You really think you can do a marriage in name only?
Dio, he hadn’t thought this would be difficult. He’d thought that perhaps, after the night before, the desire would have faded. And it should have. So why had the simple act of her sitting close and wearing nothing but a robe got him so hard?
It shouldn’t. He’d made a decision about his child. And that was more important than sex. He didn’t need to sleep with her again so he wouldn’t.
It was that simple.
Yet her blue gaze was very wide, looking up into his, and her lips were slightly parted in the most gorgeous, sexy little pout. The look on her face reminded him of that night in Monte Carlo, when she’d tried her hardest to seduce him.
Before he’d ended up drugged and handcuffed to the bed.
A premonition gripped him.
Her hand was in the pocket of her robe and he could see the tension in her arm. In fact, now that he looked, there was tension in her whole posture. Her entire body was vibrating with it and in the depths of her silver-blue eyes, behind the glow of desire, was that strange agitation again.
Except he knew what it was now.
Fear.
The tight thing in his chest clenched even tighter, though it wasn’t with anger, not this time. ‘Kitten,’ he said quietly, staying quite still. ‘I already told you. You’re not going to kill me. You didn’t do it back in Monte Carlo and you’re not going to do it now.’
Stella’s gaze flared silver with shock. ‘What? I don’t know—’
He didn’t let her finish, instead reaching for the hand she had jammed into her pocket. She resisted, but he was stronger than she was, drawing her hand out despite how she pulled against him.
There was nothing in it. No knife. No gun.
She wasn’t here to hurt him.
A sudden and intense relief gripped him, not for himself but for her. For the path that she clearly hadn’t chosen. Because, while he’d always been certain that she’d never go through with hurting him, he hadn’t been sure she wouldn’t make another attempt.
There was pain in her eyes and she was breathing fast. ‘You thought I was coming to kill you, didn’t you?’
‘I thought you might try.’ He held her gaze so she could see the truth in his eyes. ‘But I never thought you’d go through with it. I still don’t.’
The narrow wrist he was holding began to tremble, but she didn’t look away. ‘So what would you have done if I’d actually had a knife?’
‘Nothing.’ He watched the fierce currents of her emotions shift over her delicate features. ‘Because you wouldn’t have done anything.’
‘You don’t know that.’ Her voice was husky and threaded through with a very real pain. ‘You expected that I would h-hurt you.’
He shouldn’t care about this. He shouldn’t care about her. Yet for some reason his assumption that she was here to make another attempt on his life had hurt her and he found he cared about that very much indeed.
You know she’s not capable of it. But does she?
Dante stared into her eyes, noting the pain she couldn’t quite hide and, beneath that, the fear.
It was clear that she’d come to him intending to do something but, as she didn’t have a weapon, it wasn’t to hurt him.
Except she was still afraid.
Was that because she thought she might? That she was afraid she would have gone through with it if she’d had a weapon?
He didn’t like that thought. He didn’t like that she was afraid, especially when she had no reason to be.
And there was only one way to prove it.
He let go her wrist, got up from the couch and went over to the large sideboard that stood against one wall, pulling open one of the drawers.
‘Dante?’ Stella sounded bewildered.
He didn’t answer. Instead he picked up the long, sharp antique letter opener from the drawer and turned, coming back over to the couch with it.
She watched him, her quickened breathing audible in the quiet of the room, her gaze flaring as she saw what he was carrying. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, her voice edged with alarm.
He ignored her. Sitting down next to her, he grabbed her wrist before she could move and slapped the letter opener into her palm. Then he curled her fingers around the handle.
Her gaze darkened as it met his and he could see fear stark in the depths. And his chest tightened, a deep sadness moving through him. Because the fact that she was afraid told its own story.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t...’
Without taking his gaze from hers, Dante slowly undid the buttons of his shirt and drew aside the fabric. Then he took her hand in his, guiding the point of the letter opener to his bare chest. ‘My heart is here, kitten.’
Her breathing was fast in the silence of the room, the expression on her face stricken. The light flashed off the sharp blade of the letter opener as her hand shook. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Reaching out, he stroked the silky, soft skin of her jaw. ‘Because you’re afraid. And I want to know why.’
She shuddered as he touched her, glancing down at the letter opener in her shaking hand. ‘You shouldn’t...trust me with this.’
‘Do you want to tell me why not?’
‘I might...hurt you.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Gently, he followed the line of her jaw with his fingertips, using his touch to soothe her. ‘You didn’t back in Monte Carlo and you’re not going to now. I wouldn’t have given you a weapon if I thought you were even remotely capable.’
‘But I was going to. That’s what I came here to do now. Hurt you, I mean.’
His thumb touched her full lower lip very gently. ‘How, kitten?’
A flush of colour flowed over her skin. ‘I was going to seduce you. I was going to make you care for me, fall in love with me. And then I was going to leave.’
