by Tara Pammi
She raised a brow while her eyes glittered like precious stones. “Just teaching our daughter some important facts of life, Leandro. You wouldn’t want either of us to get used to this lifestyle and expect diamonds and tiaras for every little occasion now, would you? Even you couldn’t buy your way out of everything. Not with the number of things I’m going to have to forgive you for.”
Our daughter, she had said.
Was she going to accept what he planned for them? Or was she still going to challenge him at every turn?
He touched her then, as inevitable as his next breath. He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her wrist. Felt her tremble beneath his lips. Imagined trailing them over every inch of her.
Slowly, with excruciating reluctance, he returned her hand to her side.
“I would say we were even after that display at the pool this afternoon, no?”
He settled his arm around her waist and nudged her forward. She noted his possessive gesture with a raised brow but didn’t say anything. “Not even close. And are you so sure it was a display?”
“Yes.” He clasped her arm and pulled her to him. “A cheap ploy, too.”
A hint of tease turned her voice molten. “This from the master manipulator? The control freak? The man who let me believe his daughter was a burden, a hurdle in the way of his new happiness?”
While each and every one of his guests watched with a kind of twisted fascination, she cradled his jaw and looked up at him.
As if she owned him. As if she had every right to his body and even his thoughts. As if she had shed all those insecurities and fears and become this bold, stunning creature who owned her every desire.
Heart pounding, Leandro stared at her, his hands fisting at his side. His first instinct was to shove her hand and walk away. He’d never been one for public displays of any kind. Dio, he hadn’t even danced with Rosa in the public, or touched her this way.
He had never wanted to.
“I’m an old-fashioned man, cara,” he warned her but it didn’t carry any real threat. He sounded husky, rough. “I’ll always do what I think is right.” That was as far an explanation as he was willing to offer.
She traced his jawline, and then smoothed out the frown on his forehead.
Leandro held himself still, somehow. The sensation of surrendering to her touch and her words was alien yet exhilarating. “Then I’ll do whatever I have to do to ensure you do not ruin any chance we have of this working. For once, I’m going to be the one in charge, Leandro, the one who’ll protect this relationship. Can you handle that?”
Something danced in her eyes and he realized she understood him far better than anyone had ever done. He had done everything he could do to bring her here, to stake his claim and now she was doing the same.
Slowly the thought of denying her faded away, and stinging need rose in its place. Every other part of him waited in anticipation for her bold touch, for her daring strokes.
Cristo, would this woman ever stop surprising him? Was there any version of her that wouldn’t torment and tease him?
Could there be so much fun in relinquishing control?
It both thrilled and haunted him—how much he wanted to give up the reins of their relationship to her.
“I’ve decided to let you make it up to me for everything you didn’t tell me. But no more dresses and extravagant gifts, Leandro. You don’t want to confirm your grandfather’s belief that I’m for sale, do you?”
He didn’t know why he couldn’t suddenly tell her the truth or why with her, he acted first and then tried to rationalize his behavior to himself. Seven years ago and now. “You were right in that my family and friends here tonight will dissect every tiny detail about you and Isabella. One of them will speak to the press and there will be a furor about the Conti legacy as there is every ten years.
“I knew you wouldn’t want to give them anything more to talk about.”
“Meaning my usual clothes would give them something to talk about?”
“Si.”
Fire flashed in her eyes. And beneath that a deep vulnerability that he would have given anything to heal. This constant battle to protect the core of what made her her versus the desire to use it to bind her to him, it was slowly eroding him from within. “So you’re ashamed of me then?”
“No. I’m protective of you, Alexis.”
She moved her hands over the diamonds, the dress, her left hand slower than the right. “So this was all to make sure there was no cheap talk about me or Izzie?”
“Si.”
“And the note? Was that to shore up my armor against all these people, too? To build up my confidence so that I didn’t falter here tonight and humiliate you? Should I make sure I don’t talk much so that I don’t disappoint their image of the great Leandro Conti?”
“Si.”
Her head jerked as if he had slapped her, looked away and then met his gaze again with a wounded defiance. Suddenly, he felt like the lowest of low. “Dear God, is there anything real about you? Is there a single word or thought that comes from your heart? Do you possess one, Leandro? Or has it turned into a black lump and rotted?”
“No, Alexis.” He clasped her arm before she could turn away. “Hear me. I wrote it because I thought you needed to hear it, si, that you needed the courage to face this crowd. But, cara, I also wrote it because it’s the truth.
“Because it’s something you should be told again and again.”
Something glittered in her gaze then.
She bent toward him so suddenly that his thoughts scattered. His nostrils flared with the subtle scent of her skin and soap. “If you want this thing to work between us, if you want me to give this a chance, I need more, Leandro.
“I need more than duty and Izzie’s welfare and family values. I need more than glittering jewels and designer labels and manipulative words.
“Even struggling at everything I tried, I’ve been a good daughter and a mom. And I always will be. With you or without you. Just Izzie’s happiness is not enough for this to work.
