“Okay,” she grinned, a feline smile that spread gold dust through his body. “If you say so.”
He laughed gruffly. “Be careful what you wish for.” And to demonstrate his meaning, he drove himself into her: deep, hard, purposeful, each stroke of his arousal and possession that flared her eyes and filled them with a matching degree of animalistic need.
“Is that a promise?” She panted, her eyes closing.
He swore under his breath. “Yeah.”
“Good.” A purr. It drove him wild, so he felt the first fragment of his control slipping completely away from him, but he knew that even once he’d climaxed, he’d do this again. Once wasn’t going to be enough.
Who the hell was this woman and what wild twist of fate had blown her into his life on this storm-filled afternoon? Was she real? Or one of the ancient sirene fabled to survey this landscape? It beggared belief that this could be happening.
“Nico, I’m…” but she didn’t need to finish the sentence. He could feel her reaching fever-pitch, her muscles clamping around his length, her body flushing, her cries of his name getting louder, higher in volume, until her body was squeezing his and he answered her this time, holding her tight to him as he pushed into her again and again, spilling his seed, his voice a guttural cry in his bedroom.
Their ragged breathing was a symphony, in, out, thick, throaty, spent. He held her as her breathing slowed, the madness that had overtaken them receding a little now that relief had been afforded.
She turned her face towards the window; he felt her move, he felt her everything. “It’s stopped raining.” The observation was slumberous. He pulled up a little, running his fingertips over her cheek so she blinked her eyes to him and smiled. A burst of relief filled him. There was no self-consciousness in her expression – just heady, intoxicated satiation.
He understood that. His limbs were heavy in that delicious way sex brought about. Not just sex – great sex, like this. Wild, uninhibited, passionate, completely fulfilling. He dropped his hand to her breast, his eyes on hers as he traced the outline of her nipple, circling it slowly until she shivered and he felt her muscles squeeze his length with renewed need.
It wasn’t over, and he was glad. So glad. He rolled off her but didn’t leave the bed. On his back, he drew her against him, so her head was on his chest, and he lay like that, listening to her breathing, feeling it becoming more rhythmic, more slumberous, heavier. And he wondered again who she was and why she’d ended up in his home – and thanking Dio that she had.
“Ondechiara. Do you go there often?”
“I’ve only been once.” He lifted his broad shoulders, his body strong, his frame bulky. “With one of my closest friends.”
“Well, I think it sounds perfect. I’d love to see it.”
“I’ll take you there one day.”
“I’d like that.”
“My friend has a house high up on the hill. Then again, he has a house high up on every hill – that’s a billionaire’s prerogative I suppose.” Michael had always been a little jealous. When Maddie had met him, she’d put it down to the fact he’d attended one of the best schools in England as a scholarship student. He’d been surrounded by some of the wealthiest children in Europe but had grown up in abject poverty – a hard difference to accept as a teenager.
“Is that why you went there?”
“No, I went because of the seafood,” he rolled his eyes condescendingly. “Of course that’s why I went. Nico goes every summer – has done for as long as I can remember. He took me with him when we graduated school. On his private jet, no less,” Michael rolled his eyes.
“He has a private jet?” She laughed, because such a thing seemed utterly preposterous.
“He has several. But he is a Montebello, so that’s par for the course, right?” He stood up, digging his hands into his pockets. “You’ve got time to get changed into something nicer before we leave.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “I thought I’d wear this.”
“Sure, if you want to be mistaken for a hooker. Wear the black pants with the beaded top. That makes you look slimmer.”
Maddie woke with a start, a heavy sense of disorientation and panic making her push up into a sitting position. Her body was covered in a fine film of perspiration and it had nothing to do with the naked man beside her.
He was asleep. She stared at him, her heart pounding against her throat, her stomach swirling with acid and anxiety.
Holy crap.
Holy crap.
Fragments of his words came back to her, words she hadn’t thought of in a long time, words that had ceased to matter after they’d been spoken, puncturing her reality with sharp necessity. Nico Montebello.
Holy crap.
Holy crap.
She’d slept with one of Michael’s best friends. Michael: the man she’d spent six months hiding out from, the man she wanted to avoid seeing with her every last breath, and she’d found her way into the home of someone who could, with one phone call, ruin the safe cocoon she’d made for herself. Crap, crap, crap.
Nausea rose in her belly. She shot another look towards the window. It had stopped raining. She pushed up quickly but quietly, looking around the room in a panic. When she’d left Michael, fight or flight instincts had pushed her straight out the door and she’d never looked back. It had been an easy decision. Her life had been at stake, she had no doubt of that.
Except Nico wasn’t like that. The idea of leaving him like this was anathema.
But it had to be done. He was a connection to Michael, and she couldn’t risk that. God. How foolish she’d been to let her guard down so completely!
And with this man, of all people! Why hadn’t she realised sooner? Because the conversation had been brief, early on in their relationship. She hadn’t thought of it again since; she’d had no need to. Even when Nico had introduced himself fully, it hadn’t really registered. She’d been too caught up in what they were doing to give his last name any conscious thought. Even if it had been Rumpelstiltskin, his name wouldn’t have sparked her curiosity, in that moment.