Part of him wanted to smile at the sheer naivety of that idea, but that would be unnecessarily cruel, and he wasn’t a cruel man. And certainly not to a woman sitting there holding a blade to his heart, her eyes full of tears.
‘That isn’t possible,’ he said. ‘You can’t make me do anything. And I’m famous for not caring about anyone. But what I am curious about is why you’re so very determined to go through with this.’
‘My brother—’
‘No, I know about your family and why they wanted me dead. What I’m asking is why you’re so set on taking any kind of revenge you can. Especially when it’s obvious you don’t actually want to.’
‘I have to.’ She was looking up at him, her expression full of that strange desperation. As if she was drowning and she was looking to him to save her. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘It’s my fault.’ She took a shaken breath. ‘It’s my fault Matteo died. I betrayed him. And so I owe it to my family and to his memory to go through with this. To be strong for once in my life and not...’ She stopped abruptly, her voice cracking.
The tightness in Dante’s chest constricted even further. ‘Not what?’ He cupped her cheek, her skin warm against his palm, encouraging her to go on.
Her throat convulsed as she swallowed. ‘Weak.’
‘Weak?’ he echoed, frowning. ‘Why would you think that?’
Her gaze glittered, more pain glowing in the depths. ‘I told Papa I was strong enough to do this, that he shouldn’t hire someone because it should be one of the family. It should be me, since I got Matteo captured. I promised him I wouldn’t let him down again, but...’
The point of the letter opener moved and Dante felt the slightest nick of pain.
A horrified look flickered over Stella’s face and she made a soft noise of distress, dropping the letter opener onto the floor as if it had burned her.
He looked down to see blood we
lling from the tiny cut she’d given him. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ he said easily, ignoring the cut and reaching out to her.
But she jerked away, trembling all over. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I thought I could. But I can’t. I can’t do any of it.’
Dante caught her slender fingers in his. They were icy cold. ‘Hush, kitten. Be still. It’s okay.’
But she only looked at him, something naked and terribly vulnerable in her eyes. ‘I should have had the strength to go through with it and I didn’t. Papa was right. All along he was right. I’m weak, Dante. I’m nothing but flawed.’
* * *
Stella felt cold all over, as if she would never be warm again, and she was certain it was only Dante’s large, warm hands holding hers that was keeping her from freezing to death right where she sat.
She knew she should pull away, try to recover what she could of yet another failure, but that void in her soul yawned wide and she couldn’t seem to move.
It was true. It was all true. She was as weak as she’d always feared. As flawed as her father had always told her she was. She’d tried to be strong, to prove that she was equal to the task she’d taken on, to redeem her brother and assuage her guilt at her part in his capture. But, just as she hadn’t been able to pull that trigger, she hadn’t been able to cold-bloodedly seduce him either.
Instead she’d ended up telling him everything.
And all because she hadn’t been able to stand the fact that he’d thought she was carrying a weapon and intended to hurt him with it.
That he’d been sure she’d never use it hadn’t mattered.
He’d really thought she’d come to take his life again and there had been a very deep part of her that had found that terrifying. Because she couldn’t blame him for thinking that. After all, she’d been the one to volunteer to kill him, no one else. Who was to say that if the opportunity presented itself she wouldn’t do it?
Then he’d given her that opportunity. He’d held that blade to his own chest and invited her to do it, all the while stroking her gently, his dark eyes full of a terrible understanding that had undermined her in a way she’d never expected.
And all she’d been able to think about as she’d looked up into his beautiful face was him taking care of her the night before—washing her body and her hair so gently before tucking her into bed. Staying with her when she’d asked, wrapping her up in his powerful arms and holding her against his chest.
She never should have let him get under her skin the way she had, let the way he touched her and the things he’d said about his life matter to her. But somehow it had happened. And somehow he’d become more than the target he was supposed to be, more than the selfish playboy she’d only read about.
More than the vehicle of her own redemption.
He’d become a man. An actual person.
And she couldn’t do it. Just as she hadn’t been able to take his life back in that hotel room, she hadn’t been able to stand the thought of hurting him at all.
Especially not when all her reasons for doing so were selfish ones.
Dante’s hands tightened on hers. ‘Not hurting a man doesn’t make you weak,’ he said forcefully. ‘Who told you that nonsense?’
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the blood welling up on his skin where she’d nicked him. It made her feel sick, knowing she’d hurt him, even if it had been accidental.
Yet more evidence of her flaw.
‘You’re bleeding.’ She tried to tug her hands from his, suddenly feeling frantic. ‘I need to clean it. You might need stitches.’
His grip on her tightened, the look in his dark eyes intensifying. ‘I’m fine. What I want to know is why you think you’re weak.’
But there was a sick feeling in her gut, her own heart beating hard in her chest like a bird trying to escape a cage, and she barely heard him. ‘Please. The knife was sharp. It could have gone deep and then...’
Dante made an impatient sound. He let her go, shrugged out of his shirt, balled up the cotton in one hand then negligently wiped the blood away with it. The tiny cut began to clot almost instantly.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Satisfied?’
