by Maisey Yates
“You want me?” she asked, her voice small.
“Did I want you? I wanted no one else. Do you have any idea how many delightfully curvy brunettes I have taken to my bed and attempted not to make them you in my mind as I made love to them?”
Her face was white now, her lips a matching shade. “Am I supposed to be flattered by that? That you used other women and thought of me?”
“No one should be flattered by it,” he said darkly. “But I feel strongly that no one should be flattered by my attentions, either.”
“Why?”
The question was simple, and he supposed it was the logical one, and yet, it surprised him. He had not expected her to come back at him with the simplest and most reasonable question.
“It is not important.”
“I think that it might be,” she said.
“Truly it is not. All you need to know is that you will marry me. It is nonnegotiable. You will be my queen, and our child will be the heir. If you feel regret over it, you should’ve thought of that before you climbed on my lap in the garden.”
“If you feel regret then perhaps you should’ve thought of that before you took me without a condom,” she shot back.
Heat, white and sharp, streaked through him like a lightning bolt, and he had to grit his teeth, plant his feet firmly on the floor and tighten his hands into fists to keep from moving toward her. To keep from claiming her. To keep from doing just what she described now again.
“I have no regrets,” he said. “I’m not so certain you’ll feel the same in the fullness of time.”
* * *
Sophia felt drained, utterly bedraggled by the time the plane landed, and she trudged off and onto the blaring heat of the tarmac. Her gown was beginning to feel impossibly heavy, but Luca had not offered her anything to change into.
Had she not just spent an extremely cool three hours on the plane with Luca, alternating between stony silence and recrimination, she would have thought she was in some kind of a dream.
An extremely twisted one.
It was far too hot on San Paolo for layers and layers of lace and chiffon. For the crinoline she had on beneath the gown.
The sky was jewel bright, reflected in the clear waters that stretched out around them, like an impassible moat, cutting them off from the world. The beach was bleached white by the sun, shrubby green grass and broken shells the only intrusion of color along the shoreline. And beyond that was the magnificent palatial estate that Luca’s father had built just for their family. She had spent part of her childhood here on this island, and she had always thought it to be like heaven on earth.
Right now she did not feel so enamored with it.
But then, right now she did not feel so enamored with anything.
On the one hand...she had never been so relieved in her life. To have been carried out of that wedding before it had a chance to take place. Because truthfully, she did not want to marry Erik.
But it was difficult to think about marrying Luca. When she knew that he was only doing it for the child. When she knew that he would have let her walk down the aisle toward another man, that he would have done nothing to stop Erik from claiming her. Touching her. Kissing her. Joining his body to hers.
It was almost unimaginably painful. That full realization. That on her own she had not been enough.
It was that feeling of fantasy, of being in another time and space, that carried her through. That allowed her to breathe while they were driven from the landing base to the villa.
It was all white stucco and red clay roofing, brilliant and clean construction amidst the spiky green plants that surrounded the house.
The home itself was three floors, making the most of the fact it was built into the side of the mountain, that it overlooked the sea. She knew there was a large outdoor bathtub that faced out over the water, made of glass, as if to flaunt the exclusivity of the location.
She could not understand this as a child. It made no sense to her why someone would take their clothes off outdoors. Or why one person would get into a bath that size when there was a pool to swim in.
As an adult, she more than understood.
Because she could well imagine the hours she and Luca could spend in there, naked and slick, with nothing but the sea as witness to their time spent there.
She ached for it, shamefully. Even knowing that he did not want her. Not like this. Not forever.
They stepped inside the cool, extensive foyer, and Sophia looked around, nostalgia crashing into the present moment like a tidal wave. It was so strange. She could remember walking into this place as a girl. With her stepfather and her mother holding hands as a couple, with Luca the stormy and electric presence that made her feel strange and out of sorts. One that she wanted to run away from as much as she wanted to linger here.
That, at least, was the same.
She wanted to run from them as much as she wanted to run to heaven. Wanted his hands on her body, and wanted to shout and scream at him about how he was never permitted to touch her again.
He had devastated her.
And the worst part was, even as he had fulfilled the fantasy of rescuing her from the wedding she had not wanted, he had shattered her completely by doing so. Because of the reasons surrounding it.
She supposed it would be a wonderful thing if she could simply be happy to have Luca. If she could simply be grateful that he had come for her, regardless of the circumstances.
But she couldn’t be.
Was it so much to ask that something be about her, and not someone else?
The fact of the matter was she hadn’t been enough for her biological father. He hadn’t wanted her. Not in the least. She loved her stepfather dearly, but she had been more of an impediment to his marrying her mother than she had been an attraction. He had certainly come to love her, and she didn’t doubt that. But still...
She was loved circumstantially.
With Luca, she wasn’t even loved.
How much more romantic that had seemed when he was out of reach.
