There was nothing gray or arguable about a fence. Either it was fixed or it wasn’t.
And this woman didn’t know he was the owner of this hotel. Charlie could tell from the way she held herself and the clothes she wore that she was high-class. Much higher class than a dirtbag from the Texas dust. She had diamonds in her ears, another one on a delicate chain around her neck, and everything on her curvy body was sleek and quietly expensive. She wasn’t dripping with over-the-top, conspicuous wealth the way so many people were around these world-renowned cliffside beach towns—film stars and European royalty and all the rest who flocked to the Amalfi coast because some Kennedy had done the same way back when.
This woman was fancy.
And she thought he was a handyman.
That delighted Charlie all the way through.
“What the owner doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” he drawled. Then he held out his hand, daring her. “Want me to give you a tour?”
He watched her swallow, hard. He watched the way her smile froze, and then the way she forced it wide again.
But what he really cared about was the way she held out her hand after a moment, sliding it into his and holding his gaze while she did.
“I would love a tour,” she said, low and a little rough.
Charlie laced his fingers with hers, enjoying the kick of heat that hummed through him at the contact. The way she sucked in a breath. Then he tugged her along behind him, skirting the bottom of the tiered gardens and terraces to duck into the little shed tucked away at the corner of the property.
“This is the best part of the hotel,” he told her as he pulled her inside. There was no light, but the ancient windows let the afternoon in through the brightly painted shutters, and it took only a moment or two for his eyes to adjust. And he liked the way the sunshine poured over her pretty face, tipped up to his. “It’s nice and private, for one thing.”
“Private is my favorite.”
And again, there was that hesitation. But it was like she heard it, too, and didn’t like it. Because she threw herself forward.
She braced herself on his chest, exhaling in a rush when her palms met his pectoral muscles. Her gaze met his, bright and intense. Then she surged up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
Charlie liked that.
And he liked it a lot more when he angled his mouth and took it deeper.
Hotter. Wetter.
And maybe a little bit insane.
One thing he’d learned in Italy was never to deny himself a treat, and this was no different. He found her face with his palms and then guided her head where he wanted. He took the kiss harder. Wilder.
She tasted almost too good. Sweet like honey, with a kick of something that went straight to his head like too much Jack on a long, rough night.
He growled a little bit at that. She made a humming noise in response, and then she was pushing even closer to him, pressing those lush breasts of hers into his chest.
Charlie swung her around, getting her back up against the old stone wall and levering himself against her. He ate at her mouth, demanding and dirty, loving the way she shuddered against him as she met every stroke.
But it wasn’t enough.
He picked her up, liking that she was a good, tight handful when he wrapped his arms around her ass and pulled her thighs wide. He pinned her to the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist like they’d done this dance a thousand times, and he wedged himself there where she was softest and hottest.
And the way he kissed her went savage.
Then she made it worse, because she started to move. She rocked those hips of hers in a sweet circle, dragging her soft heat all over him, and he thought that he might actually lose it.
He reached back and pulled a condom from his back pocket, and broke the kiss.
She was panting, her mouth faintly swollen and her eyes wild, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything hotter. He fumbled between them to unbutton his jeans, pulling himself free. He dealt with the condom, then shoved her skirt out of his way, reaching between them to get a few fingers in all that melting heat.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, and he laughed at that, because it was hot. And she was hot. “You just...walk around prepared?”
He thought he might lose it at any second, that was how slick her pussy was, splayed open between him and the wall. Charlie shoved her panties to one side, then put his cock where his fingers had been, moving the tip through her folds, just to play with her.
“I’m always prepared,” he told her. “You’re welcome.”
Sure enough, she rocked her head back and arched against him, like that could make him do what she wanted.
“I should have mentioned this,” he said in a low voice, gazing down at the picture she made for him, her legs wide-open and wrapped around him. And his cock rubbing this way and that over her proud little clit. “But I like to be in charge. Does that work for you?”
She was panting. Her eyes were unfocused, but still, she laughed at that.
“Go right ahead,” she told him. “I can handle it.”
“If you say so.”
Charlie slammed himself into her, deep.
And felt her come, hot and wet and greedy, like a dream.
* * *
Maya couldn’t believe any of this was happening.
She couldn’t believe the things that had come out of her mouth. She couldn’t believe that she’d let a total stranger lead her off into a dark little shack.
But that paled in comparison to the fact that he was inside her.
Thick, huge and impossibly hard.
And more, that an orgasm clenched her tight and hard in its greedy fist, instantly.
She didn’t believe in things like this. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
Men this beautiful didn’t exist, and if they did, they certainly didn’t dole out instant orgasms like candy—
But still, she shook around him, one wave crashing into another like they might go on forever. She heard the strangest, most insane noises...that it took her much too long to realize were coming from her.
