The Sicilian's Surprise Wife

by Tara Pammi

  “Not unless you speak the words.” In an intimate gesture that set fire to her skin, he tugged the delicate neckline with rough fingers. It gave in with a tear and a rasp—thousands of dollars and ripped now. The upper swell of her breast bared to his slumberous gaze. He bent his arrogant head and pressed a hot kiss to the flesh. Nipped it with his teeth.

  Need knotted at her nipples, making them achy and tight. Her sex pulsed, wet and aching.

  Clio had never known such liquid desire, as if her skin and sinew was all filled with want. Want for him. Want for the one man she shouldn’t want.

  Want for the man who had given her everything, but really nothing.

  “Tell me that you want me to tear that dress off of you completely, bella.” Anger colored his words. “Tell me to run my hands and mouth over every inch of your skin, tell me to sink into your heat until it is all either of us can feel.” Contempt punctured the heat in his words. “Tell me to give us both the relief that we’re both so desperately craving.

  “Tell me and your every wish will be my command, bella.”

  Utter resignation reverberated in the way he held her loosely against him, in the way he sighed against her willing flesh. And it was that resignation, that shuddering exhale as if he was giving in to the inevitable even as he hated it, that cleared the haze from Clio’s head.

  Had she known that this moment was coming? Was this the only way she could think of having him, when she could absolve herself of all responsibility? Was this how she had let Jackson walk all over her?

  Would she always let life happen to her, rather than take charge of it?

  Shame cooled her skin, leaving her shaking. Tugging the torn lace of her dress upward, she stumbled back. Her breathing out of sync, she tried to collect her aroused senses together.

  She wanted to be held and kissed and touched by him so much that it was a cavernous chasm inside her.

  But not like this.

  No. This was not fair to either of them.

  She looked up and met his glittering gaze, every inch of her vibrating with need. “When I look back at this night a decade later, I want to remember something else other than your self-disgust that you want me and my desperate attempt to escape it, as you put it so well.”

  “Clio—”

  “Yes you do, Stefan. You hate that you want me when it isn’t your will, don’t you?” She blinked, striving for strength. “I want to have one thing that will make me proud about today. I want you to leave. Thank you for saving me from myself once again.”

  The flesh over the angular bones of his face, already so lean and spare, tightened even further, until he was all jutting angles and brooding arrogance. He went still, inch by inch, ridding himself of that glittering want and desire, ridding himself of any emotion.

  That growing stillness in him, that willpower in action—it was the most disconcerting thing she had ever seen.

  “As you wish,” he said with one lingering look before he turned and left.

  She could almost believe that her words had pierced him. Almost.

  Roughly tugging at the bodice of a dress that could have probably fed a starving family for a few months, Clio sank to the bed and covered her face.

  As caustic as his analysis of her life had been, Stefan had stopped them from making an irrevocable mistake.

  She should be glad for it. All she needed was to convince herself of it.

  * * *

  Standing under the ice-cold shower spray, Stefan shivered. His teeth chattered in his mouth, his skin grew goose bumps. If he looked down, he would probably see that his balls had forever turned blue.

  But even the possibility of permanent damage to his manhood couldn’t erase the picture of his wife from his mind.

  He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Her vulnerability shone in her eyes, her desire too pure and real to be anything but temptation, her struggle to be better than herself a wonder for him to watch.

  Neither could he curb the small flicker of warmth in his chest.

  Was this what Clio would do for him?

  Punish him, torture him and yet push him toward being a better man than he had been this past decade?

  That he had resisted her, that he hadn’t given in to his need and taken what she had so freely offered, that he had protected her, even from himself, he would count as a win; he would count it as a little bit of honor still left in him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN CLIO OPENED her eyes the next morning, there was a hammer and a pointy needle inside her skull, and someone had pulled the silky curtains aside to let in reams of sunlight to punish her with.

  Or at least, that’s how it felt.

  Clutching her head, she turned to her side and groaned. Tears prickled behind her eyes at the dull, pounding ache through the top of her head.

  Her mouth was dry, and her throat parched. She tried opening her eyes again and was about to sit up when a strong arm pulled her up with infinite gentleness.

  A whimper erupted from her throat as a blend of lime and aftershave and masculine musk teased her nostrils. It was like a slap to her senses, at once decadent and eviscerating...

  Just like the man was.

  She stiffened in his hold but he didn’t relent.

  Of all the unholy, damnedest things in the world, why did Stefan have to be up before her on the first morning of their ill-conceived marriage? Why couldn’t she have started it by setting an unaffected tone, one that she wanted?

  “Buon giorno, cara.”

  The honeyed words boomeranged against her skull as if he had shouted them.

  Another moan escaped her and a smile curved that sinful mouth.

  Thick wet hair fell onto his forehead. His freshly shaved jaw glinted, and he smelled clean and nice and as sinful as the red-velvet cake she had devoured last night.

  Bastardo, she mouthed the word that she had heard Alessandra use.

