At the Count's Bidding(12)

                He let himself enjoy the moment. Savor it.

                This wasn’t temper, hot and wild, making him act out his passions in different ways, the line between it and grief too finely drawn to tell the difference. Too much time had passed. There was too much water under that particular bridge.

                And she should never have come here. She should never have involved his mother. She should never have risked this.

                “Giancarlo,” she said, the way she’d said it that bright and terrible morning a decade ago when he’d finally understood the truth about her—and had seen it in full color pictures splashed across the entirety of the goddamned planet. When he’d showed up at the apartment she’d never let him enter and had that short, awful, final conversation on her doorstep. Before he’d walked away from her and Los Angeles and all the rest of these Hollywood machinations he hated so deeply. Five painful minutes to end an entire phase of his life and so many of his dreams. “Please.”

                He closed the distance between them with a single step, then reached over to pull on the end of that dark, glossy hair of hers, watching the auburn sheen in it glow and shift in the light. He felt more than heard her quick intake of breath and he wanted her in a thousand ways. That hadn’t dimmed.

                It was time to indulge himself. He was certain that whatever her angle was, her self-interest would win out over self-preservation. Which meant he could work out what remained of his issues in the best way imaginable. Whatever else she was, she was supple. He had her.

                “Oh, we can work it out,” he murmured, shifting so he could smell the lotion she used on her soft skin, a hint of eucalyptus and something far darker. Victory, he thought. His, this time. “It requires only that you get beneath me. And stay there until I’m done with you.”

                She went still for a hot, searing moment.

                “What did you say?”

                “You heard me.”

                Her changeable eyes were blue with distress then, and he might have loathed himself for that if he hadn’t known what a liar she was. And what an actress she could be when it suited her. So he only tugged on her plait again and watched her tipped-up face closely as comprehension moved across it, that same electric heat he felt inside him on its heels.

                That, Giancarlo told himself, was why he would win this game this time. Because she couldn’t control the heat between them any more than he could. And he was no longer fool enough to imagine that meant a damned thing. He knew it was a game, this time.

                “I want to make sure I’m understanding you.” She swallowed, hard, and he was certain she’d understood him just fine. “You want me to sleep with you to keep my job.”

                He smiled, and watched goose bumps rise on her smooth skin. “I do. Often and enthusiastically. Wherever and however I choose.”

                “You can’t be serious.”

                “I assure you, I am. But by all means, test me. See what happens.”

                Her lips trembled slightly and he admired it. It looked so real. But he was close enough to see the hard, needy press of her nipples against the silk of her blouse, and he knew better. He knew she was as helpless before this thing between them as he was. Maybe she always had been. Maybe that was why it had all got so confused—she’d chosen him because he was Hollywood royalty by virtue of his parents and thus made a good mark, but then there’d been all of this to complicate things. But he didn’t want to sympathize with her. Not even at such a remove.