The Change in Di Navarra's Plan

by Lynn Raye Harris

  She moved like liquid silk. And she clung to Santo Lazzari in a way that made him see red. Her hand rested easily on Santo’s arm and her head was turned to gaze up at Santo as if he was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen.

  Drago wanted to rip her from the other man’s grip and claim her as his in front of all these people. So no man would dare to touch her again.

  Instead, he tamped down on the urge to fight and strode toward the laughing couple. Holly sobered instantly when she glanced over and saw him, but Santo continued to gaze down at her for a long minute before he looked up to meet Drago’s gaze.

  “Grazie, bella mia,” Santo said as he took Holly’s hand and kissed it. “It’s been a pleasure talking with you.”

  “And you,” she replied, her voice soft and sweet in a way it never was with him. With everyone else—Nicky, Sylvia, the passport clerk, a flight attendant—but never him. That thought grated on his mind as he took Holly’s hand and gripped it tight.

  “Amore,” he said. “I have been waiting for you to arrive.”

  She smiled, but he knew it was false. “And here I am.”

  “Yes, here you are.”

  He wanted to drag her back inside and lock her in her room, but instead he turned and led her into the gathering. He introduced her to many people as they circulated. He made sure she had wine and food, and he kept her moored at his side. Much of the time, her hand was anchored in his, until he could concentrate only on that small area of skin where they touched. Until his senses were overrun with sensation and desire.

  As soon as he could do so without drawing attention, he dragged her through another door and into his office. He closed the door behind them and turned to face her. She stood in the darkness, her dress catching the light from outside and shimmering like white flame. He closed the distance between them, until he stood before her, dominating her space.

  Her scent stole to him and he stiffened as he finally realized what had puzzled him for the past hour. “You are not wearing Sky.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m doing everything else you want of me.”

  “Everything else is not quite as good as everything,” he grated.

  She shrugged. “I will wear it the next time.”

  His blood beat in his ears. “How do you know there will be a next time?”

  That made her pause. “I don’t.”

  “What were you talking to Santo about?”

  She seemed taken aback. “We talked about many things. You, the campaign, the weather.”

  His eyes narrowed. “That’s all?”

  Her chin lifted in the darkness. “Why do you care, Drago? You aren’t interested in me as anything more than a face for your campaign, so what does it matter what I talk about with another man?”

  “You are the mother of my child.”

  “Oh, so that’s important to you now? I thought I was an obstacle, a situation to be dealt with.”

  The truth of her words slid beneath his skin. “And I will deal with you, cara mia. Whatever you thought before you came here, whatever ideas you might have had, you can forget. Nicky is my son, and my heir, and I will not allow you to withhold him from me or to use him to control me. Are we clear?”

  “You’re disgusting, do you know that?” She flung the words like poisoned darts. “I’m sorry for whatever hell you might have gone through in your life, but I am not your mother and I won’t abandon my son. You can’t buy me off, and you can’t make me go away. I’ll fight you, Drago. I’ll fight you to the bitter end, and I won’t do it cleanly. If you force me, I’ll take to the internet. Then I’ll call the media and I’ll smear you and Navarra Cosmetics from one end of this planet to the other.”

  Fury rose to a dull roar inside him—but there was something else, too. Excitement. He recognized it in the way his body quivered, the way his nerve endings twitched and tingled.

  Every cell in his being was attuned to her, attuned to her softness, her scent, her heat. He suddenly wanted to touch her. He wanted to thrust inside her body, wanted to feel her cling to him, shape herself around him, gasp and moan and shudder beneath him as he made her come again and again.

  He dragged himself back from the brink, back from that irretrievable moment when he would claim her mouth for his own and then not cease until he’d had her body, too.

  “Try it,” he said. “I have the money to make it go away.”

  He could employ an entire team to counteract anything she tried online or with the media.

  Sure, all it took was a sound bite and the idea that powerful, wealthy Drago di Navarra was being unfair to this poor woman, and he could suffer some bad publicity. But he’d weathered bad publicity before. He wasn’t afraid of it.

  “Of course you do,” she said. “That’s how you operate, isn’t it? You buy people off. You threaten and yell and order, and people do what you want. Well, not me, Drago. We have a contract, and don’t think I won’t take you to court if you break it.”

  He could have laughed if he weren’t so angry. She had no idea how powerless she was. How he could tie her up in court until she had nothing left to battle him with. She would win, but she would have nothing once she paid her lawyers.

  Suddenly, he was tired of this. He was tired of battling with her—of battling with himself—when what he really wanted was to have her beneath him. There was no reason he could think of to fight this attraction a moment longer.

  He reached for her and she gasped. But then he tugged her in close, until their bodies were pressed tightly together, his fingers spread across the skin of her back where the dress dipped down. She was warm, and his fingers tingled as if electricity flowed beneath her skin.

  “Your threat is as frightening as a swat from a kitten,” he murmured, his gaze focusing on her lips—those lush, pretty lips that had dropped open in surprise.

