Instead of disgust, what she saw on his face made her tingle all over. It was the same look he had given her inside the car. Luca Argenti was looking at her like a man who hadn’t eaten in days and she was an eat-all-you-can buffet.
Sabrina shivered. He’d definitely brought his appetite.
Chapter 9
Luca gave the captain and the welcoming ten-man crew a cursory nod as they stepped onto the exterior of the main deck of the yacht. It was all the politeness he was capable of at the moment. He was burning up.
“Would you like anything to drink, Signor Argenti? Ma’am?” A woman in her thirties wearing a white sports shirt with the Argenti logo, a stylized A in black, and navy blue skirt inquired politely.
Luca turned to Sabrina questioningly. She hadn’t said a thing since the incident in the club. She shook her head.
“Perhaps later, Antonia. Grazie.”
The stewardess nodded, her eyes flicking to Sabrina curiously before she disappeared in the direction of the galley. He held out his hand to Sabrina and she took it without a word.
They made their way to the uppermost deck via a series of short narrow steps until they reached the lone room at the top. It wasn’t the biggest room on the yacht, but there was one thing that made it sought after–one that Luca intended to show Sabrina in a while. He had more urgent things to attend to, though.
Such as getting her naked in a hurry.
“Strega,” he murmured because Sabrina was looking at everywhere but him. “Look at me.”
The way she flinched showed how aware she was of the tension between them. Her brown eyes flicked to him then withdrew.
“It’s a beautiful room.” She walked to an upholstered seat by the window, running a hand on the cushion just as she did back in his suite.
And just like that suite, it had also been designed by Chiara. “I’ll let my sister know you approve.” Merda! He had to be careful about what was slipping out of his big mouth. Sabrina meeting his family? It was out of the question.
Luca had been sporting an erection since the little witch had confronted Eleni in the yacht club. Her aggression in defending him from Eleni had completely thrown him off. His ex-girlfriend intimidated men and women alike, and the fact that Sabrina had not backed off told him she would be a tigress in protecting her mate from would-be poachers. That knowledge sent an inappropriate thrill up his spine. Then he stopped short. Had she been just as territorial about the other men in her life, he thought with a spurt of anger. No matter. He would get her out of his system soon enough.
“I like the color scheme–white, black, and silver. It’s supposed to be stark, but it’s not.”
“I didn’t bring you here to admire the room, strega,” he said, amused and a bit irritated at the way she was stalling the inevitable.
She paused, turned to him, and said baldly, “I know.”
Her combined shyness and directness was a novelty.
“Vieni qui.”
“What did you say?”
He hadn’t realized he had slipped into Italian. “I said ‘come here.’”
“No. You come to me.”
Witch! Luca shrugged. “Very well.” He’d give her the upper hand. For now. When she was beneath him later, panting and heaving, it would be another story. “In a few minutes, you will be coming for me.”
The witch did a little eye-rolling. “I certainly hope so.”
Unbelievable! What was more, Luca found it charming even as his cock strained against his pants as he imagined that sassy mouth being put to other, more pleasurable use.
As punishment for her impertinence, Luca yanked her flush against him. She gasped, startled. With his free hand he grasped her nape, angled her head, and started kissing the insolence out of her.
Luca deemed he was successful going about it because at one point, Sabrina’s knees gave way and the only thing holding her up was his arm around her waist. He walked forward while dragging Sabrina, his arms still around her.
He registered the back of her knees hitting the bed when they came to a stop. She went down, bringing Luca with her. “Oof!” she exhaled, sounding pained as they bounced once.
“Are you alright, strega?”
“Yes. I’m good.”
“Then let’s make you feel better.” Luca, if anything, kept his word. “The first step is to unveil.”
“There are steps? Are you following a manual or something?”
He didn’t bother working the buttons on her cardigan. He grasped the edges of both the thin sweater and her tank top and peeled it off efficiently, throwing it carelessly out the way.
“Hey,” she protested, but her protest died an expected death when he unclasped her lace bra and exposed her luscious, rosy-tipped breasts. Her breath hitched. His cock was going to mutiny if he didn’t free it from his pants soon.
“You tempt me,” he murmured to her breasts, “but there will be time for you later. Lift your hips.” She followed him without further complaint this time. Her shorts and underwear were gone in a flash.
“The second step is to appreciate.”
He fumbled for the control on the night table and pressed a button. Bright sunlight spilled from the ceiling like their own personal spotlight.
“Oh my God!” she cried in amazement. “I can see the sky!”
A circular glass panel in the middle of the domed ceiling had turned transparent, transforming itself into a skylight.
She flung an arm to cover her breasts and a hand to the spot between her legs. “People will see us!”
He chuckled at her distress. “Only if they’re flying above us. I blocked off any helicopter landings on the yacht today.” He didn’t want to give his brothers an inadvertent peep show. Raphael would give him hell. His older brother liked to swoop in and out on the yacht unannounced, so Luca made sure there would be no interruption.
“You have a helipad on the yacht?”
For someone who was supposed to have gone out with rich men, she seemed remarkably easy to impress.
“It makes it easier to fly clients in. This is a floating showroom for the Casa Argenti line. Enough talking about business. This is not what we came here for.”
