by Tara Pammi
Wetness drenching her sex, Clio shuddered as pain gave way to pleasure so intense.
With his arm around her, he absorbed the quivers in her body, locking her against him.
“For someone who scowls and argues that I have defined everything between us by that contract, you have me in your thrall, Clio. Quite the power trip for you, no?”
A smile tugged at her mouth and Clio gave in. Desire and joy flooded her, a honeyed combination.
That he didn’t resent the desire between them—it was a step forward.
She knew how he wanted to define and restrict their relationship. He was allowed to do anything for her, but she...her every action concerning him, every word to him, he would scrutinize it. Either attach a price tag to it or reject it as unwanted.
But she couldn’t not do it, she couldn’t stop trying.
Whatever they presented to the world, Clio wanted, needed something real between them. And it seemed it could be nothing but this desire, this fire that consumed them.
She reached up within the circle of his arms and vined her arms around his nape. Pressed her mouth to the corner of his and breathed deeply. His skin, rough and stubbly, scratched her soft mouth, heavenly in its contrast. The taste and scent of him exploded on her lips, urging her to press closer and tighter. “I want it clear that this is not a power trip or a transaction or a bloody clause in your contract, Bianco.”
His hands kneaded her hips, pulled her closer until his erection, a hard length, pressed boldly against just above her sex. Her mouth dried, her breath lodged in her throat.
“Sì.”
“I want it clear that I’m doing this because it’s you.”
“No gratitude, bella. I don’t want to be your thank-you f—”
“No,” she said, covering his mouth with hers. “It’s because you’re the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen and because...I can’t breathe if you stop kissing me.”
His eyes glittered. “Dio, bella. You’ll be the death of me.”
Rough fingers kneaded her butt while his tongue licked the pulse at her throat. Sinking her fingers into his hair, Clio tugged hard until he lifted his head and met her gaze, until the vein in his temple throbbed, until the sculpted planes of his face stood out in stark contrast.
“Kiss me, please.”
Make me feel like I can do this right. Make me whole again in this, too, she wanted to say, but held back the words, shame and fear locking them deep down.
She kissed his jaw this time. With an urgency and courage she had never known before, she pulled the lapels of his shirt until the buttons popped and flew.
Sank her hands under his shirt. Felt his heated skin and the tensile muscles. Heard the rough exhale fall from his lips. Bent and finally tasted his skin, licked his flat nipple, dragged her teeth over his skin, marking him, tasting him, until his fingers were this short of hurting in her hair, until his hard body was shuddering around her. Until his control was in tatters just as hers was.
Salt and tang and desire, he tasted so good on her lips, and he was all hers.
At least, for tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE LOOKED LIKE a queen, imperial, so poised, and yet she was trembling in his arms. Her pink mouth was already swollen with his kisses, her eyes drugged and hazy.
It was his wildest fantasies come true and it was much better than he had imagined.
Picking her up, Stefan carried her through the lounge.
Her hair flowing behind her, she laughed. “The bed in my room works fine, Stefan.”
“Sì, it does. But it’s not mine, bella. I have spent, it seems like countless nights, tossing and turning, and thinking of you on my sheets. Once we’re through in my bedroom,” he said, “we can go back to your room, Clio. Or that beckoning vanity in the bathroom. Or the chaise longue on the balcony overlooking the glittering skyline of Manhattan. Or the terrace where you can see the sky while I lick my way down your body.”
A flush overtaking her, her eyelashes flickering down, she clung to him, trembling.
That she blushed only made his blood heavier in his veins. “Dio, Clio. How can you be this sensuality-personified and still blush, bella?”
As they stepped over the threshold into his bedroom, he slid her to her feet, her eyes rounded in her oval face.
Her gaze traveled around the room—took in the views of Central Park on one side, over to the king bed on the other side.
Grabbing the remote, Stefan turned on the lights to full. She turned toward him, her neck and cheeks still pink, a sudden shyness in her gaze.
Reaching her, he pulled her to him softly. That Jackson put those shadows in her eyes, his blood boiled just thinking about it.
“Clio, bella?”
She swallowed and raised her gaze to him. “Can we turn off the lights, Stefan?”
His first instinct was to refuse, to tell her that he demanded all of her, that she couldn’t hide herself from him, that she was his, scars or flaws and all.
He noted the vulnerability in her stance. Suppressed all his macho claims and nodded. Stared at her hungrily until every inch of her was burned in his brain. And turned off the lights.
Cupped her cheeks and brought her mouth to his.
With her expression hidden from him, with her face only visible in strips and flashes of the moonlight, with her curves accessible to him only through touch, every other sense became intense.
The scent of her, the rasp of her breath, the tremble of her chin...he was engulfed by her, ensnared.
He kissed and stroked her lips, tangled with her tongue until the roar of his own blood was the only thing he could hear.
The hot drag of her lips over his, the hesitant slide of her tongue against his, the honeyed taste of hers, it was a feast he couldn’t get enough of.