But Stella couldn’t stop from reaching out and putting one trembling hand on his hard chest near the cut, wanting to feel for herself that he was still warm. Still breathing. That his heart was still beating the way it should.
And it was. And he wasn’t just warm, he was hot. Like a furnace. And there was so much strength beneath all that smooth, bronzed skin. So much power. So much intense, vibrant life.
How had she ever thought she could take that from him? Or that she could enact such a stupid, ridiculous substitute plan as making him fall in love with her?
She’d been naïve. So sure that she was as hard and as cold as she’d needed to be. Yet in the end all she’d been was selfish, thinking only of her own need for redemption.
She hadn’t even thought about her baby.
Her eyes prickled, full of sudden tears, and she spread her palm out, pressing it hard against him, as if she could absorb that strength, take it for herself. As if the strength in him could heal the flaw in her, make her feel less selfish, less weak, less broken.
‘Kitten,’ he murmured. ‘Talk to me.’
But she didn’t want to talk, not right now, so she shook her head and bent, very gently kissing the cut she’d made instead. His skin burned against her lips, making her shiver, and she pressed her mouth to an unmarked part of his chest, wanting to taste him. Salty and hot and gloriously alive.
He went very still and then she felt his hand in her hair, stroking gently. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
But she didn’t want to be soothed or gentled. And she didn’t want to be refused. ‘Please,’ she murmured hoarsely against his skin, desperation coiling inside her. ‘I need you.’
His fingers tightened in her hair. ‘Kitten...’
She ignored him, making her way up his chest to his throat, kissing him, tasting the powerful beat of his pulse. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted his bare skin against hers, his heat melting the cold places inside herself, the places that had frozen the day her brother had been dragged away.
Dante’s grip on her hair was too powerful to resist as he gently tugged her head up, the velvet darkness of his gaze meeting hers.
‘Please, Dante.’ She couldn’t hide the desperation and didn’t bother. ‘I need this. I need you.’
And something in his expression shifted, gold glimmering in the inky depths of his eyes.
He didn’t speak, yet her breath caught all the same as his grip on her changed and he drew her into his lap, urging her thighs on either side of his lean hips. Then he let go her hair, his hands at the tie of her robe, pulling it open, slipping it from her shoulders and off, baring her.
She reached for him as the fabric fell away, frantic for the touch of his skin on hers, and he responded, gathering her to him, and she gasped at the heat of his body. It was a glory, like the first touch of sun on a land ravaged by winter, and she arched against him, pressing the softness of her breasts to the hardness of his chest.
He made a rough sound, then his hands were on her and he was taking control, bringing them both down on the couch and turning so she was under him, and she moaned at the pleasure that stretched out inside her in response, loving his power and his heat. At how safe and protected she felt.
She lifted her hands and scratched them down his chest, feeling each hard, cut muscle, but then his mouth was on hers and his hips were between her thighs, and he was shoving his trousers down, getting rid of the fabric between them.
She gripped his shoulders, kissing him back feverishly, desperate and aching, need building higher and higher. But his kiss in return was slow and sweet, his hands moving on her gently, stroking, soothing her until she
felt unexpected tears pricking the backs of her eyes.
Then his hands were beneath her, lifting her hips, and he was sliding into her, slow and deep, making her moan against his mouth. And he stopped there, deep inside, stroking her, his kisses becoming small nips and gentle licks, easing a part of her she hadn’t realised was drawn so tight.
Then he began to move, slowly and carefully, as if she was precious. Her throat closed up and, no matter how hard she blinked, she couldn’t make the tears go away. And she couldn’t stop them as they slid down her cheeks.
She didn’t want to cry, not in front of him. Not while he was deep inside her, the evidence of his strength and power outlined in every muscle, while she was weak and soft and so very broken.
But he didn’t say a word, only kissed away the tears and held her tight beneath him, moving in a gentle rhythm that had her gasping his name as the pleasure began to build.
And then she wasn’t crying any more, only staring up into his eyes, watching the gold bleed through the darkness until there was no darkness at all, only brilliant light.
Light inside her too, blinding her, a heat so intense it was going to burn her right here on the couch. And she wanted to burn. She wanted to blaze until there was nothing left of her.
She called his name as the fire became too bright to contain, too intense, pleasure flaming out of control. And he held her, kept her safe as she burned to ashes in his arms, before following her into the blaze himself.
Afterwards Stella didn’t want to open her eyes. She wanted to lie for ever under Dante’s powerful body and never move again. But she could feel him shifting as he drew out of her, the brush of his bare skin on hers making her shiver.
Was he leaving her here? She didn’t think she could bear it if he did.
‘You should call the police,’ she said, trying for bravado. ‘Get them to take me into custody. I did try to kill you a month ago, after all.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Dante said. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ He sat up then slid his arms around her, gathering her into his lap so she was leaning against his chest, her head on his shoulder.
Claiming His One-Night Child Page 11