Chapter Fifteen
Caterina
I’M SITTING NAKED on his desk, my body wound so tight I can hardly breathe. The feel of his big, warm hands spreading my legs wide apart is almost too much. I’m sensitised all over, my mouth throbbing from his kiss, my clit aching from the touch of his fingers, my sex wet and my nipples hard.
This morning I woke up, vividly remembering what had happened between us last night. But I didn’t want to think about the sex and what it meant. I was wholly consumed with the idea that he’d ignore what I’d written about leaving my father alive, and issue a hit on him anyway.
In the cold light of day it seemed even more important that he live. No matter what kind of father he’d been to me, he was still my father and no one should get to say who lived and who died. Especially not the Wolf of Sicily.
So I decided that Vincenzo needed to understand that. I had to get a promise from him that he’d leave my father alone, another vow like the one he gave me when he said he wouldn’t hurt me, and there was only one way I could think of to do that.
So I got out of bed and had a shower. Used some of the scented body lotion that was sitting on the vanity, smoothing it everywhere. Then I walked determinedly to the closet, leafing through the dresses until I found one that looked good on me, and I put it on. Without underwear.
He wanted me, I knew that. He’d dived straight into the water, still dressed, to get to me the night before and there had been no holding back from him. I’d tested the power of my sexuality on him last night and it had brought him to his knees, and that meant I could do it again.
I could use it to get him to do what I wanted, and since that was the only power I had here, why the hell shouldn’t I?
Impetuous of me, but since I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen beyond saving my father, I simply headed downstairs and bearded the wolf in his den.
He’d been as intimidatingly beautiful as he had been the night before, lounging there behind his desk.
His silver eyes full of flames and a cynical, barbed amusement.
He was in a white shirt this morning, the top buttons undone and the cuffs rolled up, and plain black suit trousers.
Austere, yet also making him look devastatingly attractive.
I’d known a moment of doubt as I’d stormed over to him, leaning on his desk and making my demands, because he’d appeared so determinedly unmoved. But then I’d caught the dip of his gaze to the neckline of my dress and all my doubts vanished.
If he was so determined to take this path, he’d discover that there was at least one person more determined than he was. Me.
So I’d rounded his desk before he could move, and I pushed myself up on top of it right in front of him. And I’d placed my feet on the arms of his chair so there could be no doubt about what I was offering. Then I’d made my demands.
It had worked beautifully. He’d been up out of the chair, his hands on me before I’d had a moment to think, but I’d at least had the presence of mind to make him give me his promise before anything else happened. And I got that.
But I hadn’t expected him to make demands of me in return, to be in his bed every night.
There was danger there and I knew it, though with his hands on me, his mouth on mine, my brain was too fogged with desire to know where the danger came from.
And when he’d put his thumb in my mouth, shocking me, then electrifying me with the taste of his skin, all I could think about was, yes, that’s exactly where I wanted to be every night. In his bed.
I could have refused, I really could have. I hadn’t needed to give in. But if I hadn’t, I knew what would happen. He’d walk away from me, leaving me aching and wanting and furious the way I’d been last night, and I didn’t think I could do that again.
And I know now as he spreads my thighs apart, his gaze fierce and hungry, that I’d been lying to myself last night.
I didn’t think sex could have the same power over me as it had over him, but it does.
His every touch, his every look makes me feel wanted in a way I haven’t felt since I was a child, not to mention free.
I’d felt it in the pool last night as I’d taken my underwear off, daring him to come and get me, and I want that feeling. I want that freedom.
So, I can’t feel any regrets as he kneels before me, spreading me apart with his fingers, and even if I had any, they’re lost in a blaze of electric pleasure as he ducks his head between my legs and puts his mouth on me.
I cry out, my head going back, lights exploding behind my eyes.
The slow stroke of his tongue everywhere but the place I want him to lick most of all is maddening.
He’s feasting on me, tasting me like I’m a banquet set before him, but he’s not going to gorge.
No, he’s going to take a bite from every dish and take his time savouring the flavour.
‘Look at me,’ he growls in a dark, rough voice.
I can’t help but obey, looking down into his fierce, quicksilver gaze as he spears his tongue into me. I shudder, another cry bursting from my throat. The sight of him there, with his long fingers gripping my thighs, is the mostly intensely erotic thing I’ve ever seen.
