by Tara Pammi
“Is that when you transformed from gawky geek to sexy stud?” she said, wanting to make him smile.
“Probably, sì.” Color scored his sharp cheekbones. “I don’t think I’ve ever been complimented in such a...straightforward way.” His gaze warmed and he pushed away from the wall. “It provokes me into wanting to return the compliment in the way I know best.”
She took a step back, her pulse racing so fast that she felt dizzy. “You could just say I look good, too,” she somehow whispered.
“Only you can make an oversize sweater look so sexy. There. But I also believe in giving one thousand percent ROI, cara mia.”
She looked away from that irresistibly wicked light in his eyes, the grooves digging in his cheeks. “I’m going to need to carry an oxygen tank with me soon if you continue to look at me like that.” She stopped his stride with her palm. A huge mistake. His abdomen was like a slab of rock that surrounded them, and yet somehow warm. “You’ll fry my circuits if you kiss me again and I’ll be of no use to you.”
He laughed and she shivered at the joy and warmth of that sound.
“So this lab...it’s a fantasy or what? Those servers, Massimo, I’m salivating at the thought of getting my hands on it.”
He switched one on, and yet, his gaze never left hers. “Hard for a man’s ego when he has to compete with a machine, cara mia. I’d give anything to star in your fantasy. Why is it such a big deal that we both want each other?”
All that rough masculinity leveled at her...her skin prickled with heat. With need.
Still smiling, he leaned against the wall, ankles crossed. Hips slightly thrust up. Denim pulling tight against those rock-hard thighs. His eyes looked blue in this light. Twinkling. Full of naughtiness.
Hair-dusted arms folded at his belly beckoned her. Wet, blue-back hair piled high, gleamed. She had the most overwhelming urge to walk up to him, and kiss that curling mouth. To lean her breasts against those corded arms. To press her hips against his. To tunnel her fingers through his thick hair and pull his head down to her until she could kiss that smiling mouth. To make those laughing eyes turn dark with slumbering desire.
To meet him as his equal, to trust him so fully that she could give herself to him beyond any misgiving or doubt. To live like a normal twenty-two-year-old for once.
She shook her head to rid herself of the stupid longing. They were going to be working here for who knew how long.
“You’re a fantasy all right,” she said, her words coming out soft and husky. His nostrils flared. “When you look at me like that, when you laugh at things I say, when you touch me, when you...kiss me, it feels as if I was the center of your world. As if you couldn’t get enough.”
“I can’t. Even knowing that you’ll run at the first chance, that you’ll betray me for some twisted notion of loyalty, that this will only get complicated even more if I do touch you... I still can’t stop.” He ran a hand over his nape, his voice husky.
Take a step toward me, then, his eyes seemed to say without saying.
She cleared her throat. “But fantasies don’t become reality. That’s their very nature. Even if you and I had met without my little attack onto your system...we’re too different, Massimo. For you that kiss was a pretense. A challenge. A pleasant diversion. A case of kissing the criminal. For me...” She bit her lip, wondering at how easy he made it to be vulnerable with him when all she’d been her whole life was tough.
He had this...insidious way of getting past her defenses.
She couldn’t leave her fate to him, yes. But in this, in this, the only way to protect herself was by showing him her weakness. Trust him to do the right thing. Because all she wanted to do was ask him to make those erotic words into vivid reality. “It was my first kiss.”
He came away from the door. “You’ve never had...” He considered his words, as if this moment was important to him, as if she were important. “You’ve never been with a man?”
She shook her head, heat crawling up her neck at his prolonged silence.
“Why?”
Again, that feeling of warmth filled her. He never assumed. Massimo always asked.
“It’s hard for me trust anyone. Hard for me to let people close. I... I grew up in foster care, got shuffled from home to home. At a young age, I realized that I couldn’t count on anyone, that people can bully, berate, be unkind for no reason other than that they have the power to do so.” A note of defensiveness crept into her tone, daring him to mock her background, like his family had done.
But all Massimo did was watch her with that intensity. “To give over my security, my feelings, into someone else’s power is hard for me. I have friends, of course, but none too close.
“I don’t trust easily,” she said, wondering if he understood what she wasn’t saying.
He did. “And when you give it, it’s been earned. Neither will you betray it so easily.”
He’d already earned her trust that he’d never harm her physically, but... She nodded, bracing herself for his anger, for his temper.
“Then it is up to me to make sure you trust me and do what is right for both you and me, sì? You better believe it, bella, I can be very persuasive.”
With a wink, he pulled out one of the chairs for her and helped her get settled. Joined her at the next station. Natalie smiled.
“Now, let’s forget the outside world, sì? Show me what you’re really made of, Natalie. You have free rein.”
She logged into the system, and looked at his network infrastructure. Anticipation built like an inflating balloon in her chest, electrifying her very limbs. “What...what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to mount an attack and show me any more security holes you can find. In BCS and BFI.”
“You’re not joking.”
“No.”
