by Tara Pammi
As if there was an embedded chip that reacted to his touch, her breasts became heavy, nipples sprang to peaks.
One of his legs rested between her thighs and she could already feel him hardening against her again. Her head rested on his hand, his hands combed through her still damp hair.
Need slowly uncoiled within her again. She traced his leg with her foot, a languid invitation. “Something wrong with that?”
He pushed away her foot and slapped her on her bum. “Behave, cara.”
She grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss to his rough palm. “Sorry, I forgot, you’re ancient and decrepit. This last session probably wiped you out.” She made a regretful sound as she moved a palm up and down his forearm. God, how she loved the silky rasp of his hair-roughened arm against hers. “I won’t see action again for a while, will I?”
The words had barely left her mouth when he pushed up her T-shirt, lifted her leg and entered her from behind.
The shock of his invasion made the pleasure sharper and a desperate cry wrenched from the depths of her soul. She clutched his forearm and hitched out a hard breath.
“Any complaints now, cara?” he asked at her ear, his breath a rattling rumble.
“God, no,” Alex whimpered as he tested their fit. The sensation was exquisite, like a lick of fire traversed down her spine, lighting every nerve ending on fire.
He felt even deeper like this, as though he was a part of her that she never wanted to lose.
“Take off your T-shirt,” he growled then. With arms that could barely hold up, Alex managed to roll the thin cotton up and over her head.
The moment she did, he slid his hand under her head, turned her so that her torso faced him. “One more time, mia cara.” Dark and deep, his command sent shivers through her.
Alex groaned, every inch of her supersensitive. “Enough, Leandro, please.”
He shook his head, his fingers rubbing her lower lip. When he pushed his finger into her mouth, she sucked on it. Wet heat rushed between her legs, and she writhed restlessly against him.
The dark sensuality of his demands was as revealing of the man as they were of her.
Such passion he leashed, such need he’d denied for so long, Alexis couldn’t help but feel as if only she had unlocked it. Only she that all his desires belonged to.
Only she that could make all his fantasies come true.
“Yes, mia cara. I need to hear your scream, again.” His eyes with a deeply possessive heat. “It’s never going to be enough with you, bella.”
Her gaze collided with his, excitement and something else a pulsating drum in her ears.
Without breaking her gaze, he bent that dark, arrogant head and took her nipple in his mouth. Soft lips suckled in that persistent rhythm that he’d discovered she liked until a flood of fire filled every inch of her.
And then he was moving within her even as his teeth grazed the hard knot, their flesh more joined than even before.
Control and inhibitions were dust beneath the thunderous roar of pleasure and the darkly sensual net of intimacy. They danced to a primal, age-old rhythm, instincts already honed to each other’s needs and wants, hearts pounding together, skin slicked with sweat.
Release came upon them together in a violent cacophony of such pleasure that Alex thought she had died under the onslaught of it and became born again anew in Leandro’s arms.
* * *
After what felt like an eternity of heaven, Leandro spoke into the darkness. The sheets were blissfully cool against her skin. And behind her, Leandro a fortress of warmth.
“Tell me about these folders that are full of drawings and stories.”
Alex stiffened, hitched a much-needed breath. She clicked on the night lamp and turned toward him. “How do you know about that?” She sounded defensive, but she didn’t care. “It was horrible of Antonio to snoop into my private matters. For you to do that is just plain crossing so many bloody lines. Don’t manipulate me—”
“Izzie told me.”
She tried to move away from him but his grip only tightened. “Because you prodded her?” she snarled. “Will you use her now to get your way?”
“No. She sounded very upset that she found you crying over one of them when you thought she was sleeping.”
“Oh...” Dismay and a sense of failure swirled through Alex. “I should’ve been more careful. I hadn’t realized... God, she must have been so scared. What did—?”
“Shh...calm down, tesoro. Izzie is just like you, strong and resilient. I reassured her that I would take care of her mamma.”
The wild beat of her heart calmed as Alex glanced into Leandro’s gray eyes. She bit back the instant, defensive retort that sprang to her lips. It was his instinct to be protective, true. It didn’t mean that he didn’t care for her, just a little.
She couldn’t believe him heartless anymore, not after what they had shared. Not now when she understood what had made him so rigidly protective of those around him.
Something in her ached at the thought of him losing his innocence at such a young age, of him taking over responsibility for Luca and Valentina.
How would there be anything left for his own indulgence? Would he even know his own heart when it had always been buried under such weight?
“Thanks for reassuring her,” she said.
Something warm filtered through his gray eyes and he laced their fingers together. “Should I thank you for raising such a wonderfully strong girl? We’re a team now, si?”
She nodded, liking the sound of that.
The kiss he pressed to the back of her hand was tender, almost reverent. “So...what do I have to do to have the privilege of seeing the contents of these folders?”
“How do you know it’s a privilege?” she retorted, keeping it casual.
