by Penny Jordan
He prowled into the room and into her space. Long fingers wrapped around her nape possessively. “I have three friends—ones who don’t interfere in my personal life. I don’t need another friend.”
“So everything you have done for me then, what—?”
“That’s a different matter.”
Clio half snorted, half laughed, her temper getting the better of her again. “Can you hear yourself? You gave me the right to interfere in your life when you interfered in mine. Goose and gander, Stefan.”
“You’ve lost me again. But do not repeat this, Clio. Or I have to forget my own rules, too, and they are already very muddy right now.”
“They were over the moon to see you, Stefan. And I know that it meant something to you, too.”
Scorn filled his gaze. “Then why didn’t you invite yours, bella?”
Burying the hurt that instantly swarmed to the surface, Clio shrugged. “I did invite them. I thought a farce it might be, but this is the only wedding I’ll have. My mother said, I hope you fare better with him than you did with the American. They have no interest in my life, Stefan. Not after I walked away from the one they decided on for me.
“But having seen your parents today, I don’t regret what I did. They adore you, Stefan. To not invite them to the wedding…”
His mouth tightened.
“To reject something so good and pure, this is not you.”
“I doubted your reasons for wanting to marry me. I made you sign a filthy contract. Have you still not learnt who I am now, Clio?
“The naive, romantic Stefan you remember is long dead. In its place, there’s only poison, Clio, poison that will destroy you. I’m warning you, bella…leave me alone.”
His jaw concrete, he growled a sound of such utter pain that her gut twisted.
“Do you realize what you’ve done by involving my parents in this? They think the sun rises with you now. What happens when this is all over? How will I face them with another failure in hand? How will I explain your absence in my life, bella?”
That he still thought in such rigid terms should have brought Clio down with a thud. That he didn’t even indulge the thought of some kind of future together, when it was a path she kept getting pulled into, should have stopped her.
“I don’t know how you will. We came together to ruin Jackson. Can your parents’ happiness not be the one good thing that comes out of this, Stefan? Does our marriage have to leave only destruction in its wake?”
Because that’s how it felt right now.
Stefan had already helped her gain her self-respect, her strength, back but he was also going to steal a part of her. The damage, it seemed, was already done.
How could she stay away from him when he was so gorgeous and kind and honorable? When her heart gave a little leap when she saw him every morning? When her throat ached at the way he shut his emotions off as if he couldn’t bear them?
She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his unforgiving form, hid her face in his shoulder. She felt as if she was standing on the precipice of a cliff, wanted to give in and jump so much that she was feverish from it.
He tensed instantly, his grip on her arms bruising, poised to push her away.
Slowly, Clio settled into his embrace, the hard contours and sharp angles of his body pressing and pushing her own soft curves, until they fit perfectly. Heat and hardness—his maleness made her feel so secure, and wanted.
His arms came around her finally, and her breath left her in a long whoosh. His hands moved and roamed over her back, as though he was testing their fit, too, and then came to rest around her waist. Left scorching heat on her bare flesh between her top and jeans.
Warm air from his exhale coated her skin. “Thank you for bringing them here. For bringing such wonderful smiles to their faces.”
Warmth exploded in her chest and she struggled to contain it. Nodding, Clio wrapped herself even tighter around him. “You have to let me in, Stefan. Just a tiny little bit.”
“Tiny little bit, bella? You’re like a stubborn virus.” His smile against her temple took the bite out of his words.
She had no name for what was happening. Only that, after years of unhappiness and misery, she had smiled so much these past few weeks, she was happy with herself.
She felt a sense of power over her own life, over her emotions she hadn’t felt in so long. She would tell him about the proof, but for these few minutes, she wanted it to be only about them.
“We have no expectations of each other, which means we won’t hurt each other either.” His heart thudded under her hands. Out of the mess she had made of her life, it seemed there was still one good thing. “We are safe from each other.”
He smiled, baring his teeth like a predator. “Are we, bella? Because every minute of every day, I feel like I’m on the edge. You smile at me, you tease me, you rile me, you challenge everything I think of you, of myself, of the world. And now, my dear wife, you’re meddling in my life. Safe is the last thing I am with you around.”
Bending that arrogant head, he breathed the words into her temple, her scalp prickling at the way his finger tugged her hair.
“And what I do want, so desperately crave from you,” his free hand moved up her midriff and rested in the valley between her breasts with his hot mouth buried in her neck, “you won’t grant me, bella.” Speech slurring, he licked the fluttering pulse. “It feels like I’ve waited my entire life to make love to you, Clio.”
Her spine melted, liquid fire licking along her nerves. She was sinking in desire and she clutched him with her arms, his body a welcoming cocoon.
“You’re seducing me with words, Bianco,” she managed huskily with the few brain cells that were still functioning.
“Me seduce you, bella?” His solid frame shook with laughter, sending ripples through her. He dug his teeth into the skin at her shoulder and bit.
