And it had killed him, every time. It still killed him.
So he took it out on her instead, in the best way possible. He set a hard pace, throwing them headfirst into that raging thing that consumed them both, and he laughed against the side of her neck when she couldn’t do anything but moan out her surrender.
He held on, building that perfect wildness all over again, making her thrash and keen, and when he thought he couldn’t take it any longer he reached between them and pressed hard against the center of her need, making her shatter all around him.
And he rode her until he could throw himself into that shattering, too. Until he could forget the truth he’d heard in her voice when she’d told him there hadn’t been anyone since him, because he couldn’t handle that—or what he’d seen on her face that he refused to believe. He refused.
He rode her until he could forget everything but this. Everything but her. Everything they built between them in this marvelous fire.
Until he lost himself all over again.
* * *
“Violet is asking for you,” Giancarlo said.
Paige had heard him coming from a long way off. First the Jeep, the engine announcing itself high on the hill and only getting louder as it wound its way down toward her cottage. Then the slam of the driver’s door. The thud of the cottage’s front door, and then, some minutes later, the slide of the glass doors that led out to where she sat, curled up beneath a graceful old oak tree with her book in her lap.
“That sounds like an accusation,” she said mildly, putting her book aside. He stood on the terrace with his hands on his lean hips, frowning at her. “Of course she’s asking for me. I’m her assistant. She might be on vacation here, but I’m not.”
“She needs to learn how to relax and handle her own affairs,” he replied, somewhat darkly. Paige climbed to her feet, brushing at the skirt she wore, and started toward him. It was impossible not feel that hunger at the sight of him, deep inside her, making her too warm, too soft.
“Possibly,” she said, trying to concentrate on something, anything but the sensual spell he seemed to weave simply by existing. “But I’m not her therapist, I’m her personal assistant. When she learns how to relax and handle her own affairs, I’m out of a job.”
Her heart set up its usual clatter at his proximity, worse the closer she got to him, and she didn’t understand how that could still happen. They’d been here almost a week. It should have settled down by now. She should have started to grow immune to him, surely. After all, she already knew how this would end. Badly. Unlike the last time, when she’d been so blissfully certain it would be the one thing in her life that ended well, this time she knew better. Their history was like a crystal ball, allowing her to see the future clearly.
Maybe too clearly. Not that it seemed to matter.
She stopped when she was near him but not too near him, and felt that warm thing in the vicinity of her heart when he scowled. He reached over and tugged her closer, so he could land a hard kiss on her mouth. Like a mark of possession, she thought, more than an indication of desire—but she didn’t care.
It deepened, the way it always deepened. Giancarlo muttered something and angled his head, and when he finally pulled back she was wound all around him and flushed and there was that deep male satisfaction stamped all over his face.
“Later,” he told her, like a promise, as if she’d been the one to start this.