Chapter Eleven #3
Sam followed him as he brought her to a vanity table. New sensations skittered across her skin as he got her naked within seconds. His legs kicked hers out wider, and pockets of heat broke out all over.
While she watched their reflection in the mirror, he thrummed her all over. Her skin was flushed damp, she was panting and vibrating with need when he finally bent her over and stroked into her without hesitation and Sam had no rational thoughts left.
Everything on the vanity went flying as he slammed into her. “Look at me, Sameera,” he whispered, his chest falling against her back. Watching her, moving through this moment with her. Binding her to him.
Sam looked in the mirror, and there he was.
Dark and broad, eyes shot with lust, skin damp, desire etched into every pore.
“See how mindless you make me, bella. See how I do not care that you’re all swollen and puffed up down here.
See how much I mark your tender flesh. See how desperate I am to come inside you, over and over. ”
A dark smile edged his lips. “You ruin me every time you let me do these things to you, Sam. And somehow you remake me too.” His mouth came to her shoulder.
Sam braced herself, her core fluttering, clenching and releasing, around his thick length. But there was no escape from him, inside and out, and she didn’t want that. Tingles raced down when he dug his teeth into her shoulder just as he stroked out and in.
Her body bowed, her legs shook, and her scream remained locked behind his rough fingers. He took her roughly, with barely any rhythm but a madness he was chasing, molding her body into what he needed.
As his thrusts became faster, his free palm moved from her chest to her clit. When climax broke her apart, when he groaned at his own release, when he picked her up and carried her to the tub and washed her body as if she were infinitely precious, Sam didn’t have any thoughts or words left.
All she wanted was more days like these. More moments like this.
Her greedy heart wanted forever with the man who made her feel gloriously alive.
A few days had passed in a hazy, dreamy blur along with hot, steamy nights when Alessandro walked to Sam’s studio on the second floor and stalled at the threshold.
For once, she wasn’t at the easel, covered in paint like he usually found her. Found her and then distracted her whether she was done or not.
He’d had the room emptied and tidied because three walls were all-glass doors and the lighting in here was perfect. It had once been his mother’s craft room, Papà had informed him. But he had no memory of her, neither did it hold any kind of sentimental value for him.
Now he could think of it as nothing but Sameera’s studio. And when she left… The thought ran around in his head like a bullet ricocheting against the walls of an empty chamber, looking for a target.
But there was nothing to pin down, he reminded himself. He was able to feel this much, take all of what she gave because this was only a small pocket of time. If she were truly his for the rest of their lives, he didn’t think he could survive the intensity of his feelings. Nor would she.
Months, or maybe years from now, the memories associated with this room, memories of Sam during this time, would simply fade. She’d become an interesting highlight in his past.
He knew why he was thinking such morose thoughts too. The banquet that was held for the cancer research foundation he’d established in Violetta’s memory was tonight.
Though, tonight, he didn’t want to think of the woman that had slipped away from his life. Tonight, as much as he couldn’t skip the banquet, his mind constantly dwelled on Sam. As it had done since her arrival.
She was standing on the small balcony that the French doors led to.
The smock she’d tied around her neck left her back bare except for the strap of her bra.
The low-slung shorts hugged her bony hips and curvy ass, the only place she wasn’t skinny, which she’d flashed and jiggled and rubbed up against him since she’d discovered it was his weakness, the cunning minx.
The shimmery orange of dusk’s rays picked up the golden highlights in her hair, the result of a salon visit with Angelina.
Their friendship, as strangely as it had begun, didn’t surprise Alessandro. For her youth—well, relative youth, he corrected in his head because she didn’t like it when he called her young—Sam had an innate ability to empathize with people that made everyone like her.
Her elbows resting on the sill, she looked thoughtful.
“Sam?”
She turned and blinked, but he didn’t miss the sheen of tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he said, cutting the distance between them with long strides.
Leaning back against the balcony, she swept her gaze over him, a tremulous smile coasting her lips. “Every time I think you couldn’t be any sexier, you prove me wrong. You know what the tuxedo makes me want to do?”