He licks me and nips me, exploring me, but never quite giving me what I want, and I’m panting, writhing on the desk, unable to stop from begging him.
It should be humiliating to beg for anything from him, but in this moment I don’t care how I sound.
I just want what he promised, which was to make me come.
‘Vincenzo,’ I pant. ‘Wolf…please…oh please.’
This time he answers, giving me the most delicate lick and caress, right on my clit, and the world explodes around me in a burst of colour and unbelievable pleasure.
The room echoes with the sounds of someone’s cries, and dimly I know they’re mine. I’m lying back on his desk now, shuddering with the aftershocks, in pieces yet whole at the same time.
He rises to his feet, standing between my spread thighs, arrogantly looking down at my naked body stretched out before him as he undoes his belt. He locks gazes with me, his eyes liquid mercury, and the heat in them makes me burn all over once again.
His movements are lazy as he unbuttons his trousers and pulls down the zip of his fly, but there is nothing lazy in the way he looks at me.
I expect him to pull me to him, but he doesn’t.
Instead, like the wolf he is, he leaps gracefully up onto the desk and looms over me on his hands and knees.
He’s a predator about to feast on his prey, and I’m shivering with anticipation.
He leans down to take my mouth, his kiss electric, the taste of me on his lips, and I lift my hands, threading my fingers into his black hair, feeling the rough silk of it against my skin.
I arch up, wanting him, and he slides a hand beneath the small of my back, keeping me in position. Then his weight settles on me, and his hands are moving, and I feel the thick, blunt head of his cock pushing into me.
There is no pain this time, only the most incredible pleasure and he sinks deep inside me.
I moan as his hand beneath my back slides further down, gripping my butt hard, and then he begins to move.
It’s slow at first, agonisingly so, making me gasp and moan against him.
I pull at his hair, find his mouth, then nip at him, biting at him so he goes harder, faster, but frustratingly, his kisses are as slow and sensual as the movement of his hips.
His lips burns at my throat then move lower, the scattered sparks of hot kisses raining over my breasts, his tongue lazily licking at my nipples. I’m gasping again, arching against him, begging and begging, but he only gives a dark, heated laugh against my skin and carries on driving me insane.
He slides his hands up my thighs, pulling my legs up and around his lean hips, sinking even deeper inside me, and there’s nothing I can do to resist the storm of pleasure building inside me. Nothing I can do but surrender to it.
So, I do, my nails digging into his powerful shoulders as he thrusts deeply, lazily into me. And only when I think I can’t bear it anymore, does he ease a finger down between us, timing a stroke over my clit with a deep thrust of his cock, and I’m lost as the storm breaks over me.
Dimly I feel him move faster, harder, and then I hear the harsh growl of my name in his ear, and I grip him tighter, holding him to me as the storm breaks in him as well.
Some time passes, I don’t know how long, but I’m curiously comfortable, despite the hard wood of the desk against my back and the weight of his hard muscled body pressing down on my front.
I’ve still got my fingers twisted in his hair, and I’m stroking it, looking at the strands of silver threading through all that ink-black.
They’re beautiful. As beautiful as he is.
After a moment, he lifts his head and looks down at me, his intense gaze searching mine. ‘You are a revelation, little gattina,’ he murmurs. ‘I have never met a woman like you.’
He means it, I can see, and a warmth that has nothing to do with sex or physical chemistry fills me. I’ve never been any kind of revelation to anyone, let alone to a man like him, and I love the way he says it.
‘And I’ve never met a man like you.’ I shouldn’t give him this truth, I shouldn’t give him any part of me at all, and yet I find myself wanting to.
‘Is that a good thing?’ he asks, his voice wholly empty of the lazy, cynical amusement I’m used to hearing in it.
I stare up at him, meeting his silver gaze. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It’s a very good thing.’
He smiles that sexy, genuine smile of his, that turns his mouth from cruel to beautiful in seconds flat. ‘Well, that’s true. I am very special.’
And for the first time since I met him, my own mouth curves in response, giving him back his own smile. ‘Not to mention, arrogant as hell,’ I say, teasing him a little.