And now it was awake again. Now it was aware of everything it had been missing and now it wanted...
Enzo stepped closer, the heat of his body surrounding her, the sharp, musky scent of male arousal threaded through with her own making her dizzy. And he moved her hand from her breast, easing it down over her stomach, down further, guiding it between her legs to where the pulse of her desire beat so strong and hard.
A low moan escaped her as her own fingers brushed the sensitive place hidden beneath the cotton of her dress and her underwear. Just lightly. A tease.
‘And I will touch you here too,’ he went on in that dark, soft voice. ‘Make you even wetter for me than you are already, hmm?’
‘Enzo...’ His name breathed out of her on a sigh.
‘Yes, cara. You will say my name just like that.’ He covered her hand with his, holding her fingers down, his strength irresistible. ‘Again. Say it again. Now.’ And he adjusted the pressure so that the tip of her finger pressed against that sensitive place between her thighs, making pleasure flare along every nerve ending she had.
‘Enzo...’ she gasped, helplessly obeying as the intensity of the sensation shivered through her.
A very male kind of satisfaction glittered in his eyes. ‘Yes, that’s good.’ He kept the slight pressure on her finger right where it was. ‘But I won’t give you everything you want right when you want it. Because, remember, not only did you lie to me about Simon but you lied to me about your marriage. You made me believe it was something it wasn’t and I can’t allow that.’ He shifted his hand slightly, yet another blade of pleasure piercing her. ‘So I have an extra term for our deal. If you want me to make you come, cara mia, you will have to beg me for it.’
Shudders racked her, but she forced them back, trying to concentrate on what he was saying. ‘So this is a punishment? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have thought you’d care.’
‘I didn’t think I would either.’ He pressed a little harder, making her groan. ‘Turns out I do. But don’t worry. I think you’ll enjoy the kind of punishments I give out. In fact, I guarantee it.’
The sound of her accelerated breathing was loud in the silence of the room, along with the echo of her pulse thundering in her head. Her skin was burning, the damp heat of her own arousal soaking through her dress against her fingertips.
She should be ashamed at how easily she was letting him manipulate her like this, but all she could think about was how much she wanted him to touch her bare skin, to stroke her and never stop.
‘No, there will be no begging,’ she forced out through gritted teeth. ‘Unless you’re the one on your knees.’
He only laughed softly. ‘If I’m on my knees, then I know where my mouth will be. And it won’t be begging you for anything. It will be occupied with making you scream.’
The fire in her cheeks burned hotter, the throb between her thighs more intense. She wanted to tell him that there would be no screaming either, but her voice wouldn’t work.
Then abruptly his hand dropped away and he stepped back.
‘Enzo,’ she breathed, not able to stop from saying his name.
He only gave her one long, sweeping look as she stood there swaying, barely able to stand upright, her own hand still tucked between her thighs. ‘I know, you want it now, don’t you? Sadly for both of us, you’re still married.’ He didn’t smile, though there was something dark and possessive in his eyes. ‘Let me know when your divorce comes through. We’ll continue this discussion then.’
And, before she could say another word, he turned and swept out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘A SON YOU didn’t know about?’ Dante’s voice was ever so slightly incredulous. ‘Surely that’s something that would happen to me, not you?’
Enzo kept his attention on the big plate-glass windows in front of him, gazing out over the Milanese skyline.
His Milan office was his favourite, mainly because whenever he looked out of the windows and gazed over the city beneath him it felt as if he was sitting on a throne, the city he’d once struggled to find a place in now at his feet.
It was a very satisfying feeling.
‘Yes, well, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened to you already,’ Enzo said, clasping his hands behind his back. ‘Given your apparent inability to spend even one night without a woman in your bed.’
‘Is that the subtle note of judgement I hear, brother mine?’ Dante asked lazily. ‘Or is it hypocrisy instead?’
Enzo allowed himself a smile, the reflection in the glass smiling along with him. His brother took pleasure in baiting him, though Enzo didn’t let it bother him, as it was never personal. Dante took pleasure in baiting everyone he met, which sometimes wasn’t the most desirable trait when he was supposed to be the friendly face of Cardinal Enterprises.
‘Simon is four,’ Enzo said, ignoring the dig. ‘You’ll meet him soon.’
‘How exciting.’ Dante sounded anything but excited at the prospect. ‘And you said you’re going to marry the boy’s mother? After she ran out on you and then hid your son from you?’
Enzo had told him the story of Simon’s arrival in coldly clinical terms, touching lightly on his affair with Matilda but not going into it in any depth. He hadn’t wanted to tell Dante any sooner, not until he’d firmed up his plans, but now he had those in place it was time to start making announcements.
First his brother, then the rest of the world.
But not until Matilda’s divorce had come through. There would be scandal, obviously, but if he handled it right he could keep it to a minimum.
‘Yes.’ In the glass, he could see his smile turn sharp, remembering Matilda in the library, hot, panting and completely at his mercy. Intoxicating. ‘I am.’
‘Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought forgiveness would be your strong suit.’
