BY THE TIME she and Raphael rode the glass elevator to his ninth-floor apartment, Pia’s nerves had stretched to breaking point. Desire was a live wire left unearthed between them as they sat at the ends of the seat in the taxi, speeding through the seven or so miles to his apartment in the affluent fashion district, a world away from the busy nightlife through Corso Venezia.
Raphael’s cell phone gave that shrill ring the moment they stepped inside and Pia almost jumped out of her skin.
His hand at her lower back, Raphael steadied her. His own pithy curse when he looked at the screen painted the air blue. “I have to take this call.”
While Pia stood there in the middle of the huge lounge, her pulse ringing like a bell all through her body, Raphael returned, after only a few minutes. His mouth took on that hard cast that she didn’t like. Another darker tone added to the awareness sizzling between them.
She thought they’d grown comfortable with each other over the past few weeks, that they had crossed a milestone in their relationship, had gotten closer emotionally too.
Yet it seemed that all it took was one of them to give voice to this need between them, to express desire for sexual intimacy—she blushed when she realized that was what she had done—and every word became explosive, every look rife with promise.
“Who was that?”
He shrugged off his suit jacket, carefully folded it and left it on the chair. “Nothing important.”
Struggling to keep her dismay off her face, she said softly, “That’s what you say when you don’t want to tell me.”
His fingers stilled on his shirt buttons. “I don’t want to tell you because it’s not important.”
“And yet, it made you curse like that? I’ve seen very little that causes you to lose your arrogant confidence. I know you’re used to keeping matters close to your chest, that you probably never had a chance to confide in any—”
“It does not concern you, Pia. Bene?”
A sudden prickling heat behind her eyes, Pia simply nodded.
Raphael exhaled harshly, the tight line of his shoulders relenting. His hair, already messed up by Milan’s humidity, became a little wilder when he pushed his hand through it. “I did not mean to be short with you.” A sigh that made that broad chest rise and fall. “Mi dispiace, Pia.”
Whatever hurt she had felt, his genuine apology instantly placated it. The matter was nowhere near resolved, she knew. It was her right as his future wife, it was her deepest wish that he share everything with her. But Pia had enough patience to wait. In every way, Raphael had proved that he was worth waiting for. “It’s okay, Raphael.”
“You mean it, don’t you?”
“Si.”
His dark eyes, liquid with desire, swept over her. “I knew there was more than one reason I wanted to marry you.”
Swallowing away her own anxiety about what was coming, she wanted to do something bold but in the strange mood he was in, it was hard to hold on to her newly discovered confidence.
“Would you like something to drink? I have some nice Chianti.”
Despite the thick tension in the air, Pia smiled. She loved that he always remembered those small details. From the most trivial to the most important, he was always looking out for her. Part of it, she knew, was his nature. That sense of responsibility that had fallen on his shoulders at a young age had never quite left him.
He was one of those alpha males who walked into a situation and immediately took charge of it. Protected the innocents and chased away the threats. And remained aloof even amidst a crowd.
Part of his protective instincts toward her were also because she was Gio’s granddaughter. And he was big on loyalty.
But a small part of it, she hoped, was because of what she meant to him. Was because of who she was.
She covered the few steps between them, until the tips of her breasts were barely grazing his chest. “I feel like I’m already drunk. So no thank you.”
He grabbed her wrists and pushed them behind her until the front of her was pressed deliciously up against his hard body. “Always so polite.” His mouth flicked a silky, wet trail from her jaw down to the crook of her neck. He sucked her skin rough and hard. Pia jerked as wetness rushed between her thighs. She couldn’t even clench them because he had jammed his hard thigh between hers. “Raphael, wait...”
“Always so ready to forgive and forget. Always so generous.”
A keening moan rose from her throat as his wicked tongue softly licked the hurt he had inflicted with his teeth. Pain and pleasure fused, love and desire roped together and ran hot like a cocktail through her blood.
Somehow she managed to pull back, clasped his jaw and forced him to meet her gaze. “Raphael, will you not tell me what has made your mouth become hard again?”
His hands started torturing her then, stroking up and down her back, kneading her hips, cupping her behind until his arousal pressed against her lower belly. Her temperature shot up ten degrees at the least. “My mouth becomes hard?”
