by Penny Jordan
“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 wickedest 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.
Clamping her thighs together at the thrill in her own blood, Clio licked the soft head.
His harsh groan fell on her ears, a thunderous roar that goaded her on.
On the next breath, Clio fisted her hand at the base and took him in her mouth.
Tasted the hard length of him in a long suck that sent little tremors to her own sex. She continued as he shuddered beneath her caresses, as he cursed and groaned.
“Now this feels like quite the power trip, Bianco,” she whispered, and before she could breathe again, she was on her stomach on the bed.
“We will see who has the power, bella,” he threw at her, before he pulled her onto all fours.
On the next breath, he held her hips still, and thrust into her wet heat.
Closing her eyes, she made a ragged sound that ripped from her. His hand snaked out under her, and kneaded a heavy breast as he set a rhythm that left her with no thoughts of power.
Only sensation remained. Only he and she remained, joined together in the most intimate of bonds.
And as he pushed her onto her release and found his own, only pleasure remained.
Not contracts, not shadows of old fears, nothing but the man who was a perfect fit for her. Nothing but the man who had awakened every part of her.
“I found the proof today, Stefan,” Clio whispered, as she lay supine in Stefan’s arms. Maybe it was the fact that after a long time, she felt completely at peace. That she felt secure about herself, about the direction her life was heading in.
Even if the future was still an enigma.
Maybe it was just the fact that the man who held her to him so tightly with his arms around her, as if he couldn’t let go, had made love to her so well that the postcoital haze had lent her false courage.
The thing she knew for sure was that she wanted to tell him. She couldn’t remove his pain about losing a friend of
so many years, but she could at least give him the satisfaction of bringing Jackson to justice at last.
Stefan stilled behind her. It was so complete that she wondered if he breathed anymore. Suddenly, his arm around her felt like a lead weight.
“I have lost every penny I had.” The words rushed out of her haphazardly, the weight of saying them out loud stunning her anew.
“What, bella?”
The sheets rustling around her, Clio lifted his arm and turned around. Caught the resigned look in his eyes just as he blinked and chased it away.
With the gears in her head running finally, understanding dawned in her.
She swallowed the knot of hurt in her throat that felt like glass. He had thought she was commenting on the state of her funds, asking for a handout in a roundabout way.
Kicking into a sitting position, he pulled her up, until she was sitting by his side on the enormous bed. When he looked at her again, there was nothing but curiosity. “What are you talking about, Clio? If you need money, all you have to—”
Clio stopped his words with her palm over his mouth, before he could deal her more than a surface scratch. It was his automatic reaction to any question, from any woman regarding money, she pacified herself.
He had made a conscious decision to ask her politely about it instead of seething with distrust and contempt.
It was a step forward in their fragile relationship.
That was the best she was going to get from him.
Pulling her hand into his, he laced their fingers together and kissed the back of her palm. “Clio?”
Shaking her head to chase away her stupid misgivings, Clio offered him a small smile.
“I’m sorry. It hadn’t quite sunk in and saying it out loud finally did.”
With his finger under her chin, he tilted her face up. “Clio, I want honesty between us, bella. Above everything else. That’s how this began,” his knuckles tapped her chin, “and that’s how I would like us to continue.”
Her stupid, grasping, desperately greedy mind latched onto the fact that he wanted this, whatever this was, to continue.
She was on a slippery slope in this relationship they had now, and yet, she wasn’t scared or afraid.
All she cared about right now was that he wanted her, in his life, in whatever capacity it was. Her heart thudded so loud it was a wonder he didn’t hear it. “Of course. Do you remember I told all you guys about my aunt Grace once?”
“The one who hated your parents and vice versa?”
Smiling, Clio nodded. “She had always been sweet to me when I was growing up. She died a couple of years after I came to Columbia. I went to her funeral and found out that she had bequeathed me a bit of money. I think it was her way of high-fiving me for walking away from everything that my parents had wanted for me.”
Stefan grinned. “Sounds like a sweet lady.”
“She was. You should have heard her swearing. She did it like a sailor. Anyway, it took a few years for the legalities to go through and I received the money a year after we graduated. About twenty-five thousand pounds.”
Pushing back from her, Stefan stared at her. “But if you had that much cash in hand, why did you have to borrow from Christian? Why not use it to secure your rent or to pay off your school debts?”
“Because my parents knew that Aunt Grace had bequeathed me that money. My mother even commented that for all the claims I had made, I was happily taking handouts. So I locked it up in a secured bond, determined to make it in New York through my way.
“And when I was broke, it was better being obligated to Christian than letting them learn that I needed help.”
“You are a stubborn woman, bella. Isn’t it enough you turned your back on such a prestigious family and started a new life halfway across the world?”
“Why didn’t you go back to your parents after Serena left? Why start from scratch, Stefan?”
Thunder dawned in his gaze. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
“We’re talking about what made us who we are today.” Kneeling in front of him, she clasped his cheeks when he would have moved away. “We’re talking about you and me, no one else.”