‘The marriage is not about forgiveness.’ Finally, he turned around to face his brother, who was lounging on a low, black leather sofa like a lion sunning itself on a rock. ‘The marriage is about my son. She’s his mother, which makes her the best choice of wife.’
Just ignore the fact that you want her for yourself.
He wasn’t ignoring that. He did want her for himself. But only for his bed, nothing more. And, if the thought of meting out a few sensual punishments on her lovely body got him hard, then what of it?
Dante only rolled his eyes. His younger brother didn’t much care about a great many things—or at least he professed not to care. He didn’t have the same burning need that Enzo did for a home and a family. In fact, as he’d often said to Enzo, a home and a family sounded like hell on earth to him, and he was glad he wasn’t a prince any more. All care, no responsibility, that was Dante. And, given Dante’s upbringing after their mother had taken him away, Enzo couldn’t say he blamed him.
‘Your funeral,’ Dante said. ‘So I presume you’re going to introduce me to this paragon at some point?’
Possessiveness flooded through Enzo and he let it, because why not? Matilda was all his now. Then again, it was ridiculous to feel that way, especially about his brother. Dante might be a notorious man whore, but he would never poach on another man’s territory, especially not if that man was Enzo.
Still, the idea made Enzo restless.
He paced over to the desk that stood in front of the windows and neatened the stack of papers sitting on it. ‘Of course. But not yet. I can’t make it public until her divorce is finalised.’
Dante’s black brows rose into his hairline. ‘Divorce? You mean she’s married?’
Enzo would have found his shock amusing if he hadn’t been battling the restlessness that had him pacing from the desk, back to the windows and then back to the desk again. ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘She’s married. No, I haven’t touched her. It’s a long story.’
‘Sounds like it.’ Dante’s da
rk eyes glinted with his usual lazy amusement. ‘Anything else you want to tell me?’
‘No.’ Enzo found himself straightening the papers again and had to force himself to stop. ‘Haven’t you got something else to do?’
Dante held up a hand. ‘Hey, you were the one who called this meeting, not me.’
‘And now it’s over. I’d appreciate you keeping this to yourself until I give the word.’ He glared at his brother. ‘I don’t want the press getting hold of anything, not yet. For my son’s sake.’
For a second the bored expression on Dante’s handsome face flickered. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, a thread of warning in his voice. ‘Your secret is safe with me, cross my heart and hope to die.’
Dante wouldn’t say anything and Enzo knew that. But the protectiveness that gripped him whenever he thought about his son was something he couldn’t stop. Nor did he want to.
‘Good,’ was all he said. ‘I’ll let you know when it becomes public.’
The door shut behind his brother and Enzo turned once more to the city outside his window. Dio, that time had better be soon.
The renovation of the villa on Isola Sacra was almost complete. Once Matilda’s divorce came through, he would marry her and then he would move his family onto the island as he’d always envisaged.
Desire, thick and hot, pulsed through him as he remembered her almost swaying on her feet as he’d guided her own hand between her legs that night in the library.
He’d been able to feel the heat of her even with her palm between his hand and her body, the sweet, musky scent of feminine arousal heavy in the air. She’d shivered so beautifully, said his name so desperately. Her eyes had been dark as thunderstorms and yet lightning had glowed in their depths, a glimpse of the passionate, intense woman he’d discovered four years ago on that island.
Enzo gritted his teeth as his body hardened at the memory.
It had taken everything he had to step away from her in that moment, but he’d done it. Because he’d had a point to prove to himself, if not to her: that he was in charge here and he dictated the situation. And if she wanted to test him then she needed to learn just what kind of opponent she was up against. She could not beat him. He would not let her.
She’d told him that St George apparently had paid a few people to make sure the process of dissolving the marriage went quicker, but it had been several weeks at least, and Enzo found that once again he’d had to absent himself from the villa. He made sure he had breakfast with Simon every morning, because that was important in building his relationship with his son, and sometimes he’d come home earlier at night to spend more time with him.
But the real issue was Matilda.
Vowing not to touch her until her divorce had come through had been a good strategic move, and fine in theory, but he was a little appalled at himself at how difficult in practice it actually was.
The scent of jasmine haunted the hallways of his villa and the sound of her voice echoed through the rooms, soft and husky and sensual. It distracted him, made him even more restless than he was already. Even more hungry.
He’d never had a problem with physical desire before, had always found it easy to control, but not now. Not with her.
He was tired of it.
He couldn’t stop watching her whenever they met, his gaze irresistibly drawn. She’d stopped wearing the T-shirts and jeans he’d first seen her in and had adopted those floaty dresses that drew attention to her curves, with buttons at the neckline always half-undone and a swirling skirt around her hips that would sometimes, depending on how she was standing, drape seductively around her thighs.
She’d taken to wearing her hair loose too, the flame-red curls drifting across her shoulders and licking around her pale neck.
It was almost as if she knew how the waiting was driving him mad and was determined to make it worse. He wouldn’t put it past her. After all, she’d used his own tactics against him that night in the library.