Kissing a woman until now had never been more than a forerunner to release, never more than foreplay. And yet, he could kiss Clio for hours, hear the soft mews and moans that fell from her mouth for days. Could lose himself in her soft mouth for aeons.
He would never have enough of this fantasy-turned-reality that shredded his control. He would never have enough of her, something warned him. He would never be satisfied with possessing her, yelled the cavernous chasm inside him.
He could never keep her from pervading his life, his days, his every moment, his every breath.
She was already everywhere, making him ache, making him want, pushing him toward the man he vowed he’d never be again. Shattering through the shell he had grown and reaching the most vulnerable part of him.
Soon, she would know all of him, she would know his darkest fear.
She would know how he had turned against his own nature and buried his heart and his deepest desires so that he could move on in life. She would know how much he envied Rocco for finding the woman who adored him for who he was in Olivia, and Christian for the family he would have with the lovely Alessandra...
How in the process of putting himself together after Serena’s betrayal, he’d lost something fundamentally good in himself, how he didn’t even know how undeserving and out of control he felt as he had watched Clio struggle with her fears and insecurities and emerge victorious.
How she made him wish he could be that old Stefan again.
But even through the aching vulnerability that he despised so much, he couldn’t walk away.
Instead, it fused with desire, pumping powerlessness through him.
Her soft gasp when he dug his teeth into her lip sharply dragged him from the edge of his own desire, remonstrated his lack of control.
He had bedded numerous women over the decade, and yet nothing like this need today had even touched him. He craved so much more with Clio.
Of her scent, of her skin, of her aroused gasp
s. She was vined around him, her slender body arching and pressing, as he devoured her mouth again.
One hand sank into her hair to hold her immobile for him, while the other snaked around her hip, pressing her into his erection.
Whatever he did to arouse her, to drive her out of her mind, he was the one who felt owned by her, consumed by his need for her. And it was a feeling he couldn’t shrug off.
All he seemed capable of was drowning and that’s what he did. But if he was going to sink, she would, too.
* * *
His mouth was so hard and perfect over hers. And so desperate and urgent. Her lower lip still stung, radiating waves of pain and pleasure all over, awakening a million nerve cells that had been dormant in her until now.
At least, that’s how it felt.
He was hers. Clio couldn’t stop the thought from resonating like a drum inside her head.
He was hers like he had never been anyone’s, she knew it from the increasingly erotic strokes of his tongue.
His mouth was an erotic lesson, a blast of heat to every inch of her, a fire that spread to every tip.
“Dio, bella. I knew not being able to see you would be a punishment. But not in this way,” he said angrily.
But Clio didn’t care why or how. All she cared was that he sounded on edge. Winding her arms tighter around his nape, she pressed herself closer, tighter, relishing the hard give of his muscles. Rubbed herself against him until her breasts were crushed and her breath a chore.
He growled in response, dug his fingers into her hips in a bruising grip and swept her up into his arms.
Settling her on the high bed, he moved between her legs. Grabbed the edges of her silk blouse and pulled.
The pearl buttons flew in all directions.
The urgency in him, instead of scaring her, filled her with power. That she could send his muscled body to shudder, that she could send him to desperate need, it was a balm over wounds Jackson had inflicted so cruelly.
She looked down the same time as he did.
Her flesh was milky white in the moonlight, her nipples tight points of need against her silky bra.
His pithy curse as he traced a long finger against the seam of her bra was a song to her ears.
But instead of touching her as she ached to be, he pulled her to her knees and unzipped her jeans. Tugged them down past her thighs, and feet. Threw them across the room and settled her on the bed again.
Until she sat in front of him in a thong and bra, her bare legs stretched indecently to make space for his broad frame, exposing the heart of her.
But she sat still, the dark of the night giving her a courage she wouldn’t have had if his hungry gaze settled on her. She hated that Jackson was still there in her fears when he shouldn’t be, she hated that she had let him break her confidence.
“Stefan?” she called out to him, only now sensing his stillness.
Grasping her ankles, he pushed her onto the bed. And she slid soundlessly on the luxurious goose down sheets.
In the next blink, the lights came on and he leaned over her lower body in a movement of such sheer perfection that Clio forgot the glare of lights.
His gaze swept over her like a white-hot flame, inciting little sparks wherever it touched. With a gasp, she moved to cover her sex but he grabbed her hands, held them over her head, liquid lust and resolve dancing in his green gaze.
“I won’t let him take away even a single part of you that should be mine today, bella.” He sounded ravaged and angry and determined, all at the same time. “I won’t let that bastard be a silent specter in this room between us.”
Her heart slammed so violently against her rib cage that Clio shivered. That he could read her fears so well made her feel more exposed than her most intimate parts on display for him.
He ran a reverent finger over her rib cage to the hairline over her sex. And Clio caught the moan that wanted to hurtle out. “I can’t bear it if you—”
“You’re so breathtakingly beautiful, Clio, more so than my imagination could do justice. Dio, why would you hide yourself from me? Why would you deny me the pleasure of seeing you when you know how much I want you?”
