Serena had orgasmed before. But never like this. With such intensity...losing herself in the process.
* * *
Luca’s brain had melted into a pool of lust and heat. Serena’s body was still clamping around his fingers and he ached to be embedded within her, so that the inferno in his body might be assuaged.
But something held him back—had held him back from replacing his hand with his erection. At some point he’d become aware that he needed this woman on a level that surpassed anything he’d ever known before.
And, worse, he needed to know that she felt it too. So making her admit it, making her come, had become some kind of battle of wills. She’d confounded him since she’d turned up in his office, just days ago, and this felt like the first time he’d been able to claw back some control. By making her lose hers.
But now, as he extricated his hand and her body jerked in reaction, it felt like an empty triumph. Luca pulled back and gritted his jaw at the way his body rejected letting Serena go. He pulled on his shirt, feeling wild. Undone.
Serena was moving, pulling her clothes together. He saw her hands shaking and wanted to snarl. Where was the insouciant, confident woman he remembered meeting that night in Florence? She bore no resemblance to this woman, who was almost impossibly shy.
Luca lay back, willing down the throbbing heat in his blood. Cursing the moment he’d ever laid eyes on Serena DePiero. She went still beside him, and even that set his nerves on edge. Sizzling.
Eventually she said hesitantly, ‘You didn’t...’
She trailed off. But he knew what she’d meant to say, and suddenly her unbelievable hesitance pushed him over another edge. He’d cursed this woman for a long time for sending his life into turmoil, and yet again she was throwing up another facet of her suddenly chameleon-like personality. The most in control he’d felt around her since she’d come back into his life had been just now—when she’d been surrendering to him even though she’d obviously hated it.
He would have her—completely. In his bed. On his terms. Would reveal this hesitant shyness to be the sham that it was.
And then, when he’d had her, sated himself, he would be able to walk away and leave her behind for good. One thing was certain: he’d wanted her since the moment he’d laid eyes on her, and not even his antipathy for her had put a dent in that need. If he didn’t have her he’d be haunted for ever. And no woman, however alluring, retained any hold over him once he’d had her.
He came up on one elbow and looked down, saw her eyes flash blue as she looked at him. Her mouth was swollen.
Luca forced down the animalistic urge to take her there and then. He was civilised. He’d spent years convincing people that he wasn’t his lush of a mother or his corrupt father.
‘No, I didn’t.’
He saw her frown slightly. ‘Why didn’t you...?’
He finished for her, ‘Make love to you?’
Serena nodded her head, pulling the sleeping bag back up over her body. Luca resisted the urge to yank it back down. Control.
His jaw was hard. ‘I didn’t make love to you, Serena, because I have no protection with me. And when we do make love it will be in more comfortable surroundings.’
He sensed her tensing.
‘Don’t be so sure I want to make love to you, Luca.’
He smiled and felt ruthless. ‘Minha beleza, don’t even try to pretend that you would have objected to making love here and now. I felt your body’s response and it didn’t lie. Even if you don’t like it.’
She opened her mouth and he reached out and put a finger to her lips, stopping her words.
‘Don’t even waste your breath. After that little performance you’re mine as surely as if I’d stamped a brand on your body.’
She smacked his hand away, hard enough to sting. ‘Go to hell, Luca.’
Luca curbed the desire to show Serena in a more subtle way that what he said was true, but it was true that he didn’t have protection, and he knew that if he touched her again he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
So he lay down and closed his eyes, just saying darkly, ‘Not before I take you with me, princesa.’
The fact that he could sense Serena fuming beside him only made him more determined to shatter her control again.
She would be his.
* * *
The following day Serena was galvanised on her walk—largely by the depth of her humiliation and her hatred for Luca. She glared at his back as he strode ahead of her and mentally envisaged a jaguar springing from the jungle to swallow him whole.
She couldn’t get the lurid images out of her head—the way she’d so completely and without hesitation capitulated to Luca’s lovemaking. The way he’d played her body like a virtuoso played a violin. The way he’d controlled her reactions while maintaining his own control.