She staggered back. “Holy one-eighty, Antonio.”
He caught her closer again, needing to convince her. “That’s how you make me feel, Liliana. Like nothing I ever cared about matters anymore. Nothing but you, but us, matters to me now.”
“Even so, you don’t toss a two hundred-million-dollar lab at me to prove it. I told you I’m not partner material, and you want to make me director?”
“Even if you lack management skills, your scientific knowledge and your insight into your colleagues make you perfect for the job. I’ll provide you with support staff who’ll deal with the executive and financial issues. But in every other way, you’ll make a far better boss than I can be for this place.”
“Okay, time-out.” She held her hands in the famous gesture. “You’re clearly suffering from an extreme case of U-turn. So it’s up to me to moderate you until you level out.” He reached out to her hands, but she grabbed his instead. “Now listen, Antonio. I’m not taking this carte blanche or any other offer you come up with. And that’s final. I only wanted to reach a common ground where both my goals and your interests could be met. I wish nothing more than to realize them both in a way that’s the most beneficial for everyone.”
As he looked into her earnest eyes, it was at this moment that Antonio realized something monumental.
What he felt for her.
Exactly what his brothers described they felt for their soul mates.
Love.
Seven
Love.
The word echoed in Antonio’s mind as he stared at Liliana, who continued to detail how the common professional ground she was suggesting would work.
It had to be love. It was. This pure, limitless emotion.
But how? When he’d been in her presence only a handful of times? When he’d lived his life believing he didn’t even have a heart?
But as he looked into her eyes and saw clear to her soul, saw what had delighted and spellbound him from the first, he knew.
Time was irrelevant. And he now did have a heart.
Liliana had planted one inside him.
Totally at peace with the discovery of its creation, and ecstatic about its captivity in Liliana’s kind hands, he swept her in his arms and silenced her with everything that was bursting in his newly forged heart.
She melted into his kiss, not reciprocating, just yielding to him, letting him do whatever he wanted to her. That communicated how much she wanted him to possess her far more than if she’d gone wild in response.
He tore his lips from hers. “If you don’t want me to take you right now, you’d better stop that.”
Her long, thick lashes rose languidly, revealing passion-filled eyes that almost made him drag her down on the ground and take her there and then. “I’m not doing anything.”
Pushing her back against the nearest wall, he pinned her there with his full weight, needing to imprint her with his body. “Exactly. Your surrender is sending me berserk.”
“Yes, please.”
“Liliana...” Her name erupted from his chest as he hitched her legs around his hips. His tongue plunged inside her open mouth, swallowing her gasps and eliciting more as he drove his hardness against her core through their clothes. “Will you come for me again?”
“Antonio...” She arched against the wall, making a fuller offer of herself.
Feeling her precious flesh burning in his hands, he quickened his cadence, the need to see her coming apart for him again riding him harder with each thrust.
“Do you know what it did to me when I felt you climaxing under me that night?” Her moans fractured, the flush staining her cheeks deepening before she buried her face in his chest. An incredulous laugh escaped him. “Are you shy?”
Suddenly she wriggled in his arms until she made him put her back on her feet, her eyes downcast. “I thought you were horrified... I thought that was why...”
A deeper wave of color surged over her face and neck. He cupped her jaw, made her look at him. “Why I stopped? I did that only because feeling you heave and tremble beneath me, realizing that I aroused you so much I drove you to orgasm even before taking you, snapped my control for the first time in my life.”
She regarded him with a mixture of self-consciousness and disbelief. “You didn’t seem out of control at all.”
“It must be my surgeon facade. But if I’d remained near you one more minute, I would have taken you. Without protection. And I knew you’d let me.”
Her eyes widened in realization and admission, proving he’d been right. She would have let him. She wanted him inside her without barriers, branding her with his pleasure. As he would, soon.
“I had to get away from you since I had no more control and your every touch and breath and glance had me at breaking point.”