Scandals Of The Powerful: Uncovering the Correttis / A Legacy of Secrets (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) / An Invitation to Sin (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) (Mills & Boon M&B)

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Please.’ How could she be laughing and on the verge of coming, how could he make such a terrible topic so light?

  ‘And now I worry that I might have l’eiaculazione precoce.’ She was lying there, just giving in to her body for the first time and laughing, because he even made premature ejaculation sound sexy. ‘So you understand when I say...’ He released her then and her body, that had been desperate to turn, turned so naturally to him. It was just so wanton and readied by his hands, by his mouth, by his skin. As her mouth moved in to kiss him, he halted her, caught her chin with his hands and made sure she was looking as he spoke. ‘Ella, in a moment I’m going to take you really fast,’ he said. ‘I mean, really fast, and then I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon making up for it and doing you really slow.’

  He leant over, his chest over her face, and patted the bedside table and then glanced around the room and cursed because his wallet was in his jacket in the bathroom. Then he smiled when Ella waggled a few packets she’d retrieved before coming to the bedroom.

  Yes, it had been a calculated move.

  ‘Good girl,’ Santo said, thinking he’d never been more pleased to see a condom. And then, ‘I’ll do it...’ because from the feel of her hand closing around his base and the lick on her lips as it did, it really could be over way to soon.

  He dealt with things swiftly but Ella couldn’t quite catch her breath as she saw firsthand the sight of Santo fully aroused. She reached out to touch him again, but he slapped her hand away. There was the tightness of anticipation in her throat because instead of kissing her, instead of joining her, he knelt between her legs and dragged her down the vast bed, till there were no pillows beneath her.

  ‘I have been thinking about you for a very long time, since you turned up to be interviewed,’ he admitted. He looked down at her naked beneath him and then smiled as he remembered that day. ‘Your Italian was shocking.’

  ‘So why did you hire me?’

  ‘I wanted you.’ Santo grinned. ‘On sight I wanted you, and you can tell me tomorrow that you find that offensive. Right now I don’t care.’ And no, here in his bed, Ella didn’t find it in the least offensive. She was just trying to remind herself that Santo was a master with women, knew how to say exactly the right thing, except she kept forgetting, found herself falling more and more to his corrupt charm. ‘But if I had known how long you would make me wait...’

  Just his words, just his want as he lifted her up by her buttocks and positioned her, had the blood flood to her groin. She had always thought him sexy, but there was this animal side to him, and it was a turn-on to watch the pleasure in him. His unrivalled passion had her shivering now to his words and had Ella wondering not just why, but how, she had waited. Being with Santo was just amazing, being in the spotlight of his gaze could so easily become addictive.

  ‘Ella...’ He didn’t say any more for a moment, he didn’t need to. Both their eyes closed as he squeezed into her, and she moaned at the excess, and then moaned again, because once he had filled her he was still for a second. Ella was desperate for movement, and her thighs were starting to shake. Then he stroked her slowly from the inside, a movement that had her squirming in pleasure. He opened his eyes and smiled down. ‘You are worth the wait.’

  And did he have to say such things, did he have to be so nice? Because for a second she believed he meant them. In that moment she had this vision of her near future—of her weeping and wailing and calling and being sent straight to his voice mail and being everything she had sworn she would not, because he was heart-stoppingly amazing. He was way, way more than she had envisioned. Until now, nothing, not a single thing in her life, had ever felt this good.

  ‘Buckle up.’ Santo smiled a decadent smile.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Cross your ankles, Ella.’

  And in this, she rather liked having Santo as her boss. Ella did as she was told—locked her ankles together behind him—and he leant back into them, a small safety check before he shot her to the sky. There was no room for thoughts any more, no struggle to hold on, or anticipate regret. There was nothing other than the rapid thrust of him, the ferocity of Santo between her thighs as he jolted her out of sexual complacency, showed her how good it could be. She felt the first shudders of orgasm, felt the arch of her back in his hands, and she moaned her come as still he thrashed inside her.