  Her head tilted back, her eyes searching his. The heat of her burned into him. His cock leaped against the confines of his trousers, and he knew she felt it by the widening of her eyes. She did not try to move away, and he experienced a surge of triumph. Her palms on his chest became fistfuls of his shirt. Her eyes filled with sexual heat.

  Oh, yes, he’d not read this wrong at all. She wanted him. Desperately.

  “I’m not a kitten, Drago,” she said, her gaze on his mouth. “I mean what I say.”

  “Yes,” he said, his hands sliding down her back, cupping her bottom and pulling her in closer to the heat and hardness of his body. “I know you do.”

  She gasped. And then she moved her hips. It was a slight movement, the whisper of an arch, but he knew in that moment that she was lost. As lost and helpless to this pull between them as he was.

  “I hate you,” she said, the sound halfway to a moan as he held her to him and slid the hardness of his body along the sensitive heart of her.

  “Yes,” he said. “You hate me, bella mia. I can feel it so strongly.”

  She gasped again. “This is so wrong,” she said. “I shouldn’t feel like this, not after the things you’ve said....”

  Neither should he. But he lowered his head and slid his mouth along the sweet curve of her jaw anyway. Her fingers flexed convulsively in his shirt.

  “Don’t think, Holly. Just feel. Feel what we do to each other....”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A CORNER OF Holly’s brain told her she needed to stop this. That she needed to push this man away and let him know, once and for all, that she was not his to command.

  But she couldn’t do it. Because she was his. She wanted him to command her, at least in this. She wanted to feel his heat and hardness and strength. Wanted to lose herself in him, in the way he made her feel.

  He confused her, and excited her. He frightened her, and challenged
her. She hated him—and she wanted him. She’d spent the past hour trying to focus on the conversations around her, trying to smile and be the Sky spokesmodel, but all her senses kept coming back to one immutable fact: Drago’s hand on hers was driving her insane.

  Now she had much more than his hand. His mouth moved along her jaw, slid to her ear. He nibbled the tender flesh of her earlobe, and she could feel the erotic pull all the way to her toes. She’d long since passed the mark where she was ready for him. Her sex felt heavy between her thighs, achy. She was wet and hot. She needed.

  She slipped her arms around his neck and he rewarded her with a lick of his tongue on the tender flesh behind her ear.

  Then he growled something in Italian and his hands went to her waist. He found the zipper at her back and slid it down slowly, until the bodice of her strapless dress gaped. His fingers found the clasp of her bra and then her breasts were free from their confinement.

  Holly instinctively covered herself. “There are people outside,” she said in a panic. “They will notice we’ve gone.”

  “Yes, they will notice. But they won’t search for us, bella mia. They are well fed, plied with the best wines and dishes I have to offer. They will stay and listen to the musicians, they will eat and drink and talk. They will not follow us.”

  She felt so wicked standing here in his office, naked from the waist up, and hearing the strains of music and voices coming from the gardens. Drago covered her hands with his, gently pulled them away until her breasts were bare and gooseflesh rose on her skin.

  Then his palms found them, shaped them, and her heart shuddered in her chest.

  “So lovely,” he said. “So tempting.”

  And then he dropped his head and took one tight nipple in his mouth. Holly thought she would come unglued right then. She clutched his head, cried out with the sweet torture of his lips and tongue and teeth on her breast. She hadn’t been touched like this in a year. Not since he’d been the one to show her how beautiful and perfect it could be.

  “Drago,” she gasped. “I don’t know—”

  “I do,” he said. Then he pressed her breasts together in his hands, moved between them, licking and sucking her nipples while she arched her back and thrust them into his hot mouth. She felt every tug, every pull between her legs, as if her nipples were somehow attached to her sex.

  He made her utterly crazy. She shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be succumbing to the sensual power he had—but she didn’t want to stop. It had been too long, and she’d been too lonely.

  If he wanted her this way, if he couldn’t help himself, either, then maybe there was a chance for them. A chance they could work out their differences and be good parents to their child for his sake.

  “I want to touch you,” she cried at the next sweet spike of pleasure.

  “Then touch me.”

  Holly shoved his tuxedo jacket from his shoulders, then tugged his shirt from his waistband. Her hands slipped beneath the fabric until her palms were—finally, finally—on his hot flesh. His skin quivered beneath her touch, and it made her bold.

  She found his nipples, pinched them between her thumbs and forefingers while he sucked on hers. He groaned low in his throat. And then he pushed her back, ripped open his tie and shirt, studs scattering across the floor.

  His chest was so perfect, so beautiful. He wasn’t muscle-bound, like a body builder who didn’t know when to quit. But he had a hard physique that made her mouth water. His eyes, when she finally dragged her gaze away from his firm pectorals, sizzled into her.

  “Do you want me, Holly?”

  She should tell him no. She knew she should, but she couldn’t. She nodded mutely.

  “Then come to me.” He opened his arms and she went into them. When their skin touched, she wanted to moan with the pleasure. Drago’s fingers roamed over her flesh, his thumbs gliding over her sensitive nipples again and again. Holly spread her hands on his chest, slid her fingers over the firm planes of muscle.

