by Annie West
His slanting smile caught her breath. ‘I know. I’ve got nothing to complain about. And I’ve made a fortune at racing, quite separate from what I’ve inherited.’
He bent to pick up a pebble then skimmed it far out across the water.
‘I still love speed. I’ll never give up recreational skiing or racing, but there’s a difference between making it your career and achieving something.’
‘You want to achieve something meaningful?’
He slanted a look her way. ‘I knew you’d understand, Lia.’
Those simple words made the sun burst warm and glowing inside her. Her own woes faded as Niccolo smiled at her.
A voice in her head said she was beyond redemption. She needed to get away from him now and keep a healthy distance between them. But it was drowned by the need to support him.
Niccolo was always strong, definite, controlled. He’d never once needed anything from her before this weekend. She liked the idea of helping, even if it was just to lend an ear.
‘Have you decided what you want to do?’
He nodded. ‘The Marchesi family holdings include a company, a rather neglected company that provides training opportunities for unemployed kids. It provides education, life skills and professional training for those who would otherwise struggle. It does fine work but it could do more. With an injection of funds and a higher public profile. With a little more organisation and better networking with industry employers—’
‘The sort of contacts you could provide,’ she said, thinking of the people he knew, not just in the automotive industry but in the media, promotions and so many other areas.
‘You’re not going to tell me I haven’t a clue what I’m doing?’ His mouth tipped up at the corner in a devastating smile.
Lia shook her head. ‘You’re clever and resourceful and I’ve never known anyone more determined.’ In that he was on a par with her brothers. They all knew what they wanted and went straight for it.
He nodded. ‘It would be something…worthwhile. The previous CEO achieved in the beginning but became satisfied with the same goals, year after year. I see so many opportunities.’ He paused. ‘And it would be good to take on a company that my father founded and see it shine.’
‘You’d do a brilliant job. You’d be a role model to a lot of those kids too.’ Apart from his keen brain and his refusal to give up once he’d decided on something, Niccolo had empathy. He listened to the needs of others. Like that night all those years ago when he’d gone out of his way not to disappoint a starry-eyed girl.
He laughed and her heart danced. ‘I expected you to tell me I didn’t have the training for it. Almost everyone else has.’
‘You’ll learn. Besides, one thing I know about you, Niccolo. You thrive on challenge.’
Chapter Six
* * *
Thrive on challenge!
Niccolo gritted his teeth and wished to hell he faced a simpler challenge tonight than sharing a bed with Lia. Like breaking the land speed record, or abolishing youth unemployment.
After their discussion by the lake he’d felt closer to her than ever before, as if they were attuned. She’d been so understanding, readily accepting the massive change he wanted in his life when so many others urged him to continue as he was, making them money. Unlike them, Lia cared for Niccolo the man, rather than Niccolo the walking headline and source of income.
That closeness only made his desire for her stronger, gave it depth and an authenticity lacking in his previous affairs.
But he and Lia weren’t having an affair, were they? She looked on him as a brother.
Hell and damnation!
He should run a mile. Yet here he was, accompanying her to their room.
Each step up the marble stairs felt like a step closer to disaster. The tension across his shoulders was surely enough to crack his bones.
He’d aimed to stay downstairs as long as possible, farewelling guests and overseeing the clean up. Anything to delay entering the bedroom. But seeing Lia’s pale face and the smudges under her eyes made him change his mind. She looked fragile yet she’d stayed with him, playing the role of girlfriend so well it was harder and harder to remember this was make-believe.
It needled him that he still hadn’t got to the bottom of what worried her. Lia wasn’t a good liar and he sensed it was more than her charade in front of his family that bothered her.
They reached the top of the stairs and she stumbled. Instantly his hand snapped out to support her but she shrank away as if afraid of his touch.
A scowl settled on Niccolo’s brow and an ache in his belly. She was really worrying him.
He let his hand drop to his side as they walked together, in aching silence, down the long corridor. The only sounds were the beat of his blood and the swish of her long dress, like a whisper inviting him to reach out and touch.
His hand fisted as they reached their suite and he opened the door for her. Despite his best efforts his gaze traced her bare shoulders, the creamy skin of her upper back revealed by the dress as she passed. His gut clenched.
He wanted to sprint back down the stairs, jump into his sports car and work off this tension driving hard and fast.
The alternative, driving himself to oblivion, hard and fast inside Lia, was just too tempting.
Heat rocketed through him, desire for her saturating every part of him. His nostrils flared as the tantalising, rich scent of lilies reached him. Maybe it was something she washed her hair in. He leaned closer before he could stop himself, then made himself pause on the threshold, gathering some shreds of control.
She flinched as the door shut behind him, but she didn’t turn around as she took out the pretty drop earrings and put them on the dressing table.
In the mirror before her he saw Lia’s mouth bunched tight as if with pain. Surely her hands were shaking too.
In a couple of strides Niccolo crossed the room.
‘Lia?’ Her head was downcast. She didn’t realise he could see her reflected expression as her beautiful lips twisted.
Gently, because he sensed she was hurting in some way he’d yet to uncover, Niccolo took her arm. Again that tiny flinch, though his touch was light. Slowly he pulled her round until she faced him.