  His gorgeous green eyes glittered with humor, his smile so beautiful that her chest hurt.

  “Go away,” she said, hiding her face in the pillow, superaware of her messy hair, parched mouth and her old Columbia T-shirt that constituted her nightwear.

  “Take this,” he said, opening his palm to a white pill—her migraine medication—and a glass of water in the other hand.

  Too far gone with the ache in her head to even offer a token protest, Clio grabbed the glass and ingested the pill. She lay back down gingerly, any sudden movement piercing her head.

  His handsome face filling her vision, Stefan straightened the cotton duvet around her and tucked it to her chin. Tapped her nose with his finger, and pushed her hair back from her temples. “Sleep, cara,” he whispered.

  Sleep and exhaustion hit her in waves and Clio decided the concern she had heard in his voice had to be a side effect of her medication.

  * * *

  The next morning, Stefan awoke in his bed with the smell of coffee teasing him awake. It took him a few seconds to figure out why he had a feeling that he had missed something. He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which said eight in the morning. The red digits burned his brain.

  He hadn’t checked on Clio in a few hours.

  Pushing back the covers, he leaped from the bed and walked through the corridor to her bedroom.

  He came to a halt as he found it empty with the bed neatly made up.

  The scent of gardenias clung to the air and before he knew it, his lungs were filled with it. Running a hand through his hair, he leaned against the entrance, a wisp of something keeping him in the room.

  A hairbrush lay on the dresser opposite the bed, and a pair of jeans and a silk top neatly folded on the bed.

  A strange quiver gripped his abdomen to see the bed empty of her tall, athletic form after seeing h
er there all day yesterday. She had refused to even eat anything, only asking for water again and again. Silently bearing it as if it were her punishment. Looking at him with eyes wide with shock as he checked on her every couple of hours.

  Why are you checking on me? she had asked once, her eyes drugged with sleep.

  Did she think him so heartless that she was shocked at such a small act of concern? Had he given her a reason to think differently? Why did he care?

  Irritated at how scattered his thoughts were, he walked back to the kitchen, following the smell of coffee.

  He came to an abrupt halt at the unusual scene in front of him.

  Clio stood at the counter, her back to him, unpacking breakfast, he assumed, from the mouthwatering smell.

  She was dressed in dark blue jeans that hugged her long legs from ankles to her trim waist and a sleeveless white silk shirt that showed off her tanned arms.

  Her hair fell straight to her waist, a river of ambers and reds, glinting where sunlight struck it.

  He watched in rising fascination as she slid the lid off one plastic box, grabbed a fork and popped a piece into her mouth.

  Pancakes and maple syrup, mouthwatering bacon and coffee—his favorite meal from back when they had been at university. They had all teased him because he would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  Her face turned toward the French doors, she closed her eyes and let out a long moan as she chewed. A drop of syrup stuck to the side of her mouth and she licked it off with another satisfied little groan. Color suffused her cheeks as she repeated the ritual.

  Bemused and turned on, Stefan watched as the pleasure she wrought from the little ritual rendered him stupefied.

  The next time she picked up another piece with her fork, it took everything he possessed to not join her and direct her fork to his mouth. Or not to taste the syrup on her lips.

  “The suite comes with a butler on call twenty-four hours, Clio,” he said, pushing off the wall and walking into the kitchen. “You don’t have to arrange our meals, bella.”

  Her fork clanged on the counter, the tinkering sound of it filling the silence.

  She turned and watched him with those big eyes, color climbing up her neck.

  The silk blouse was so sheer that he could see the outline of her bra, and the dip of her waist. It was so strange how so many small things about her he observed, his fascination arising from the most mundane of moments.

  Like the delicate turn of her wrist and the blue veins there, like the crooked slant of her nose, the way she grabbed her hair away from her face with both hands and roughly pulled it back thrusting her breasts up...

  Dannazione, the woman was lethal in how quickly she made him think of sex and skin.

  Shrugging, she stepped back as he advanced. “I actually wanted to cook breakfast as a thank-you,” she muttered. “But this state-of-the-art kitchen doesn’t even have sugar and milk. So I walked a bit and grabbed breakfast.”

  “A thank-you? Why?”

  Her expression was straightforward, her shrug a bit too casual. “For looking after me yesterday.”

  “Do they always last that long?” he said, thinking of how she had held her head. For a couple of hours, he hadn’t left her side, a tenderness he had forgotten he had possessed keeping him there instead of ordering the staff to help.

  It had been a long time since he had done something so simple and satisfying as looking after someone. He used to do it all the time.

  Another of his innate traits that he had buried deep.

  “Kind of, yeah.” Another shrug. “This whole week has been very stressful and then I didn’t eat anything the whole day of the wedding and then guzzled down that champagne, so it was kind of like inviting the demons to play inside my skull.”

  “Why was it stressful? Didn’t the wedding planner take care of everything?” he said, covering the distance between them.

  The closer he moved to her, the heavier his blood flew in his veins. Just the scent of her soap and skin...it set up an instant reaction in him.