Sharing those stories was like giving him a piece of her heart, the most precious, guarded part. So much of her sense of self was tied to them.
What if he thought they were rubbish like her parents had done? Or what if he used them and their value to her to manipulate her?
Alex didn’t think she could bear it if he did that. There would be no coming back from that, even for Izzie’s sake. It was better to keep that part to herself as she’d always done.
That way lay safety. For all of them.
“Izzie says they are fantastic. I believe her.”
“Izzie is six years old. And they are very private. Only one person’s seen them besides Izzie.”
Instantly, he scowled. “Justin?”
Alex smothered a smile, knowing it would only rile him further. He sounded so fiercely jealous and her heart did a skip. God, how pathetic was she. “No, Adrian,” she answered. “My parents thought it was an utter waste of time when I showed them once.”
“Your parents are idiots, bella.”
“Hey!” She swatted him on his shoulder. “I’d just gotten an F in math, they discovered Adrian pretty much did my science project from start to finish and they had been called to a meeting with the teacher to discuss my lack of application to academics. And then they found out I had pages and pages of these...doodles,” Alex repeated her mother’s word, though a part of her still hurt at the denigration. “They didn’t know what to do with me.”
“So tell me, what did Adrian think of them?”
How did he always know to ask the right question?
“He loved them and told me I should never stop. Never lose my pleasure in them. He had all these grand plans of becoming my agent and selling them and used to beg if he could live off me when I became a famed, big-name author.” Tears filled her eyes, just remembering his goofy smile and his tight hugs. And his easy acceptance of all her flaws and weird quirks. “He was just being kind but I loved him even more for that.”
“Wa
it, so other than Adrian, you’ve never shared them with anyone? Never wondered if they should be shared with people, if they would bring pleasure and joy to someone else?”
Alex shrugged. “I told you they’re not important.”
“Leave it to me to decide that,” he growled back at her. In utter contrast, he cupped her cheek with such tenderness and kissed her mouth. “Why were you crying, bella?”
She lowered her eyes, her insecurities and her love of those drawings roping together into a twisted knot. “I was just probably feeling emotional. You already know that the accident was bad and not just physically.”
“Will you lie after telling me we have to do better with each other, Alexis?”
Alex sighed and pulled up her left hand. She could never share them with him but maybe speaking of her loss would lessen the pain of it?
“I’m left-handed, Leandro. For years, those drawings and stories were my only escape, my only relief from the pressure I felt at not being brilliant like Adrian. Even from the grief of losing him.
“Now, I can’t even hold a pencil properly for more than a minute, much less draw anything. It feels like the one thing I enjoy so much—” The one thing she thought defined her, the one thing she had built her entire identity around, “—has been snatched away from me.”
As if she was now truly nothing, just as her mother had said for all those years.
Her tears slipped from her eyes, and Alex hid her face in his neck, refusing to let him see them.
She felt so small in that moment, like that little girl who had forever waited for her parents to tell her that she was loved just as she was.
But at least now, she had accepted that no one would. That her own acceptance of herself had to be enough. There was relief, painful but still there, in that truth.
Soundlessly, he wrapped those corded arms of his around her and squeezed her tight. “We’ll see world-class specialists, cara. We’ll do whatever it takes. It’ll come back, you will see. Whatever exercises they prescribe, you’ll do them with me from now on.” Authority clipped his words, making it a harsh command. “No more lifting things or—”
Instantly, her hackles rose. “I’m not an imbecile, Leandro. I’ve been doing everything I was told to.”
“You will indulge me. In the meanwhile, you can show me some of those lovely folders, si?” Pure mischief glinted in the gray eyes and the serious mouth, transforming his entire face. He looked younger, carefree in a way she’d never seen him. “I think it’s important to share them with me so that you don’t feel like you’re alone—”
Alex thumped him hard on his shoulder. “You’re a horrible, manipulative man, do you know that? You just can’t help it, can you?”
Laughing, he fell back against the bed, and took her with him. Alex lay sprawled over him, her legs tangled with his, her breasts crushed against his muscles. It felt so natural to lie with him like this, so effortlessly easy.
“Maybe I’ll have to withhold other things from you until you share them with me then.”
Share them with me...
He was asking to know a part of her, showing interest in the thing that mattered to no one except her. Only Adrian had ever done that.
A matter, for all Leandro knew, that didn’t give him any advantage in this relationship of theirs. Hope yawned in her entire being, an incandescent flicker that was as good as imagining that she, only Alexis, and not the idea of the mother of his child, held his interest now, without his sense of duty chaining him to her.
“Let’s see about that,” Alex challenged before sliding over him and straddling him.
She gasped as she felt him hardening and lengthening against her core, just where she needed. She fisted her hand around the base, and the feral growl that fell from his mouth filled her with a satisfaction unlike she had ever known.
Rising up on her knees, she took him into her body and then there were no challenges between them, no withholding, nothing but mutual pleasure.
