by Tara Pammi
Instead, he pulled away. Brought her down shaking from the cusp of pleasure and Natalie railed at him with her fists. Afraid that he’d leave her unfulfilled. Afraid that this was another dream she was going to wake up from. Afraid that she’d go through her entire life and not know his touch.
“Shh...tesoro,” he whispered at her temple. “Look at me, Natalie. I’m going nowhere. I couldn’t even if a thousand hands tried to rip me away. I couldn’t leave if my breath depended on it.”
Her bottom met a cloud of soft sheets, and when she opened her eyes, he was looming over her, sweat coating his skin, smelling like man and heat and sex and belonging. He kissed her bruised lips, so softly, so sweetly, so tenderly. “You trust me, sì?”
“I do. Like I never have another man. I...” She rubbed her fingers over his swollen lip, the tiny cut she’d given him. She searched for something light to puncture the dam of emotion building up in her chest. “I took a risk on you, Massimo. Pay it up, per favore, caro mio.”
He nodded, a wicked light in his gray eyes. “Put your hands above your head. Clutch the sheets if you need to. But don’t touch me, sì?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip. And watched him. Anticipation built up slowly this time. His mouth drew down on the pulse at her neck, while his hands plumped her breasts, readying her. She arched like a bow when he tugged a nipple into his mouth and suckled, a little roughly, building that fever in her veins. That tension in her pelvis again. “Cristo, you will come like this if I continue, won’t you?”
She nodded, and of course he released her breast. “And you’re going to be thorough and detail-oriented, aren’t you?”
With a roguish smile, he continued the foray of his mouth down her body. Licked maddening circles around her belly button. Natalie was panting again, gasping for breath as he separated the folds of her sex with his fingers.
She felt him pulling in a deep breath, pulling the scent of her arousal into him. Heard his pithy, foul curse breathe into her skin. Felt the tremble in his shoulders. And then his fingers were at her clit again. Stroking, swiping.
“Is this what you did?” he whispered against the crease of her thigh. “Is this how you pleasured yourself?”
She opened her mouth and swallowed air. Somehow she managed to say, “But it’s nothing like when you touch me.” God, nothing and no one in the entire world was going to feel like Massimo ever again.
Then his mouth replaced his fingers and his fingers were inside her and all her fears vanished under the onslaught of the sharp sensations. “Like this?” he whispered, weaving some new magic.
“Or like this,” while he explored her, learning, and gave her the key to her own body.
And he was licking at her tight bundle and hooking his finger until he touched some magical spot that sparked fierce pleasure in her pelvis. On and on, again and again, until she was nothing but pure sensation. And when he pulled his mouth and fingers up and away from her, Natalie followed him with her hips, sobbing and begging. And then he tugged at her clit with his teeth.
Pleasure threw her apart into so many pieces, fracturing her, tossing her, and he continued crooning against her sex and she kept coming, tears flowing out of her eyes, and she dug her fingers into his hair, because she was afraid he had broken her apart and she would fly away. She writhed on the sheets as the waves slowed and ebbed, whispering his name over and over again.
She was lost in a sea of pleasure. She was lost to this man, forever.
When he climbed onto the bed and he pulled her into his arms, his thighs cradling her hips, she folded like a deck of cards, shivering and shaking. He was a fortress of warmth and safety at her back. She rubbed her nose in his bicep, loving the smell of him. When he stretched his arm to reach into the nightstand, she stopped him. Looked at him over her shoulder.
“I’m on the pill. Alessandra took me to a pharmacy.”
He raised a brow, the ghost of a smile shimmering around his mouth, and she blushed. How could she blush when he’d put her body and her emotions through a ringer?
“I wanted to be prepared.” She kissed his chin. Nipped it with her teeth. Felt his erection like a hot brand against her. She wriggled in his lap and his fingers dug into her hips with a curse, hard enough to leave bruises. So she did it more. And he groaned. “I was going to have you, come what may. If you didn’t know already, I’m a determined woman.”
“That you are,” he said, turning her to face him. “I’m clean.” A flash of white teeth. “You can tunnel into my network and see the medical certificate.”
She shook her head, smiling. If only she could somehow tunnel her way into his heart, too... She pushed damp tendrils of hair away from his face, burying fear deep inside. “I don’t have to.”
“It will hurt,” he said, his features severe. His strokes on her face gentle. “I... I’ve never made love to a virgin so you need to tell me if it’s too much. If it hurts too much. If you just want a breather or want to stop completely. I’ll stop, cara mia. Anytime.”
“I want this, with you. Only you.”
He touched his forehead to hers, and gave her the softest, sweetest kiss. Even inexperienced about men, Natalie had a feeling he was bracing himself for it. Gathering his control. Because she knew him. She knew he’d never forgive himself if he hurt her.
Muscles that seemed to have turned into so much blubber firmed up as he pulled her up into his lap, pushing her thighs indecently wider. His kisses shut rational thought away, going from soft and tender to hungry and urgent in a matter of seconds.
