“We have no expectations of each other, which means we won’t hurt each other either.” His heart thudded under her hands. Out of the mess she had made of her life, it seemed there was still one good thing. “We are safe from each other.”
He smiled, baring his teeth like a predator. “Are we, bella? Because every minute of every day, I feel like I’m on the edge. You smile at me, you tease me, you rile me, you challenge everything I think of you, of myself, of the world. And now, my dear wife, you’re meddling in my life. Safe is the last thing I am with you around.”
Bending that arrogant head, he breathed the words into her temple, her scalp prickling at the way his finger tugged her hair.
“And what I do want, so desperately crave from you,” his free hand moved up her midriff and rested in the valley between her breasts with his hot mouth buried in her neck, “you won’t grant me, bella.” Speech slurring, he licked the fluttering pulse. “It feels like I’ve waited my entire life to make love to you, Clio.”
Her spine melted, liquid fire licking along her nerves. She was sinking in desire and she clutched him with her arms, his body a welcoming cocoon.
“You’re seducing me with words, Bianco,” she managed huskily with the few brain cells that were still functioning.
“Me seduce you, bella?” His solid frame shook with laughter, sending ripples through her. He dug his teeth into the skin at her shoulder and bit.
Wetness drenching her sex, Clio shuddered as pain gave way to pleasure so intense.
With his arm around her, he absorbed the quivers in her body, locking her against him.
“For someone who scowls and argues that I have defined everything between us by that contract, you have me in your thrall, Clio. Quite the power trip for you, no?”
A smile tugged at her mouth and Clio gave in. Desire and joy flooded her, a honeyed combination.
That he didn’t resent the desire between them—it was a step forward.
She knew how he wanted to define and restrict their relationship. He was allowed to do anything for her, but she…her every action concerning him, every word to him, he would scrutinize it. Either attach a price tag to it or reject it as unwanted.
But she couldn’t not do it, she couldn’t stop trying.
Whatever they presented to the world, Clio wanted, needed something real between them. And it seemed it could be nothing but this desire, this fire that consumed them.
She reached up within the circle of his arms and vined her arms around his nape. Pressed her mouth to the corner of his and breathed deeply. His skin, rough and stubbly, scratched her soft mouth, heavenly in its contrast. The taste and scent of him exploded on her lips, urging her to press closer and tighter. “I want it clear that this is not a power trip or a transaction or a bloody clause in your contract, Bianco.”
His hands kneaded her hips, pulled her closer until his erection, a hard length, pressed boldly against just above her sex. Her mouth dried, her breath lodged in her throat.
“Sì.”
“I want it clear that I’m doing this because it’s you.”
“No gratitude, bella. I don’t want to be your thank-you f—”
“No,” she said, covering his mouth with hers. “It’s because you’re the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen and because…I can’t breathe if you stop kissing me.”
His eyes glittered. “Dio, bella. You’ll be the death of me.”
Rough fingers kneaded her butt while his tongue licked the pulse at her throat. Sinking her fingers into his hair, Clio tugged hard until he lifted his head and met her gaze, until the vein in his temple throbbed, until the sculpted planes of his face stood out in stark contrast.
“Kiss me, please.”
Make me feel like I can do this right. Make me whole again in this, too, she wanted to say, but held back the words, shame and fear locking them deep down.
She kissed his jaw this time. With an urgency and courage she had never known before, she pulled the lapels of his shirt until the buttons popped and flew.
Sank her hands under his shirt. Felt his heated skin and the tensile muscles. Heard the rough exhale fall from his lips. Bent and finally tasted his skin, licked his flat nipple, dragged her teeth over his skin, marking him, tasting him, until his fingers were this short of hurting in her hair, until his hard body was shuddering around her. Until his control was in tatters just as hers was.
Salt and tang and desire, he tasted so good on her lips, and he was all hers.
At least, for tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE LOOKED LIKE a queen, imperial, so poised, and yet she was trembling in his arms. Her pink mouth was already swollen with his kisses, her eyes drugged and hazy.