Clio tucked her face away from his, shameful tears filling hers.
He trailed hot kisses along the seam of her bra, kissed the curve of one breast, and she shifted restlessly. She needed his hands on her breasts, needed to feel his mouth over the tight, aching points.
But, of course, he wouldn’t give her what she wanted unless she stripped herself bare of that last layer. Until she was completely exposed to him.
Until she was all his.
His hand caressed the flesh of her hips, tugging her close, until he was leaning over her and she was looking up at him. “Tell me.”
“I was not hiding myself. I was hoping to not see your reaction, Stefan.”
With a hard grip, he turned her to face him. “Explain.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Being naked in front of him should have made her awkward. But the maddening circles he drew over her hips, the protective circle of his arms, freed Clio from that last fear. “He...I have been unhappy for a while. With myself, my career and, of course, my relationship with Jackson. I...somehow found myself without friends even. And it affected everything I did. How I dressed, how I ate, how I interacted with others. Even...”
“Sex?” He gritted out the word as though the very thought of Jackson and her set his teeth on edge.
“Yes. It became such a chore that one night he said the Hudson River in winter would be more warm and receptive. After that, I kept finding excuses to not do it. That he cheated on me so blatantly and for so long is unforgivable but I can’t help thinking I pushed him to it. That it was something in me.
“I don’t want to see the same disappointment in your face, Stefan. If the lights were off, I could still lie to myself about...”
To bare this last fear of hers felt so excruciating that her words died on her lips. Clutching her eyes closed, she waited with her breath hinging unevenly in her throat.
Seconds piled on top of each other but he said nothing.
Until Clio felt his fingers crawl up her thighs, and part the folds of her sex.
Invasive, arousing and utterly addictive, he pressed the bundle of nerves that had been aching for his attention with his thumb. Drew on it in mind-numbing strokes.
Her spine arched, her breath flew out of her in a wave. A lick of heat swept through her as he kissed the sensitive skin of her thigh, as she felt the warmth of his breath.
“You smell so divine, bella.” In one smooth move, he pushed two fingers inside and Clio gasped at the avalanche of sensation. “And, dannazione, you’re so wet for me.”
Turning toward him, Clio met his gaze, heat pooling under her skin in a rush, blasting through every tip.
Bending over, he tasted her mouth. Palmed the engorged and needy tip of one breast.
Clio moaned into his mouth.
“I was not joking, Clio. I have always wanted you, even back then.”
Surprise glinted in her face. “Hitting on every woman you met was your knee-jerk response.”
“I have always wanted you. And now, the reality of having you in my bed...you have no idea how crazy you drive me, Clio.”
While Clio grappled with that information, he bent his dark head and sucked her nipple.
Raw sensation zigzagging over her, Clio sank her hands into his hair and arched into him, needing more.
With a smile, he continued the rhythmic pull of his mouth, driving her out of her skin, while his other hand delved between her curls down below and started a fire again.
He stroked and palmed her heat while suckling at her nipple. The relentless caresses even as he whispered the wic
kedest words in her ear started Clio on a chase that knocked the breath out of her lungs.
There was nothing but sensation and pleasure, beating at her from every side. There was nothing but Stefan—his kisses, his touches, his body’s warmth and the best of all, his words.
And Clio forgot all her fears, all her doubts as her climax hit her in wave after wave, throwing her out of her body. She felt like she had been shattered and then remade.
Tears seeped out of her eyes.
Feeling his gaze on her, she opened them and saw his raptured look. Gasped when he pulled her onto his lap and took her mouth in a bruising kiss.
But she wanted more, she wanted to be utterly possessed by him.
She ran her hands over his chest, traced the ridges of his ribs, learned his skin to her heart’s content. Reveled in his short breaths, the flexing of his muscles to the slightest of her touches.
Reaching down, she unbuckled his belt and pulled it out. Unfastened his trousers and sneaked her hand in.
Felt the already engorged length of him grow harder and longer in her palm.
Rubbed her thighs together as the heat that rushed through her at the rigid weight in her hand.
Coming to a kneeling position, she vined her arms around him, and licked the rim of his ear. “What else did I do in this fantasy?”
His muscled frame racked in her arms, and she felt like the most powerful woman on earth.
“Some other time, bella,” he whispered back, his abrasive palms roaming restlessly over her back.
“Now, Bianco,” she commanded, and bent down to lick his flat nipple.
His hands tightened in her hair, whether to hold her there or push her, she had no idea. Kissing the ropes of muscle that had fascinated her for so many weeks, she looked up and caught the flush in his cheeks.
Saw the truth shining in his hungry gaze.
Grinning, she trailed wet kisses down his rock-hard frame. The muscles tensed harder and harder as she moved downward.
The tip of his erection lay against his taut belly.
