by Tara Pammi
Gio nodded magnanimously. “I remember how glorious it feels to be young and in love, but remember what happened with Lucia and me.” He pulled Pia into his arms, gave her a kiss on her cheek, his eyes glimmering with tears. “Lucia would approve of who I found to look after you.
“Too much excitemente for an old man, si? I will go rest now.”
* * *
Who I found to look after you...
The words left a chill on Pia’s skin. There was something so very wrong with it but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
The moment Giovanni’s silver head disappeared behind the doors of the house, she jerked away from Raphael.
Just when she was beginning to accept that she wanted a relationship with Raphael, the idea of marrying him, the idea of being his equal, his lover, his wife sent her into a swirl of panic.
“Pia, wait.”
“No, Raphael. I need to—”
She tried to slip away, but he captured her wrist and tugged her closer. Her legs tangled with his, her chest rasping against his. The man had the most beautiful black eyes. And when they focused on her like that, she was afraid she would melt from within. That she wouldn’t be able to refuse whatever he commanded of her in that arrogant tone.
“Let me explain, cara mia. You will—”
Chest rising and falling, Pia faced him. “Don’t call me that.”
His fingers crawled to her bare arm, the length of them wrapping around it. “I will call you whatever the hell I please.”
There was a possessive intensity to his words that shivered over her skin. He wasn’t mocking her now and something clearly had upset him too. Not that he would ever admit to it. “But I’m not yours to call whatever the hell you please,” she countered softly, staring into his eyes.
They flared infinitesimally, and Pia felt a surge of satisfaction amidst the panic. Did he really think she had no spine? “I didn’t protest in front of Gio because I didn’t want to upset him. Because I tried to understand that he called your honor into question. Clearly there’s something going on between you two.”
Inscrutability again. What were Gio and Raphael planning that she wasn’t supposed to know? She hoped it wasn’t another protective measure. “I’ve never seen you so upset before.”
She fisted and unfisted her hands. “I hate lies. I hate deception of any kind and it is my grandfather we’re deceiving.”
“It’s only deception if it’s not true.”
She flinched and stopped her frantic pacing. But he wasn’t joking. Dear God, he looked absolutely serious! “I’ve not agreed to marry you. And I don’t remember you asking me. So of course it isn’t true, and ergo it is deception.”
“If the lack of a proper proposal upsets you...?”
A hysterical laugh fell from her mouth while he stared at her with an inscrutable expression. “Stop saying I’m upset. I’m not upset. I’m just stating for the record that we don’t even have a relationship.”
“No?” His fingers clasped her bare arm and her breath fell out of rhythm instantly. “So you go around sleeping with men for the fun of it?”
“There’s nothing wrong with sleeping with a man for the fun of it. Sex should be fun and positive and tender and breath-stealing, shouldn’t it?”
A wicked gleam danced in his eyes. “I am pleased to have left you with such good impressions, bella. I agree that sex should be fun and positive and should be had whenever one wants to.” Heat arced between them, his fingers crawling into her nape. A sultry invitation glimmered in his eyes.
On a soft whimper, Pia closed her eyes. Images of their long, sweaty limbs tangled in gray sheets, the sinuous whispers of their skin sliding over each other, Raphael moving inside her like music—the sensations inundated her.
“But we’re not discussing the sexual mores of twenty-first-century women, are we? We’re discussing you, Pia. I know that what happened the other night is not a small thing for you.”
“No. But one night’s incredible sex is not the basis for marriage either. You could have told Nonno that we’re just...we’re just...”
“Whether now or in a few months’ time, we have to face this question, Pia.”
“Maybe so. But you said you didn’t want a relationship with a woman, much less to marry one.”
“You think I took you to bed, took your virginity, without being prepared for the consequences? Do you honestly think we could have a red-hot affair under Gio’s nose, and then go our separate ways? Turn the clock back to become polite acquaintances who have already shared lovers’ intimacies? Will you be perfectly all right when you see me with a new woman?”
“Yes.” She called his bluff while her heart thudded. “I’ll be fine. We should stop now. Before all those scenarios could become true. Before one of us gets hurt.”
Jaw clenched tight, he stood in front of her. “Is that right, bella mia? You have zero interest if I take another woman to my bed? If I push inside of her wet heat like I did with you, if I send her into ecstasy with my body and my fingers like I did you? If I—”
Pia cupped her hand over his mouth, unable to hear anymore. “I don’t know how one night of sex has transformed into this. We don’t suit each other. I’m not beautiful or sophisticated or any of the things that your other...your usual women are.
“And you...”
“And I what, Pia? Tell me how I do not suit you.”
“You don’t believe in love.”
“You thought you were in love with Frank.”
“You’ll never let me forget that mistake, will you? You think I’m a foolish idiot. Why would you even want me as a wife?”
“I do think you’re naive. But it is what attracts me to you. You’re unlike any woman I’ve ever known. You’re honest and open. You don’t care about external trappings. Just as you know you can trust me, I know I can trust you with myself and even with Alyssa. We burn when we come together and if you put love aside, you and I want the same things out of marriage.”
“Like what?”
“Fidelity, respect and lots of babies.”