Tension seethed in his shoulders but Clio held on to him. “Serena walked away from me because I was nothing without my parents’ fortune. She made me question my very belief in myself. I was determined to prove her wrong, determined to make the fortune she wanted all on my own. Pride and shame, bella, I was drowning in them so much that I hurt my parents for so many years.”
The flash of pain that wreathed his features pierced through her. That it could still affect him so much…
“After all these years, do you not still realize it is her loss, Stefan? To walk away from you because your parents disowned you, to leave a man like you behind…”
God, he had loved that undeserving woman so much, with all of his heart. To have a man like Stefan love her unconditionally like that… Clio couldn’t imagine what it could even be like. The very thought had such a mesmeric, compelling quality to it that her entire being resonated with it.
She kissed his mouth, heat and tenderness and affection and a hundred other things rushing out of her on a wave she couldn’t curtail. “That woman was a first-class moron, if I may say so.”
A smile curved his mouth. “Wow… Are you sure you don’t need to wash out your mouth?”
“Oh, don’t encourage me, Bianco. It could get a lot dirtier, believe me. The reason I liked Aunt Grace so much was because she had no problem cursing in front of kids either.”
“I can’t wait, bella.”
Clio laughed against his mouth, a river of joy flooding her.
As if it was as natural as drawing breath, he captured her mouth with his. Molten heat uncoiled in every nerve, every muscle. It was as if her body knew what he could give, and craved it.
Tongues dueling, lips scraping against teeth, in a matter of seconds, they were both breathing hard.
Somehow, Clio had climbed into his lap and was straddling his erection. With a moan, she moved, the crease of her sex rubbing against his, sending erotic tingles through her lower belly.
Cursing, Stefan locked her hips before she could do it again. Color bled into his cheekbones, his nostrils flaring. “As much as I would love nothing but to be inside your wet heat, bella, I want to hear your story more.”
Sighing dramatically, Clio smiled. “Oh, to be denied sex for a story… Your libido and prowess has been overestimated by the media, Bianco.”
He bit her lower lip as punishment and a hundred nerves jangled within Clio. “The sooner you tell me, the sooner you can have me, Mrs. Bianco.” His grin was so natural, so filled with that openness he had possessed so long ago that her breath caught in her throat. “Any way you want.”
“Fine. But don’t forget your promise.”
It was the first time he had actually smiled after a conversation about Serena and the poison she had spewed in his life. For that smile, she could give up all the money in the world.
Clio hugged the fact to herself like a proud accomplishment.
“What about the money your aunt Grace bequeathed you, bella?”
Knowing that his mood was going to worsen, Clio slipped off him and got to her feet. “I met Jackson a few years later. Until then I put Aunt Grace’s money in a CD that I couldn’t break for five years. It had matured a year after I met him. And he talked me into investing it in his hedge fund company.”
The room went from warm to ice-cold in a matter of seconds.
Uncoiling his huge frame from the bed, Stefan reached her. “And?”
“I have known it for a while at the back of my mind from the bits and pieces I have heard him mutter about over the last year. And I have seen proof of it now. He lost most of the investors’ money.”
“That’s a risk you take with hedge funds, bella.” Pulling her to him, he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry you lost the money she gave you, Clio. I’m sorry he deceived you in so many ways.”
Clio went into his embrace as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. And the fact that he had done something nonsexual and intimate without reservation, it blunted the shock of realizing another level to Jackson’s deception.
That something her aunt had given her out of love was now lost to her hurt more than the fact that she was basically penniless. Again.
“That’s not it. From all the claims he made, and the returns he’s been showing in his statements, my investment should have grown by leaps and bounds.”
She went back to her bedroom and grabbed the files. He was heading into the kitchen, so she laid them on the table. After a few seconds of rifling through it, he stared at her with icy fury in his eyes.
“These records show your investment had nearly fifty percent returns. But the actuality is that he’s lost it all? He’s fronting the funds from somewhere else?”
“Looks like it,” Clio whispered.
Instantly, she was lifted off the ground in a bear hug. “You did it, bella. You found it.” Putting her down, he cradled her face in his palms. “That’s all we need to expose him, bella. Jackson won’t recover from this.”
“It doesn’t feel like an achievement, Stefan. I have a sick feeling in my gut. Everything he did, everything he ever said to me, it was all such a big lie. How can I ever—”
She was more than surprised when he pulled out a dining chair and pulled her onto his lap. His long fingers tracing the angles of her face, he pressed a kiss to her temple. Held her within the cocoon of his embrace. “Shh… It’s all his shame, Clio. Not yours.”
It was a place Clio never wanted to leave, and the want was so visceral that she shivered.
* * *
Holding Clio in his arms as she trembled, seeing the pain in her beautiful gaze abate as he kissed the lush curve of her mouth, Stefan finally felt at peace after a long time.
Strange since seeing his parents after so long, unburdening his shame and guilt with his father, and making love to Clio, the day should have been an emotional roller coaster.
