“Yes. Now,” he murmured, bringing his mouth to her ear, “can we move on? Gianni just sat down at the end of the bar. He’s watching us and I’d like to make this somewhat believable.”
She blew out a breath. “Yes.”
“Bene.” He nodded toward her almost empty glass of champagne. “Drink up and let’s dance.”
She cast a wary eye toward the dance floor, where the couples were moving to the sinuous rhythm of a Latin tune. “Not to this.”
“This,” he insisted, sliding off the stool and tugging her off hers.
“Lazzero, I don’t know how,” she protested, setting her glass on the bar and dragging her feet. “It’s been years since I took salsa lessons and I was terrible. I’m going to look ridiculous out there.”
He stopped on the edge of the dance floor and tipped her chin up with his fingers. “All you have to do is let me lead,” he said softly. “Give up that formidable control of yours for once, Chiara, because this dance doesn’t work without complete and total...submission.”
* * *
Chiara’s heart thumped wildly against her ribs as Lazzero led her onto the dance floor. The feel of his fingers wrapped around her wrist sent a surge of electricity through her, tiny sparks unearthing themselves over every inch of her skin.
This is such a bad, bad idea.
A new song began as they found a free space among the dancers. Sultry and seductive, it brought back memories of the bruised feet and embarrassing silences she’d stumbled through in dance classes. She attempted one last objection as Lazzero pulled her close, clasping one hand around hers, the other resting against her back. “Back on one,” he said, cutting off her protest, “forward on five.”
She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to remember the first step with the heat of his tall, muscular body so close to hers, his sexy, spicy aftershave infiltrating her head. But she couldn’t just stand there on the dance floor doing nothing with everyone watching, so she took a deep breath and stepped back to mirror Lazzero’s basic step.
Her lessons, remarkably, came back immediately, the basic step easy enough to execute. Except she was all out of rhythm and stumbled into him, her cheeks heating.
“Follow my lead,” Lazzero growled. “And look at me, not at the floor. When I push, you step back, when I pull, you move forward. It’s very basic. Follow my signals.”
Except that was a dangerous thing to do because his eyes had a sexy, seductive glimmer in them that had nothing to do with a business deal and the champagne had now fully gone to her head, making any attempt at sophisticated steps a concerted effort.
Forcing herself to concentrate, she followed his lead before she fell flat on her face. His grip firm and commanding, he guided her through the steps until she was picking out the basic movement in time to the music.
“Now you’ve got it,” he murmured, as they executed a simple right turn. “See, isn’t this fun?”
It was, in fact, with a lead as good as Lazzero. He moved in ways a man shouldn’t be able to, his hips fluid and graceful. She started to trust he would place her where she needed to be and gave herself in to the sensual rhythm of the dance. The champagne, fully charging her bloodstream now, had the positive effect of loosening her inhibitions even further as they pulled off some more sophisticated steps and turns.
By the time the song was over, she was having so much fun, she fell laughing into Lazzero’s arms on the final turn. Caught up in all that muscle, his powerful body pressed against the length of hers, she swallowed past the racing of her heart as a languorous, slow number began to play. “Maybe we should go get a drink,” she suggested, breathlessly. “I am seriously thirsty.”
“While I have you so soft and compliant and all womanly in my arms?” he mocked lightly, sliding an arm around her waist to pull her closer. “We’re actually managing to be convincing at the moment. I’d like to enjoy the novelty before the arrows start flying again.”
“I don’t do that,” she protested.
“Yes, you do.” He gave her a considering look. “I think it’s a defense mechanism.”
“Against what?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
She followed him through the slow, lazy steps, excruciatingly aware of the hard press of his powerful thighs against hers, the thump of his heart beneath her hand, the brush of his mouth against her temple.
“Lazzero,” she breathed.
“The Casales are watching. Relax.”
Impossible. Not with the warm touch of those sensual lips on her skin giving her an idea of how they’d feel all over her. The smooth caress of his palm against the small of her back, burning into her bare skin. Definitely not when his mouth traced a path along the length of her jaw.
He was going to kiss her, she registered with a wild jump of her heart. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. Nor could she even pretend she wanted to.
Electric shivers slid up her spine as he tilted her chin up with his thumb, holding her captive to his purposeful ebony gaze. Her breath stopped in her chest as he bent his head and lowered his mouth to hers in a butterfly-light kiss meant to seduce.
This isn’t real, she cautioned herself. But it was fruitless, as every nerve ending seemed to catch fire. Lips whispering against hers, his thumb stroking her jaw, he teased and tantalized with so much sensual expertise, she was lost before the battle even began, her lips clinging to his as she tentatively returned the kiss.
Nestling her jaw more securely in his palm, he tugged her up on tiptoe with the hand he held at her waist and took the kiss deeper. Head tilted back, each slide of his mouth over hers sending sparks through her, Chiara forgot everything but what it felt like to be kissed like this. To be seduced. As if lightning had struck.
A sound left the back of her throat as her fingers crept around his neck. Clenched tensile, hard muscle. Murmuring his approval, he nudged her mouth apart with the slick glide of his tongue and delved inside with a heated caress that liquefied her insides. Weakened her knees.