For the first time since he’d known her she refused to look at him. That killed him.
He couldn’t bear to think of her so distressed yet believing she couldn’t share her problem with him. Surely she trusted him that much?
He wanted to take away her pain.
He wanted to give her pleasure instead. The very thought was a blast of agony to the back of his skull as he struggled to do the decent thing.
‘Look at me, Lia.’
She swallowed and nodded but then froze. He saw her pulse flutter hard and fast at the base of her long, fragile-looking throat. He wanted to lean in and taste her there, kiss his way up to the classically sculpted line of her chin and from there to those lips, glossy and enticing. He wanted—
‘Dannazione!’ He hauled her against him before second thoughts could prevent him. He had to do something to ease the hurt engraved on her beautiful face.
Heart pounding, he lashed one arm around her, holding her tight, willing her to relax against him and let the pain go. His other hand lifted to her hair. A shiver rocketed through him when his hand touched that softness, as exquisite as the finest silk, but he ignored it, focusing on her, not the prickle of heat and hunger filling his belly.
‘It’s okay, tesoro. Whatever it is, I’ll make it okay. I promise.’ He pressed her face against his shirt, willing her to relax, but she was rigid against him.
Seeing her in such distress tore at something deep within. It was as if a fissure opened up inside him, raw and aching.
He heard a muffled sound. A laugh? A cry of distress?
Niccolo slipped his hand under her chin and lifted her face. Still she avoided him, keeping her eyes closed.
Something like panic stirred. Niccolo faced dan
ger and the spectre of death every time he raced, but he’d never felt so helpless as he did now, watching Lia grapple with whatever it was that turned her from vivacious and happy to distraught.
‘I’m fine, Niccolo.’ As if that husky, ghost of a voice convinced him. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
‘There must be. Tell me, Lia.’
A mighty shudder rippled through her. A moment later she straightened, pushing her shoulders back. Her jaw angled up and her eyes snapped open. Her pupils were huge in a blaze of shimmering golden brown and to his horror Niccolo realised he’d never seen her so close to tears.
‘Ah, don’t cry. Whatever it is, we’ll make it better.’
She shook her head, almost violently, her long hair flaring and slipping over his hand.
‘No.’ Her voice was stronger now, with a whiplash undercurrent of bitterness. ‘This isn’t something you can kiss and make better.’
Niccolo almost groaned, wishing the words undone. His attention dropped instantly to her lips, finely cut and lushly inviting.
There was a roaring in his ears, a shaking in his belly and his hands tightened on her, one at her back, one sliding round to cup her head. He couldn’t let go. Couldn’t force himself to step away. His feet were cemented to the floor.
She tempted him beyond endurance and she didn’t even realise.
‘Why not?’ His grating voice was unrecognisable.
He told himself it would be fine to touch her mouth. A tiny kiss from a friend, over as soon as it began. A demonstration that he cared for her, was here for her. That whatever her problem was, he’d help.
A brotherly kiss!
Except when he leaned in to touch his lips to her cheek she moved, no doubt startled. He felt the shock in her straining body.
Then somehow, surely without intending to, his lips grazed hers. Grazed and clung.
Because to withdraw was utterly impossible.
Lia’s lips were so soft, so perfect, fitting to his as if made for that very purpose. Niccolo froze. Amazing as it was to admit, he’d never felt so undone by a woman. Yet all he did was touch her lips!
They tasted like honey. Honey and Lia, the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.
Niccolo inhaled sharply, strengthening his resolve to draw back. Except now he dragged in air warm from her flesh, scented with the lily and woman perfume of Lia. There was no turning back. Not yet. He stood unmoving, one hand cupping her skull, the other splayed over the sinuous indentation of her waist.
Until, shocking him to the core, he felt the slick of her tongue along his mouth. And a warm vibration, like a soundless hum of pleasure, resonate through her.
Niccolo tried to summon the will to move, to break the embrace. Then it came again, tentative but real, her tongue sliding across his bottom lip.
A man was only human after all.
He’d done his best, tried to be strong, but there was a limit to endurance.
Angling his head, pressing closer, he opened his mouth and sucked her questing tongue into his mouth. Sucked hard, drawing his own tongue against it in a duel that was all invitation and pleasure.
Niccolo’s hands trembled as they never did at the wheel of a racing vehicle. He felt as if he held sunlight and innocence in his arms and was torn between protectiveness and the need to possess.
He moved his hand, changed his grip to angle her head for easier access and, instead of stiffening in rejection, Lia melted in his arms, her curves sliding against him, her head bowing back under the pressure of his, and again that wordless vibration of pleasure. He tasted it, swallowed it, then plunged deep into her mouth, demanding more.
It was like admiring a daisy and discovering it was a lush, sensual rose in disguise.
Her mouth was rich velvet, tempting and seductive. Her body undulated against him in blatant, needy invitation, and Niccolo found himself backing her up against the dressing table. He crowded her between his thighs, his erection instant and powerful, jammed up against her belly.