She felt his erection hard and demanding against her belly. Threw her head back as his hands plumped her breasts, rolled her nipples. He whispered endearments into her skin, tasted every dip and rise. Told her how much he’d dreamed of her like this—completely his.
Slowly, with infinite patience, with skillful touches, he aroused her spent body until she was shivering again, and there was wetness at her sex. His clever, wicked fingers played with her, working her over, building her to a fine fever, cranking her on and on. Already he knew her body so well. Better than she did. And she wanted to chase that mindless high again. Fall down hard from it into his solid arms. Again and again, until she didn’t know where she began and he ended.
And then he lifted her, murmuring soothing, soft words, and she looked down, refusing to miss anything, and he took his shaft in hand and drenched himself in her wetness and then he was there at the entrance to her body and his hands on her shoulders were pushing her down, and with one smooth, hard thrust, he was inside her.
She cried at the sharp, unending pinch of pain, tugging at his hair while he buried his face in her neck. His breathing was loud and hot and his big body was so tight as if he were spending an enormous amount of control to stay still. “Merda, you’re like a glove. So good, so...” He looked at her and cursed. “I’m hurting you, sì?”
She nodded. And he kissed her softly. Butterfly kisses at her cheekbone. The tip of her nose. The corner of her mouth. Beneath her ear. At the juncture where her neck met her shoulders. “It’s okay, cara mia. Just...just hold on. We’ll stay like this. As long as you need. Or I’ll pull out and we’ll try again some—”
“No.” He was like a hot, hard poker inside her and she never wanted to move or let go. And he was frozen like one of those marble statues littered all over his damned estate, so rigid and hard and taut and tense around her. Inside her.
Natalie pushed back with her fingers on the jut of his shoulders and gasped when even the small movement sent a sharp pinch through her pelvis again but she desperately wanted to look into his eyes, at this man who had stolen her heart. The invasion of his shaft and the pain of their joining, and the comedown from her orgasm—everything was conspiring, pushing her toward tears, pushing her toward hiding away from this moment, toward an emotional climax just as powerful and even more dangerous.
For
the one thing she couldn’t do was throw herself open even more. Not when she wanted a lot more of this intimacy with him.
So, she kissed his temple, tasted the sweat of his skin. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, needing the glide of his bare skin against hers, needing the closeness. Needing the scent of him deep inside her. “Tell me, please, tell me what to do. I want this to be good for you. I want...”
He caught the tear falling down her cheek, and kissed her temple as if she were the most precious thing he’d ever held. “Good, cara mia? If it got any better, I’d die from the overload.”
He rotated his hips slightly, softly, and Natalie gasped. Laughing. “That wasn’t so bad.”
When he laughed, she bit his lip.
“No, that was fantastic. Great. Do it again. Please, Massimo.”
* * *
Massimo thought he’d die if he didn’t start moving soon. Pressure knotted up in his balls, tingled in his lower spine. And yet, he’d rather die than hurt her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Hundred percent. Move. Now.”
And she demanded that he move inside her like she demanded everything else of him. Boldly. Honestly. Courageously.
Holding her hips, Massimo pulled her up a little. And brought her down just as he thrust his hips. The friction was amazing. The pleasure she gave him indescribable. Another thrust. Another stroke. He stilled to delay his climax rushing at him. “Listen to our bodies, cara mia,” he whispered, laughing, when she bumped into him on a downward stroke. “Listen to your instincts. Try swiveling your hips, moving this way and that. Just...find your rhythm with me.”
“So less bumping and grinding, and color by numbers and more instinct, Massimo?”
“Yes, more instinct. Less numbers. Especially when it is this good,” he said, giving her a wink.
She laughed, pushing her hair away from her face, thrusting her breasts in his face. This time, she met him thrust to thrust, in perfect synchronicity, creating magic.
Cheeks pink, brow dampened, hair a wild cloud around her face, eyes glazed with passion, mouth swollen, she was the most breathtakingly beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She was passion and enthusiasm and joy and he felt as if he was drowning in her.
He pushed her onto the bed and covered her, increasing the tempo of his thrusts, all but mindless in the pursuit of his own climax. Picking her up by the hips, he angled her so that his abdomen rubbed over the top of her sex every time he retreated and she was sobbing again, writhing and digging her teeth into his bicep as she splintered, and Massimo followed her.
Two hard, swift thrusts and he came in a rush of heat and lightning. Afterward, laughter followed, for only his brave little hacker could make him laugh in such a moment by shouting, “Hell, yeah, that was awesome, Massimo. How soon can you go again?”
He let his hard body cover hers completely for a few seconds, needing this closeness with his lover for the first time in his life. Needing to steal away something from her, for himself.
Maybe he wouldn’t ever be able to offer her what she deserved from a man. But he was determined to never hurt her, to never dull the spark that fired up his brave, little hacker.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“HOW MUCH LONGER are you going to avoid me?”
“What?” Massimo said, loosening the knot of his tie. He shrugged off his suit jacket and leaned against his bed, just...drinking in the sight of her.