“In this thing between us, I need to be just me, just Alexis who’s attracted to you. Who’s just a little bit crazy about you. Who wants you more than she wants the next breath of air.
“So damn it, Leandro, give me something. Give me something that’s free of your manipulation, of your duty, of what you think I need. Give me something of yourself. Or we end before we begin and it’s Izzie who’ll suffer.”
Awash in such pure desire, eddied around by such sharp heat, Leandro was captivated by her. Drank in the unflinching honesty in her eyes, of the way she held his gaze even as her mouth trembled.
And something inside him unraveled at the stark, unabashed courage in her words.
“Pink.” The word came out of him as if it was wrenched from the depths of his being, as if it was chipped off a concrete wall around his heart leaving a thundering crack behind.
“Pink?” she said then, frowning, the confidence in her eyes flickering.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t stand that feeling of being ripped open with his emotions bare. He needed her taste, her scent to wash away that feeling of being stripped of his control.
So he took her mouth with a voracious greed, with little finesse. His teeth scraped against her lips as he forced her to open to him. Just as he had forced her to accept him into her life.
If there was a different way, Leandro admitted, with a sinking feeling, he didn’t know how.
But Alexis opened her mouth, Dio mio, it was pure heaven.
Nothing existed but the sweetness of her mouth, the current of need building up inside him. The press and fit of their bodies as if they were designed for each other.
Even the thought of his friends and family seeing him like this, undisciplined and hun
gry for a woman, didn’t stall his raking hunger.
She fisted his shirt in her hands, her soft groan music to his famished senses. “Leandro, no, tell me—”
He tugged her lower lip with his teeth and growled. “I bought this cursed dress because it was pink. Because I remember your fixation with everything pink. Because I knew you would like it. Because I wanted the sheer pleasure of seeing you in it, because I wanted to see your pleasure in it.
“I saw it almost a month ago in a catalog on my desk, before you even came back into my life and thought of you. And this past week, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so like a schoolboy who wants to impress the girl he likes, I hunted it down to the designer store. I explained to them what it looked like, I described your size and I waited for two hours while they flew it down here from a different store in Rome.
“I have never, in my life, gone to such lengths to buy a small thing like that.
“Is that bit of madness enough for you, Alexis?”
And because he couldn’t bear to see his own reflection in her eyes, because he couldn’t pretend like he hadn’t heard the desperation in his voice, he turned away.
Still, she stopped him. Kissed his cheek boldly. Demanded that he hold her gaze. “Grazie, Leandro,” she said, warmth in her tone.
Why couldn’t she fight him and call him a hateful man for manipulating her, for taking advantage of her situation? What courage did she possess to give of herself this way, to wrench parts of him he didn’t want to give?
Such joy glittered in that brown gaze that for the first time in his life, Leandro felt truly out of his element. Her taste on his lips, her scent on his skin, that curve of her mouth, the warmth in her gaze, suddenly they were the most terrifying things he had ever beheld. Because they were both a tremendous gift and an almost unbearable burden.
For he knew now that he wasn’t enough to hold those intact, knew how easily he could shatter it and her and then...and then he had a feeling his entire world would collapse along with it.
And he wanted neither this power nor this vulnerability that Alexis brought into his life.
CHAPTER NINE
ALEXIS’S HEART POUNDED, every sense felt amplified a thousand times as she paced the length of her room.
She hadn’t been this anxious even seven years ago when she’d been naive and Leandro had been the reckless fantasy she’d indulged in.
He was still an unattainable fantasy come true but now she understood the man, what made him so irresistible to her and even better, she understood herself.
All through the long, unendurable evening, she’d been aware of Leandro’s every word, every movement, of the possessive light in his gaze and his touch. It was as if there was a current that tugged and tossed them even with other people around.
And, yet, somehow, he had also been her anchor in a sea of unfamiliarity.
Every time someone had blatantly wondered at how she’d landed his interest despite her lack of high connections or illustrious career, he’d batted them away with that arrogance. Threw out casually that it was his stars that had aligned finally that Alexis had come back into his life.
That moment had stretched infinitely, Alex’s heart in her throat at the genuine sentiment in his words.
Soon, with Tina’s help, Alex had separated the covetous from the caring ones, the superficial hangers-on from sure but curious friends of the family. And if Tina was distracted, there was Luca.
Tears had filled her eyes at how his family soon embraced her, and Alex knew it was from Leandro that they took their cue.
So strange that she’d received what she had always craved for, from the man who manipulated her into accepting it.
Now, it was past midnight and Izzie was out for the night after thoroughly enjoying being the center of attention. And she knew Leandro would be here any second.
She had all but issued an invitation. But acting the confident aggressor who wouldn’t back down was easy when it was all words and safe kisses. When they were surrounded by a hundred other people.
Now, now she trod a path on the thick carpet, her nerves stretched to the hilt. She was wondering if she should just change into her pajamas and wait for him or remain in her dress and brazenly go to him when she heard the door open.