“I need a lot of tools and I use open source tech. And get this...some twisted, creative genius named it after a Hindu demon hunter. I need Wi-Fi adaptors that can go into monitor mode and inject packets for penetration testing, a Bluetooth device to monitor traffic, a separate device to install—”
“I have everything you need. If you dare, take me on, Natalie?”
On a wild impulse, Natalie threw her arms around him and took his mouth in a rough kiss. God, he tasted like sunshine and warmth and rationality and wildness, and in two seconds, he turned her awkward fumbling into a knee-bending kiss that stole the very breath from her lungs. His tongue danced sinuously in her mouth, chasing and rolling around hers, his deep groan sending reverberations to the wet place between her thighs.
And it was he that broke it off and settled her back into her seat. “Thank God you did that,” he said, rubbing his lower lip with his tongue.
She smiled. “What do you mean?”
“I’m an Italian man in his prime, bella,” he drawled, thickening his accent. “I cannot have the woman I want panting over some technology more than she does over me. I would have kissed you if you hadn’t.” He took a deep breath until his chest expanded and his brows were drawn into a leer. “How else would I validate my masculinity?”
Laughter rushed out of her like a firestorm, burning her stomach, bursting through her chest. His gaze filled with laughter, he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
Blushing, Natalie kept her gaze on the screen while the rogue whistled a merry tune as if he’d already won the battle between them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MASSIMO CAME TO a standstill as he located Natalie in the oval pool, a nightly routine she religiously followed for the last ten days once he called a halt to their workday.
Soft lights illuminated the entire area, including the figure swimming laps in the pool in a blur of yellow. Giant trees artistically grown around the pool gave it privacy and made a paradise that he’d never appreciated fully, before tonight.
Moonl
ight followed her in splashes of silver on her bare skin, sometimes the dip of shoulder or a toned calf, sometimes that dainty curve of that waist that fascinated him.
All the steam that had built up while Leo had told him of the latest problem he’d come upon with the Brunetti Finances board hissed out of him, all thoughts of business and schemes of revenge and throttling little hackers who lied through their teeth, evaporating like mist.
He’d been so angry with Leo for extending Silvio’s stay. But the master strategist that Leo was, he’d expected this situation. Whatever their internal quarrels, it had been essential to present a united front of their family—with Massimo and Leonardo’s stalwart presence behind their father’s back. The trio of them a force to be reckoned with for any board members with delusions of grandeur.
But that it had come to that...this was on Massimo.
This was on his obsession with the little hacker.
Every day he spent with her, he was beginning to lose his mind. Was losing his path a little. And they hadn’t even kissed again, not since the last time.
There was such strength, such force, to her personality that he found the fragility of her physical form an endlessly alluring contrast. Ordering Lila and Hero to heel, he settled onto the closest lounger to her, his legs stretched in front of him.
The swish-swish of the water and the occasional whisper of a cicada were the only sounds surrounding them. He noticed her focus falter for a few seconds as she noted his presence and his silent scrutiny. Her head went under the water, her arms flailing ungracefully. He pounced to his feet, ready to jump into the pool when she surfaced, spluttering and choking, followed by a litany of inventive curses that chased away the tightness in his throat.
He grabbed a towel and waited while she swam to the edge of the pool. Pushing her hair out of her face, she pulled herself up above the water supported by her forearms over the ledge. Brown eyes shot daggers at him. Kissed by the water, her skin looked so silky smooth that he wanted to run his fingers all over. “You almost made me drown.”
“You shouldn’t be in the pool if you don’t know how to swim, cara mia.”
“Of course I know how to swim,” she said, a note of defensiveness creeping into her tone. “You’re watching me without a word and...” He raised a brow and she sighed. “I only learned how to swim recently and haven’t perfected my strokes. I was doing perfectly fine until you showed up. You’re not good for my focus, Massimo.”
That irreverence, that honest but baffled admission...she disarmed him so effortlessly. “You didn’t learn as a child?”
“Swimming lessons weren’t really a priority for a foster kid.” She blew at a wayward curl that was already dry and framed her face. Hair plastered to her scalp, there was a stark simplicity to her face, a soft beauty that was utterly without artifice. “Not when you’re shuffled from home to home. I started taking classes at the local Y. When I get out of here, I want to bring Frankie to a beach.”
She’d hate it if he felt sorry for her, he knew that instinctively. “The local Y?”
“Y is the YMCA. The lessons are free, for the most part.”
A tremble in the slender line of her shoulders made him say, “Get out of the pool.”
“Help me up.”
He put his hands under her shoulders and pulled her out of the water. The T-shirt and jeans he’d changed into splashed with water but he couldn’t give a damn.
Desire fisted low in his belly, rising through him as quickly as the rivulets of water running down her silky bare skin. The yellow two-piece bikini clung to curves he’d dismissed as meager, only held together by a flimsy string at the nape of her neck. The two triangles of the top held her high breasts like a lover’s hands. He could imagine his own hands there, holding them, pushing them up to be savored by his mouth. Could imagine her throwing her neck back, her body arching as he ran his tongue over that rigid nipple pushing against the flimsy fabric. Her thighs were corded with lean muscle, yet somehow so sexy.
Cristo, how could he be so fascinated by her?