She moved closer to him, wanting, needing his support. His hand slid to her hip, shifting her closer to all that muscle, until she was molded to every centimeter of him, the languorous drift of his mouth over hers, his deep, drugging kisses, shooting sparks of fire through her.
A low groan tore itself from his throat, the hand he held at her bottom bringing her into direct contact with the shockingly hard ridge of his arousal. She should have been scandalized. Instead, the wave of heat coursing through her crashed deeper, a fission of white-hot sexual awareness arcing through her.
She was so far gone, so lost in him, she almost protested when Lazzero broke the kiss with a nuzzling slowness, his fingers at her waist holding her steady as he dragged his mouth to her ear.
“The song is over,” he murmured. “As much as I hate to say it.”
The lazy satisfaction in his voice, the beat of a fast new tune, brought the world into focus with shocking swiftness.
What was she doing? Had she lost her mind? Lazzero had kissed her to prove a point to the Casales. This was just a game to him, she simply a pawn he was playing. And she had pretty much thrown herself at him.
Head spinning, heart pounding, she pulled herself out of his arms. “Chiara,” he murmured, his eyes on hers, “it was just a kiss.”
Just a kiss. It felt as if the earth had moved beneath her feet. Like nothing she’d ever experienced before, not even with Antonio who’d been practiced in the art of seduction. But for Lazzero, it had been just a kiss.
Had she learned nothing from her experiences?
She took a step back. Lifted her chin. “Sì,” she agreed unsteadily, “it was just a kiss. And, now that we’ve given an award-winning performance, I think I’ve had enough.”
CHAPTER FIVE
JUST A KISS.
Clearly, Lazzero conceded as he drove back to the
hotel at the close of the night, that hadn’t been the right line to feed Chiara at that particular moment in time. She had given him one of those death glares of hers, stalked off the dance floor and remained distant for the rest of the evening, unless required to turn it on for public consumption.
The chill had continued in the car, with her blowing off his attempts at conversation. But could he blame her, really? A kiss might have been in order, but that hadn’t been necessary. That had been pure self-gratification on his part.
He should have stopped it before it had gotten hot enough to melt the two of them to the dance floor. Before he’d confirmed what he’d always known about them—that they would be ridiculously, spectacularly hot together. But Chiara’s unwarranted, unfair judgments of him had burrowed beneath his skin. And, if he were being honest, so had his need to prove he was not the last man on earth she’d ever want, he was the one she wanted.
His curiosity about what it would be like to strip away those formidable defenses of hers had been irresistible. To find the passion that lay beneath. And hell, had he found it.
His blood thickened at the memory of her sweet, sensual response. It had knocked him sideways, the feel of those lush, amazing curves beneath his hands as good as he’d imagined they would be. He’d let the kiss get way out of hand, no doubt about it, but he hadn’t been the only participant.
Chiara was out of the car and on her way into the lobby as he handed the keys to the Lamborghini to the valet, shocking him with how swiftly she could walk in those insanely high shoes. She had jammed her finger on the call button for the elevator by the time he’d made it into the lobby, her toe tapping impatiently on the marble. It came seconds later and swished them silently up to the third floor.
Kicking off her shoes in the marble foyer of the penthouse, she continued her relentless path through the living room, into the bedroom. He caught up with her before she reached the bathroom door. Curved a hand around her arm. “Chiara,” he murmured. “We need to talk.”
She swung around, a closed look on her face. “About what? You were right, Lazzero, it was just a kiss. And now, if you don’t mind, I am going to go to bed. I am exhausted.” Her eyes lifted mutinously to his. “If I am off duty, of course.”
Oh, no. Red misted his vision as she pulled out of his grasp and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door in his face. She wasn’t going to go there.
Walk away, he told himself. Shake it off. Deal with this tomorrow when saner heads prevail.
Except nothing about that kiss had been business and they both knew it. It had been a long time coming, a year precisely, since he’d walked through the door of the Daily Grind and found Chiara cursing at an espresso machine on a particularly bad day. They had something. That was clear. They were consenting adults. What the hell was the problem?
He stalked into the dressing room. Threw his wallet and change on the armoire. The wounded look on Chiara’s face in the car filtered through his head. She thought he was playing with her. That this was a game to him. Which, admittedly it might have started out as, until he’d gotten as caught up in that kiss as she had been.
Leaving her to stew, he decided as he stripped off his bow tie and cuff links, was not a good idea. Tossing them on the dresser, he rapped on the bedroom door. Walked in. Frowned when he found the room empty, the bed untouched. Then he spotted Chiara on the balcony, her back to him.
Definitely stewing.
He crossed to the French doors. Stopped in his tracks. She was dressed for bed, a factor he hadn’t taken into consideration. Which needed to be taken into consideration, because what she was wearing heated his blood.
The simple tank top and shorts were hardly the sexiest nightwear he’d ever seen, covering more of her than most women did on the streets of Manhattan. It was the way the soft jersey material clung to her voluptuous body that made his mouth go dry.
