CHAPTER TEN - BEDROOM II

Lorenzo’s eyes were still locked with hers and she felt the sudden change in Lorenzo’s breathing and his heart rate.

He leaned even closer, his mouth nearly touching Sarah’s lips their breath mingled and came in jagged gasps.

If Sarah moved her head, just a fraction of an inch, their lips would touch, she couldn't resist and she tensed herself to do just that, when Lorenzo swore under his breath and stepped away from her. Sarah blinked and felt like someone coming out of a trance.

"Just go to bed." Lorenzo put his hand in the small of his back and gave her a gentle push toward the bed.

"I'm not going to have..." Sarah began to protest.

"I know. I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind for it either." He prodded her again.

"You won't touch me?"

"Not unless you want me to." He shrugged as if he didn't care either way.

"I don't want you to," Sarah asserted firmly.

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

Lorenzo turned away from her and stripped off his casual shirt, leaving him abruptly naked from the chest up. As always, the alpha stole her breath away, and she had to force herself to turn away from the seductive sight of her half-naked husband and head to bed.

Sarah crept beneath the covers and kept her back to Lorenzo , but she was achingly aware of every sound lorenzo made as he headed toward the en suite, discarding even more clothes along the way.

For such a precise and controlled man in every other aspect of his life, Lorenzo tended to be a bit messy in his own space: he would casually drop a shirt here, a sock there... obviously expecting the magical cleaning fairies to pick up after him.

That "magical cleaning fairy" was usually Sarah, she was a bit of a neat freak and would quite compulsively pick up and fold everything he dropped. Well, not anymore,he could damned well pick up his own shirts, or tumble down on them and break his head open for all he cared.

Sarah wryly acknowledged to herself that this resolution would last only as long as it took for the maid to come in and clean it up.

The one thing about being fabulously wealthy was that you didn't have to think about mundane things like picking up after yourself. Lorenzo had been spoiled since birth into believing the universe revolves around him.

While Sarah’s family had been wealthy too, she had never taken anything for granted, not when she had an emotionally detached father, who relentlessly pointed out her every flaw, and a depressed mother, who had exited Sarah’s life via a bottle of sleeping pills. Sarah had been a scared and confused eleven-year-old at the time.

She sighed softly and turned over to watch the door of the en suite. Lorenzo hadn't shut it completely, and a narrow sliver of light streamed into the darkened bedroom.

Steam was creeping out along the edges of the door and he could smell the spicy scent of Lorenzo’s soap. The shower stopped abruptly and she heard the rustling sounds of Lorenzo towel drying.

Sarah sighed softly to herself as she heard the towel drop to the floor after Lorenzo finished, she was achingly familiar with every detail of Lorenzo nightly ablutions,he usually brushed his teeth and shaved while showering.

Five minutes later, the light in the en suite went out and Lorenzo stepped out into the dark bedroom.

Sarah could just make out his silhouette enough to see that her husband was naked, and Sarah panicked slightly when she recognized that Lorenzo had absolutely every intention of getting into bed that way.

Lorenzo usually slept naked but Sarah had honestly believed that he would drag on shorts or something after the events of that evening.

No such luck.

She felt Lorenzo lifting the covers and sliding beneath them.

Lorenzo didn't say a word and made no move towards her, staying on his side of the bed.

No surprise there.

He usually stayed on his side of the bed anyway unless he felt the need to work on his long-term project to sire an alpha son.

Only then would he move toward Sarah to touch her, caress her, and do everything but love her.

Sarah never instigated their intimate encounters, she had learned early on that any move toward such intimacy was usually rebuffed, and her self-esteem didn't deal well with rejection, so she had stopped trying.

Ironically enough, tonight, after her decree that Lorenzo should not touch her, was the first time in a long time that she was actually tempted to move towards him.