His Rules: Ludlow Nights - Book1 (A Ludlow Nights Romance) (16 page)

Too many emotions that Anastacia couldn't begin to understand, threatened to overwhelm her and she buried her face in his neck and just breathed through the ache in her chest that squeezed too tight as he carried her into her bedroom.

Then he stopped dead.

"Anastacia, there is a giant lizard on your bed."

The lizard was a soft toy made of faded green velvet. He had one eye and had seen better days.

Face still buried in his neck she spoke, "His name is Wilfred. I've had him since I was eight. He's all I have left of my family."

And without a moment of warning, Anastacia burst into tears.

Stunned, then dismayed Olivier sat on the edge of the bed with her on his knees. He held her tight and just waited with absolutely no idea what had upset her. However, he had two sisters and knew that there were times when women cried for no logical reason.

"What is the matter,
cara
?"

"Oh God, I
never
do this. I'm being pathetic," she sobbed.

"Anastacia." He placed a hand under her chin and lifted her face. Tears ran down her flushed cheeks. And he'd never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life. Since he couldn't come up with another way to rectify the situation, he kissed her - the wet eyelids, the drenched cheeks, the trembling lips. What started as a genuine attempt to console, to soothe, changed into something quite different as a smouldering passion rose.

He could feel it burn in his blood as his mouth took hers again and again. Now her sobs changed from distress to desire as his hands moved through the silky black curls of her fabulous hair. Her body trembled against his as he took the kiss deeper and deeper still. She turned in his arms until her body was plastered against his and her mouth opened to let him plunder. But her defences were not just down, they were blown away, he reminded himself, struggling with the desperate need to take everything she offered freely and without conditions. Now his whispers were soft to offer comfort, while his hands gently stroked to arouse.

Slowly, he lowered them to the bed.

His kisses were long and slow, his mouth never leaving hers, Olivier began to take his own sweet time to explore every part of her. Infinitesimal shivers raced over her skin, tracing the path of his hands. When the leisurely brush of his knuckles skimmed the underside of her breast, Anastacia whimpered, an incoherent sound while her body quivered in delight. In response his tongue delved deep into her mouth, carefully helping himself to everything she offered. She was loose, boneless and absolutely his. Only now did he give himself permission to taste her skin, all of her, again.

His mouth went on a slow voyage of discovery using open-mouthed kisses that devoured even as they dreamily delighted her. Then his teeth on a tenderly sensitive place brought her gaspingly aware before his lips would press soothing kisses to the spot, quietening her until she relaxed again. Now his mouth was pressed low on her belly as his tongue tasted and his teeth gently nipped until she moaned his name pleading with him to do... something. His breath was hot on her most intimate flesh as strong hands cupped her backside to lift her to his mouth and all she could feel was his breath for so long that the tension in her thighs finally loosened. And then the flat of his tongue tasted her and found the pearl of nerve-ends, licking and sucking taking her up, up, up until she was trembling on the brink for so long that she cried out his name as she flew so high the world went dark. Now he rose above her again, and when she opened her eyes he stared down into hers for an unending moment until his head dipped and he kissed her. The scent and taste of the kiss was the most intimate experience of her life thus far and mouths still clinging, she opened her legs wide and brought him home.

As he slid into her, stretching her to capacity, her groan merged with his own, red-hot and torrid. Even though her legs and arms were wound tight around him with a strength that belied her tiny frame, Olivier took it slow and easy with each thrust right to the hilt. Anastacia felt her body tighten around him and as her muscles clenched he moaned. His big body shuddered above her and he continued to thrust with an exquisite slowness that was driving her out of her mind. She could feel the way he was battling to keep a tight control, she could hear it in the rapidly straining breaths that blended with hers and still he thrust slowly as he prolonged the pleasure that had become a pain. Now he was muttering words in rapid Italian - maybe appeals, maybe pleas, maybe an oath for... something - and then his body stilled as he cried out her name and they both tumbled over the edge.

She must have slept. Anastacia was quite certain she'd shut her eyes for a second, just to rest, but now she opened her eyes to find dawn breaking through the slats of the shutters at the window. Her brow creased. Olivier was sprawled on his belly beside her, one heavy arm pinning her hips to the bed. He was facing her and he was sound asleep. She never let a man sleep over in her bed.
Never
. Her bed was
her
space. A space that was sacrosanct. She was just speculating on what on earth she'd done when a low buzzing sound came from her cell phone on the bedside table. And now she wondered if it had been the sound of the phone that had wakened her.

Stretching to grab her cell, she scrolled through the eight messages from T.C. and Danni. Her brow creased. It was six-thirty on Sunday morning, what was so important it couldn't wait? She opened T.C.'s attachments and read the screenshots of a Twitter feed with pictures of herself and Olivier walking hand and hand on the banks of the Thames, and the comments that focused on how she looked and what she wore were, to be blunt, blistering. But it was the picture of her and Olivier arriving home at her apartment last night that really spooked her. His car had obviously been followed and they'd been so wrapped up in each other they hadn't noticed. The lurid and explicit Twitter comments brought her position home to her. Already she was called a money-grabbing wannabe WAG (wife and girlfriend). A woman who'd gone out of her way to bag herself a football star. And Olivier was not just any star, he was one of the crowned kings of the sport. His female fans were deeply unhappy he apparently had a girlfriend. A couple of the messages were not only creepy but abusive and downright threatening. One in particular brought her out in a cold sweat. Logically, she knew that the messages were written by anonymous pathetic trolls, but it didn't matter. In her teens she'd been horribly bullied at school for being poor, for her curly hair, for being vertically challenged and so much more. The feelings she felt right now might not be logical, but they brought the nightmare back. She felt unsafe. She felt violated.

