by Tara Pammi
“Silvio, kicking and screaming, was checked into rehab. My father’s still a powerful man—so many of the investors Leo brought in are of his generation. So...lest the world think we’re any less than the grand dynasty we’re supposed to be, lest they wonder we’re not all one big happy family, we parade him annually and pretend to be his adoring sons.”
Natalie refused to let the stringent quality of his words, something that almost sounded like pain, touch her.
Massimo Brunetti had blackmailed her. He was a ruthless bastard who thought women were for refueling his... He was the scion of a powerful if dysfunctional dynasty; he wouldn’t have even noticed her if she’d fallen at his feet. There was no need to see him as anything but a two-dimensional enemy.
No need to feel this...answering emotion in her chest, this urge to touch him and smooth out his brow.
Nope, nope, nope. So not going there.
She tugged his wrist. “We don’t have to go in, then. It’s not as if you can’t go against their wishes, is it? I mean, you’re a grown man. You run your own company. Who cares if—”
His laughter cut through her persuasive tirade, sending shock waves through her body. The warm, masculine sounds reached through her skin, into her chest, enveloping her. Burrowing inside of her.
She turned to look at him and it got worse. Much worse.
Moonlight bathed his perfect bone structure, caressing the high planes of his forehead and cheekbones, lavishing that lush mouth with tender care. His nostrils flared, grooves digging around his mouth.
She tried to ignore the attention his laughter had drawn toward them. A shiver went through her as she felt more than one set of eyes watching her, watching them from the lounge and from the terrace above. “What?” she said, channeling sarcasm.
The flash of his white smile in the darkness sent awareness through her. It wasn’t fair that one man could be that gorgeous.
“You sounded as though you were championing me. Is it possible I’m growing on you, cara mia?”
The endearment threw her even more off balance. “As much as a malware bot could grow on an encrypted system,” she threw at him. “Seriously, Massimo, can we leave?” she implored.
This time, his smile reached his gray eyes, deepening them into molten pools of warmth. “It would only be postponing the drama. With Greta, it’s better to get it done as soon as possible. All you have to do is bat your eyelashes, pretend to adore me and thank the guests when they tell you what a lucky woman you are.”
“At what time during our short and forced acquaintance did I give the impression that I’m of the kind to bat my eyelashes and adore a man for simply existing?”
He reached for her, his large hands encompassing her in warmth. “What worries you so much, anyway?”
“I’m not worried. I...”
His gaze held hers, searching, studying. “Natalie...”
“No one’s going to believe you, Massimo.”
“Believe what?”
“That I’m your fiancée. That you could fall for me. I don’t—” she moved her arm to encompass the sheer elegance of everything surrounding them “—belong in this world.”
His gaze raked over her, from her wavy, curly hair—even more uncontrollable after the flight—to her off-shoulder sweater, which instead of looking stylish, to her just felt tacky in this environment, to the scuff marks on her secondhand leather boots. “No, you don’t.”
No way was she going to let him see the ridiculous dismay settling like a boulder in her throat. What the hell was wrong with her? “We finally agree on something.”
“They’ll believe exactly because of that,” he said cryptically. “It’s too late, anyway. Even she’s here.”
“She who?”
He turned completely toward her and ate up the little distance separating them. When he raised his hand to her face, every inch of her froze. Her mouth felt dry, her pulse racing through her.
“She who I need to send a message to in the most diplomatic way possible.” Gray gaze holding hers, he paused an inch away from her face. “I’m going to touch you, cara mia—sì?”
“Not sì, Massimo,” she said, panic brewing in her belly, and his mouth twitched. “Why do you want to touch me?”
“For the audience,” he said, his eyes saying something else completely. “I’m going to touch you and kiss you, and maybe... All you have to do is close your eyes and think of your future, unmarred by visits to jail cells.”
“You’re a rogue and twisted to get your kicks from a woman you’re blackmailing.”
Instead of anger, his eyes glittered with warmth and desire. “Shall I tell you the bare truth, then, bella mia? The one small nugget that distracts me when I should be focused on a hundred other priorities?”
It took everything she had to not give in to the urge to lean into him. Already, the scent of him—cologne, sweat and the cigar she’d seen him smoking this morning—entrenched deep under her skin. “What?”
“It’s for the audience, sì. But also, for me. For us. I should very much like to learn what you taste like, Natalie, and every time you lick your lower lip, which you do, any time I set my eyes on that mouth, it’s like you’re inviting me to do the same. Every time you devour me with those big eyes, my nose, my mouth, my hair...you’re—”
Warmth unlike she’d ever experienced uncurled low in her belly, spreading its wicked fingers to each limb until she was made of honey. He’d barely even touched her and she was branded by the honesty in his words. Desire pervaded his every word, his accent deepening with each breath. “I’m not, I mean... I wasn’t...”
Something almost like possessiveness flitted in his eyes. Because, really, what did she know of men. Especially of men like Massimo Brunetti. “One kiss, Natalie. Be honest. Tell me you haven’t wondered, too. Tell me you haven’t been thinking of the heat between us and I’ll make do with a kiss on the cheek.”