A lot like a scream, but that was impossible.
This was all impossible.
She choked herself off from any further crazy noises and forced her eyes open. Then she looked down at this beautiful, dangerous stranger who was lodged so deep inside her that she thought she could feel him down into her toes.
His grin was slow and cocky.
And it made her shiver all over again.
She wrapped her arms around his shockingly hard shoulders and held on.
His rough edges were evident everywhere, and it amazed her how much she wanted to lick each and every one of them. His tattoos. His calloused hands. That physical power—when she’d only ever known financial power. She wanted to revel in it.
But she assumed that he would just go for it now, as fast as he could, because she was already taken care of. And it was only fair.
He pulled out, slow and easy, then thrust back in the same way. Like he had all the time in the world.
He did it again, slow and deep. Then that drag out again that made her head spin.
He slid a hand down to her ass, lifting her against him, which made the angle...more. More of everything. Intense and deep and too much, all...more.
He didn’t change his pace.
Maya could feel the remnants of that wallop of an orgasm dancing all along her skin, sinking into her bones, making her feel bright and wild. Time seemed to flatten out on either side of them, and the world narrowed down until there was nothing but that deep, dirty rhythm.
She was aware of everything. How strong he was, that he could hold her so easily and never break that slow, drugging rhythm of his. He smelled like salt and man, something like the sea, and she wanted nothing mo
re than to dip her head and taste him.
But she didn’t, because that felt like intimacy, and whatever strange magic this was, it wasn’t that.
On some level, she thought that was ridiculous because he was inside her—but she couldn’t seem to hold on to the things that danced into her head and then out.
There was only that long, smooth thrust. Then the retreat. Over and over and over again.
He braced his other hand on the wall beside her face. She found herself entranced by the corded beauty of his forearm and the particular glory of all those lean muscles.
She could feel the ache in her thighs, but she didn’t care. She could feel his chest against hers as she arched into him, then away. Each brush made her nipples ache, and she wanted more. Harder. Deeper. More.
Everything—but she didn’t say that, either.
This is sex, she told herself. This is pure fucking.
And it was more than that, she knew with each thick, deep, thrilling surge inside her.
It was an exorcism.
With every thrust, she was made new.
It was her baptism, and every sacrament thereafter, as he slowly, deliberately, pounded her into madness.
But what a sweet madness it was.
“You going to come again?” It took her a moment to realize that was him, talking to her in that growly, dangerous voice that seemed to scour her body the same way he did. Rough and right. “Are you just going to hang out?”
And Maya didn’t know who she was. She never did things like this. She’d never kissed a stranger, much less fucked one up against the wall not even five minutes after laying eyes on him for the first time.
She wasn’t this person.
But maybe that was why it was easy to become as much a stranger to herself as the stranger inside her and smile at him. Wicked and flirtatious and nothing like her at all.
“You can either make me come or you can’t,” she told him, astonished at the words that came out of her own mouth. But she ran with them anyway. “How is that on me?”
“Good point,” he replied, and then everything changed.
He gripped her ass harder and lifted her away from the wall. She flowed against him, then bit her own bottom lip as he took that hand of his from the wall and brought it between them.
“Try this,” he said, his mouth against her neck, and then he did something to her clit with those big, rough fingers of his—
Maya felt like she’d been electrocuted. It was a jolt, a wild burst of light, and then everything exploded.
She was lost in the white light of it, the wild, impossible commotion, but she held on tight until he finally broke that rhythm of his and went a little wild himself.
And when he groaned out his release into the crook of her shoulder, he tipped her right back over that edge for the third time.
He staggered slightly, then caught himself against the wall again, holding her there between his hard body and the stone.
She held on for longer than she should have, maybe. Until she remembered herself.
Or if not herself, exactly, then the facts of the situation.
Total stranger. Random fuck.
Her exorcism was her own business.
She unhooked her legs from around his waist and lowered herself to the ground, shuddering a little at the low noise he made when he pulled out of her as she went.
Her skirt flowed back down over her thighs. He tucked himself away and buttoned himself up again.
And then they were just...staring at each other the way they had outside.
“Hi,” he said, with another flash of that grin of his, and a knowing kind of heat in his too-blue eyes. “I’m Charlie.”
“Maya,” she replied, and then stuck out her hand. The way she always did.
They both stared.
Slowly, with a gleam in his blue eyes that she could only call unholy, Charlie reached down and wrapped his big hand around hers. And how could that be so hot after everything they’d just done? But it was.
Charlie shook her hand. Very deliberately. Up, then down, in a slow movement that reminded her entirely too much of exactly what had happened here.
She felt too warm. Everywhere.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, his voice a low rumble and that crooked grin lodged inside her, somehow. “You want the rest of the tour?”