“Yes.” She moaned when he rubbed it against her. “And you get that look in your eyes.” With a half sob, half smile, she caught his hands with hers. “You have just asked me to be your wife and I accepted. You cannot hide things from me now. I want to share everything, Raphael, the good and the bad, with you.
I want to be here when you need me, just as you were there for me when I needed you.”
She had no idea if she had gotten across to him. But when he raised his head and looked down at her, there was a dark glitter in his eyes. “There is something I need from you tonight. Will you give it to me?”
“Si. Anything.”
“Undo my cuffs.”
Taking his left wrist in her hands she undid the cuff links. And then repeated the same with the other hand. He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it off those broad shoulders. The sight of his lean chest with all his skin stretched taut over it made Pia tremble.
“Take off your clothes for me.”
Instantly, Pia froze. “Here?”
“Here. Now.”
“You did say anything,” the devil said, taunting her.
She tilted her head. “Bene.”
If this was what he wanted, then he would get it. She held his gaze, letting the slumbering heat in it drive her. She trusted Raphael with everything she had in her, so her shyness, her insecurity about her body, was nothing but a small barrier to cross.
She moved her hand to the zipper hiding on the side of her dress and pulled it down. The quiet rasp of it was loud in the silence.
Her movements were clumsy when she pulled the straps down. Dark eyes watched her the whole time and flared when the silky material fell to her hips and her breasts were bared. Pia shivered, less from the breeze that flew over her heated skin and more from the dark hunger in his eyes.
Her breasts felt heavier, the nipples turning into aching points as his gaze lingered there with barely hidden fascination.
“Push it down all the way. And step out of it.”
Pia did as he bid, the last of her shyness leaving her at his quicksilver reaction. He was right. She had just as much power as he did in this situation. Her dress whispered to the floor, and still in her heels, she kicked it away.
She lifted her chin, daring him to go on, even as a thousand butterflies danced in her belly. His gaze moved from her breasts to her midriff and then lower. The flimsy white underwear she wore did nothing to hide her from him.
“Are you wet for me?”
Heat burst inside of her like a hot geyser, spreading to every nerve ending. “Raphael, per favore...”
“I wish to know, bella.”
“I’m ready for you. I was ready for you when I saw you leaning against that pillar. When the Duke mercilessly seduced Gilda. When Rigoletto hired that assassin. When Gilda sacrificed herself for her unscrupulous lover. There, are you satisfied? Can you please take me to bed now?”
“Not yet.” A silky smile curved his mouth. It seemed he was bent on pushing her to the edge now. “Come here and undress me.”
She blinked.
He raised his brows. “I would like to be naked now, Pia.”
She would not admit defeat tonight.
She walked toward him, stopped when the scent of him coiled through her veins. His trousers did nothing to hide his need for her. Swallowing, she set her fingers to work undoing his fly and then sliding them under the elastic band of his boxers pushing both of them down.
The turgid length of his erection sprang free, the soft head flicking her palm. Her sex clenched, and a gasp emanated from the depths of her.
It was all she could do to pull her gaze away from it and lift it to his face. He stepped out of his trousers and flicked them to the side with his feet, bold and utterly masculine. “Remember what you offered that night in the study? Is it still on, Pia?”
Just the thought of it made her skin tighten over her muscles. “Yes, the offer is still on.”
Holding his dark eyes, she sank to her knees. His erection lengthened even before she touched it, sending a surge of power through her. Whatever it was that he thought she was not equal to, she would prove him wrong.
She was more than enough woman for Raphael Mastrantino.
“I want to make every fantasy of yours come true, Raphael. So you have to tell me if I do this right or wrong, si?”
Raphael’s heart pounded in his chest as Pia obediently sank to her knees. Dio mio, he’d been angry at Allegra’s latest trick to get custody of Alyssa.
After all her affairs, to claim that he was not a suitable father... His mood had instantly darkened. And when Pia so innocently offered to share his worries, he had worked himself to a dangerous edge.
He had only issued his command as a dare. As a way for him to fight the all-encompassing emotion he was beginning to recognize in her gaze. To bring this thing between them back into his control. Because, sometime between beginning the evening with Gio’s ring in his pocket and ending it with Pia telling him that she wanted just him, something had changed.