“You truly want more children?”
“Yes. Especially if they’ll be nearsighted and smart and beautiful like you are.”
“I have to think about it. I need more time. I need...”
“Si?”
“I want to spend time with you.”
“I’m more than happy to do that.”
She blinked. “You are?”
“Si, Pia. Usually when a man is attracted to a woman, and he wants to do all sorts of deliciously wicked things to her, and is determined to persuade her to walk down the aisle to him, he wants to spend time with her. He wants to be the one who brings her favorite things, he wants to be the one who makes her cry out with pleasure, he wants to be the one who gives her babies...”
Pia threw herself at Raphael, glad that they were finally on the same page. “Although I don’t think we should sleep with each other again too soon.”
He looked thunderous. “What kind of a condition is that?”
“I go into this dreamy state where I can’t think logically when we make love. I...what I’m saying is...you have too much power in this relationship if we have sex.”
A hard, harsh laugh fell from his mouth. “You think you don’t have any?”
A vein pounded in his temple as she pulled him toward her. Joy blooming in her chest, she wrapped her arms around his waist, ran her hands over his muscled back and down. How she loved the way he felt in her hands. When she slipped her hands lower to his buttocks and tugged, his arousal grazed her belly. “Do you think I do?”
Jaw tight, heat scouring those sharp cheekbones, he raised a brow.
“See, I didn’t even know I had it.” When he’d have slammed her body into his to cradle his arousal, Pia pushed back at his shoulders. “No, let me touch you as I please.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, cara mia. It’s been two weeks and I know if I touch you, you’ll be wet for me.�
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Pia blushed, the dampness between her thighs confirming his arrogant confidence. “Yes, well, we already agreed that you can melt me like an ice cream on a summer day with one look, si?” She ran her hands up his back and sank them under his collar.
She petted him as if he were her very own wild animal. He growled when she rubbed herself against him. On purpose. Heat blazed in his eyes.
She was playing a dangerous game, and yet she’d never felt more alive. “Stay still for me, won’t you, Raphael?”
His explicit Italian—about what he’d like to do to her instead—sent heat pooling in her lower belly.
Sinking her fingers into his hair, Pia kissed the corner of his mouth. The scratch of his stubble against her lips was heavenly as she peppered that arrogant jaw with soft kisses. “I don’t even know what I like and don’t like yet.”
“Let me participate and I’ll give you the different options, bella. You love experiments, don’t you?”
Laughter bubbled up her throat even as she nibbled on his lips as if he were her favorite treat. He tasted of wine and masculinity and seduction and it went straight to her head. And her buckling knees.
When she traced that lower lip of his that drove her wild, he sucked the tip into his mouth and released it with a pop. A whimper escaped her mouth, her nipples suddenly sensitive against her bra. On the next breath, his fingers crawled into her hair, held her tight, and he took over the kiss. Hard and demanding, he plunged his tongue into her mouth. Rising to her toes, angling her mouth, Pia gave back as good as she got.
Their teeth banged. Their lips nipped and bit.
His thigh lodged between hers, hard muscle rubbing against the apex of her sex. Just where she desperately needed it. “Dannazione, Pia.” His forehead leaned against hers, his warm breath feathering over her face. “Come to bed, cara mia. I will happily show you how much power you have over me. We could spend all day in bed and by nighttime, you would know whether you like me above you, or under you or behind you.
I will show you how to use that sweet, deceiving mouth to drive me to the edge. I will show you what I can do to you here—” he emphasized by rubbing at the spot that ached for his attention “—that will...”
A rush of wetness filling her sex, Pia drew a sharp breath. And stumbled away from Raphael. The man could seduce her just with words.
And like her, he was breathing hard. His pupils dilated, his nostrils flaring, as if he had just engaged in a physical fight. The front of his trousers was tented and when her gaze lingered there, his growl was feral.
Raphael undone—or at least close to—was the most glorious sight she’d ever seen.
Swallowing away the longing burning through every inch of her, she slowly wiped the moisture from her lips with the back of her hand. “I know you want to spend the day with Alyssa and I have to study. But I’ve been dying to see one of the cars you’ve restored,” she added. Proving to herself that she could affect him just as much as he did her was a small victory. But having won the battle, she wasn’t really interested in the war.
A vein pulsing in his jaw, he stared at her for so long that Pia wondered if she had pushed him too far. “Friday evening.”
When he passed by her without touching her again, her heart sank.
“And Pia?”
“Si, Raphael?”
“You will be my wife, and I know how to exact retribution.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
TORTURE BEGAN TO take on a new personal meaning for Raphael over the next month, thanks to his unofficial fiancée’s unwillingness to let him give them both what they desperately needed.
If he had thought Pia biddable, she had proved he was utterly wrong. Dio mio, under the naive, smiling, ready-to-please demeanor was a core of steely stubbornness.
When she’d said she wanted to spend time with him, she’d meant it. And not in his ex-wife or mama and sisters kind of way, where what they wanted was for him to show them off in their designer gowns, the latest of Milan’s haute couture fashion, at parties, and theaters. Where they could show off their connection with Raphael Mastrantino, CEO of Vito Automobiles, a man with powerful friends.
