Free One Last Night by Melanie Milburne Page B

hours afterwards.
    'Forget it, Giorgio,' she said, affecting a bored disinterested tone. 'I'm tired. I have no interest in your bedroom games.'
    He captured her hands, pulling her up against him, rubbing his aroused length against her quivering belly. 'Go on, tesore mio,' he said in a smouldering spine-loosening tone, 'just like you used to do in the past.'
    Maya's heart fluttered like a deck of rapidly shuffled cards. She was so tempted, so very dangerously tempted. She could almost taste his salty muskiness, she could almost feel the satin-covered steely length of him filling her mouth, and she could almost feel the shuddering quake of his body as he finally tipped over the edge…
    He moved his body against her again. He was powerfully erect. She had felt that hardened length sliding back and forth inside her so many delicious times in the past, the way it caught on the most sensitive part of her if she tilted her hips just that little bit higher, how he could smash her into a million pieces of ecstasy with a soft but sure flickering caress of his fingers against her swollen need.
    All she had to do was drop to her knees in front of him, peel back his underwear and swirl her tongue over him, once, twice, waiting for him to suck in his breath.
    But she wasn't going to do it.
    Not now.
    Not like this.
    Not because he had an itch he wanted scratching. That was an itch any other woman could scratch. And plenty of other women had probably done so in the time they had been apart.
    Maya steeled her resolve, which took some effort considering she had none in reserve. She was running on almost empty but it was enough to put some distance between them. 'You and Gonzo can have the bed,' she said, scooping up her wrap off the end of the bedpost. 'I will take the sofa.'
    'You don't have to do that, Maya,' Giorgio said, pushing a hand through the lock of his hair that kept insisting on falling over his forehead. 'The paparazzi will have given up by now. I will go back to the hotel for the rest of the night. I will see you in the morning. Have your essential things packed. I will organise for the rest to be transported over later.'

    Maya watched in frozen silence as he left the bedroom. She counted each and every one of his footsteps as he went down the stairs.
    After a few minutes she heard a car arrive-she assumed it was a Sabbatini staff member summoned to pick him up-and then the sound of it pulling away from the kerb and disappearing into the night.
    She turned and looked at Gonzo, who was sound asleep and snoring on her bed. She gave her head a little shake and slipped in beside him, or at least as far as his solid presence would allow.
    It was like trying to sleep on a corkboard, she thought as the minutes slowly ticked by. She was never going to be able to sleep, she was sure of it. But, somehow, the sound of the dog's rhythmic snuffles and snores and her own emotional and physical exhaustion took over. She rolled over, curling her legs into a comma shape to allow for Gonzo, and finally went to sleep…
     

 

     
     

Chapter Seven

 

     
     

     
    THE doorbell pealed just as Maya had her head hanging over the basin in the bathroom. The nausea had caught her off guard. She had never felt anything like it before. It was like being on the worst sea voyage of her life. The world of her small rented flat was not stable; it was rocking all over the place. And it wasn't just the flat, it was the smell of things that assaulted her senses and sent them into revolt. She had opened a can of food for Gonzo at his insistence and then had to bolt upstairs to deal with the consequences. Her oesophagus felt raw, as if scraped by razorblades.
    The doorbell rang again, this time with Gonzo's voluble accompaniment.
    Maya groaned and wiped her whitewash-coloured face on the hand towel. Her eyes were like water drip holes in snow, hollow and shadowed with exhaustion.
    She clung to the banister on the way down with a deathly grip, sure she was