A weak spring sun dappled her in golden light as Natalie stood in front of the French windows that framed his bedroom. She’d given up fighting to subdue her hair today apparently because it was loosely tied in a ponytail at her nape.
Today, she wore a pristine white sleeveless shirt that showcased her toned arms and flowy pants that sat low on her waist, leaving a slash of that taut abdomen he had licked just last night, on his way to other important things, bare for his gaze. The diamond pendant on a delicate gold chain he’d bought for her gleamed on her skin.
It had taken him three arguments, two days and one...session of persuading her with his fingers and mouth and tongue before she’d accepted the gift. Before confiding that it was the only piece of jewelry she’d ever owned.
And then, of course, being the extremely competitive woman that she was, she had proceeded to pay him back in return for his wicked persuasion. Her hair tickling his thighs, her mouth laughing and licking and wrapped around his arousal, she’d driven him to the most powerful climax of his life. Leaving him stripped to the soul.
Just thinking of it, of her, of her unflinching, unending desire to know all of him, to learn all of him—he was turned on simply by looking at her, his arousal a throbbing need in his trousers.
“Something’s wrong, Massimo. You and I both know it.”
He willed his body to focus on her words. His mind to maneuver the minefield of confrontation that they’d both been pushing away, desperate to not test this...thing between them just yet. Or was he the only one who thought like that? “I’m not used to sharing every small thing that occupies my mind,” he bluffed.
Something was wrong with him, sì. But he didn’t know what or how to fix it.
Her chin fell and she nodded. “But this is important enough that you distanced yourself from me. You do that when you have a design problem, did you know that?
“You swim endlessly...you box in the gym...you avoid looking at the problem until it works itself out in your head. I know you, Massimo. Better than you think.”
Three and a half weeks since the night she’d snuck into his room and proceeded to blow his mind. His hunger for her only seemed to increase the more he touched her, the more he kissed her, the more he basked in her laughter and her quick wit and her affection.
She brought out the best in him, and yet, she brought out the worst in him, too.
He wouldn’t have realized how seamlessly she seemed to work herself into his life until that meeting that had wrecked the bliss of long, drawn-out nights amid silky sheets and the exhilarating rush of pitting his mind against hers during the day.
Natalie was a woman unlike any he’d ever known, for he had a feeling he would never know all of her. Possess all of her. Just when he thought he did...another facet of her was revealed.
Even at a recent meeting with Giuseppe Fiore’s CTO, his first instinct had been to defend her, to protect her from even a whiff of accusation, to storm out of that meeting until he could process it on his own.
“Your fiancée is a common thief.”
“That association could cost you, Massimo, your reputation at least, if not this contract, if it gets out.”
Since Giuseppe’s CTO was a friend of his, Massimo had convinced him to put it aside. Massimo had used an invaluable business connection to vouch for Natalie. Created a debt for himself in a cutthroat business world.
A small thing but an unprecedented thing. A fissure in the line he drew between his ambitions and his feelings. Blurring the lines between what he wanted to be and what he was.
Dios mio, she complicated everything with her truths, and her lies and her dares and her kisses, and he needed to get a handle on this and her. Fast.
He’d screwed the chance of keeping things between them separate—professional and personal. He’d blurred all the lines between them from the moment he’d seen her walk out of that club.
When he’d decided she would be the perfect foil to discourage Gisela Fiore.
When he’d decided she would be an asset to BCS. When he’d brought her on board to work on the Fiore project. He’d lost his mind from moment one. Lost all caution and discretion and common sense that had made him such a world-renowned success before thirty.
She’d fought him from the beginning, on every arrogant assumption of his, at every decree he had laid down, even his short-lived honor. She’d told him clearly, point-blank, that she didn’t give her trust easily. She’d told him, ag
ain and again, that her loyalty had to be earned and couldn’t be bought. That her heart, she’d lived with it under lock and key for so long.
So, this was on him. And yet, he also wanted to blame her. To use this as a reason to push her away. To...stop this madness before it deepened and someone really got hurt.
Her—she would be the one who was hurt in the end.
“I’ve been busy,” he fibbed. “This project is taking everything I have.”
“I know you’re busy. I’m in there with you most of the time. But this is not just work stress. This is not you tuning everything else out to untangle an analytical problem.
“You’ve been freezing me out for a week. I don’t know why or what I did. You won’t...look at me. You won’t smile. You...don’t talk to me in the lab. You...come to me in the middle of the night and make love to me, but by morning...you’re back to behaving the same way again.
“It’s almost as if you’re...ashamed to converse with me outside of bed.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he said, an inane response to her perceptive gauntlet.
“No, I’m not. You didn’t even tell me how exceptionally clever my design was for the bank’s interactive portals. If nothing else, I count on you to tell me how brilliant I am on a regular basis, Massimo.”
That irreverence, that honest but baffled admission—it was a balm to his masculine ego. Which the woman had the disconcerting knack of knocking off balance with a regularity. At least she was in this madness as much as he was.
“Are you done with me, with us, Massimo? Is that it? Do you want to move on?” Vulnerability in her voice even as she stubbornly tilted her chin up. “Because if you are, just...tell me.”