“Santo,” she whispered, arching into his touch.
“You like that?”
“Yes.”
He transferred his attention to the other hard peak. Stroked it to erectness. The hot stillness that floated in the air between them and the electric tension that seized her throat were almost unbearable.
“You are so beautiful,” he rasped, his mouth trailing a path of fire down her throat. “You make me lose my head.”
He hit the ultrasensitive spot at the base of her throat. She gasped and arched her neck to give him better access. He took full advantage, nuzzling and exploring until she flattened her palms against the windows and surrendered completely.
He slid a finger underneath the strap of her dress and slipped it off her shoulder, revealing a full, rose-tipped breast. Cool air slid over her heated skin as he weighted her in his palm. Her stomach clenched at the look of lust on his face. Right before he took her inside the heat of his mouth.
The sweet, all-encompassing rush of pleasure almost took her to her knees. He slid a muscled leg between her thighs and brought her closer. He was hot, hard and male, and it excited her beyond belief.
She moved against him. Whimpered. “Santo...”
He slid the other strap off her shoulder and flicked his tongue over her nipple. Gave her what her husky plea hadn’t been able to verbalize. Desperate, aching for him, she pushed into his touch. Absorbed his heady torture. Almost cried out when he stepped away. But it was only to move behind her to undo the clasp of her dress.
It hit the floor in a whisper of silk. She tensed then, exposed to his gaze, because not even the heat pulsing between them was enough to wipe away the cruel taunts Franco had tossed at her when the tension between them had risen to a fever pitch. When she had failed to live up to his expectations on every level.
Ice-cold and not worth the effort.
Santo’s fingers tightened around her waist. “Forget about him,” he growled, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the delicate skin of her neck. She melted at the hedonistic touch. At the sensual kisses he pressed against her back as he worked his way down her spine. As desperate and urgent as the last time between them had been, this time was slow and achingly sensual. He lit her up with those skillful hands of his. Made her achingly aware of every centimeter of flesh she possessed as he trailed a path of fire over the rounded curve of her bottom.
She lifted a foot for him as he divested her of a sexy, high shoe. Pressed a kiss to the delicate arch of her foot that made her toes curl. Then he reached for the other shoe and stripped her of that, too.
Heat shimmered through her insides as he turned her around with firm hands on her hips. On his knees, every magnificent, muscled inch of him at her disposal, she thought her heart might crash through her chest. Naked, except for the flimsy panties she had on, she should have felt self-conscious, as lacking as Franco had painted her as. Instead, all she could see was the desire in Santo’s eyes. The electric connection they shared.
He cupped the back of her knee. Slid a palm up the soft skin of her thigh to the rounded curve of her buttock. Eyes on hers, he traced the smooth edge of her panties. Absorbed the shiver of reaction that chased through her. “I want to take these off,” he murmured. “Can I?”
She nodded, a barely perceptible movement of her head because she couldn’t breathe. He hooked his fingers into either side of the flimsy piece of silk, and stripped it off. Hands on his shoulders, her fingertips curling into hard, bunched-up muscle, she stepped out of them. He tossed the filmy material aside, then brought her closer.
“Santo,” she murmured unsteadily as he pressed a kiss to the soft flesh of her upper thigh, “what are you doing?”
“Slowing things down,” he said huskily. “All you have to do is relax and enjoy it.”
She was not relaxed. She was ready to jump out of her skin because he hadn’t done this that night. But she was also insanely turned on, her body hot and liquid as she reached for the window frame behind her and clutched it with both hands. Widening her stance with an insistent push of his palm against her thigh, she watched as Santo set his gaze on her most intimate flesh, as he parted her with gentle fingers and set his mouth to her.
Her body clenched hard at the first slide of his tongue against her silken warmth. Reverential, decadent, it washed over her in the most exquisite wave of pleasure she’d ever felt. Her legs shuddered beneath her, threatened to give way. Cupping her knee in his palm, Santo urged her leg over his shoulder and her fingers into his hair. And then, there was only the way he devoured her, savored her, in the most erotic, intimate way possible.
Oh, my God. She almost moaned with relief when he picked her up and carried her to the bed. But the torture didn’t end there. He followed her down, spread her thighs wide and sought out her slick warmth with his fingers.
Talented, skillful, his deliberate strokes made her crazy. She arched her hips and moaned his name. He added a second finger, the sensation of fullness so exquisitely good it made her gasp out loud.
“Santo. Please—”
He bent to kiss her, his mouth against hers as his thumb massaged the tight bundle of nerves at the center of her. “Let go,” he murmured. “Come for me, Gia.”
She arched her hips to take him deep as his devastating caresses unleashed a hot, shimmering pleasure that radiated out from her core. Stroking her with those amazing hands, he drew it out, wringing every last ounce of pleasure from her until she collapsed on the bed, her orgasm all-consuming and never-ending.
When she finally emerged from the haze of pleasure, she found Santo sitting back on his knees, watching her with hot, dark eyes. A wave of heat suffused her cheeks at how completely she’d let go. How utterly abandoned she’d been.