“It seems my phone has...I believe they say blown up?” Luca said, the words hard and crisp as he looked down at his mobile phone.
That felt strange. Wrong. Because she had been lost somewhere in the veil of fantasy and memory. And neither of those contained cell phones.
“Why?”
“Really?” he returned.
He had one dark brow raised, his handsome face imbued with a quizzical expression. And then suddenly it hit her. She had been so lost in her present pain that she had forgotten. Had forgotten that of course Luca’s phone would be lit up with phone calls and text messages. With emails from members of the press, trying to find out what had happened.
By now, everyone knew that the wedding hadn’t happened.
Suddenly, her arms felt empty, and she looked around. Realizing then that she had no purse, that she had not taken her phone. She had nothing. Nothing but this wedding dress for a wedding that hadn’t happened.
“Luca,” she said. “My mother is going to be frantic.”
“Yes,” he said, scrolling through his phone. “She is. She is deeply concerned that you’ve been kidnapped.”
“I have been,” she all but shouted.
“By me,” he said simply.
“As if that doesn’t make it kidnap?”
“I am the king of the nation,” he said. “No one is going to arrest me over it.”
“That is an extremely low standard to hold yourself to.”
“I find at the moment I don’t care overmuch.”
“Are you going to tell her?” Sophia asked.
“Well, eventually we’re going to tell everyone.”
“Let me call my mother,” she said.
Luca arched a brow. “I do not want your mother on the next flight here.”
“You’ve kidnapped her daughter, what do you expect?”
“I don’t want company.”
“Why?”
Sudd
enly, she found herself being swept up off the ground once again. “You have made a bad habit of this.”
“I don’t find it a bad habit.”
He began marching up the stairs, her wedding gown trailing dramatically behind her as they went.
“What are you doing?”
“Claiming your wedding night.”
“There was no wedding. And anyway, it wasn’t supposed to be your wedding night.”
“It is about to be.” He growled, and he leaned down, claiming her lips with his own.
The moment his mouth made contact with hers it was like the tide had washed over her. And she and her objections were left clinging to the rocks. With each brush that swept over her, she lost her hold on one of them. Her anger washed away. Her doubt. Her resilience. Her resolve.
Whatever Luca felt for her—and she didn’t think it was anything tender at all—he wanted her. There was no denying that. He had said as much on the plane, hadn’t he?
She had been so lost in her head over the fact that the baby was what had stopped him from letting the wedding go forward, that she hadn’t fully taken that part on board. But it was real. It was true.
This was honest. If nothing else between them was. It was real, if the rest could not be.
This was why they were here. The electric, undeniable chemistry that existed between them, in defiance of absolutely everything that was good and right in the world.
She did not taste love on his tongue as it swept over hers. But she tasted need. And that, perhaps, could be enough.
His hold tight on her, he carried her all the way to the top of the stairs and down the landing toward the master bedroom, a room that they had certainly not stayed in before. Well, perhaps Luca had, but she had not. He all but kicked open the double doors, sweeping them inside and depositing her down at the foot of the bed.
“Where is... Where is everyone?” she asked, feeling like she was in a daze. She had only just realized that there seemed to be no servants present.
“I had everyone vacate. Supplies were left, including clothing for you, so you won’t need for much. But we need privacy.”
“Why?” Tears stung her eyes, an aching pain tightening her throat. She could not understand why he needed this.
This was all too much. She hadn’t appreciated fully the protection that had been built into wanting a man she could never have. For her heart. For her body.
Now he was here. Looming large and powerful, so very beautiful.
It all felt too much. Like she would be consumed. Destroyed. Nothing at all of Sophia remaining.
“Because that bastard was going to put his hands on you tonight,” he said, his voice rough. “He was going to touch you. He was going to kiss you. Perhaps you were even fantasizing about it. But I will not have that. I will be the only man to touch you. No other. I will be the only man you want. The only desire in your body will be for me. I will be what you crave. Your body is mine.”
“You didn’t want me,” she said, choked.
“No,” he said. “I wanted... I prayed...to not want you. There is nothing that will take it from me. And so there is nothing but this. To take you in any way that I can. To have you. Fate is sealed where we are concerned. There is no reason now not to glory in it.”
He reached behind her and grabbed hold of either side of the wedding gown, and he wrenched the corset top open. She gasped as it loosened, felt free as the fine stitching that had been so carefully conformed to her body came loose, and her breasts were left bare to him.
“So beautiful,” he said, his dark head swooping down, his tongue like fire over one distended nipple.
How she ached for him. For this. Even as she hurt. Even as her desire threatened to destroy her, she wanted nothing more than to give in to it.
She breathed his name, lacing her fingers through his hair as he sucked her indeed. As he moved his attentions to her other breast, tracing a circle around one tight bud with the tip of his tongue.