With them, it was always about the glitter he could add to their standing in society. It was the veneer of power that spread to them when they could claim a connection to him. It was what Raphael could provide and nothing else.
But with Pia, Dio, when she’d said she wanted to spend time with him, she’d meant she wanted time with him. Learning about him. The two of them hanging out with each other.
It had become Raphael’s favorite phase in all of the English language.
She had insisted that he show her the vintage car he was restoring currently. So Raphael had taken her to his house in Como one afternoon. What he’d expected was for her to ooh and aah over it, and then expect him to show her the sights of Como, the only village along the lake she hadn’t seen.
Instead, driven by Emilio, Pia had arrived in the cutest overalls he had ever seen. Uncaring of the fact that her hands could get greasy or that her hair would be messed up—though Pia’s hair was always messy and he loved it like that—she had crawled under the hood with him, asking him to explain what it was that he was currently doing.
Talking about the chassis and suspension while the scent of her curled in his muscles, her hot breath stroked his cheeks—he had never had a more diverting evening.
They had ended it with a glass of Chianti and mac ‘n’ cheese that Pia had cooked in his kitchen, having informed him that that was the extent of her culinary abilities.
Having never spoken to another soul at such length about his passion, Raphael had spent most of their dinner in quiet rumination and with a burning need to peel the overalls off her lithe body. To kiss and lick every inch of her silky curves.
Sharing even silence with Pia was wonderful.
They had ended the night, because she had a test early in the morning, with a soft kiss that had left him with blue balls. But also with a thread of quiet, incandescent joy he’d never known before.
Another time, she had invited him to sit through her class, and then made him model for her first face carved from wood, because as she had put it, he had classically handsome features with a bold nose and an arrogant chin that would lend itself to that particular type of wood.
He had sat still for almost an hour while the minx had worked with her hands, only to find her dissolving into giggles when he’d asked her to show him what she had so far.
“Mi dispiace, Raphael. I’m so bad at this, I’ve made you into a monster,” she had sputtered amidst her laughter. “I’ll ask Antonio to sit for me next time.” Of course he had said no, to which she had responded by crawling to him on her knees, tracing those blunt-nailed, callused fingers over his nose, temple and then over his lips. She had then taken his mouth in such an erotic kiss, swirling tongue and biting teeth and all, that Raphael had been harder than the block of wood, and said, “I can’t bear to ruin this gorgeous face, Raphael.”
Since he was busy with work and Allegra’s custody suit, and she was busy studying and carving and meeting the new friends she had made, all they could manage one week was two evenings spent together holed up in Gio’s study, which he had been far too happy to give up.
While Raphael had spread out his paperwork on the vast mahogany desk, Pia had settled her textbooks around the sitting area. It was the most enjoyable quiet evening of his life. The sight of Pia with her glasses perched on her nose, studious concentration furrowing her brow, had driven him half-crazy.
The thought of spending the next fifty years in such close quarters with her was surprisingly exciting. He imagined looking up from his work to find her gaze on him with a slight smile, sitting in comfortable silence but with an ongoing sizzling awareness; the absolute knowledge that it wouldn’t make a difference to Pia if his assets grew another billion or not, or if he lost most of it with some bad decisions like his father. The trust that she would never stop loo
king at him as if he were the most perfect man she had ever met—it filled him with the desire to wrap his arms around her and never let go.
Locking the door against any servants, uncaring that he was dishonoring her under Gio’s roof, he had crossed the room, knelt in front of her, pulled her hair from the tight braid she had forced it into and drunk greedily from her welcoming mouth.
He’d meant to keep his word. He’d meant to let her come to him, to give her the time she’d asked for. And yet, her responsive moans had had him spreading her legs wide, pulling up the long skirt she had worn that day, and then kissing his way up the silky skin of her thighs, all the way to the damp center of her sex.
He had tasted her desire for him while she had sunk her fingers into his hair, gasping and moaning, scandalized by his actions and yet thrusting against his ministrations until she was falling apart against his mouth while digging her teeth into his lower lip. The most potent masculine satisfaction had surged through him when she had collapsed into his arms, limbs trembling.
Cheeks pink, breath serrated, hair in wild disarray and her eyes, those wide, deep brown eyes glittering with an emotion he didn’t want to give a name to. Dio, she’d been the wildest, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Fingers sinking in his hair, she had guided his mouth down to hers for a quick press. “I didn’t know I could feel so much pleasure that I could happily die from it.”
“You’re not dying until I have punished you for your no-sex rule,” he’d said, sinking his teeth into the rough cushion of her palm.
“Poor Raphael, it has been, what? Three weeks?”
A soft flick at the center of her palm with his tongue. Like a spark plug when combusted, she immediately slithered in his lap. “Five weeks and four days, you minx.”
She had crawled to her knees, stroked her palms up his chest, cheeks flaming pink and with the most mischievous grin said, “Raphael, can I...?”
He hardened into stone. Her hands on his thighs, yes, but the shy desire, her hesitation, got him every time.
“Can you what, cara mia?” If she had asked the world of him, he would have agreed.