  She looked up, into his eyes, her heart turning over at the heat she saw there. She wanted him to kiss her. It was odd to think he’d had his mouth on her breasts, but had not yet kissed her. She moved restlessly in his arms, stretched up on tiptoes to find his mouth, but he dropped his lips to the side of her neck again.

  The fire between them spun up quickly. Drago pushed the dress down her hips until it pooled at her feet. “It will wrinkle,” she said.

  “I don’t care.”

  She reached for his zipper. It didn’t take her a moment to free him from his trousers. She wrapped her hand around his hot, hard flesh, her heart thrumming hard, making her dizzy.

  His groan made her want to do things she’d never done before. She dropped to her knees and put her mouth around him, her tongue curling and gliding over his hot flesh.

  Drago swore. She glanced up at him, and his eyes were closed tight. His jaw flexed as if he were in pain.

  But she knew it wasn’t pain—or not the bad kind, anyway.

  Still, he didn’t let her explore him the way she wanted. Too soon, he dragged her up into his arms and speared his hand into her hair. This time—oh, yes, this time—his mouth came down on hers.

  And that was when she knew that nothing in her life would ever be the same again.

  Holly’s knees buckled when Drago’s tongue touched hers. It was a silly reaction, and yet she couldn’t control it. She’d forgotten just how drugging his kisses were. How necessary.

  He caught her around the waist, and then he lifted her and turned until she was sitting on his desk. The wood was cold on her bare bottom. She was still wearing the lacy thong that went with the dress, but it didn’t protect her skin from the coolness.

  Not that she wanted to be protected. It was a welcome coolness, since the heat of their bodies threatened to incinerate her.

  Drago tugged at her panties until she lifted her bottom and he could yank them off. Then he spread her knees wide and stepped between them. Instinctively, Holly curled her legs around his waist. Together, they fell backward—she heard the crash of many things hitting the floor and realized that Drago had swept them away with his arm as he’d laid her down on the desk. She only hoped there was nothing breakable—

  And then she didn’t care. Drago’s mouth was thorough, demanding. His hard erection rode the seam of her body, gliding against her wetness with the most deliciously pleasurable friction imaginable.

  It wasn’t enough. She wanted more, wanted him inside her. Her hands kneaded the flesh of his back, skated down his sides, over his hips. She tried to reach between them, tried to guide him into her, but he pulled back with a muttered curse.

  “Condom,” he said. And then somehow he found one in the desk. He pulled away and rolled it on. She lay on the desk and watched him, feasted her eyes on the sheer beauty of his body. He put his hand over the mound of her sex, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Then he slid a finger down, into all that wetness. He hissed, as if she’d burned him—and then he skimmed over her damp skin while she whimpered.

  Drago traced her, the plumpness on the outside, the delicate ridges on the inside, and all the while her heart beat a crazy rhythm in her chest. When he touched her most sensitive spot again, she cried out as sensation rocked her.

  “You’re so ready for me, cara,” he said. “And it is everything I can do not to take what you offer right this very moment.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Take it. Please.”

  He shook his head, and her heart dropped. Was this some crazy act of revenge? Was he going to deny this heat between them now that they’d come so far? Was he going to send her away before anything happened?

  Disappointment tasted bitter. So bitter.

  But then he spoke and her heart soared once more. “Not yet. First, I want to make you come.” He stroked her again, an
d she shuddered. “I want you to sob my name, Holly. I want you to beg me for release.”

  “I’ll beg now,” she told him, her body on fire. “I have no shame.”

  And she didn’t. Not where he was concerned. The only shame she’d ever felt was when he’d kicked her out. She’d not felt one moment of guilt for what she’d done with him. She might not have always realized that, but it was the truth. There was no shame in these feelings, no shame in this fire between them.

  He laughed, a deep sensual purr that reverberated through her. “Patience, cara. Some things are worth the wait.”

  “I’ve been waiting a year,” she said heatedly, and his eyes darkened. But it wasn’t an angry darkening. No, instead she sensed he was on the edge of control. He was every bit as eager as she was. He just didn’t want to admit it. Or perhaps it was better to say that Drago di Navarra was accustomed to being in control. Taking his time meant he could govern his need. Meant that he was superhuman, not prey to the usual vicissitudes of emotion.

  But Holly wanted him to lose control. She didn’t know why it was important to her, but if she was committed to doing this with him—and she was—she wanted it to be something he couldn’t shape into what he wanted it to be. She wanted it to be as wild and chaotic for him as it was for her.

  Holly lifted herself on her elbows and reached for him. His breath hissed in when she closed her hand around him. He was so hot and hard that she wondered how he could stand it.

  Because she could barely stand the empty ache in her core. The only way to ease that ache was to fill it with him.

  “I’m begging you now, Drago,” she said, hardly recognizing the note of desperation in her voice. “I’m begging you.”

  His eyes darkened again. Then he lowered his head slowly, so slowly, that she thought he would deny her. But then he kissed her, his lips fusing with hers so sweetly and perfectly that she let go of him and wrapped her arms around his neck.