But once it was over, her subconscious had done what brains are so good at doing, and thrown the details in her path so she couldn’t fail but remember.
A shiver ran down her spine as she thought of Michael now, and she wanted to scream and shout, to grab something and hurl it across the room. How dare he find a way to spill himself into this? The first thing she’d done since walking out on him, a gift to herself, an expression of her own femininity and freedom, and it was tarnished by Nico’s connection to Michael. Oh, God. What if he realised who she was and told Michael she was in Ondechiara? This place that had become a sanctuary to her would be ruined!
She tiptoed through the house, into the laundry, and pulled her wet clothes from the machine, stuffing them in a plastic bag she found in a drawer. A quick glance through the window showed that it still wasn’t raining, though the sky was leaden. She was so far from La Villetta, but not that far from town. If she hurried, she’d get there before sunset, and be able to get a cab to her place.
Hating herself and hating life’s twists and turns even more so, she pulled on a coat of Nico’s – it fell to her ankles and was far too big. She cinched it around the waist and moved quickly to the door. It was heavy. She remembered it slamming when she’d arrived in the midst of the storm so now she took great care to ease it closed softly behind her.
Panic filled her, speeding her steps. She walked carefully down to the beach, picking her way over the steps. Once her feet connected with the sand, she began to run, and she ran and she ran as though Michael were behind her, his ghost was, indeed, at the front of her mind. Panic, anger and outrage subsumed any satisfaction she’d enjoyed that afternoon so all she could feel as she reached town and hailed a cab was remorse.
What an absolute mistake. Not sleeping with Nico. Despite his connection to Michael, she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret that. But the risk she’d run in trustin
g a stranger with that intimacy. He knew her name, for goodness sake! All it would take was one phone conversation with Michael…
Except…
By the time the taxi pulled up in front of La Villetta, sanity had begun to settle around Maddie. Michael and Nico hadn’t spoken in a long time, so far as she knew. A fragment of another conversation came to her, from around the time he’d first lifted his hand and struck her. No one from school calls me anymore. They’re all too high and mighty for me. He’d been drunk, and he was a mean drunk, so Maddie had dismissed his statement as sour grapes. Except she’d been a big part of Michael’s life. She knew who he spoke to and who he didn’t, and Nico wasn’t someone he ever mentioned. Besides that one time, he didn’t discuss the Montebellos. What were the chances that Nico was going to call Michael out of the blue? Or vice versa? Being old friends didn’t make them confidantes. And even if they did speak, was it even remotely likely that Nico would volunteer the fact he’d slept with a woman named Maddie Gray to Michael? Of course not.
She breathed a little easier as she stepped out of the taxi and swiped her phone to pay. She locked the door to La Villetta behind her out of habit and pressed her back to it, breathing in deeply, closing her eyes and repeating her mantra. I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe. It helped to calm her racing heart but not the fire in her veins, a fire that had been sparked by Nico and which seemed to burn all the brighter with every moment that passed. Her skin smelled of Nico Montebello.
She stripped out of his jacket – she was naked beneath – and moved into the bathroom. She ignored the shower, turning the bath taps on instead. Michael had forbidden baths. It was a stupid rule, one of the insipid, ridiculous ways he exercised control over her. Now, free from him, she wondered at her obedience, at her supplication, at the gradual erosion of her free will. She wondered at the ways in which she’d subjugated her own wishes simply to keep the peace with him; appeasing him had been a full time job. Now? She revelled in all the activities he’d seen as indulgent or ‘bad’. She defied him mentally at every opportunity, though it was less about him and more about reclaiming the parts of herself she’d let fall away, the simple pleasures she’d taken for granted before she met Michael which she now understood the importance of.
There was an organic body lotion on the edge of the bath. She tipped a tablespoon in and swirled it with her hand until bubbles formed, then stepped into the bath and lay there, water lapping at flesh that was sensitive from Nico’s ministrations.
She forced her mind to be blank. She didn’t want to think about Michael. She didn’t even want to think about Nico. She needed to focus on the fact she was safe, that she was strong – so much stronger than she’d given herself credit for in the beginning. She’d felt afraid for so long and not known how to act, but now she was free and she knew that was a credit to her courage. She’d saved herself from a bad relationship that had been going to an even worse place.
She’d saved herself.
The fight or flight instincts were kicking in again now, and a part of her wanted to run. To pack her bag and leave Ondechiara. But that would be wrong. It would be like giving up baths or chocolate or champagne – subjugating a part of herself out of fear of Michael. She wouldn’t do that again.
By the time she stepped out of the bath, rain had begun to fall once more, softly now, though the night was warm and muggy. She dressed in a simple t-shirt and maxi skirt, poured herself a glass of wine and made her way to the little deck at the back of the house. It had views of rolling Tuscan hills, like something from a guide book, and as she sat there with her knees pulled to her chest, resting her chin on them, she watched the rain cut through the evening, the dark, inky sky blotting out the moonlight completely.
She heard the motorbike’s engine cut out only a few seconds before the knock at the door, and she knew who it would be. Shame curdled her belly – shame at having left Nico without a note, an explanation. But what could she have said? What would she say now?