  ‘Come on, Ella...’ He did not give her a moment to think, he just completely consumed her. He was holding on for dear life, when there was surely no need to, Ella thought, because she had already come, except she’d never been locked in orgasm with Santo. It was like falling through a trapdoor and then into another. He took her deeper into herself than she had ever been, deeper into them. This was supposed to be strictly sex, yet she was biting down not to shout his name. He moved her hips faster and then as his hands stilled her, as he bucked freely within, Ella was coming in a way she never had before, like lightning that strikes from the ground up. She didn’t know where it began and ended. She was taut, writhing, frenzied and already crying over Santo as, satisfied by her surrender, he gave in then and pushed and pulsed within, dragging words out of Ella that made no sense even to her as she came again.

  ‘Thank you...’ The delicious assault on her senses didn’t end as their bodies slowed down. He made it sound as if she’d just saved his life. He toppled onto her, was kissing her, his words dizzying. It wasn’t over, it was a mere interlude. She was in his bed and going nowhere, Santo was sure of it, because finally there was one good thing today and he wasn’t about to let it go.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SANTO SOON DECLARED he was starving.

  ‘There are some pastries out there...’ Ella started, but then stopped. As if Santo would make do with stale pastries and tepid fruit juice—he was already reaching for the bedside phone.

  ‘What do you want?’ There was no consulting menus with Santo, Ella already knew that. He ordered and generally got whatever came first to mind.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  Santo ordered finger food and champagne, but unable to wait, he headed out and poured some fruit juice, looking out to the press below and sticking up one finger.

  He’d checked his phone—still nothing from Alessandro. He flicked on his computer, more to see if there was any breaking news on his family, but he stood quiet for a moment, reading the email she had been sent, the last thing she’d been looking at before she joined him in his bed.

  That was what had changed her mind.

  He’d spent a long time wondering about Ella.

  Too long thinking about how they’d be in bed.

  And now he knew.

  Except, unusually for Santo, he wanted to know more, a lot more.

  He climbed back into bed and gave her a drink. When a little while later there was a knock at the door that declared their refreshment break was about to commence, unlike Santo, Ella couldn’t just lie there as supplies were brought in, so she hid in the bathroom for a few moments, much to his amusement.

  ‘You are such a prude.’ Santo grinned as she walked back into the bedroom and he held open the sheet for her to climb in. ‘And soon we will work on it, but first, I apologise—I am going to have to make some phone calls.’ Of course the real world was waiting and she was more than used to Santo on the phone. All too often he wandered off, or stepped into another room, but this afternoon, privacy was somewhat discarded and they ate and drank champagne as he made a couple of rather terse phone calls to various family members. From the gist of things there was a lot of fallout from last night, which Santo confirmed when he hung up on the previous call and asked her to divert all calls unless it was his brother.

  ‘Unless it is Alessandro I’m staying out of it.’ He lay back and rested his hands above his head and looked up at the ceiling, examining yesterday’s events a touch more calmly now. For once he wanted to talk about it with someone who wasn’t family—not, of course, that he could tell Ella everything.

 
‘You know we are going for the contract to renovate the docklands?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Ella, who was trying to decide between the sweetest figs she had ever tasted and the last of the chocolate-covered strawberries, looked over at him. Everything was so guarded with the Correttis and yet so intertwined. The docklands they were hoping to renovate was in fact being used for filming. She knew that the Correttis were hoping to breathe new life into the area and, naturally, bring a lot of money in.

  ‘For me,’ he said as she decided on a strawberry. Ella looked at him, aware almost that she was being tested.

  She was.

  She knelt over him and Santo took the food from her fingers. She watched as his teeth cracked the chocolate, as he took the last one, but at the last second he relented and pulled her head to his, let her have half. As she nibbled at the strawberry, she tasted, too, his mouth.

  ‘I want to ring down for more strawberries.’ Ella smiled as she spoke with her mouth full.