She slicked her tongue over desperately dry lips. Averted her gaze. Only to find her attention captured by the erection pushing against the zipper of his jeans.
“You going to do something about that?” he murmured.
Had they not just shared what they’d just shared, had they not bared everything to each other on that stormy night four years ago, she might have been frozen right there. Instead, her head filled with images of what he looked like—hot, hard and silky smooth. Heavenly. And the temptation was irresistible.
She pushed herself into a sitting position. Went up on her knees in front of him. Lip caught between her teeth, she ran her fingers over the hard bulge under the denim that covered him. Explored the rigid length of him from top to bottom.
He hissed in a breath. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” he murmured. But he let her play. Slide his zipper down, draw him out and find him with her hands. Velvety soft, he was sleek power over steel. Stomach curlingly masculine.
His breath grew deeper as she caressed him, the taut muscles of his abs convulsing as she ran her fingers over him with a firmer touch. A rough sound leaving his throat, he pulled her hands from him, rolled off the bed and shucked the rest of his clothing, until he stood, in the flesh, exactly as she remembered him—a perfect canvas of lean muscle that was breathtaking in its perfection.
But it was the possessive look in his eyes that scorched through her. The way he looked at her. As if she was something special to him.
It warmed her from the inside out as he joined her on the bed, scooped her up with one arm and brought her down on top of him, cradling her against his chest. The long, languid kiss he stole melted her insides. Annihilated the last of her defenses. “I want to be inside of you,” he murmured.
His arousal, thick and ridged, jutted against her abdomen. The scent of their lust was heavy and humid in the air, a seductive, hedonistic mix that drove everything from her head but the need to have him. She raised herself up, her palms on his rock-hard chest, captured him in her hands and, slowly, carefully, lowered herself onto him.
Thick and powerful, he filled her like nothing else had. She drew in
a deep breath as she absorbed the shock of his all-consuming possession. The first time between them there had been a fleeting moment of pain, before there had been pleasure. This time, it was all pleasure. Buried deep inside of her, she could feel the pulse of his heartbeat, a carnal kiss that echoed deep in her soul.
His velvet dark eyes anchored her in the moment. “You destroy me,” he murmured. “Every single damn time, Gia.”
Her heart pulsed at the admission. At the look of raw, uncensored emotion on his face. It did something to her to know that he wanted her this much. That he felt as much as she did. Healed a broken part of her she hadn’t been sure would ever mend after Franco.
“Gia,” he rasped, his voice a rough caress. “I need you to move, cara. Now.”
Emboldened by what they shared, by the want written across his face, she leaned forward, pushed his hands over his head and locked her fingers with his. Then she started to move, each stroke of his body inside of her raking across her nerve endings.
He let her take control. She lifted herself off him, then took him back inside of her, wriggling her hips as she adjusted to his potent possession. A dark flush of color stained his cheekbones as she drew out the moment. Took him harder and deeper with every stroke until they were both gasping at the pure sensation of it.
He freed his hands. She let him, because she wanted him to take control. To give her that pleasure she knew was waiting for her. He cupped her bottom in his palms and angled her so that the tip of his erection rubbed against a tender, aching spot inside of her. She threw her head back and moaned, each skillful, deliberate thrust he administered stealing her breath. Nudging her closer to the edge.
“Santo—”
His hands bit into her flesh as he throbbed and thickened inside of her. Brought her down to meet his punishing lunges. Told her in a guttural voice how good she felt. How perfectly she took him. How much he wanted her.
Her heart thundered at the magnificence of him. His chest heaving with the force of his breath, perspiration dotting the hard planes of his face, his body radiating a blanket of heat, he was as far gone as she was.
Her release began deep in her core, sweeping through her, tightening her muscles around him. Santo captured her by the nape, his fingers biting into her flesh as he watched her shatter around him. It was the most erotic, intimate experience of her life. Terrifying in its intensity.
She lowered her head to his, fused their mouths together and rode him to his climax.
* * *
Santo lay awake, Gia curled against his chest, her silky blond hair spilling across his shoulder as a sliver of moonlight filtered through the room. His head too full to sleep, too many emotions chasing through his chest to settle, he stroked a palm down the satiny soft skin of her back. Over the delectable curve of her bottom.
She had taken him apart tonight. Dismantled him with her truths. It illuminated so much about her, made sense of so many of the puzzle pieces he’d held, but couldn’t seem to reconstruct. Why she hid behind those impenetrable walls of hers. Why she had walked away from them four years ago. Because she’d been taught that trust was an illusion. That the only person she could trust was herself. So she’d taken her son and ran.
Which hadn’t been helped by her marriage to Lombardi if her reactions tonight were anything to go by, he concluded grimly. A place he wasn’t about to let himself go, because it made him want to hit something.
He captured a lock of her hair in his fingers, rather than address the knot in his chest. Watched the moonlight play across its golden strands. The intensity of what they’d shared together replayed itself in his head. The singularity of it. Her particular combination of vulnerability and strength had always touched something deep inside of him. The loneliness that had always emanated from her. The sense that it was Gia against the world. Maybe because it mirrored a piece of himself.