* * *
Alex finished her swim in the infinity pool and rubbed down her arms and legs. The Italian sun was at its peak but she lingered at the covered stone patio deck for another few minutes.
The scent of olive trees and the spice garden to the side of the villa that she had learned Leandro tended to personally permeated the air.
Among all of Leandro’s estates and she had toured a mind-gaping number of them this past week with him and Izzie, she liked Villa de Conti the best.
And not just because of the spectacular view Lake Como offered either. There was a peace, a kind of quiet here in the villa that she didn’t see elsewhere. A sense of happiness among the three siblings, of what they had built together after the disastrous, it seemed, almost destructive consequences of their parents’ marriage.
Even as Valentina sometimes rebelled at his dictates and Luca, quite recklessly, provoked Leandro, just for the fun of it—the devil—over the past few weeks Alex had realized any happiness they had found, the love they shared was because of Leandro.
In the name of duty he did it, but the fact that he would give anything for their happiness warmed Alex’s heart.
Also, Valentina lived here and they had become fast friends again. Even Luca dropped by every few days and somehow Alex felt as if she was as much a part of their family now as Izzie was.
Or perhaps it was the absence of Leandro’s grandfather, Antonio.
The old man hadn’t said one word to her again, hadn’t even approached her. Only looked at her with a cutting hostility but Alex told herself she didn’t need his approval.
She knew, however, that Antonio was still a large part of Leandro’s life. He seemed to be the closest to a friend and mentor Leandro had. But something about him didn’t sit well with Alex.
She hoped it was just her reaction to the old man not liking her and making it very obvious.
Grabbing a robe from the lounger, Alex pulled it on and headed for her bedroom. Izzie was out with Valentina and the afternoon stretched ahead of her.
Alex showered and dressed.
Settling in the shade in the sun-drenched terrace, she dialed her parents’ home number, eager to hear how their trip went. When an automated voice told her that the line was disconnected, she called her mom’s cell instead.
It took her mom barely five minutes to cut across Alex’s questions and blurt out her excitement.
Her parents had sold the store to an interested buyer who had offered them loads of money for the prime location.
Alex made all the necessary comments, faked excitement she didn’t feel.
How many times had she tried to get a refinance for their house with the store as a guarantee? And yet someone had spent a bucketload of money on it.
But the weight on her chest refused to melt away as she went through the day. Something about her parents’ sudden bout of good fortune made her uneasy.
Or was it just her attachment to the store, she doubted herself again. Was it just that things were changing too rapidly for her peace of mind or was it something else?
Days passed by in a blur as Alex tried to hold on to the wave of change that rocked through her life.
Only nights spent between the sheets with Leandro made her feel together again. Only by laying against his warm chest and hard body could she retain a sense of herself, could hold the reins of her life.
Outside of it, the weight returned to her chest.
Her parents’ selling the store.
Valentina not only meeting the enigmatic Kairos Constantinou, but within three weeks of meeting her, Kairos proposing marriage to her.
The rapid-fire argument she had caught between Leandro and Luca over Kairos.
That vague sense of unease returned a hundredfold and Alex struggled with it for days.
It fel
t like a dark portent, like a choice was rushing at her that she didn’t want to make. As if the sense of well-being and wonder she had discovered with Leandro would be ripped away at any moment.
* * *
The sounds of revelry from the gardens that floated up through the windows and the balconies, of snippets of Italian and Greek, of the sultry jazz tune that Kairos and Valentina were dancing to, the intensely lush colors of the summer—jasmine and rose, and the scent of wild orchids that decorated each table...
Everything faded as Leandro straightened from the vanity sink and his gaze fell on the wrapper half peeking out of the wastebasket.
He’d almost missed it and if not for the word flashing at him like a neon sign he would have thought nothing of it.
Half of that phrase winked at him as if playing peekaboo with his already somber mood.
Fingers turning as cold as the gold-tinted marble, he stared at it. It seemed as if he was being petrified from the inside out, such was the stillness inside him.
He didn’t know how long he stood like that, looking at it, but unmoving. And then shattering that stillness, laying waste to that stony silence inside him came a howl from his throat that should have quaked the very foundation of the centuries-old villa he stood in.
It propelled him into action, and he bent his knees, and pulled out the wrapper gingerly, as if it was a bomb that could detonate at any moment and decimate his suddenly fragile life.
Breath ballooned up in his chest, crushing his lungs as he read the script on the wrapper.
Someone had taken a pregnancy test.
And since this was Alexis’s bedroom, the bedroom in which he had made love to her in the past six weeks, he had little doubt who. He had forgotten to use protection that first night after the party.
And after that, Alexis had told him they would have to use condoms until she went back on the pill.
He had bitten off his retort countless times about how they wouldn’t need it if they just got married, like he wanted to.
Her mouth falling open, she had looked at him in disbelief. “Married? You want more kids?” she had said, as if the very prospect was scary.