  ‘There are figs—’ he smiled ‘—and they are harder to separate and we don’t want disturbing.’ He looked at her glittering amber eyes and the pink on her cheeks that would soon be scalding again. He saw the new flare of arousal and he was about to pursue it, yet, surprising himself, he spoke. ‘Salvatore, my grandfather, put it all in place before he died—that was the point of the wedding.’

  ‘So it wasn’t a love match between Alessandro and Alessia?’ Ella asked. When Santo gave her a quizzical look Ella remembered she was in bed with a Corretti—and so she took it as a no!

  ‘Battaglia has withdrawn his support.’ What Santo didn’t add was that Battaglia was now throwing his might behind Santo’s half-brother, Angelo. There was just so much history in his family, so much feuding, and last night things had suddenly got a whole lot worse, not that he could tell her even half of it. ‘Right now, all I want to concentrate on is the film.’ Then he smiled over to her. ‘And you.’

  ‘I think you should save it for the film, Santo.’ Ella wanted things left at the hotel checkout. She had no intention to wait till Santo got bored, yet as the conversation turned to the film, as his hands lazily wandered, as they fed each other figs with their mouths, reluctantly Ella admitted that there was no place she would rather be than here with him today.

  ‘When did you first want to start directing?’ He had dusted her breasts with chocolate powder and was now licking it off. The white sheets—like Santo, an absolute disgrace—but right now, Ella didn’t care.

  ‘Always,’ Ella said.

  ‘Always?’ Santo checked. Ella thought for a moment, remembered being five or maybe six and just shutting herself in her room, closing off from the noises downstairs and making movies with her mind. Not just once, but over and over, changing the camera angle, concentrating on a scene, getting it so right. Any money she’d had went towards buying scripts, and later it was bliss to find them online. She was twenty-seven and had no experience, but she had been training for more than two decades now. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’

  ‘So why are you a PA?’ Santo asked. ‘You told me that was your passion when I interviewed you.’ And he smiled as he remembered the very determined, extremely smart woman who had arrived in his office unannounced.

  Then he licked around her areola till she was wet, rather sticky, and she thought she might die if he didn’t take it all in his mouth. ‘You told me you took great pleasure ensuring your boss’s life ran seamlessly.’

  ‘I lied.’ Ella smiled. ‘As one does at interviews. Being your PA is my second passion in life, Santo.’

  He could hear the wry note to her voice and it should have offended him. Why then did she make him smile? ‘Third,’ Santo said, because he wanted her again, but Ella was still talking about the film and she was lost to his hands for a moment, sitting up in bed with the sheet loosely wrapped around her, as if hiding herself from him as she spoke about the script.

  It was a beautiful movie about a soldier going missing at war, presumed dead, and his wife turning to the soldier’s best friend for comfort. Both drawing on each other in grief, resulting in her pregnancy, only to find out that her husband wasn’t dead.

  ‘It has to remain a love story,’ Santo said. ‘But really, there are a couple of parts where it doesn’t gel for me,’ Santo admitted. She loved that they could talk about movies, that they both shared this passion, because often Ella knew that she bored others with her observations and thoughts, but Santo was just as into it as her. ‘I can’t see how, if she loves him, she could just forget so soon.’

  ‘She doesn’t forget him though, not even for a minute.’

  ‘If she can so easily sleep with someone else so soon after—’ Santo was firm on this ‘—then he was not the one love of her life.’ He frowned at her smile. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk.’

  ‘I’ve never been in love,’ Santo said. ‘I don’t even know that it exists—this love-match you speak of.’ He pondered it for a moment, scanned through his family history and shook his head. Then, as he opened up a little, Santo also convinced himself he was speaking with Ella for the sake of the film, rather than for his own peace of mind.

  ‘My nonna said she fell straight in love with my grandfather.’

  ‘See.’