That was why it had been so intense. It had been his protective edge talking—the one he’d never been able to dismantle when it came to her. That was the only place he was ever going to allow his emotions to go, because letting himself feel the things he once had for Gia wasn’t going to happen. Not when she’d already shattered him once. Not when Stefano Castiglione would no doubt waltz back into town when he was ready to take on Washington—a land mine he couldn’t ignore. Not when Lazzero had been absolutely right.
His future was on the line with Elevate. His attention needed to be fully on the business, ensuring this launch went off without a hitch, because one misstep could bring it all tumbling down around them.
Which meant preserving this bond he and Gia had built—smoothing out the rough waters of his marriage was paramount. Which he now thought might actually be possible. He had finally gotten inside her head. He was starting to understand what made his wife tick. Which was half the battle.
He could work with that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GIA WOKE TO the bright light of another gorgeous, sunny New York day streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse. It was not, she recognized with a start, the guest bedroom she had been sleeping in with Leo. It was the master bedroom. She was in Santo’s bed. And they had just spent a steamy, passionate night together.
Eyes widening at the height of the sun, she threw off the sheets, ready to dash out of bed and confront disaster with a Leo gone wild, then remembered it was Saturday, and he was already up. Somewhere in the early hours, Santo had murmured to her to sleep and had taken her son down for breakfast.
The apartment, however, was silent, bathed in a hushed, luxurious glow as the city bustled to life below. She collapsed back against the pillows, her pulse settling with the knowledge her son wasn’t sailing down the circular banister like a real supahero.
She felt vulnerable, turned inside out after what she and Santo had shared. Full of emotions she didn’t know how to process. The last time she’d felt like this, she’d run. She’d thrown away everything she and Santo had shared. Which had been a total disaster.
This time, however, she couldn’t run. She had committed to this new life she was building with him. To making this marriage work. Which left her to wonder what it was, exactly, that she’d walked away from.
It might have been complicated, but I thought it was worth it.
She dug her teeth into her lip. Had she walked away from something amazing between her and Santo? Had she let her fears and insecurities destroy something that could have been everything she’d ever envisioned?
Her chest clenched into a fist. Secretly, desperately, in a part of her she’d refused to reveal, she’d wanted to be that girl on his arm. The one in the center of all that golden light. It had hurt to watch him move from one woman to the next, knowing she would never be the one. The one he chose, because she was who she was.
Had all of her assumptions been wrong?
She had thrown her worst at him last night. All of her secrets. Santo, however, had not flinched. Hadn’t blinked. Had acted as if none of it had mattered. But what would happen when the news of his marriage to her became public knowledge? When she became that liability Lazzero had predicted? Because that part of what he’d said had been undeniably true.
Would Santo regret his decision then? It was hard to have faith he wouldn’t, when every good thing she’d ever had in her life, every friendship, every fledgling bond she’d forged, had eventually been destroyed because of who and what she was. Could her relationship with Santo be any different?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices, followed by an explosion of tiny limbs as her son launched himself into the bedroom and onto the bed. “Mamma,” he cried, throwing his chubby arms around her. “We bought bugels.”
“Bagels,” Santo corrected, strolling in behind her son, a coffee from her favorite bakery and a brown bag in his hands. “Of which your son had two, by the way. He clearly likes to eat as much as I do.”
Which did not show on his lean, sculpted body, at all. Gia’s pulse did a ridiculous jump at the sight of her husband in a baseball T-shirt and another pair of those dark denim jeans that hugged every delectable inch of him.
“Sleepyhead,” Leo chastised, ruffling her hair. “Mamma tired?”
Santo’s gaze met hers over her son’s head, a dark glitter of amusement lighting its midnight depths. “Mamma had a busy night. She needed the sleep.”
“Santo,” she breathed, giving him a you-need-to-filter look.
“What?” Her husband deposited the items in his hands on the bedside table, braced a hand on the headboard and bent his head to hers to press a long, lingering kiss against her lips. “You were...busy.”
Leo watched the whole thing with a huge smile on his face. “And if he repeats that to someone else?” she challenged.
“He will forget about it in about sixty seconds,” her husband drawled. “His attention span is that of a gnat. He was a menace in New York traffic.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Relax,” Santo murmured. “I had him glued to my side the entire time.”
Leo tugged on his T-shirt. “Look,” he said proudly. “They’re the same.”
She took in the T-shirt her son was wearing. It was an exact replica of the one her husband had on, albeit a third of the size. It did something strange to her heart to see the two of them dressed alike, the same, unmistakable blond cowlick rendering them equally handsome.
“You went shopping?” she asked.
Santo lifted a shoulder. “He saw the T-shirt in a window. It was a Supersonic design. Also,” he added with satisfaction, “establishing the right loyalties is something that needs to start young. We had a conversation about Joe DiMaggio on the way back. Although,” he conceded, “I was doing the most of the conversing. Leo was chasing a butterfly.”
Married for His One-Night Heir Page 9