meet with the other man in the comfort of his study. To add to