His hands itched to touch, to give in to the craving he’d been fighting all night, but he stayed where he was, framed in the light of the suite.
“It wasn’t just a kiss.”
His quiet words had Chiara spinning around. An equally spectacular view from the front, he noted, her face bare of makeup, lush mouth pursed in contemplation, her legs a sweep of smooth golden skin that seemed to go on forever.
He set his gaze on hers. “That kiss was spectacular. You and I both know it. I wanted to do it since the first moment I saw you in that dress tonight. Actually,” he amended huskily, “since the first day I set eyes on you in the coffee shop. You and I have something, Chiara. It would be ridiculous to deny it.”
She swallowed hard, the delicate muscles in her throat convulsing. A myriad of emotion flickered through her green eyes. “You were toying with me, Lazzero.”
He shook his head. “I was satisfying my curiosity about the attraction between us. Finding out how it would be. And you were curious too,” he added deliberately, eyeing the flare of awareness staining her olive skin. “But you won’t admit it, because you’re so intent on protecting yourself, on preserving that prickly outer layer of yours, on putting your labels on me, you won’t admit how you feel.”
A fiery light stormed her eyes. “You’re damn right I am. I have no interest in becoming your latest conquest, Lazzero. In being bought with a piece of jewelry. In performing ever greater circus tricks to retain your interest, only to be dumped in a cloud of dust when I no longer do. I have been there and done that.”
His jaw dropped. “That’s absurd.”
“You said it at Di Fiore’s. Your relationships only last as long as your interest does.” She planted her hands on her hips. “The soul-baring truth and nothing but. Isn’t that how you put it?”
He had no response for that, grounded by his own transparency. She tipped her chin up. “Consider my curiosity well and truly satisfied. My list ticked off.”
His ego took that stunning blow as she turned and stalked inside, effectively ending the conversation. Except which part of it hadn’t been true? He was all of that and more.
He followed her inside, stripped off his clothes in the guest bathroom and deposited himself under a chilly shower to cool his body down, still revved up from that almost-sex on the dance floor.
He played by a certain set of rules because that’s what he was capable of. He was never going to allow a woman in, was never going to commit, because he knew the destructive force a relationship could be. He’d watched his father wind himself in circles over his mother before he’d imploded in spectacular fashion, a roller coaster ride he was never getting on. Ever.
Getting his head tied up in Chiara, no matter how hot he was for her, was insanity with everything riding on this deal with Gianni. He’d best keep that in mind or he was going to be the one going down in a cloud of dust.
Pulling on boxer shorts in deference to his company, he braced himself for the far-too-short-looking sofa in the bedroom, the only sleepable surface in the suite other than the extremely comfortable-looking four-poster bed. Which was...empty.
What the hell?
He found Chiara curled up on the sofa, a blanket covering her slight form. Her dark hair spread out like silk against the white pillowcase, long, decadent lashes fanned down against her cheeks, she was deep asleep.
Every male instinct growled in irritation. This had clearly been her parting volley. Clearly, she didn’t know him well enough if she thought he was going to let her sleep there, no matter how amazing that bed looked after the couple of hours of sleep he’d had on the plane.
Moving silently across the room, he slid his arms beneath her, lifted her up and carried her to the bed. Transferring her weight to one arm, he tossed the silk comforter aside and slid her into the bed. She was so deep asleep she didn’t blink an eyelash as she shifted onto her stomach and burrowed into the silk sheets. Which gave him a very tantalizing view of her amazing derriere in the feminine shorts.
His attempts to get comfortable were futile. When he stretched out, his feet hung over the edge, cutting off his circulation. When he attempted to contort himself to fit, his old basketball injury made his knee throb.
The minutes ticked by, his need to sleep growing ever more acute. He had four hours maximum before he had to get up for his practice with a team of world-class athletes who were going to run him into the ground at this rate. He must have been insane to agree to play.
He had shifted positions for what must have been the tenth time when Chiara lifted herself up on her elbow and blinked at him in the darkness. “How did I get into the bed?”
“I carried you there,” he said grumpily. “Go back to sleep.”
She dropped back to the pillow. A silence followed. Then a drowsy, “Get in the bed, Lazzero. It’s as big as Milan. We can share it.”
He was off the sofa and in the bed in record time. It was the size of Milan and he could restrain himself. Finding a comfortable position on the far side of the bed, he closed his eyes and lost himself to blissful unconsciousness.
* * *
Chiara was having the most delicious dream. Plastered against a wall of heat, she was warm and cocooned and thoroughly content after finding the air-conditioning distinctly chilly during the night.
Pressing closer to all that heat, she registered it was hot, hard muscle—hot, hard male muscle that was its source. Utterly in tune with the whole picture because she had truly outdone herself with this dream, she pressed even closer.
A big, warm hand slid over the curve of her hip to arrange her more comfortably on top of him. She sighed and went willingly, because he felt deliciously good against her, underneath her, everywhere, and it had been so long, so damn long since she’d been touched like this. Held like this.
His Million-Dollar Marriage Proposal Page 7