The damage was done.

A horrible sick feeling rose into Anastacia's throat. What on earth had she been thinking to become publicly involved with Olivier? Had she worked like a dog for years only to have her reputation trashed in a matter of hours like this? And for what? A quick roll in bed? He'd be gone in a matter of weeks and she'd probably never see him again. He'd walk away, untouched, without a second glance. And she'd be left to pick up the shattered pieces of her life.

The reality of her situation gave her a cold hard slap.

Too many bad memories of her childhood flew into her mind.

The day her step-father died.

The day her mother died.

The day she'd been taken into care and handed over to perfect strangers.

She'd worked hard, too hard, to get where she was now. These days she had total control over her life, where it was going, and the people in it. There was no doubt that Olivier was a great guy. A nice guy. She stubbornly ignored the little voice in her head whispering that Olivier Conti was more than that. Much more.

But too many memories, bad memories, hardened her heart as her head now ruled supreme.

Turning she shoved his arm away and as he shifted in bed, she bent her knees, placed a foot on his butt and shoulder and pushed with all her might.

"Out!"

He rolled over and landed with a heavy thud on the floor.

"Che diavolo!"
he cried, and more muttered curses in Italian rose from the side of the bed. Rising on his knees, he stared over the bed at her with bleary eyes. "Anastacia, what is the matter with you?"

In a flash she was out the bed, tugging on panties, sweat pants and a T-shirt.

"I want you out of here. Right now."

She snatched up her cell phone, marched out the door and into her sitting room and started to pick-up his clothes.

Yawning hugely, he followed at a leisurely pace and scratched his flat belly. He didn't appear to worry that he was as naked as the day he'd been born. He might not notice, but Anastacia did.

He was aroused.

Again?

Irritated that she nearly swallowed her tongue, she tossed his jeans.

They hit him in the face.

His brow creased as he studied her with something like bewilderment.

A little voice told her she wasn't being fair or kind to him, but she told it to butt out.

"Anastacia," he purred as he pulled on his jeans and caught his Calvin's before they, too, hit him in the face. "What is wrong,
piccolino
?"

She slid the screen of her cell and stuck it in his face.

"I'll tell you what's wrong.
This
is wrong. All wrong. I want you out of here."

He took her cell in one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other and slumped on her sofa to study the pictures and the messages.

While he was busy thumbing through the crap that had been printed about them, Anastacia switched on her coffee maker.

"Hmm," he said after a silence that had, as far as she was concerned, gone on for too long. "Ignore it. Come back to bed."

Excuse me?

For a moment she couldn't believe her ears.

Hands on hips, she stared at him.

He was all relaxed and sleepy as he sat back on her sofa.

Dark eyes filled with something like lust and desire watched her face.

Now he gave her that slow and sexy smile that made her heart and her belly tremble.

But it was the flash of dimple that did it.

Ignore it and come back to bed?

Was the man delusional?

"
You
," she spat. "Might bask perfectly happily in the full glare of the celebrity press, but I do not. Not only that, I won't! Get it? I like my life. It's cool. I've the best friends who are closer to me than any family. I'm free to come and go as I please. I don't want a boyfriend. And I never share my bed... ever."

She wished she could take a picture of the dropped-jaw astonishment on his face at her startling confession, but since he still held her cell phone, it wasn't possible.

"You want me to leave?"

Now that her temper had cooled as fast as it had peaked, she didn't like feeling vulnerable.

She didn't like the way her heart was thumping too hard against her ribs either.

She was doing the right thing.

"Yes. Now would be a good time. Go home, Olivier, go find yourself a nice Italian girl who's prepared to hang on to your every word and pander to your every need. You're a nice guy. You deserve her."

He stood and his eyes now darkened ominously as he carefully placed her cell phone on the coffee table.

It was the first time she'd ever seen him really angry with her.

And he was angry now.

"You are going to let utter rubbish on a social networking site affect you like this? You are going to let them win?"

That was the trouble with hormones, around Olivier, she had no control over them. Last night they hadn't just burned for him, they'd gone up in flames. She knew she was using the comments on Twitter as an excuse to throw him out. She needed space; to think about what she'd done. The man was a serious and present danger to her guarded heart. It wasn't just alarm bells that were ringing too loud now, they were joined by a parade of police sirens and blue flashing lights. It needed to end, had to end... now.

She held her breath and counted to five. Her exhale swept away any doubts.

"I'm going to shower. When I return I want you gone, Olivier."

He went to speak, but she held up her hand to stop him and grabbed her cell from the coffee table.

"To you, what's on here is not a big deal. But I'm more than this, much more." She took a deep breath. "I've got a lot of work to do to prepare for tomorrow. I'll see you at the shoot."

He opened his mouth to speak, but took one look at her face and snapped it shut.

Without another word, he grabbed his clothes, his bag and left.

Heart going crazy in her chest, Anastacia simply stared at the door and told herself yet again that she'd done the right thing.

So why did she feel as if she'd made a mistake, a bad one?

Sitting on the deck of the penthouse, Olivier sipped strong black coffee and frowned as he stared unseeing over the London skyline. Somewhere along the line, he had taken a wrong turn with Anastacia. No matter how much he went over and over what had happened between them last night and this morning, he could not figure out where he had gone wrong.