He rose on his haunches, wrenched her arms gently away from her chest, and kept them pinned above her head. Her golden hair lay in disarray, fanning outward on the pillow. Then he looked down on her and his breathing arrested. Dio! She was magnificent. His memory of her body paled against the vividness of reality. The sun bathed her skin and she glowed like one of the goddesses on those paintings of Titian. His hands made their involuntary journey down, her breasts full, a perfect fit in his palms. Her nipples were rosy, succulent berries. She moaned softly when he thumbed them. His shaft leaked at the sound.
He clamped his jaw, suppressing the desperate urge to drive into her depths. He was so hard it was painful, but he needed to take care of her first. He wedged her thighs apart, slid a finger into her wet, warm crevice, and proceeded to wring the sexiest sounds he had ever heard a woman make. A flush bloomed on her chest just as he inserted another finger, circling, teasing, flicking. Mewling sounds were interspersed with her shallow, frantic breathing, her head tossing from side to side.
“And the third step,” he growled, angling his head between her thighs “is to savor.”
Sabrina’s hips bucked when his tongue darted out and found her sensitive center. In tandem with his fingers, her moans grew guttural. Her hands clutched his hair. He knew she was near the pinnacle when her thighs started closing but he held them apart, allowing her to experience the full impact of his caresses. She was not allowed to hide. Luca wanted her full surrender.
Her back bowed off the bed. Luca glanced up, wanting to see her release. Wanted to witness her coming undone. Her eyes were half-lidded and in the peak of her pleasure, her cheeks were tinted blush, her lips full and swollen, her nipples duskier. She looked liked a living work of art.
She crashed back to the mattress, little tremors stil
l rocking her body. Luca tore at his clothes, fumbling for the condom in his wallet like he was a randy teenager. Perspiration rolled off his forehead. His fingers were trembling with his need to be inside her. Sheathed at last, he plunged into her with one quick thrust. They both groaned at the same time. Dio! She was so snug and hot and wet. He wouldn’t last long. She was so tight…and looked so uncomfortable, the way she was gnawing on her lip and gazing at him with trepidation in her big brown eyes.
What the…?
“Are you a virgin?” He had to repeat the question in English, shock and the delicious way she wrapped around him making his voice hoarse. Was her groan one of pain and not pleasure?
“No,” she whispered.
Luca felt a fleeting pang of disappointment that she was not and then derided himself on this sudden and unwelcome bout of double standard. He had always prided himself on treating his partners as equals. He had hated the way his father expected his mother and sister to follow outdated societal conventions when he himself turned out to be the biggest hypocrite of all. He had traded his family for one gold-digging bitch.
“It doesn’t matter.” It came out harsher than he had intended because it shouldn’t really. It shouldn’t make him feel like obliterating every man who had known her, possessed her. It was dangerous thinking.
He pulled back, almost all the way, then plunged back to the hilt. This time her gasp of pain was unmistakable. Had she been lying?
“It’s just–it’s just been a long time for me.”
“How long?” he demanded, startled by the last thing he expected to hear. He regretted the question immediately. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear when she had last cradled a man between her legs. “Non importa. It’s not going to matter.” Whether he was convincing himself of the fact was a moot point.
He shook off the disquiet he felt at the incongruity of what he knew and what she was saying, claiming her mouth for a deep-seated kiss. The doubts evaporated. The way his body felt on edge, he’d kill anyone or anything that came between them now. There was only one important matter to focus on. He was going to make her his at last.
His hips rocked slowly as he inched forward in increments, retreating then advancing a bit farther, her depths clasping him deeper and tighter until her hands grasped his buttocks and urged him all the way in. He took it as a signal, and this time when he pulled almost all the way out and drove into her balls deep, her throaty cry was one of pleasure. He swooped down, his lips tugging on a pointed nipple as his finger found the equally hard and swollen nub nestled between her folds. He felt her hands on his hair, grasping. Still not releasing her nipple, he glanced up and he almost came. Her mouth was parted, her head thrashing sideways. He flicked her nub faster and he heard her breath catching.
He felt it then, the build-up of pressure at the back of his spine. With a deep breath, he willed it down. Not yet. He cupped her buttocks and lifted it, her legs automatically wrapping around his waist. He fell forward, his hands flanking her head. He needed to see her when she fragmented.
They began rocking again. This time, she met him thrust for thrust. A fine sheen of perspiration shimmered on her hairline and at the sides of her neck. Luca licked it, making the muscles between her legs clench. He groaned. He unroped her legs. They dropped and splayed open. He grabbed her hips and slammed into her ferociously, repeatedly, until her head bumped the headboard with a thump.
“Dio! I’m sorry.” He cupped her head, rubbing it soothingly.
“It’s okay,” she whispered roughly. “I like seeing you out of control.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking for, strega.”
She seemed to ponder this a bit. “Then show me.”
In answer, he grasped her hands. “You asked for it.” With a low growl, Luca let loose. He drove into her like a man possessed. In a dim corner of his mind, he knew he had never acted this way with his previous lovers. He would never hurt her, never hurt a woman, but if he frightened her with his lack of control, his finesse, then so be it.