Nape prickling, chest tight with ache, she turned.
Leandro stood leaning against the door just like he had that first night. His jacket was discarded, hair rumpled. But this time, there was no fury, no distrust, no inscrutability. There was only a fire and she knew he was going to set her aflame tonight, demand everything she had to give, bend her will to his.
Just because she’d demanded he give her a tiny part of him.
“Am I allowed in here, Alexis?” Stark longing pinched those features, making him look sharper, harsher. “Have I paid the toll to be in your room?”
She stared at him, heart in her throat. A dangerous light glinted in his eyes as he pushed off the door. Tension swathed the room. “Toll, Leandro?” Unease fluttered through her gut, knotting it until fierce anger came to her aid. “Is that how you still see this? After everything I’ve said to you, will you still call this some sort of trade between us?”
He shrugged and approached her, something predatory in his very gait. “I’m trying to understand if I’ve paid enough to touch you, to be inside you.”
Alex wanted to howl and rage and scratch that arrogance off his face. Wanted to throw those hurtful words back at him. She wanted to take Izzie and walk right out of his life. She wanted to—
No, she wouldn’t give up this easily. There had been such vulnerability, such desperation in his tone when he had told her about that dress. She pressed her hand to her stomach, felt the silk under her hand and slowly, a thread of her courage, her determination returned.
He couldn’t stand needing her like this, couldn’t bear that she’d ripped that invulnerability he believed he possessed. So she played his game and dared him. “I want this as much as you do.”
His head jerked toward her, his gaze drinking her in. “Izzie won’t wake up again tonight, will she?”
Without waiting for her answer, he crossed to the connecting door, looked through it and then locked it.
The sound of the latch clicking magnified in the fraught silence. Turning around, he undid the cuffs of his shirt and pushed them back. Long fingers moved to the buttons on his white shirt then. With a casualness that only betrayed his need to be in control, he unbuttoned it all the way, pulled it out of his trousers and shrugged it off.
Alexis’s pulse raced, pounded.
The shirt slithered to the ground soundlessly while moonlight bathed olive-gold skin stretched taut over contoured muscles. A smattering of hair covered his chest, a line of it disappearing down his taut abdomen. Her chest fell and rose at the evidence of his arousal.
Possessiveness streamed through Alex. She wanted to touch him and stroke him and see more of what he hid beneath that facade. She wanted all of Leandro.
“Come here then, cara.” He pushed off the door and her entire body vibrated as if in tune to him. “Let us see how good our understanding is with each other, how many liberties you’ll allow me before you stop me.”
“Do you think you can scare me away with those words?” He was the only man she’d ever wanted this intimate pleasure with. The only one who’d made her believe she was bold enough, worthy enough for everything. “You think this is a punishment?”
He reached her and pulled her to him. Pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. His tongue flicked the veins on her wrist. Waves of heat engulfed her as he trailed that wicked mouth up her arm.
Everywhere he touched, pleasure burst forth.
He was as much as prisoner to this fire between them as she was.
Like a mass of clay waiting to be molded by
a master sculptor, she went willingly into his hands, gave herself over with complete trust.
“You’re a little scared, tesoro. Admit it.”
She laughed as he turned her around. “No, Leandro. I trust you implicitly.”
She heard his heated hiss before he licked the sensitive curve of her neck.
Her knees bumped the high bed and to her back stood Leandro. Their bare feet touched, the buckle of his belt dug into her backbone. His wide shoulders framed hers. Every inch of his rock-hard body imprinted against her shuddering muscles.
Hands on her hips, he kneaded her muscles, stroked them up and down her sides, grazing the sides of her breasts with his palms. Currents swept downward as her nipples tightened, turned into knots of need with a direct connection to the pulse between her legs.
But he didn’t touch her where she wanted even as his mouth kissed her back, licking and nipping.
She arched and slammed back into him as his teeth dug into a spot on her shoulder. His erection nestled against her buttocks and lengthened, erotic heat spewing into her muscles. Alex burned to the tips of her fingers, wanting to touch that rigid length.
Her mouth dried with anticipation, of feeling that velvet heat pound through her aching sex.
She heard his curse and rough rasp in Italian when she ground herself against him wantonly. There was no fear when it was this man. No shame in this need that only he fueled within her.
“Should I take you like this, Alexis?” Something she had never associated with Leandro, a feral rawness, a wild heat reverberated in his voice. “Should I bend you over and sheath myself in you, cara? I have fantasized about it, I have spilled into my own hands like a schoolboy imagining you like this, bella. Should I possess you like I have never taken another woman? That’s what you want of me, si?
“You want what I’ve never given anyone else. You want what I don’t have to give.”
“Yes. I want your darkest fantasy, Leandro.”
Reaching behind, Alex plunged her hands in his hair. Reduced the distance between them even more. Her breasts pouted in the air, desperate for his touch. “So stop testing me and tormenting yourself, Leandro.”