She took a sip of her wine then placed the glass on the small coffee table, standing to move back inside, through the living area, towards the front door. And even though she was sure it was him, her survival instincts had been irrevocably honed by her experiences. “Who is it?”
A pause. “Nico.”
Her heart leapt. Her pulse fired. “Hang on.”
She sucked in a deep breath, checked her appearance in the mirror then unlocked the door, pulling it inwards.
Heaven help me. He was wearing a black leather jacket over his denims. The motorbike helmet hung loose from one hand and in the other, he held her yellow hat. His expression was quizzical.
She immediately felt foolish. So foolish.
“Hey.” She cleared her throat and offered a half-smile.
“You forgot something.” He held the hat out to her.
She took it, her pulse racing for reasons she couldn’t comprehend. Desire, certainly. Fear? Not of Nico, but of his connection to her past? Definitely. But didn’t that make Nico yet another part of her life that Michael was seeking to control? A pleasurable activity she was denying herself because she was afraid of her asshole ex?
“And I have your coat,” she nodded to the hooks just inside the door.
“So you do.” He lifted both brows and her heart skipped a beat. “Was that your plan? I must say, as far as heists go, the quarry leaves a little to be desired.”
It was a joke and she smiled, even when she felt a chasm of uncertainty, and an instinctive need to pull back from him. “I thought about taking the Pavona near the door,” she tilted her head to the side in an imitation of thoughtfulness. “But you know, who wants world class art when there’s a woollen coat on offer?”
“Indeed.” His eyes narrowed then, his expression taking on a serious quality. “You couldn’t wait for your clothes to dry?”
“I…”
What? This was a moment of truth, a time for her to decide what she wanted to say to him. Except she couldn’t. Words failed her.
“Mind if I come in?”
It was simply a matter of extending the same courtesy to him that he’d rendered her earlier that day. He was getting wet and inside her home it was warm and dry. But he was so enormous – his personality, his essence, his everything – that once he’d breached the door to this cosy little villa she suspected it would never feel quite the same again.
So? She challenged herself. She’d survived worse than that. Did she think she wasn’t strong enough to conquer his presence? Or did she think he wouldn’t already be in her mind after what they’d shared? Keeping him out in the rain wasn’t just silly, it was downright rude.
“Of course not,” she waved a hand into the space, opening the door a little wider.
She’d been right. The second he entered, he dominated everything. The air, the space, the light. It was all Nico Montebello. Her mouth felt acrid, her temperature increasing.
“You walked out on me.”
“I…” she swallowed, a frown forming on her face. “Yeah, I did.”
He turned to face her slowly, his sentiments impossible to fathom. She was drowning in the ocean-blue depths of his eyes, and there was no lifeline in sight. “Why?”
Such a simple question, with no answer she could possibly give.
“I panicked,” she offered, after a moment’s hesitation. When in doubt, tell as close to the truth as possible. “I…wasn’t expecting to meet anyone. Here. In Italy. That’s not why I came.” She swallowed, trying to focus her mind. But Michael was there, his handsome face in her eyes when she blinked, so she shuddered a little. “I got out of a relationship a few months ago.”
Nico frowned. “So?”
“I’m not ready to complicate that. I shouldn’t have…I mean, it was…this afternoon was…really…mind-blowing,” she said with a small smile. He returned it and her tummy exploded with butterflies and unicorns and rainbows.
“It was.” His swift agreement kicked up her pulse another notch.
She rushed on. “But I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
His expression showed a hint of frustration.
“I mean, I wanted it to happen. I just should have known better.”
“Are you still in love with this man?”
“Which man?”
“The bad break up?”
“Oh, God, no,” she blanched.
There was a pause as he digested this. “So you’re going to be celibate for the rest of your life?”
“Um, no. I guess not.”
“And it was how many months ago?”
“Six. Almost seven.”
“And yet you think having sex with someone else is somehow wrong?”
She heard it and knew how silly that was. “It’s just…not why I’m here,” she repeated, aware of how lame it sounded.
“So you don’t want to see me again?”
She was completely floored.
“That’s why you crept out? Leaving only this rather beautiful hat?” He gestured towards the door.
Heat stained her cheeks. “Do you want to see me again?”
His expression shifted, something like doubt clouding his eyes for a moment but then his response was swift and concise. “Apparently.”
She stared at him, words not immediately coming to her. “But…why?”
He laughed, a deep, throaty sound that was so attractive it curled her toes. It had been so long since she’d heard a laugh like that – simple and lined with pleasure. A laugh that didn’t spark fear because she knew it would never last long enough.
He took a step towards her and she held her ground, wanting him to touch her, needing to feel his skin on hers even when that made zero sense.
What was she doing? This was madness. It didn’t matter what he said, nor what he wanted.
“I can’t.” Now she did take a step away from him, wrapping her arms around her torso.
“You don’t want to?”
“I want…” She bit down on her lip. “What are you saying? What do you want?”
Just This One Summer: A billionaire forbidden love romance... (The Montebellos Book 2) Page 4
