'Where were you going, anyway?'
'I really need to start making tracks.'
'Now, there's a very Aussie expression.' He rolled her onto her back and rose up on one elbow, his gunmetal-grey eyes lazily intense between thick, dark lashes.
Feeling exposed, Miller pulled the sheet up over her breasts. His gaze lingered on the sheet and she had the vague impression that he was about to flick it off her.
Glad when he didn't, she let her breath out slowly.
'Why are you so determined to run off, anyway? You don't strike me as the one-night-stand type.'
'I'm not.'
'Then stay one more day. I have a sponsors gig tonight. You can come with me.'
Alarmed by just how much she wanted to accept what she suspected was an unplanned invitation, Miller immediately reacted in the negative. 'I can't. I have to work.'
Annoyance flickered briefly across his face. 'Work from here. You have your computer.'
Miller smoothed her eyebrows. He was doing his steamroller thing again, but what was one more day to him? And when would she go home? Later tonight or in the morning?'
He stroked a strand of hair back off her forehead. God, she must look a mess.
'I know what you're thinking. You don't like the uncertainty of it.'
Miller's eyes flashed to his. Did he really know her that well, or was she really that easy to read?
'It's not hard to figure out, Miller. I know you hate surprises so it follows that you wouldn't like half-baked plans. How about we make it the whole week?'
The whole week!
'Five days, to be exact. That way you can come to my mother's gala event, which TJ is expecting to see you at anyway, and watch me race on Sunday.'
Miller felt her brows scrunch together. 'Why would you want me to come to your mother's ball?'
Tino rolled onto his back and gave her a reprieve from his intense scrutiny. 'Honestly? My mother invites every debutante in the known universe to this thing and expects me and my brothers to meet every one of them in the hope that we'll fall in love.'
His apathetic attitude to falling in love stabbed at something inside her. 'Oh, poor you. All those single women in one room. I would have thought it was every man's dream.'
Her words were sharper than she had intended, but she was slightly insulted that he would talk about other women while he was in bed with her. Even if they were women he apparently didn't want.
The reminder that he would never want anyone permanently-not even her-struck a chord, because permanence was all she did seek! She'd just never sought it with a man before.
'Hardly.' His dramatic tone nearly made her laugh, despite her aggravation. 'Debutantes come with strings attached, stars in their eyes and pushy mothers. That's no dream any man I know has ever had.'
Suddenly, he lifted onto his elbow, looming over her again, and Miller caught her breath. His gaze roved over her face and he trailed a finger over the sensitive skin of her neck just below her ear, winding a slow, sensual path downwards.
'I did you a favour last weekend. The least you can do is protect me from women I'm not interested in on Saturday night.'
His voice had lowered with intent, and Miller's body responded like one of Pavlov's dogs. She pushed his hand away. 'Stop that. I can't think when you're this close.'
'That's only fair since you have the same effect on me.'
'I do?' For some reason, his admission startled her.
'Well, I can think, but it's usually about one thing.' His hand returned and his fingers circled her nipple, making her arch off the bed. 'Say you'll stay.'
She tried to organise her thoughts. 'Because of the sex?'
She was breathless, and his smile as he rolled on top of her was one of pure male triumph. 'The sex is phenomenal, but the more I think about you going to my mother's party the more I like it. With you there I can relax, and I might even enjoy it. And Caruthers will expect it.'
'Since when do you care what Dexter thinks?' Miller asked breathlessly, catching a moan between her clamped lips as his fingers traced a figure eight over first one breast and then the other, skimming over her nipple just a little bit too lightly each time.
'I don't.' His skilful touch became firmer. 'Say yes.'
Miller felt deliciously light-headed. 'You're steamrollering me again,' she accused, trying to hold her body still.
Valentino nipped the skin around her clavicle. 'Is that a good thing?'
Giving up on trying to resist him, she speared her fingers through his hair, enjoying the thick, weighty texture of it curling through her fingers.
'I don't know.' She groaned and dragged his mouth to her breast. 'Please, just stop talking.'
'You're so sexy.' His voice was rough, more a low growl, as he finally pulled her nipple into his mouth with just the right amount of pressure.
Miller felt as if she was levitating as her legs shifted helplessly under the onslaught of pleasure. She moaned his name. He nudged her legs apart, and even though her internal muscles ached from over-use the rush of liquid heat between her thighs was instant. She felt him fumbling in his side table, his mouth briefly leaving her breast to tear the condom packet open, and then he was back, pressing her into the bed.
'Now, where was I?'
God, he made her feel... He made her feel...
'Say you'll stay.'
His mouth teased the soft skin beneath her ear, and even though she knew she must have terrible morning breath she turned her face, searching for his kiss.
'Okay.'
What had she just agreed to?
'For five days.'
His fingers stroked between her legs, drawing moisture from her body in preparation for his possession.
'I...' She arched her hips, her body already balanced on a knife-edge of pleasure, desperate to go over.
'Say yes.'
'Yes-whatever.'
She was desperate, and his husky chuckle of dominance annoyed her. With a spurt of defiance at his formidable self-control in the face of her total lack of any, she wrapped her legs around his hips and tilted her pelvis so that he had no choice but to slide deep.
He swore as he plunged into her, and Miller smiled and buried her face against his straining neck. She clenched his shoulders and her internal muscles at the same time, and suddenly the balance of power shifted as he bucked in her arms before surging deep again.
She felt him groan against her hair, and then her mind closed down as he pounded into her with such primal force she thought she might break. And then she did. Into a whirlpool of pleasure that sucked her under and blew her mind. Dimly, she heard Valentino shout her name, and she could feel the power of his release as he spilled himself inside her.
It seemed for ever before either one of them moved, and even then it was only weakly.
'Are you okay?' he asked.
Miller gulped in air. 'Ask me in a minute.'
He chuckled and shifted onto his stomach beside her. 'Sorry. That was a bit rough.'
Miller stretched her arms above her head. 'It was fabulous. I may never move again.'
Groaning, Valentino dragged himself from the bed. 'I wish I had the same luxury. Unfortunately not working yesterday and spending half the morning in bed today has no doubt put the team incredibly behind.' He bent and gently kissed her lips. 'Why don't you stay in bed? Recover? I'll send Mickey with a car at five o'clock to bring you into the city.'
The city? It took a minute for Miller to remember their conversation. She watched through half-closed lids as Valentino strolled into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
She recognised that she'd just been steamrollered again, and that she had agreed to stay with him for five days and attend a party to help keep eager debutantes at bay.
What were you thinking?
She stared at the ceiling and tried to feel agitated, but instead all she felt was happy. Oh, not at the whole debutantes thing, but just at being here. Maybe it was called afterglow.
Otherwise it didn't make sense. Especially given her confused emotions and the fact that she still didn't know if she had a job or not. But, yes, she was definitely happy.
But she was also smart enough to know that she couldn't rely on those feelings. Reality would intrude and she would have to get herself back on track. In the meantime maybe she should take his suggestion. Call Dexter, finish TJ's proposal, and then treat the next five days as an impromptu holiday.
Valentino, she knew, would make sure she had fun-and would it be so wrong to soak up his hospitality for a little longer? To soak him up for a little longer?
She rolled onto her stomach and glanced at the digital bedside clock. Ten o'clock. If this was a normal work day she'd have been hard at it for three hours by now and staring down the barrel of another ten. And those were her hours during quieter periods.
She sighed and shifted her attention to the magpies hopping about and conversing with each other outside the full-length window that took up one whole wall of Valentino's masculine room.