She simply nodded, no words coming to her aid. A light-headedness traversed through her entire body, stealing her good sense.
If he’d coerced her, if he’d grabbed her hands or pulled her to him roughly, the spell of the moment would have broken. If he had taken it as his due, instead of asking, the tentative connection between them would’ve fractured. She would’ve regained the little common sense she possessed.
But he didn’t.
Massimo didn’t do anything that she expected of him. And when he did the unexpected, he stole away the ground from under her.
As if she were the most precious possession to come into his hands, his fingers landed on her wrists softly. Turning one, he raised it to his mouth. The first press of his lips against the sensitive skin sent tremors of longing through her. He didn’t let her look away, either. The flick of his tongue over the plump vein, the stubble surrounding his mouth scraping in contrast, the sight of his arrogant head bent to her wrist...everything conspired and coalesced into a temptation neither her body nor her mind could resist.
Knees trembling, she let out a soft gasp, an erotic sound that deepened the gray fire in his eyes. When he pulled her toward him, she went, desperately needing more. And he delivered, his fingers digging into her shoulders, moving lower, touching every inch of her. The first, barely there slide of her breasts against his chest was a sensation she’d remember forever. Breath punched out of her on a long hiss, the strength of his powerful thighs a teasing caress against her own.
He let his fingers splay on her back. The tips reached the dip of her waist, spanned it and then moved back up. The rough hitch of his breath was music to her ears, bringing the knowledge to her ensnared senses that he wanted her just as much as she did him. When he moved his hands up from her waist, just a couple of tempting inches, the tips barely even grazing the sides of her breasts, she stiffened, tried to move away and stumbled until her hip bumped against his front and her thigh was caught
between his.
Electricity zinged through her veins. He was so solidly masculine around her, both a haven of warmth and demanding need. Fingers on her shoulders held her rigid as he bent that mouth finally. A kiss from that mouth at her cheek, at her temple, the tip of her nose—like wings of a butterfly. And then he brushed his mouth against hers. “From the moment I realized you were the hacker who’d haunted my days and nights...all I could think of was doing this.”
Nat jerked in his embrace, the sensations generated by the contact so delicious. So hot. If not for the heat in her veins, she’d have laughed for he did it with that scientific precision, as if an inch of her couldn’t be left unexplored. Tired of waiting for him, she followed his lips with her own, seeking the heat and promise.
Sensations jerked through her at the hard contact. She licked his lower lip, pressed herself into his warmth.
She heard the soft curse he left on her lips, saw shock and something indefinable widen his eyes. As if he, too, had been unprepared for the spark to turn into a full-blown fire. And then he was repeating the torment all over again. For a hard, lean man, he had the most incredibly soft lips. And his beard, oh, it was such a contrasting scrape against the softness of his kisses, a pleading moan pushed out of her own mouth.
“You taste sweet and tart, cara mia,” he said huskily, as lost as she was.
Kissing her all over, his long fingers climbing up her back, sliding around the nape of her neck, sneaking into her hair. And then, suddenly, his grip tightened there. When he pulled, her face tilted back, an offering she willingly gave.
Desire stamped out everything else from his arrogant features—the casual humor, the ambitious billionaire—leaving a starkness to him.
Gaze locked on her own, this time, when he bent that mouth to hers, there was no exploration. No entreating. He nipped at her lower lip, and blew warm breath over the hurt. Licked and plundered. A continuous assault that made tingles spread out. He took, and yet gave, such indescribable pleasure. The stroke of his tongue was a caress that had her gasping into his mouth. He licked into hers with an erotic hunger that had her rising up to her toes, burrowing into him to get even closer, clinging to his solid shoulders with shallow breaths. The scent of him, so familiarly male already, coated every inch of her.
Her own hands wandered restlessly, from the scrape of his beard to his neck and into his hair, pulling, tugging, wanting more of him. Desperate to keep the madness going. She moved them over his chest, loving the sinew, thanking the stars that he’d taken off the jacket. His shirt was no barrier against the heat he radiated. Air was something he granted her amid the hungry kisses.
“Altro, Natalie mia. I need more.” His heated whisper inflamed her with its honesty. The differences between them melted away under the heat of their touch.
Tongues dueled, teeth banged, as the kiss lost its finesse and became nothing but hunger. A gateway to something much more.
Her back was bowed, his hands at her waist pulling her up, his fingers digging painfully into her hips. Her breasts crushed against his chest. Natalie could do nothing but drown in the avalanche of sensations. Revel in the pleasure coursing through her.
With a growly moan, Natalie pushed away at his hands, and thrust her hips into his. Driven by instinct, desperate for more. Not wanting the moment to end.
The slight graze of his erection against her soft belly before he pushed her firmly back jolted her out of the feral need pumping through her veins. His curse was loud and harsh in the slumbering silence of the night all around them.
She stared into the piercing gaze, stunned, mouth stinging. His breath was harsher than her own, his pupils dilated. The lean chest falling and rising in a rhythm her own matched. Her hands fell away from him, empty. Slowly, softly, their surroundings—the air redolent with the scent of flowers, their audience, more than one set of eyes devouring them—began to filter through her consciousness. Yet, nothing could penetrate fully the haze of pleasure the kiss had left in her mind. Her limbs, her belly, her breasts...she felt like she was swimming in honey. Naked.
