Playing the Billionaire's Game - Pippa Roscoe Page 0,53

discreet at the same time, adding a strange heady, wicked pleasure to their joining.

It wasn’t long before she lost control of the devastatingly slow pace she had set, delighting in the way she could no longer tell where she ended. Her eyes drifted closed, finally severing the intense connection between them and her head fell back. Sebastian’s arm came around her, allowing her to bend over it as he placed open-mouthed kisses on her breasts and his thumb swept beneath her skirts and found the apex of her thighs, pressing firm circles around her clitoris, bringing her closer and closer towards the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced. She wanted to tell him to wait for just for a minute, just so she could capture this feeling, this moment with him, to hold it to her and—

And then he thrust upwards into her and the stars fell from the sky, through the house, down into the basement and showered them with golden light that she consumed as she gasped air into her lungs and he pulsed within her, his own completion pouring into her making her feel more alive than she remembered ever being. And in that moment Sia knew that she would make the most of it. Whatever ‘it’ was, and for however long it was to last, she would see it through to the end.

CHAPTER TEN

INTERVIEWER ONE: So, instead of making use of your time on his estate in Siena to search for the painting, you went on an art tour?

MS KEATING: It was Florence.

INTERVIEWER TWO: [whispers] Did you see David?

‘SO YOU’RE TRYING to tell me that between the Uffizi and the Galleria dell’Accademia, of all the things we saw, your favourite was the Gates of Paradise on the Baptistery of St John?’ Sebastian demanded, staring at her with all the mock horror he could summon. Secretly he was pleased.

‘Eyes on the road, mister.’

‘That’s Your Grace to you,’ he teased, taking his eyes back to the sweeping road returning to the estate.

He’d been almost sure that she was leaving him the night he had the Gentileschi brought in. But the passion they had shared that night had been like nothing he’d ever known before. She’d surrendered to him and it had awed him—the trust she had placed in him. He wasn’t sure he was worthy of it. But something deep within him had started to hope.

‘Can we go back?’

‘Now? Did you forget something?’ he said, his hands pausing on the wheel and already scanning a turning point.

‘No, I just want to see more of it. And some of it again. And that spaghetti... Sebastian, seriously, that most definitely has to be done again. So tomorrow? Maybe we could...?’ The pleading in her tone was too much to resist.

‘If you want to, I am yours to command.’

‘Okay. But we should get up really early. I want to avoid the tourists.’

Sebastian couldn’t help the belly laugh that erupted from his chest. ‘We are the tourists,’ he chided, and flinched as she slapped him on the arm.

‘You know what I mean,’ she threw at him.

‘There’s no reason we couldn’t stay over.’

‘In Florence?’

‘Yes,’ he said, mentally flicking through his contacts. ‘We could stroll the Ponte Vecchio, have dinner on the other side of the river, looking out across at—’ He frowned as his phone vibrated in his pocket and the ringtone he’d assigned his sister cut through the sound of the wind whipping past the car.

‘Sorry, it’s Maria. I have to take this.’

He searched for the headset but couldn’t see it, immediate concern about the baby, about Maria firing in his blood enough for him to know it wasn’t safe for him to be driving. Before the call could ring off, he saw a layby and pulled into it, ignoring the arc of sand and pebbles thrown into the air as he hit the brakes.

‘Estás bien?’ he demanded down the phone, as he turned off the engine and launched from the car. He knew that his reaction might be seen as extreme, but he also knew Maria. Knew how much she’d valued and embraced her new-found freedom and knew more than anything that this wouldn’t be a social call.

‘Yes, I am,’ she replied calmly, as if having expected such a reaction. ‘And you need to hear that because I really am okay, despite what I’m going to tell you.’

Sebastian took a breath, her words really not doing anything to assuage the fear he was feeling for his sister.

‘I’ve left Matthieu.’

‘What happened?’ he