CHAPTER THREE
“HOW’S ITALY?” MELINDA ASKED in her concerned voice, which was exactly like her usual bossy voice, only with a nominal attempt at softness. “More to the point, how are you?”
Maya deeply regretted answering her mobile.
It was another lazy afternoon on the Amalfi coast. She sat out on her terrace in the uncertain, moody weather, wrapped in a whisper-soft throw to ward off the bite of the sea air from below. There was espresso and a selection of freshly baked biscotti and anginetti before her. She had been engaged in a rousing debate with herself—should she slip into her infinity pool, always kept comfortably warm to encourage its use even in a changeable, chilly December? Or stay where she was, tucked up cozily with a deliciously fat paperback at the ready and nothing at all to do?
She really shouldn’t have answered the phone.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to drag herself out of the sweet daydream she’d been riding for days now, where this was her life and there was nothing for her to do but gaze at the sea, smell the flowers, watch the rain and pay no mind as one hour rolled into the next. “Good, even.”
“You don’t need to put on an act for me, Maya.”
“I’m sitting on a balcony gazing out at the Amalfi coast, which is even more beautiful than it looks in pictures. There’s no acting involved.”
Melinda heaved a sigh, and all the ugly things Maya had been doing such a good job barring from her mind since she’d left Toronto squirmed back out and crouched there in the light, disturbing and uncomfortable.
She should hang up, she thought. Right now.
But she didn’t.
Maya had spent far too many years being responsible. Available. The sort of person who suffered through whatever conversation someone wanted to start with her, regardless of whether or not she wanted to have it. She’d always assumed that was part and parcel of being a responsible adult.
Today she couldn’t recall why she’d ever thought such a thing.
“I didn’t want to bother you with this, but I thought you should know.” Her sister’s voice took on a familiar, faintly officious tone, because Melinda always functioned best when she was in charge of something. And clearly she felt she was in charge of Maya. Or what life Maya had left behind in Toronto, anyway. “Ethan is resisting moving out of the condo. He says you and he found it together, it’s as much his as yours, and you’re a single person now anyway, so why do you need all that space? I’m quoting, obviously.”
Maya didn’t want to think about Ethan. Or the condo she’d called home for the past few years despite the fact she’d seen so little of it, because she was always at work. She didn’t particularly want to think about any of the things she’d left behind in Canada. It seemed too far away. Like a bad dream she couldn’t quite shake off when morning came, but nothing real.
She’d been in Italy for five whole days now and it felt like a lifetime. As if she’d never truly existed before but had sprung into life the moment her feet hit the endless stairs that made up this village of hers high on its cliff, cascading down to the sea. What concerned her was whether or not it rained. The steepness of her chosen staircase. How many stairs she needed to walk a day to counterbalance all the marvelous food she indulged in with the same appetite and greed she’d applied to Charlie the handyman.
Every time she thought about him—and she thought about him a lot—she shivered the same way she had when he’d been inside her.
But she didn’t think he
r prim, proper sister would appreciate that anecdote, even if she’d felt like sharing it. Maya sat up straighter on her comfortable chaise and frowned until she remembered herself.
She’d wanted to hold on to the condo because it would irritate Ethan. Because it was the only revenge she’d been able to come up with a week ago, however small and silly. But now she was in Italy and there had been Charlie and the idea of fighting with Ethan about a condo, of all things, made her feel...tired.
She was a woman of action, she reminded herself. Not asinine little games of spite.
“You can tell Ethan he has two choices,” she said briskly, sounding like the highly trained lawyer she was. Even if that persona—her persona—didn’t seem to fit her anymore. Or not here. “He can move out and find his own little love nest for him and Lorraine. Or he can stay in the condo, but if he does, he needs to find me a different one—and not in any building where I could conceivably run into him and Lorraine. Ever.”
“Why would you let him choose a place for you to live?” Melinda sounded baffled.
“I barely live in the condo we have now. I’m always at the office.” There was something about the way she said that, so flat and matter-of-fact, that made something in Maya shake a little. She tried to shrug it off. “Either way, when I come home, it needs to be to an Ethan-and-Lorraine-free space. Feel free to quote me in return.”
There was a faint silence, and Maya could hear the far-off sounds of her former life. She could imagine Toronto in December all too well. Dark, cold and snowy.
At the moment, she couldn’t think of a single reason to return.
“Are you really going to stay there the whole month?” Melinda made a faint clucking sound. “I know you’re stubborn, but this is pushing it.”
“There’s a reason people talk about Italy the way they do, Melinda. It’s magical.”
“I’m sure it is, but it’s a fantasy world.” Her voice turned kind, and that was much harder to take. “Back here in the real world, your broken heart is waiting for you. You’re going to have to deal with it. Why would you put that off?”
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