“You’re right,” she said, her voice trembling. “This is madness.”
“I knew it would destroy us, Sophia. I knew it could bring down an entire kingdom. But now here we are. There is nothing on earth I have wanted to be rid of more than this desire for you,” he said, his voice low, tortured. “And good God I want to burn.”
It was like fire. His touch branding her as he removed the layers of clothing from her body. As he left her completely naked except for her high heels, as he pushed her down onto the bed and spread her thighs wide, exposing the most intimate part of her body to his gaze.
He got down on his knees then, grabbing hold of her hips and forcing her toward his mouth.
“Luca,” she said, shocked, appalled that he would do such a thing.
“This has been my greatest desire,” he said. “Even more than sinking into your tight, wet body, I have wanted to taste you. I have wanted you coating my tongue, my lips. Sophia...”
He dipped his head then, that wicked, electric tongue swirling over the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, tracing a line down to the entrance of her body and drawing the evidence of her desire from her. He added his fingers then, penetrating her, coaxing pleasure from deep inside her. It was too much. It was not enough. It was like a sharp pain that ran deep inside her. That could only be satisfied by him. Only him.
He pressed two fingers into her while he continued to lave her with the flat of his tongue, and she shattered completely. There were no thoughts in her head. Not about a wedding that might have been, not about the man who was supposed to strip this down off her tonight, not about scandal, not about anything. Nothing but this. The extreme heat bursting through her like light in the darkness.
He moved away from her then, his gaze predatory as he unbuttoned the crisp white shirt he wore, as he pushed his jacket from his shoulders and the shirt followed suit.
She could only stare at him. At the beautiful, perfect delineation of his muscles, the dark hair sprinkled there. Could only watch as his clever, masculine fingers made quick work of his belt, of his pants, as he left every last inch of his clothing on the floor, revealing powerful, muscular thighs and the thick, hard part of him that made him a man.
She’d had him inside her once. She would again. Even now, it seemed impossible.
If she had been able to see him the night she had been a virgin she would’ve been much more apprehensive.
At least now she knew that such fullness in size brought pleasure.
He growled, moving toward her with the liquid grace of a panther. Then he grabbed hold of her hips again, lifting her completely off the bed and throwing her back, coming to settle himself between her legs and thrusting into her with one quick, decisive movement.
Their coupling washed away everything. Like a cleansing fire, destroying the hay and the stubble, all of the temporary things, and leaving behind what was real.
This.
This connection between them that existed for no reason she could see other than to torture them. That remained.
Because whatever it was, it was real.
Each thrust of his powerful body within hers brought her to new heights, and she met each and every movement. With one of her own.
Until he shattered. Until, on a harsh growl, he spent himself deeply within her, and she was powerless to do anything but follow him over that precipice. When it was over, she held him. Because holding on to him was the only way to hold things together.
And she feared very much that the moment she let go, everything was going to fall apart.
Including her.
CHAPTER NINE
HE LEFT HER there in the expansive bed all by herself. Her dress was torn, past the point of fixing, and though he had mentioned there would be a new wardrobe supply for her here, she had no idea where said wardrobe was. Not that she had gone poking around.
She felt too...something. Sad. Bereft, almost, but also boneless and satisfied in a way she never had been before. Or, if she could compare it
to anything, it was the way she had felt after their first time. Not happy, no. There was no room between them for something so simple as happy.
It was more like she was lying in the rubble of a building that had needed demolition.
That didn’t make it easy. It didn’t make it less of a pile of rubble. But there was something inevitable about all of it that made something in this a relief.
Even as it was a sharp pain, like being stabbed in the center of her chest.
She needed to call her mother. She knew full well that Luca did not want her to divulge their location. But he had left her. And there was a phone on the desk. Unless he had done something truly diabolical and cut the line, there was nothing stopping her from getting in touch with the one person who truly needed to know that she was okay.
She wrapped herself several times in the feather-soft white sheet, making sure it was secure at her breasts, before going to the phone and with trembling hands picking up the receiver and listening for the dial tone.
It had one. So, provided she could dial off the island, she should be able to get in touch with her mother.
“Let’s see,” she mumbled as she typed in the country code for San Gennaro followed by her mother’s number.
The phone rang just once before her mother answered. “Hello?”
“Mom,” Sophia said.
“Where are you?” her mother asked, panic lacing each word. “Are you safe?”
“Yes,” she said.
It was true that she was physically safe. Emotionally was another matter.
“What happened? You were at the chapel and ready, and Luca went in to fetch you and... Is Luca with you?” her mother asked.
“Luca...” The rest of the sentence died.
“What is it?”
“Luca is the reason that I’ve gone missing,” Sophia finished.
The silence on the other end was brittle, like a thin pane of glass that she was certain would splinter into a million pieces and shatter if she breathed too deeply.