“What, bella?” he asked, knowing that she was distracting him. It was a miracle that they’d managed to learn anything about each other at all. She was as secretive as he was. As stubborn as he.
“It makes me want to rumple you up. But then I think, nope the world can have this sophisticated version of you. The hungry, savage version is mine.”
The raw, naked claiming both excited and tethered him, as always. “Give me a few hours and I’m all yours.”
Reaching her, he pulled her until her back was against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her waist.
She fought a little first—a symptom of her clear upset, but he didn’t relent.
It was strange how he was the one who had resisted touching her like this, outside of sex, and yet, now she was the one who fought any kind of tenderness or affection.
Initially, he had worried that he had scared her with his unrestrained need at all hours.
Nearly three weeks hadn’t remotely dampened the intensity of his sexual hunger.
But no, she demanded release, she demanded every tender and filthy thing he could do to her, as insatiable as he was.
Still, something had made her spirit dim just a little, and he could not bear it. While he continued in the same vein outwardly, a quiet panic was beginning to build inside. That she was changing, that she was leaving soon. That she…
“Whatever it is that has been upsetting you these past few days,” he said, holding her a little too tight, “we shall fix it, Sam. Together.”
“How sweetly you make that offer, Mr. Ricci,” she said, turning to look at him. Her fingers traced his lips while her gaze did the same to his features. “But we both know life doesn’t bend to our whims. Not even to arrogant, powerful Italians whose kisses are pure sin.”
He nudged his nose against the arch of her neck and shoulder, and finally she settled against him.
He loved holding her like this, as if he could capture her in this moment and space, as if he could control the tornado she was sweeping through his life. Even though it was nothing but an illusion.
He rested his chin in the crook of her neck and shoulder. “Please, Sam. Tell me what has upset you so.”
“How come you didn’t invite me to this charity banquet?” Her arm swept out between them, signaling to his formal attire. “Angelina told me all of Milan’s high society will be there. Apparently, it’s the social event of the year.”
He rubbed a finger over his brow, his stomach strangely tight. “You wouldn’t enjoy it.”
She gave a slow nod, her eyes wide. “Is it that, or are you worried of what people will think when you bring me? You aren’t ashamed of being seen with me, are you? Because I’m too young and na?ve and fragile for your crowd?”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me.
” Ire coated his every word. He took a beat to breathe through the tight fist in his gut.
“The evening is basically rich people showing off with their donations, courting me. And I do the whole song and dance because the charity means a lot to me. If you came,” he said, his hesitation betraying him, “you would be bored by all the showboating.”
“You like to keep me separate from the rest of the world, is that it?”
“Sì,” he said with enough force that the calm around them fractured.
“Is that so wrong? Is it wrong if I don’t want the world to cast its eyes on you and speculate on our affair?
You were distressed by it when it was just my family.
I do not care what the entire damned world thinks of this thing between us, but you might be hurt. And I won’t subject you to that.”
“Okay,” she said, running her hands over his collar, soothing him. Rubbing at a spot on his jacket with her finger. And then she gave up on the pretense and simply patted his chest with her palms.
He liked it when she touched him, but today it was different. Today there was a hesitation. As if she were gathering all of her courage to ask whatever it was. It filled him with tension. “Just ask, Sam. Whatever it is.”
She looked up at him, surprise making her brown eyes impossibly wider. Then she sighed. “This banquet, the research foundation, it’s all in her name, isn’t it? Violetta.”
He nodded. It was strange to hear Violetta’s name on Sam’s lips. But not as jarring as he’d imagined it would be. “How do you know?”
“One can’t be your plaything and escape her name being thrown in one’s face, Alessandro.
But I want to know about her,” she said, a wariness to her mouth.
“Especially when it’s clear that she was—she is—a big part of who you are.
” She swallowed slowly. “I mean, Angelina told me most of the details.”
“What else is there to know?”
The sky was suddenly overcast, dark clouds rolling in. Like his mood.
Alessandro didn’t know if he preferred the light or the dark for this conversation. Only that he didn’t want to hurt Sam by saying the wrong thing. But stopping her when she set her mind to something was impossible. He’d learned that when he’d tried to stay away from her.