Even with Allegra’s ridiculous claim, he still had everything he had ever wanted. So where was this dread in his heart coming from?
Any further thought on the matter shredded into nothingness when Pia took him in her hands and closed her calloused fingers around his shaft. His breath left him in a sibilant hiss when she stroked his rigid length in slow, cautious, almost-feathery movements.
Hair like a golden cloud around her face, the line of her spine a sensuous path, she had never looked more beautiful.
His nerve endings fired at her inexperienced, innocent touch, more than with any practiced lover’s caress.
He looked down, hoping that the wide-eyed innocence of her face would smash his dark mood. But instead he found her opening that pink mouth wide and dipping it toward his erection.
His heart thumped against his rib cage.
Her small breasts with their pink-tipped nipples. Her toned thighs tensing at her stance.
It was an image that made him far readier than he wanted to be, after a month of deprivation.
At the first slide of the welcoming wet warmth of her mouth over his length, his hips thrust forward. A thrill ran up the back of his thighs pooling in his groin. He cursed hard and long, sweat beading along his skin.
The sound of her soft sucks sizzled amidst his harsh breaths.
Dio mio, had she any idea how she was destroying him?
A soft gasp fell from her mouth as he thickened a little more. Fingers delicately wrapped at the base of the shaft, she looked up at him, liquid desire making her eyes look like warm inviting pools.
“Am I pleasing you, Raphael?” Christo, even her question was artless. She did really want to please him. Not as a challenge, not for a dare. Not to prove to herself or to him that she had power over him.
But for the simple reason that his pleasure mattered to her. This intimacy between them meant something to her.
More turned on than he had ever been in his life, he sank his hands into her hair and guided her mouth the way he wanted it. Told her how much pressure he wanted and where he wanted it. Told her to use the slide of her silky tongue against his length.
As if she was one of her dedicated pupils that she often talked about, Pia followed his instructions to the letter. Soon, he was reaching the edge and the last thing he wanted to do was terrify her by pushing this into something else. He knew what it had taken her to accept his challenge. What she’d had to overcome because she wanted to please him more.
And that blunted the edge of his desire more than anything else. Wrapping his fingers around her wrists, he pulled her up roughly, lifted her in his arms and carried her over to the bed.
Warm skin, and trembling muscles, she was a lush invitation. And his for always. Every night and every day, she would belong to him. And he would touch no other ever again.
The realization made the moment even more poignant, raised it from just sex to something else.
She moaned as he joined her on the bed and covered her body with his. Protested with her nails on his back when he took her mouth in a leisurely kiss. Bucked up when he skimmed his mouth over her taut nipples without taking them into his mouth.
Her soft mewls goaded him on and on.
Flipping her pliable body easily, he separated her legs until she was straddling his arousal. Her spine arced under his touch as the softest, hottest part of her pressed against his erection.
She was damp and ready for him.
“I need you, Raphael, now,” she breathed, writhing her body over his. With her eyes closed, her unruly hair flying around her face, her high breasts beckoning him, she was a potent invitation.
Slowly, softly, he brought her down on him so she could feel every last inch of him. He spread the lips of her sex with his fingers, the sight of her taking him in incredibly erotic.
Her low moan made him lose the last bit of control. He wanted her far too much and found himself thrusting, hard and rough, up into her snug sheath until he filled her completely.
Her shocked gasp rent the air.
“Pia? Cara mia, did I hurt you?”
Spine still arched sensuously, she bent toward him until the peaks of her breasts rubbed against his chest. Her eyes were glazed, a soft smile spreading her mouth. “No. I just forgot how it feels when you’re inside me. And this way...” She flexed her hips in an age-old feminine rhythm and he sank deeper with a muttered oath. “This way...you feel like you’re everywhere.”
She took his hand and brought his palm to her heart, where it thudded. Her skin was damp to his touch, the scent of her arousal coating the very air he breathed.
Her eyes, crystal clear in the soft light of the evening, pinned him. “You’re here, Raphael, in my heart too. Did you know? Somehow, you have made me fall so utterly in love with you.”
Everything froze inside Raphael as his brain struggled to process those heartfelt words. Words he thought he was ready to hear, words he had even thought his due because that was the only way Pia would enter a marriage. Words he hadn’t realized would steal the breath from him, would knock him out at his knees.