Wetness drenching her sex, Clio shuddered as pain gave way to pleasure so intense.
With his arm around her, he absorbed the quivers in her body, locking her against him.
“For someone who scowls and argues that I have defined everything between us by that contract, you have me in your thrall, Clio. Quite the power trip for you, no?”
A smile tugged at her mouth and Clio gave in. Desire and joy flooded her, a honeyed combination.
That he didn’t resent the desire between them—it was a step forward.
She knew how he wanted to define and restrict their relationship. He was allowed to do anything for her, but she…her every action concerning him, every word to him, he would scrutinize it. Either attach a price tag to it or reject it as unwanted.
But she couldn’t not do it, she couldn’t stop trying.
Whatever they presented to the world, Clio wanted, needed something real between them. And it seemed it could be nothing but this desire, this fire that consumed them.
She reached up within the circle of his arms and vined her arms around his nape. Pressed her mouth to the corner of his and breathed deeply. His skin, rough and stubbly, scratched her soft mouth, heavenly in its contrast. The taste and scent of him exploded on her lips, urging her to press closer and tighter. “I want it clear that this is not a power trip or a transaction or a bloody clause in your contract, Bianco.”
His hands kneaded her hips, pulled her closer until his erection, a hard length, pressed boldly against just above her sex. Her mouth dried, her breath lodged in her throat.
“Sì.”
“I want it clear that I’m doing this because it’s you.”
“No gratitude, bella. I don’t want to be your thank-you f—”
“No,” she said, covering his mouth with hers. “It’s because you’re the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen and because…I can’t breathe if you stop kissing me
.”
His eyes glittered. “Dio, bella. You’ll be the death of me.”
Rough fingers kneaded her butt while his tongue licked the pulse at her throat. Sinking her fingers into his hair, Clio tugged hard until he lifted his head and met her gaze, until the vein in his temple throbbed, until the sculpted planes of his face stood out in stark contrast.
“Kiss me, please.”
Make me feel like I can do this right. Make me whole again in this, too, she wanted to say, but held back the words, shame and fear locking them deep down.
She kissed his jaw this time. With an urgency and courage she had never known before, she pulled the lapels of his shirt until the buttons popped and flew.
Sank her hands under his shirt. Felt his heated skin and the tensile muscles. Heard the rough exhale fall from his lips. Bent and finally tasted his skin, licked his flat nipple, dragged her teeth over his skin, marking him, tasting him, until his fingers were this short of hurting in her hair, until his hard body was shuddering around her. Until his control was in tatters just as hers was.
Salt and tang and desire, he tasted so good on her lips, and he was all hers.
At least, for tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE LOOKED LIKE a queen, imperial, so poised, and yet she was trembling in his arms. Her pink mouth was already swollen with his kisses, her eyes drugged and hazy.
It was his wildest fantasies come true and it was much better than he had imagined.
Picking her up, Stefan carried her through the lounge.
Her hair flowing behind her, she laughed. “The bed in my room works fine, Stefan.”
“Sì, it does. But it’s not mine, bella. I have spent, it seems like countless nights, tossing and turning, and thinking of you on my sheets. Once we’re through in my bedroom,” he said, “we can go back to your room, Clio. Or that beckoning vanity in the bathroom. Or the chaise longue on the balcony overlooking the glittering skyline of Manhattan. Or the terrace where you can see the sky while I lick my way down your body.”
A flush overtaking her, her eyelashes flickering down, she clung to him, trembling.
That she blushed only made his blood heavier in his veins. “Dio, Clio. How can you be this sensuality-personified and still blush, bella?”
As they stepped over the threshold into his bedroom, he slid her to her feet, her eyes rounded in her oval face.
Her gaze traveled around the room—took in the views of Central Park on one side, over to the king bed on the other side.
Grabbing the remote, Stefan turned on the lights to full. She turned toward him, her neck and cheeks still pink, a sudden shyness in her gaze.
Reaching her, he pulled her to him softly. That Jackson put those shadows in her eyes, his blood boiled just thinking about it.
“Clio, bella?”
She swallowed and raised her gaze to him. “Can we turn off the lights, Stefan?”
His first instinct was to refuse, to tell her that he demanded all of her, that she couldn’t hide herself from him, that she was his, scars or flaws and all.
He noted the vulnerability in her stance. Suppressed all his macho claims and nodded. Stared at her hungrily until every inch of her was burned in his brain. And turned off the lights.
Cupped her cheeks and brought her mouth to his.
With her expression hidden from him, with her face only visible in strips and flashes of the moonlight, with her curves accessible to him only through touch, every other sense became intense.
The scent of her, the rasp of her breath, the tremble of her chin…he was engulfed by her, ensnared.
He kissed and stroked her lips, tangled with her tongue until the roar of his own blood was the only thing he could hear.
The hot drag of her lips over his, the hesitant slide of her tongue against his, the honeyed taste of hers, it was a feast he couldn’t get enough of.