He released her hands suddenly. She squealed, her upper body bowing back, her feet slipping on the smooth tiles.
With a curse, he grabbed her. The motion brought her into his body, plastering her to him, from breast to thigh... Time seemed to thunder down to a halt. As if to better equip him to process the amazing sensation of her warm, soft body clinging to his.
“Where did you get the bikini?” he asked hoarsely.
Wide brown eyes gazed at him with liquid longing as he lifted his hands to her shoulders. Rubbed at a drop of water lingering teasingly at the juncture to her neck.
“Alessandra. I didn’t pack for a vacation.”
“Oversight on my part, sì. I’ll arrange for a wardrobe for you.” Polite words to drown the sounds of their harsh breaths.
Her own hands stayed on his chest, his heart thundering like a wild horse under her palm. “No. This pretense that I’m your fiancée...works if they believe I’m different. From my background to my cheap clothes.” She swallowed. “That I’m a novelty to you.”
Water drops shimmered on her hair like silver lights, spraying him on his face. She was silk under his hands, warmth and feminine hunger.
“And yet... I’ve never wanted to do all the things I want to do to you, right now. Even knowing that you’re probably colluding with an enemy, that you’re as complicated as they come.” His gaze, with a mind of its own, followed other drops of water running down the valley between those breasts, down the dip and rise of belly and into the bikini bottom. “All I want is to sink to my knees, follow that drop of water across your silky skin. Trail it all the way to the seam of your bikini. To dip my tongue into—”
Her palm on his mouth cut his words off.
He took a long breath, cursing himself for having so little control around her. Tried to push her away from him. But she didn’t let go, her arms going tighter around his waist. “Massimo, we agreed we wouldn’t do this.”
He sighed, the feel of her body molded to his, conversely taking the edge off. Fingers under her chin, he tilted her face up to his. “No, we shouldn’t. You’re right. Not when you’ll hate me when you hear what I have to say.”
She stepped back from his hold, fear swirling in the brown depths. “What? What’s happened?”
Right and wrong had never been so blurry. Desire and ambition had never been so muddied together. This needed to be resolved before he did anything he would regret later. In his business life and his personal life.
* * *
Natalie shivered even though the glass-enclosed pool was balmy. A luxuriously soft towel instantly covered her shoulders.
He took her willing hands in his. The rough pads of his fingers—another riddle for her to solve—traced the plump veins on the back of her hands. Mesmerizing. Soothing. Arousing. She tugged her hands away. “Massimo, you’re scaring me. Just tell me what it is.”
“I’ve given you time. Let you understand that I pose no threat. But I don’t have the choice anymore.”
“I told you. No one put me—”
“Stop, Natalie!” He stared at her for so long with such intensity that Natalie felt stripped to the bone. After what felt like eternity, he sighed. Resolve tightened the soft curve of his lips. He let go of her hands and she felt the loss so acutely that she had to hide them behind her.
“Would your answer change if I told you the security breach is not an isolated incident?”
Shock made her reaction come in slow, horrifying sweeps. Her stomach plummeted. “What? There were other attacks into BCS’s security design?”
“No, that was all you. Only you,” he said with a grim smile. Even then, easily acknowledging her brilliance when more than one man scoffed at it. Interestingly, Vincenzo and he had that much in common—an easy acceptance of her talents. “But there have been other things ha
ppening at both BCS and its parent company, our finance giant Brunetti Finances, Inc.”
She could almost hear the rapid tattoo of her heart. “Like what?”
“Three deals that we had in our pocket fell through. Silvio’s colorful, abusive past keeps being recycled by the media and the press. Dragging all of us into the news cycles. Alessandra’s personal life, her past, her family in the US, keep getting news time, which, in turn, makes Greta crabbier than usual.”
“Your grandmother and Alessandra are close?” she asked, surprised that the crotchety old woman liked and approved of anyone.
“She’s not a complete dragon. Nonni was devoted to her second husband. Alessandra’s father. Carlo was a good man—he tried to be a good role model to me and Leonardo.”
“Didn’t quite take?” she said, being drawn into his life. Despite the feeling of a sword hanging over her head. How much had Vincenzo orchestrated? What did he want of the Brunetti family?
Instead of being offended, Massimo regarded it seriously. “He made a world of difference to me. Made Greta and Leo realize what a toxic man my father is. I think...all our lives changed for the better thanks to Carlo. Alessandra shuttled back and forth between her mother in the US and here, and Greta made a lot of effort to make her feel welcome when she finally moved here. For a long time, she even hoped, I think, that either Leo or I would...”
Natalie’s heart kicked against her rib cage. “Would what?”
He shrugged. “Would maybe welcome her into the family officially.”
“And?” Natalie said, aware of the demand in her tone and unable to quell it. She could even see it from Greta’s view. Alessandra would be the perfect bride for one of her grandsons—sophisticated and beautiful and intelligent.
Massimo smiled, his teeth gleaming in the near darkness. Whether at her or the idea of Alessandra with him, she had no clue. “Leo and I like Alex too much to saddle her with us romantically, I think.”