Mere words had never meant anything to him before, so how could it feel like hers could pierce him clean to his soul?
With a glorious smile, Pia pulled herself up and ground down on him. Sending pleasure pulsing through his groin. Her declaration rang in his ears as his body drove deeper, faster, again and again into her slick wetness.
Her moans surrounded him as he pulled himself up and stroked her swollen clit with every thrust. Something let loose within him, and he wanted to wring every ounce of pleasure from her body.
He wanted to give her this, because it was the only thing he had to give.
Soon, she was exploding around him, her muscles clenching him and releasing him in a cataclysm of pleasure. It spurred him on to his own mind-blowing climax.
But still she was not done. While his lungs struggled to draw air, she bent over and pressed a damp kiss to his mouth. The scent of her and him and sex was a potent cocktail in the air, a heady drug that he wanted every night.
“Ti amo, Raphael,” she whispered, with a shy smile. Before Raphael could even wrap his mind around her words, around the truth of it shining in her eyes, she fell asleep on his chest, with him still lodged deep inside her.
Raphael woke up when dawn began to paint pink fingers over the sky. With a warm, silky-soft body tucked up into him as if it was made for him. As if she was the part that completed the puzzle that he hadn’t even known was incomplete.
Sinking his free hand into her thick hair, he gently pushed it back from her face. Long lashes drew crescent shadows under her eyes, which sported dark circles. Had she been studying for some infernal test again? Had he tired her that much with his relentless need for her?
It seemed as if her words had unlocked some fathomless desire in him, for the more he had her, the more he wanted her.
Even in sleep, her face lost none of its artless charm. Something snagged in his chest as she burrowed deeper into his arms. Maledizione, but her trust in him was absolute, limitless.
Having never been on the receiving end of such unconditional, nonjudgmental emotion, he didn’t know how to handle it. A part of him wanted to distance himself from her, wanted to slam the door on whatever she had opened between them.
He wanted to wake her up and say, Demand something from me. Ask for something in return.
If she didn’t, he felt as if he would never know the value of what she was giving him. As if he would never recover his balance in this relationship.
She wriggled again with a soft huff, and his body came alive.
His arm was tucked under her breasts, her head in the groove of his arm. The lush curves of her buttocks pressed against his groin invitingly and his erection twitched and lengthened in greedy response.
He let his gaze linger over her naked body. And felt a jolt of shame when he saw the imprints of his fingers over her hips and inner thighs. Dio, he was a civilized man, not an animal. And yet, the thought seemed to have no control over his libido.
Careful not to wake her, he pulled his arms from under her and slipped out of the bed.
After a quick shower where the innocent enchantress had once again sent his lust into overdrive, where he had quite mercilessly pounded into her already-used body, he had barely toweled her dry before she had fallen into a deep sleep.
But even as those long lashes had been fluttering closed over luminous eyes—how had he never realized how big her eyes truly were behind those spectacles?—and her breath had been slowing down, she had kissed him softly. Slowly, as if in his mouth lay the key to her dreams.
Her cheeks had been pink, her eyes shining with that love she so easily whispered about to him.
Just you.
No two words had ever caused such a powerful longing to rush through his body. Struck such deep fear into him.
He hadn’t been just Raphael in a long time, if ever.
He had been a scholarship engineering student at university, a son who had lost his father amidst a financial scandal and not allowed time to grieve, a young man who had suddenly become responsible for the pampered lifestyles of his mother and sisters, a man driven by ambition to wipe clean the scandal associated with his father’s death, a protégé under the genius of Giovanni Vito, and then finally a CEO who had chosen and pursued the most beautiful, the most glittering, insubstantial butterfly of a woman to be his trophy wife.
But the way Pia looked at him, with startling emotion from the depths of her warm brown eyes, for the first time since he had accepted Giovanni’s unspoken challenge, unease settled in his chest.
If all the trappings of his wealth and status were removed, if his ambition and his driving need not to become his father or share his fate were removed, then who was he at his core? Without the shame he felt for his father’s failure, the bitterness brewed for years by his mother’s careless callousness, the cynicism he had developed in order to bear Allegra’s affairs—who was he then?
Had Gio ever wondered if that man was good enough for his precious Pia Alessandra Vito?