Page 73 of Girls Just Want to Have Sun

What if he’s lying naked and sprawled out on the bed like da Vinci’sVitruvian Man? Waiting to be serviced by me. Waiting for me to administer years’ worth of sexual expertise. I’m both thrilled and petrified at the thought that Matteo is hungry with lust for me, and I’m about to find out just how much. Thoughts of him doing theBridgertonbuttocks scene for me explode in my mind. I enter the lounge and stop suddenly at the sight before me. It’s so much worse than I imagined.

My heart sinks.

Matteo is fully clothed. Not only that, but I’m dismayed to see he is currently occupied with a little light housekeeping. I’m on the verge of asking if there’s anything he’d like me to do to help as he slips deftly into the kitchen to retrieve snacks out of the fridge and arranges them neatly on the table.

Like a 1950s housewife hosting a dinner party for her husband’s boss and his wife, he skips about the room switching twinkling lights on, grabbing the remote to play some music on low, automatically picking up the items of clothing that have been strewn all over the floor since my arrival. He indicates to me that he’ll pop the washing pile out of the way in the bedroom.

I see the ‘washing pile’ in his arms – the sex-shop bags, the bras, the suspenders, the stripper clothes. He emerges from the bedroom and wanders towards me carrying two glasses and a bottle of chilled wine. He hands me one and I take a huge gulp with the nerves, relieved that he isn’t racing out of the door to clean and cater for another dinner party and at least intends to stay for one drink.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I do housework when I get nervous.’

Good God. Could a man say anything more perfect?

‘I make you nervous?’ I say, fishing for compliments. Every word out of his mouth makes me want to light up like a glow stick.

He smiles slowly as he gives me a simmering look and takes a glug of wine.

It causes me to almost whimper. ‘Speaking of nervous. What about being live on stage and making up the music as we went along? That was insane. You’re really good at that.’

‘Being on stage totally blew me away,’ he says. ‘I mean, I’ve been managing events and bands for years from behind the scenes but actually being on stage, interacting with the audience, making that connection was incredible. Like no other feeling.’

‘It was mind-blowing,’ I agree. ‘I loved it.’

‘You’re much better singing your own stuff than covers,’ he says.

I am going to explode if he keeps feeding my ego in this way. ‘You’re just being polite,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I’m way too boring to be a performer like that. You need charisma and sparkle and?—’

‘Connie,’ he interrupts, his hand lightly touching the cut above his eyebrow. ‘Since the second we met, you have been anything but boring, believe me. And as for sparkle? You really shone on stage today. Whatever false impression you have of yourself, maybe it’s time to shrug it off. Maybe it’s time to let yourself shine?’

I am madly in love with every single word falling from his lips. I do hope he keeps talking for ever and ever.

I must be drooling because Matteo takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. Then he glances at the time and drains his glass as though he’s going to leave.

I blink rapidly.

I have three days left. It’s time to be daring and courageous. It’s now or never. I reach up on my tiptoes and place a kiss gently on his lips before I can back out of it.

He hesitates a brief moment, reaches out to curl a stray lock of my hair behind my ear and then leans in to kiss me back. We lock lips as my mind travels throughout all of space and time. My head is in a swirl. I feel under a spell. It is hugely hypnotic, and I never want this kiss to end. There is such a connection between us. I’m sure he must feel it too. It is electrifying. My veins are literallyburstingwith sparkles. When we come up for air, the only thing I can think of is that I need him to stay.

‘Stay,’ I blurt, surprising myself as I drum up a decent enough reason, in case kissing me for the next seventy-two hours isn’t quite enough. ‘There’s a Jacuzzi here. In the garden. It’s not overlooked.’

He looks slightly shocked, so I backtrack.

‘Sorry, that was too much.’ His confession about his current situation beingcomplicatedrings in my ears.

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not that.’

‘Okay,’ I say, unconvinced. I’m not surprised Matteo has a string of ex-lovers. He’s totally fucking gorgeous.Why wouldn’t he? And why wouldn’t I want to be one of them too?

Thankfully, Matteo seems keen to agree that a Jacuzzi, at six in the morning, is exactly what we need and disappears off to press buttons and fire it up.

This is happening. It’s finally happening.

I haveneverhad sex in a Jacuzzi. I can barely get out of my bodysuit quick enough. Then I suddenly stop, doubt creeping in. Wait, how does he know how everything works? A tiny niggle grows in the back of my brain and so I squash it before it becomes fully formed. If Liam and Ged were here, they’d definitely tell me to throw caution to the wind. I’m sure of it. Almost sure. Mostly sure. Well, a bit sure.

Christ Almighty.

I now regret Matteo giving me a few minutes to get sorted. A few minutes is all it takes for me to realise that I am way out of my depth. I feel extremely shy standing in my bra and knickers. We barely know each other, and my mind has begun to spiral. He’s probably had tons of fashionable sex with a whole hemisphere of supermodels, bisexual gymnasts and beautiful professors of quantum physics who escorted themselves through college, while I’ve had hardly any.

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