Kissing a woman until now had never been more than a forerunner to release, never more than foreplay. And yet, he could kiss Clio for hours, hear the soft mews and moans that fell from her mouth for days. Could lose himself in her soft mouth for aeons.
He would never have enough of this fantasy-turned-reality that shredded his control. He would never have enough of her, something warned him. He would never be satisfied with possessing her, yelled the cavernous chasm inside him.
He could never keep her from pervading his life, his days, his every moment, his every breath.
She was already everywhere, making him ache, making him want, pushing him toward the man he vowed he’d never be again. Shattering through the shell he had grown and reaching the most vulnerable part of him.
Soon, she would know all of him, she would know his darkest fear.
She would know how he had turned against his own nature and buried his heart and his deepest desires so that he could move on in life. She would know how much he envied Rocco for finding the woman who adored him for who he was in Olivia, and Christian for the family he would have with the lovely Alessandra…
How in the process of putting himself together after Serena’s betrayal, he’d lost something fundamentally good in himself, how he didn’t even know how undeserving and out of control he felt as he had watched Clio struggle with her fears and insecurities and emerge victorious.
How she made him wish he could be that old Stefan again.
But even through the aching vulnerability that he despised so much, he couldn’t walk away.
Instead, it fused with desire, pumping powerlessness through him.
Her soft gasp when he dug his teeth into her lip sharply dragged him from the edge of his own desire, remonstrated his lack of control.
He had bedded numerous women over the decade, and yet nothing like this need today had even touched him. He craved so much more with Clio.
Of her scent, of her skin, of her aroused gasps. She was vined around him, her slender body arching and pressing, as he devoured her mouth again.
One hand sank into her hair to hold her immobile for him, while the other snaked around her hip, pressing her into his erection.
Whatever he did to arouse her, to drive her out of her mind, he was the one who felt owned by her, consumed by his need for her. And it was a feeling he couldn’t shrug off.
All he seemed capable of was drowning and that’s what he did. But if he was going to sink, she would, too.
* * *
His mouth was so hard and perfect over hers. And so desperate and urgent. Her lower lip still stung, radiating waves of pain and pleasure all over, awakening a million nerve cells that had been dormant in her until now.
At least, that’s how it felt.
He was hers. Clio couldn’t stop the thought from resonating like a drum inside her head.
He was hers like he had never been anyone’s, she knew it from the increasingly erotic strokes of his tongue.
His mouth was an erotic lesson, a blast of heat to every inch of her, a fire that spread to every tip.
“Dio, bella. I knew not being able to see you would be a punishment. But not in this way,” he said angrily.
But Clio didn’t care why or how. All she cared was that he sounded on edge. Winding her arms tighter around his nape, she pressed herself closer, tighter, relishing the hard give of his muscles. Rubbed herself against him until her breasts were crushed and her breath a chore.
He growled in response, dug his fingers into her hips in a bruising grip and swept her up into his arms.
Settling her on the high bed, he moved between her legs. Grabbed the edges of her silk blouse and pulled.
The pearl buttons flew in all directions.
The urgency in him, instead of scaring her, filled her with power. That she could send his muscled body to shudder, that she could send him to desperate need, it wa
s a balm over wounds Jackson had inflicted so cruelly.
She looked down the same time as he did.
Her flesh was milky white in the moonlight, her nipples tight points of need against her silky bra.
His pithy curse as he traced a long finger against the seam of her bra was a song to her ears.
But instead of touching her as she ached to be, he pulled her to her knees and unzipped her jeans. Tugged them down past her thighs, and feet. Threw them across the room and settled her on the bed again.
Until she sat in front of him in a thong and bra, her bare legs stretched indecently to make space for his broad frame, exposing the heart of her.
But she sat still, the dark of the night giving her a courage she wouldn’t have had if his hungry gaze settled on her. She hated that Jackson was still there in her fears when he shouldn’t be, she hated that she had let him break her confidence.
“Stefan?” she called out to him, only now sensing his stillness.
Grasping her ankles, he pushed her onto the bed. And she slid soundlessly on the luxurious goose down sheets.
In the next blink, the lights came on and he leaned over her lower body in a movement of such sheer perfection that Clio forgot the glare of lights.
His gaze swept over her like a white-hot flame, inciting little sparks wherever it touched. With a gasp, she moved to cover her sex but he grabbed her hands, held them over her head, liquid lust and resolve dancing in his green gaze.
“I won’t let him take away even a single part of you that should be mine today, bella.” He sounded ravaged and angry and determined, all at the same time. “I won’t let that bastard be a silent specter in this room between us.”
Her heart slammed so violently against her rib cage that Clio shivered. That he could read her fears so well made her feel more exposed than her most intimate parts on display for him.
He ran a reverent finger over her rib cage to the hairline over her sex. And Clio caught the moan that wanted to hurtle out. “I can’t bear it if you—”