  ‘I never said it was returned. Salvatore loved power first—like my father.’ He thought a moment more. ‘My uncle, Benito...I thought he loved his first wife, but...’ He gave a tight shrug. ‘You know...’ Ella watched as, for the first time she saw him pensive. ‘Whether or not true love exists, in the film it has to be believable and that is going to be the struggle, because when Taylor and Vince make love the scenes are so passionate.’

  ‘They don’t make love,’ Ella corrected. ‘They have sex. She’s grieving so badly and he comforts her.’

  ‘A few days after the love of her life goes missing.’ Santo gave a rueful smile. ‘See now why we need a good actress?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  He looked over to her. ‘Have you ever been in love, Ella?’

  ‘No.’ She looked over to him and smiled. ‘I’ve been in lust.’

  ‘I’ve seen.’

  ‘But really,’ Ella said, ‘I’m not sure I’d want to be in love. I think it makes for less than sensible decisions.’

  ‘Such as.’

  Ella shrugged. ‘I don’t forgive and I never forget, which is a requirement apparently.’

  ‘Apparently?’

  ‘Well, from what I’ve seen.’ She wasn’t going to tell him about her family. She wanted nothing to dim this day, so she spoke about more casual acquaintances. ‘I’ve got a friend back home and I’ve spent more hours watching her crying over the love of her life than I have seen her smiling. I’ve got another who—’

  ‘What about your parents?’ Santo interrupted her, realising just how little he knew about the woman who had been in his life for some considerable time now, by Santo’s standards at least.

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen a whole lot of forgiving and forgetting there too.’ She gave him a grim smile, but refused to elaborate. ‘So, all things considered, I think I’ll stick with lust.’

  Santo had no problem with that.

  Or just a slight one, because he actually wanted to know a little more. But Santo was fast realising as he lay there that Ella was as skilled at deflecting personal conversations as he was. To prove his point, she returned to the discussion about the script.

  ‘Do you think he forgives her?’ Ella asked about the husband’s return, about the kiss that would leave the audience hopefully reeling. It was the million-dollar question, the one he wanted the audience to be asking as they walked out of the theatre.

  ‘I wouldn’t.’ Santo’s response was decisive.

  ‘Why not?’ Ella challenged. Talking about film she was more animated than he had ever seen her, and for Santo, long may it continue because as she spoke, as her hands moved to make certain points, more and more of her left breast was being exposed.

/>   ‘How can he?’ Santo said. ‘It’s supposed to be the love of his life.’ Then he gave a rueful smile, because of course there was no such thing as love. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, but he honestly didn’t know. Really, he did want her opinion on this. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ella admitted. ‘I think that’s the point of it though, that it’s for the viewer to decide. I can’t wait to see how Taylor will play it.’

  ‘Nor me,’ Santo admitted and they were quiet for a moment, sharing a similar vision, going over it in their minds—the script and a kiss that to the viewer must seem seamless but was actually going to be incredibly complicated to film. Ella had read the script over and over. Nothing was actually said at the end. It all came down to one kiss, an incredible reunion, relief mingled with fear as his hands roamed her body, as the soldier noticed the subtle changes, as he realised the love of his life had slept with someone else a matter of days after his supposed death.

  This film had to work.

  It had always been important to Santo, but never more so than now. With Alessandro gone, with the family name about to be smeared over the papers, for once there was a chance to prove himself, a chance to step out of his older brother’s shadow and show that he wasn’t a lightweight. He was dangerously close to telling Ella that.

  He actually opened his mouth to. He looked at the woman in his bed and maybe that angry fist of Alessandro’s had loosened something in his head, because for a second he thought about telling her what it was like growing up with Carlo as a father, how as the second son he had just been dismissed. He had even had the boardroom closed in his face once. Not one smile of approval from his father—not one. Not that Santo needed it, but there was something to prove now.

  But even as he opened his mouth to tell her that, Santo changed his mind. There were things you didn’t think about, let alone discuss with another, and he looked where the sheet had slipped and her breast was exposed. There was a welcome, most pleasing distraction from his race of dark thoughts.