A hot, raw thrill went through him at the thought.
Well, if she was, good. He liked it when she fought him and he thought she probably liked fighting him too.
It would make her eventual surrender all the sweeter for both of them.
There came a buzz from his desk.
He shook himself from his thoughts and paced over to it, hitting the intercom button with some impatience. ‘What is it, Alessia?’
‘There’s someone here to see you.’ His secretary sounded disapproving. ‘A woman. She wouldn’t give me her name.’
Everything inside Enzo tightened instinctively. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. ‘Does she have red hair?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, she does.’
His pulse accelerated. ‘Send her in.’
There could only be one woman with red hair who would come to see him without an appointment, and only one reason she’d come to him in his office.
The door opened and in she came, the skirt of her long, flowing white dress billowing out behind her, her hair loose down her back.
Matilda.
He hadn’t been this close to her in days and now here she was, filling his office with her delicious scent and her heat...
His hunger sharpened to a knife edge.
‘You’d better be here to tell me you’re a free woman,’ he said, only just masking the growl in his voice. ‘Because I’m getting tired of this little game you’re playing with me.’
* * *
Matilda clasped her hands in front of her so he wouldn’t see them shake, the determination she’d found earlier evaporating under the heat of Enzo’s intense, hungry focus.
He was standing behind his desk, tall, dark and powerful. Like the king he’d been born to be. He was in one of his beautifully tailored suits, dark charcoal with a black shirt and a tie of rich red silk, and he wore it like he was wearing robes of state. All he needed was a crown on his head and the look would be complete.
But he didn’t need a crown, not when his golden eyes blazed like the sun, pinning her to the spot where she stood.
She took a silent, shaken breath.
The papers had come from the courier that morning and she’d stood there a while, staring at them in her hand, an electric kind of excitement pooling in her gut laced with the undeniable bite of fear.
Excitement because she’d been fighting the pull of her chemistry with Enzo and she didn’t need to fight it any more. Fear because the second she took the papers to him he would stop fighting it too. And then everything would change.
But you have a plan.
Yes, she did. She’d decided on it the night in the library after he’d left. If she was going to handle a man like Enzo Cardinali, she was going to need to have some kind of power over him, and she knew exactly what kind of power that was. The only thing she had: their chemistry.
So for the past couple of weeks she’d been wearing the floaty dresses he’d bought for her, with a little bit of skin on show. Enough to tantalise him, tease him, without giving everything away; to test that much-vaunted control of his, show him that she had a power of her own and she was prepared to use it.
And it had worked. His gaze had followed her wherever she went, the hunger in it evident. And, when he’d started to absent himself from her presence more and more, she knew that it wasn’t because he didn’t want to see her.
She was testing him.
It made her feel that maybe a marriage to him wouldn’t crush her completely.
So when those papers had come she’d shoved her doubts away and left Simon with Maria, getting his driver to take her directly from the villa to his office. And, as they’d headed into Milan’s heavy traffic, she’d held tight to her determination to prove to him that she would not let him walk all over her, to the certainty that she had some power here.
But now as she st
ood in his office, with only a desk standing between her and the furious masculine hunger that radiated from him, that certainty wavered just a little.
She didn’t let it show.
Steeling her spine, she reached for the papers she had in her handbag. ‘I don’t know what game you’re talking about, but you’re right. That’s exactly why I’m here.’ She pulled out the envelope and held it up. ‘One divorce. Signed, sealed...’ She slowly walked forward to the desk, placing the envelope down on it. ‘And delivered.’
Enzo’s gaze dropped to the envelope then lifted back to her face again. He didn’t move, but the tension already gathering in the air, dense as an electrical storm, thickened even further, making her breath catch hard.
‘Lock the door,’ Enzo ordered, his voice full of darkness and heat, raising all the hairs on the back of her neck.
Something needy and demanding inside her leapt and abruptly she was conscious of the sweet ache between her legs, the one that had been there ever since he’d touched her in the library and hadn’t gone away.
So, he wasn’t going to wait.
Good. She was ready.
She turned and went to the doors of his office, locking them with a hand that only shook a little.
‘Come here,’ he murmured.
She didn’t disobey, turning back to him and moving over to the desk, again slowly, letting her skirts swirl around her. The white dress had been a deliberate choice—it was practically see-through. She had to use any and all weapons she could in this particular fight.
His gaze followed her as she came towards him, the gold flames in his eyes burning, and she held it as she approached the desk and then moved around it to him.
He took a step back, indicating that she should stand between him and the desk, so she did, her heartbeat thudding harder.
The desk was at her back, the edge pressing against the backs of her thighs while he stood in front her, so close, his body lean and powerful, his shoulders blocking the view of Milan through the windows behind him. The sun caught glints of deep blue in his ink-dark hair, throwing the aristocratic planes and angles of his face into shadow. But his eyes were molten and the expression in them made her tremble the way she’d trembled when he’d first looked at her on that island four years ago.
Demanding His Hidden Heir (Mills & Boon Modern) (Secret Heirs of Billionaires, Book 26) Page 10