Somewhere, in the back of his brain, his conscience commanded he pull back. But then Lia’s hands crept up his chest, over his shoulders and she wrapped her fingers around his neck, pulling him down towards her as if she too couldn’t get enough.
It was bliss.
It was torture.
Devastatingly fantastic yet not nearly enough. Already his hand was roving her body, down over the ripe curve of her buttocks, then digging in through the thin fabric till she gasped and rocked her pelvis into him, her head falling back.
Niccolo had never seen anything more alluring than Lia, her kiss-swollen lips open as she gasped for air, a flush of arousal tinting her throat and cheeks and her eyes glowing gold. They were a siren’s eyes, luring him on, inviting him to forget restrictions and taboos and take her. Here, now.
His breath came in harsh gulps that couldn’t quite fill his lungs. His skin was tight and uncomfortable and he needed to rip off his clothes.
But more than that, he needed to have Lia. The pain of not tearing himself free of his trousers and taking her right here was making him dizzy.
‘We should—’ He’d been about to say something about stopping, except Lia tilted her hips in a sinuous move that brought her pelvis high against him.
His conscience disintegrated in a ripple of lust that began at the base of his spine and raced straight round to his groin.
Lia knew what she was doing. She wasn’t that innocent.
Her heavy-lidded stare invited and challenged.
With a growl of triumph, Niccolo swept his mouth back down to hers, possessing her with a bruising thoroughness that still couldn’t allay the need thrumming in his veins. He hungered for Lia, for all of her, writhing and gasping beneath him as he took them both to heaven.
He slid his hand from her face, down past her collarbone to her breast. His hand trembled as he cupped her fullness in his fingers. Was it because she fitted him so perfectly or because this was Lia, the woman who’d been secretly driving him crazy for so long? Whatever the reason, she made him want to slide to his knees and worship her. To give her everything he had. And to please her as no man had ever pleased her before.
He smiled as her eyes fluttered closed and she arched up high into his touch, a tiny sound of delight falling from her open lips.
It was then that Niccolo knew he was utterly lost.
Chapter Seven
* * *
Lia clung to the darkness, knowing that this had to be a dream, the sort of dream that had kept her from sleep too many nights.
Besides, she’d read Niccolo’s shock, his attempt to hold back, and she didn’t want to watch him when he finally withdrew from her.
For withdraw he would, as soon as his brain engaged and reminded him this was ordinary old Lia in his arms, not some bountiful blonde model. Not at all his usual type.
She’d wanted to scream at him that she was his type, if only he’d give her a chance. And now, somehow, a miracle had happened and he was kissing her. Not just kissing. His touch, his tone, the fine tremor in his big, powerful frame all made it clear he wanted her as fervently as she did him.
The things he did with his mouth and hands…
The sensations aroused her and scared her too, just a little. Because all this was new. New and wonderful and she didn’t want him to stop.
She’d loved Niccolo so long, craved him. His touch, his hunger, smashed every inhibition, every constraint she’d placed on herself. Lia could no more pretend indifference than she could fly to the moon.
Her heart leapt sky high as his roughened hand tightened around her breast. Instantly a dart of heat shot straight to that achy spot between her thighs that felt swollen and needy.
Lia pressed her hand over the back of his, pushing her breast further into his cupped hand, and heard Niccolo swear under his breath. Or maybe it was a prayer.
She, at least, was beyond help. The only one who could help her now was Niccolo.
‘More,’ she pleaded, g
roping for his other hand and planting it hard on her other breast. She’d waited so long for his touch.
Exquisite sensations pierced her. And deep within, a rolling wave of liquid warmth rose and spilled. She was damp between the legs and desperate for more.
Relief flooded when Niccolo pushed her back hard against the dressing table, the solid length of his erection crowding her.
‘Yes.’ The little hiss of pleasure escaped on a sigh that ended when his mouth slammed into hers. He ripped one hand away to hold her head where he wanted and kissed her with fierce, devastating precision. She’d thought their first kiss spectacular. This one sparked fire in her blood and incinerated thought.
Lia clung to him, meeting the savage intensity of his mouth with a need that had been too long contained. He’d lit a fuse and she was combusting, burning up in heat and hunger. That initial tiny frisson of anxiety incinerated to ashes at the glorious reality of Niccolo caressing her, wanting her.
He didn’t break the kiss as he lifted her onto the dressing table and with one smooth movement, slid his hands up her thighs, bunching the jersey fabric higher and higher. When the hem was at her knees he shoved that up too, and air wafted across her bare skin. She felt daring, wanton.
He pulled back from her mouth. ‘You’re wearing stockings.’
Lia frowned at the interruption to that luscious kiss, pausing as he uncovered her. But something about his husky voice made her open heavy lids.
He looked…
Her heart crashed against her ribs. She’d never seen Niccolo look like that. Taut, as if teetering on the very edge of control.
His head snapped up and midnight dark eyes possessed her.
‘You don’t like stockings?’ Uncertainty flickered.
His mouth twisted in a grimace, as if he hurt.
‘You’re joking. What’s not to like?’ Deliberately he drew one long finger from the top of her stocking up her inner thigh towards the wet strip of silk at her core. Did he like thongs too?