“That went farther than I anticipated.” He spoke slowly, as if each word had to be pulled out. Hoarse. His English thickly accented for the first time. “To go any further, cara mia, we’ll have to revisit our—”
“I’m not sleeping with you,” Nat somehow managed to whisper, her pulse still zigzagging all over the place. Desperate to cut off whatever asinine, calculating announcement he’d have made. It was bad enough she had crawled all over him, in front of his family and friends, no less. Had lost herself in that kiss, completely.
She couldn’t let him insult her, too, by offering to pay for more services rendered or some such.
The kiss and the intensity of it had thrown him, too. As inexperienced as she was with arrogant, confounding men who kissed like fantasies given life, she could see the contradiction in his eyes, the tension in his brow. He’d expected it to be a pleasant diversion, for both himself and his bloody audience, a game of kissing the criminal, but it had slipped out of his control and morphed into something much more.
But for her, it had been her first kiss. A memory to be cherished.
For once in her life, she’d been allowed to be selfish. Given the sex-god incarnate staring at her, she was allowed to be foolish and flighty. Once. But no more.
“Why not?” he taunted back.
“Now you sound like that pretty, rich boy denied his new toy.”
Color flooded his cheeks. “You can’t deny the connection between us. From that first moment. It’s already messing with my rationality.”
She fisted her hands at her sides. Better than running them over her trembling lips. “Because we’re not equals, Mr. Brunetti.” He scowled at her use of his formal name. “How can I be sure what your motives are? How would I know if you’re doing it because you want to try the novelty of having the hacker who bested you catering to your desires, under your control, in your bed—” she purposely made her words crude, for her own benefit “—or because you’re arrogant enough to believe that you’re such a good lay that I’ll spill all my secrets to you in gratitude?”
He tilted her chin up, mouth tensed. “I know my own mind, cara mia. I want you, Natalie.” His gaze touched her lips with such possessiveness that contradicted the logical, rational man she glimpsed in him. “I’ve never been attracted to a woman so much that I want to own both her body and mind.”
His jaw tightened, the raw honesty of his words a revelation to both of them.
She wanted to believe him so desperately. Wished she had that innocence, those rose-tinted glasses she’d lost so long ago, to see all of this as some fantastic fairy tale. That all of it could have a happy ending.
Even for a short affair where she could live, be herself for a small capsule of time. But she wasn’t built to have casual, torrid affairs with complex men.
“It doesn’t have to complicate matters.”
“Could you be so arrogant to think I’ll fall at your feet?”
“Arrogance has nothing to do with it. That kiss speaks for itself.”
“You’ve turned my world upside down in the matter of a few hours. You hold my fate in your hands.
“If I sleep with you, can you ever be sure if I was doing it because I wanted to persuade you to let me go or because I really wanted to have sex with you?” She wiped the taste of him from her mouth, feeling a sudden dejection. “All the power is in your hands, Massimo. Which means neither of us could ever be sure of our motives.”
He didn’t quite flinch. A vein jumped in his temple, and he sighed. “Even having been on the other side once, power and privilege are still hard to separate from yourself.”
Just like that, he shredded all the defenses she’d propped up against him into mere dust. She’d have been less scared if he’d been less understanding, less kind, less...Massimo.
No man, she had a feeling, was close to the complexity of Massimo Brunetti.
And if he grew up amid this, how could he know what it meant to be powerless?
He took her hand in his and laced their fingers. When she shivered, he pulled her to his side with an arm around her shoulders. Even fighting it, Natalie couldn’t help leaning on him, stealing his warmth for herself.
When he propelled her forward, she went, like a puppet whose strings he held with those elegant fingers.
The logic she’d sprouted sounded so right.
Now if only she could get her body to stop fixating on the taste and warmth of Massimo’s kiss and treat this whole thing...as a job. A job on which her entire future depended.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE THEME OF elegant affluence continued indoors including the wide steps and the portico. More fool her if she expected anything less. Even the remnants of his kiss couldn’t numb her to the decadent elegance of his home.
The large marble foyer had a wraparound marble staircase with beautifully dressed men and women drifting around it. A large Venetian chandelier hung from the high ceiling with hand-painted frescoes that she had to crane her neck to look at. Her entire apartment could fit into the front lounge. A dark red Persian rug covered a small area and beautiful, original works of art hung on the wall.
Natalie could feel so many sets of eyes on her and Massimo and soft whispers across the room as if the cicadas had drifted inside. She was suddenly glad Massimo had vetoed her request to leave. Prolonging this moment wouldn’t change the reality of who she was.
A large, rectangular, gold-edged mirror hung on one cream wall. One passing glance at it as Massimo tugged her with him told Natalie she stood out like a sore thumb in this crowd. She grabbed a champagne flute from a uniformed waiter and threw it back as if it were cheap, boxed wine.
Massimo cast her a wry look. “You’re not getting drunk on me, cara mia.”