He felt it again, the pressure that had never really gone away, but now it was surfacing to the fore, building, becoming heavier. Not long now. He reached between them, wanting her to be with him when the fire consumed him.
She came first, her inner muscles rippling along his hard length. Then it was too much. He went up in flames. A guttural sound tore from his throat. Fire spread down his legs to his toes, and then everything went dark and silent for unaccounted seconds. He collapsed face down, shattered. When his heart had finally stopped pounding like it was going to tear itself out of his chest, he lifted his head slowly, oddly hesitant of what he was going to find on her face.
She was staring up at the sky through the glass panel, looking bewildered, unsettled, as if any moment the sky would fall on them. That made two of them.
His movement must have alerted her because she started turning her head towards him. He tensed because he didn’t know what to expect. Dio! If he’d hurt her, he’d never be able to forgive himself.
Instead, there was no emotion he could glean from her brown eyes as they roved past his face and down to their hands beside her head. He followed her gaze. He was disturbed to find their hands were still intertwined.
But not as disturbing apparently as she found it because she suddenly burst into tears.
It burst out of nowhere. The waterworks.
One minute her body was tensing up, like a string tied to a peg that was being wound up tighter and tighter. She barely registered his huskily spoken words, asking her if she was alright, if he was hurting her, if she liked what he was doing as she writhed underneath him. She wanted to tell him to stop, that the sensations were too much, but perversely she didn’t want the delicious agony to end. She was going to snap soon, and she feared cracking into a thousand pieces. He was in her–hot, thick, and deep, his unique male scent surrounding her, the harsh rasp of his breathing in the silent room an erotic counterpoint to her own ragged breaths.
He was looking down where they were joined, his lips parted, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. Her muscles clenched and his head jerked up, his eyes heavy-lidded.
“Eyes on me, strega,” he said, his jaw clenched, his nostrils flaring as he changed the angle of his hips, hitting the trigger spot. He gave her hand a squeeze and commanded hoarsely, “Now.”
Her pelvic muscles spasmed as if conditioned to obey his order. “Oh God,” she groaned deeply, bracing herself. Then she felt like she was knocked out of her body and was being hurtled through the glass panel and out into the open skies for brief seconds, the feeling of horror and exhilaration so acute before she came crashing back to earth mute, deaf, and blind. Disoriented.
When she regained her senses, she saw their hands were still clasped. He had anchored her while she floated on the upwind of her orgasm.
He hadn’t let go. And though Sabrina knew it was just sex, a tiny part, so tiny she had convinced herself it was non-existent, wished he would hold her hand out of bed, too.
She pulled her hands out of his quickly and wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her palm.
He swore. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she denied quickly, feeling guilty for making him think that when in fact he had given her one of the most intense and beautiful experiences she’d ever had. “It’s a happy kind of crying.”
He frowned.
How could she explain it? “You know when you’re watching a movie or admiring a painting and you’re struck by the sheer genius and humanity of what went into that work of art, and you can’t contain your joy that you just have to cry?” Sabrina looked away because he was regarding her oddly. “That kind of crying that is an end in itself. It’s the best kind.”
He just stared and stared. Sabrina squirmed. He had the look of someone who had realized he had gone to bed with another person.
She should have just kept her mouth shut.
At last he spoke. “Why is it the best kind o
f crying?”
“It’s silly. Just forget I said anything.” The turn of conversation was starting to make her feel uncomfortable.
“I want to know.” His accent became more pronounced.
“It’s silly, I told you.”
His brow quirked, one that meant he wouldn’t stop until she gave him what he wanted.
“Oh, very well,” she huffed. Her eyes slid away from his. She kept her gaze fixed on the bright, blue sky. “When you cry when you’re sad or hurt or mad or frustrated, the tears are just wasteful.”
“Wasteful?”
“Your tears are not going to change the situation. They won’t cure someone who’s sick. They won’t bring back a loved one.” She stared unseeingly at the glass panel, oblivious that Luca had stilled and was studying her intently. “And they won’t give you answers.” She whispered ferociously, “I hate waste. I hate it.” She remained silent for a few seconds, then blinked, as if shaking off her pensive mood.
He quickly averted his gaze from her profile. “You have obviously never met my sister. Or my mother. They will cry at the drop of a hat to get their own way.”
She turned her head to him. “Does it work?” she asked, as if the possibility had never occurred in her sphere of existence.
He felt an unexplainable pinching in his chest. “Usually,” he said.
“Oh.” She was looking at him like he invented pizza. “It must be wonderful.”
“What’s wonderful?”
“Knowing that your tears matter to someone. That when you cry, they don’t turn their back and just walk away without a backwards glance.” She tugged the blanket higher and her defenses back in place . “Sorry. I’m just spouting crap.”
Luca dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s see if I can make you cry again.” He shoved aside the blanket, exposing her. “The kind of crying you like best.”
If his chest still had that odd, tight, band-like feeling around it, he ignored it and went about making Sabrina sob repeatedly with pleasure instead. He refused to examine why it mattered to him greatly that her tears wouldn’t go to waste at all.
When She Fell for the Billionaire Page 10