  Blinking rapidly, she clutched the counter behind her. Which stiffened her posture and thrust her small breasts up.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Why were you stressed, bella?”

  “Because I was getting married under the strangest conditions that I ever dreamed of and the beast I was marrying thought I had trapped him into it,” she said, thunder filling her voice.

  He grinned. “The beast?”

  “Yes. Anyway, I know that our contract doesn’t stipulate looking after each other in case of migraines brought on by stupid decisions and showing concern toward each other, so I’m really grateful to you for—”

  “Shut up, Clio,” he said, staggered at how easily she had him swinging from mood to mood, like a damn monkey being operated by a switch.

  Just fifteen minutes into the day, he had felt a strange warmth in his gut at the way she occupied every inch of the suite that had always been free of feminine intrusion, had given him unrivaled morning wood just by standing in his kitchen and now he was annoyed as hell.

  At her and at himself.

  All he wanted to do right now was tear up the bloody contract, pick her up, carry her to his bedroom, and peel that denim off of her slowly, inch by inch until he could touch her all over.

  “Is the migraine gone now?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said primly.

  Was it his arrogance that rankled at being dismissed so well? Or was it the allure of a woman who didn’t immediately fall for him?

  Chewing on that errant thought, he picked up one of the coffee cups and took a sip.

  The bitter brew on his tongue instantly reminded him of his home, a home he hadn’t visited in so long. “You found a Sicilian blend in Manhattan?” he said, surprised.

  A flush claimed her cheeks at his pointed question. “I know a Sicilian coffee stand. I go there every once in a while.”

  “My favorite breakfast and coffee. Grazie, Clio.” Leaning next to her, he tried to corral the various emotions exploding inside. Clearing his throat, he offered her an awkward smile. “Take the day easy. Go to the spa or if you want, I can have the pilot take you to...”

  Her face fell. “I have no other machinations behind bringing breakfast for you except to say thank-you, Stefan.”

  Beneath the caustic tone there was a thread of hurt that struck a chord in him.

  Should he be so satisfied that she cared what he thought?

  Even as he had stood under the icy jet of his shower on his wedding night, his shredded control an astounding concept in itself, there had been a strange exultation in knowing that he had been the reason she had drunk.

  A sadistic streak that he now possessed apparently, in addition to being a mistrusting asshole.

  Dio, the woman was turning him inside out.

  “I was just surprised, Clio.”

  “Because I brought you breakfast? Is that really such a hard thing to grasp that I would want to do something so mundane for you? Are you going to weigh and give a price to every little exchange between us as long as we are stuck with each other?”

  Stuck with each other?

  That very phrase riled him up to no end.

  He had moved so close to her that he could see the green of her eyes darken, could see the pulse in her neck flutter unevenly, could hear the way her breath fell short. “Dio, bella. Shut up or I swear—”

  “Or what? Will you add another clause to the contract that I can’t speak unless you give me permission—”

  Grabbing her slender shoulders, Stefan slammed her to him and kissed her. It was the best thing to start the morning with.

  With a gasp, she fell against him, anchoring her hands on his chest.

  Shaping he
r head with his fingers, Stefan slanted her mouth and nibbled at it, his desire slowly spiraling out of control.

  She tasted of syrup and coffee, sweet and bitter, like fresh desire and old memories all blended together to drive him to distraction. The scent of gardenias entered his bloodstream and teased his senses.

  He groaned as she sank her fingers into his hair. Turned into stone as she sank those teeth into his lower lip.

  If only he could finish what they started in the kitchen...

  He couldn’t think of one reason why he couldn’t take his wife to bed. Or why kissing her first thing in the morning, in a domestic setting that should have given him hives, felt so natural.

  * * *

  If they continued this way—kissing and nibbling and pressed flush against each other—it wouldn’t be long before he had her trapped beneath him and thrusting into her wet heat on that huge bed in his room.

  The thought, instead of scaring her to her senses, painted such a vivid, erotic picture that Clio whimpered against Stefan’s mouth.

  The hands shaping her hips and her bottom with a possessive grip instantly relented, a breath of air blowing over her tingling lips. “Merda, Clio. What am I going to do with you?” his ragged whisper snagged onto her senses. “We should have included a clause for this, bella.”

  Somehow, Clio found the sheerest thread of self-preservation and hid her face in his shoulder. His skin was like heated velvet—the muscles beneath tensing.

  It had been a flippant thing for her to think the thought about including sex in their contract. But to hear him actually say it, to see that he couldn’t think of anything between them as anything but a transaction, it punched her in the gut like a blow she hadn’t seen coming.

  Did he really think no more of her than any other woman? And if he did, why did she care?

  Before he could enslave her with his mouth again, she moved away around the breakfast bar and leaned against the wall.

  Her legs trembled, her breath felt as if it would never be normal again, but she had finally put distance between them. And judging by how his eyes glittered, it was no small feat.

  “Clio—”