It was his wildest fantasies come true and it was much better than he had imagined.
Picking her up, Stefan carried her through the lounge.
Her hair flowing behind her, she laughed. “The bed in my room works fine, Stefan.”
“Sì, it does. But it’s not mine, bella. I have spent, it seems like countless nights, tossing and turning, and thinking of you on my sheets. Once we’re through in my bedroom,” he said, “we can go back to your room, Clio. Or that beckoning vanity in the bathroom. Or the chaise longue on the balcony overlooking the glittering skyline of Manhattan. Or the terrace where you can see the sky while I lick my way down your body.”
A flush overtaking her, her eyelashes flickering down, she clung to him, trembling.
That she blushed only made his blood heavier in his veins. “Dio, Clio. How can you be this sensuality-personified and still blush, bella?”
As they stepped over the threshold into his bedroom, he slid her to her feet, her eyes rounded in her oval face.
Her gaze traveled around the room—took in the views of Central Park on one side, over to the king bed on the other side.
Grabbing the remote, Stefan turned on the lights to full. She turned toward him, her neck and cheeks still pink, a sudden shyness in her gaze.
Reaching her, he pulled her to him softly. That Jackson put those shadows in her eyes, his blood boiled just thinking about it.
“Clio, bella?”
She swallowed and raised her gaze to him. “Can we turn off the lights, Stefan?”
His first instinct was to refuse, to tell her that he demanded all of her, that she couldn’t hide herself from him, that she was his, scars or flaws and all.
He noted the vulnerability in her stance. Suppressed all his macho claims and nodded. Stared at her hungrily until every inch of her was burned in his brain. And turned off the lights.
Cupped her cheeks and brought her mouth to his.
With her expression hidden from him, with her face only visible in strips and flashes of the moonlight, with her curves accessible to him only through touch, every other sense became intense.
The scent of her, the rasp of her breath, the tremble of her chin…he was engulfed by her, ensnared.
He kissed and stroked her lips, tangled with her tongue until the roar of his own blood was the only thing he could hear.
The hot drag of her lips over his, the hesitant slide of her tongue against his, the honeyed taste of hers, it was a feast he couldn’t get enough of.
Kissing a woman until now had never been more than a forerunner to release, never more than foreplay. And yet, he could kiss Clio for hours, hear the soft mews and moans that fell from her mouth for days. Could lose himself in her soft mouth for aeons.
He would never have enough of this fantasy-turned-reality that shredded his control. He would never have enough of her, something warned him. He would never be satisfied with possessing her, yelled the cavernous chasm inside him.
He could never keep her from pervading his life, his days, his every moment, his every breath.
She was already everywhere, making him ache, making him want, pushing him toward the man he vowed he’d never be again. Shattering through the shell he had grown and reaching the most vulnerable part of him.
Soon, she would know all of him, she would know his darkest fear.
She would know how he had turned against his own nature and buried his heart and his deepest desires so that he could move on in life. She would know how much he envied Rocco for finding the woman who adored him for who he was in Olivia, and Christian for the family he would have with the lovely Alessandra…
How in the process of putting himself together after Serena’s betrayal, he’d lost something fundamentally good in himself, how he didn’t even know how undeserving and out of control he felt as he had watched Clio struggle with her fears and insecurities and emerge victorious.
How she made him wish he could be that old Stefan again.
But even through the aching vulnerability that he despised so much, he couldn’t walk away.
Instead, it fused with desire, pumping powerlessness through him.
Her soft gasp when he dug his teeth into her lip sharply dragged him from the edge of his own desire, remonstrated his lack of control.
He had bedded numerous women over the decade, and yet nothing like this need today had even touched him. He craved so much more with Clio.
Of her scent, of her skin, of her aroused gasps. She was vined around him, her slender body arching and pressing, as he devoured her mouth again.
One hand sank into her hair to hold her immobile for him, while the other snaked around her hip, pressing her into his erection.
Whatever he did to arouse her, to drive her out of her mind, he was the one who felt owned by her, consumed by his need for her. And it was a feeling he couldn’t shrug off.