Only once did she peek. Ariana opened her eyes, while praying that she wouldn’t be caught, for she did not want to break this spell. Gian’s eyes were closed, though, as if savouring the most exquisite wine. He continued to hold her cheeks, so firmly now that her head could not move. He kissed her thoroughly and his lips were like velvet, his tongue so shockingly intimate it felt charged as each stroke shot volts of ecstasy to her own. His hand moved into her hair, holding the back of her head and knotting into her scalp as his tongue danced with hers.
A craving for more built in her but he pulled back. Gian looked at her wet lips and dilated pupils and the frantic, somewhat startled look and he tried to rein in his usual common sense. ‘I should get you home...’
‘Please,’ Ariana said, but her voice was low and husky and told them both what she wanted.
Ariana’s decision was made.
Gian De Luca would be her first.
Perhaps that was the reason she had held on for so long, because there was no one else who held a candle to him. No one who made her shiver, even without touching her, no one who made her mouth want to know his kiss...
‘Ariana.’ His voice was gruff. ‘When I said home, I meant to your door.’ Gian was serious. A kiss was one thing, but bedding her was out of the question. ‘If we were so much as seen out together...’
‘That would get them talking.’ Ariana smiled as Gian clearly hated the thought. ‘Mamma would have us married in a moment if she knew her virgin daughter was out with the Duke...’ Her voice trailed off, unsure how Gian would receive the news of her inexperience, but he gave a low laugh.
Ariana was not, he knew, dropping in his title; instead she was capturing her mother’s thought process and agreeing with exactly how it would be if they were seen. ‘Exactly. Though,’ he added, ‘I’m sure all mothers think their daughters are virgins.’
‘But I am one.’
He almost laughed again, and then realised she wasn’t laughing. He almost hauled her off him, but decided that reaction might be a bit extreme and so instead he offered her his smile.
His duty smile, which she determinedly ignored.
‘Let’s get you home...’ Gian said.
‘Yes,’ Ariana agreed. ‘Take me to bed.’
‘Absolutely not.’
And he meant it, for he was headed down the steps. Ariana did not quite know what she’d done wrong, just that everything had changed.
‘Gian.’ Now she really did have to practically run to keep up with him. ‘Why are you being like this? Didn’t you like our kiss?’
‘It was a kiss,’ Gian snapped, ‘not an open invitation.’
But Ariana would not relent. She had made up her mind and was all too used to getting her own way. ‘I want my first to be you.’
‘Well, it won’t be. If we are even as much as seen, people will talk and it will be...’ He had to be cruel to be kind. ‘They will turn it into something bigger than it is.’
‘I know that.’
‘Do you?’ Gian checked. ‘Do you understand that I don’t do relationships? That the very last thing I want is to be involved in someone else’s life?’
‘You’re always dating.’
‘Yes.’
‘So what’s the difference?’ Ariana frowned. ‘I might be innocent in the bedroom, but I am not stupid, Gian...’
‘I never said you were.’
‘I’m not asking for love. I don’t want lies to appease and promises that you won’t keep,’ Ariana said. ‘I’m all too familiar with them, but I do want you to make love to me.’
‘Ariana—’
‘No,’ she broke in, and they argued in loud Italian all the way home. ‘Don’t make me ashamed for admitting it. I’m twenty-five and a virgin. I don’t want to be married, Gian. Do you not think my mother has endless suitors in mind for me? I can’t have a casual relationship or it will be a kiss and tell. You know that...’
He looked at the spoilt, immature Ariana speaking like the woman she was.
‘Surely there have been kisses...?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘plastic kisses from plastic men, but your kiss nearly made me come.’
He laughed because she fascinated him.
Like a stunning portrait, like a song you had to pause just to go back and listen to the lyrics again.
He loved how she stated her case.
They argued all the way to the swish apartment block where she lived. ‘I get that I’m not as experienced or as worldly as Svetlana...’
‘Stop,’ Gian said. ‘Just stop right there. Why would you sign up for inevitable hurt, Ariana?’ Gian asked. ‘You know it’ll go public, and you know your family will find out, and I know that I’ll end things...’
‘How?’ Ariana asked. She wasn’t begging or persuading, more genuinely perplexed. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because I never want to get too close. I date women who understand from the get-go that we’ll never progress further than we did on the very first night.’
‘So I would get no more than a kiss and a cone of hot chestnuts,’ she teased. ‘Well, rest assured, you wouldn’t have to worry about dumping me, Gian. I would grow bored with you very quickly.’
He didn’t smile at her joke and he would not relent, but rather than face being alone she turned off the voices in her head and tried to argue with a kiss. She put her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his, but there was no longer solace there for his was pressed closed and unyielding, and she sobbed as he pulled his head back.
‘Go in!’ he warned her.
‘Please, Gian, I don’t want to be lonely tonight.’
But when he remained silent, Ariana got the message. He did not want her, so she scrabbled around for her dignity. ‘Thank you for seeing
