Chapter 2
2
S HE WALKED SLOWLY, PERHAPS giving herself every possible opportunity to change her mind. Except, the opposite seemed to be happening. With each careful, deliberate step lower, anticipation was building inside of her, just as it had in Moricosia over the course of their time there. Every encounter, every brush of their hands or meeting of their eyes, had, bit by bit, built a fire of need in her belly that only being with Salvatore would put out.
Yet it still burned, even now. Six months later, despite the fact they hadn’t seen each other.
“Well?” she asked, impressed that she managed to keep her voice light and carefree. “What can I do for you, Salvatore?”
“That’s an interesting question.”
“But is there an answer?”
“There are many answers.” Once more, he raked his gaze over her body, and this time, her nipples tingled as though he were touching them, forming hard peaks against the soft fabric of her dress. She dug her fingernails into her palms to counter the moan that was forming in the base of her throat. No way would she so easily reveal how quickly he could affect her.
Then again, she didn’t need to moan to confirm that he was doing something to her pulse…his eyes hovered on her breasts, his smirk grew smirkier, and then, one of his hands was moving to her hip, fingers curving around her and drawing her closer.
“This dress should be illegal.”
“You don’t like it?” she murmured, perfectly aware he felt the opposite.
“I prefer what’s underneath.”
“Funny, I thought about coming to this thing naked, but I changed my mind at the last moment.”
He laughed at that, and a shot of warmth fired through her. She tamped down on the pleasure she got from knowing she’d been the one to make him laugh. That’s not what this was about. Slowly, she took a sip of her drink, but a second later, his hand reached down and curled around the glass, taking it from her and lifting it to his own lips. His eyes held hers as he tasted it, and her heart did a funny little tremble in response.
“You know, you were just at the bar,” she drawled, and in response, he took another taste, eyes still on hers. This time, unmistakably, there was a spirit of provocation in their depths, like he was looking at her as though he wanted to see her lose her temper.
“Why am I not surprised? A Valentino doesn’t know how to share.”
“And a Santoro takes what he wants regardless.”
“Touché. But if memory serves, you’re the one who picked up the contract in Moricosia.”
“And don’t you just hate that?”
His eyes flashed with something raw and real, briefly belying the flirtiness of their banter. “King Ares could not award it to us. Not after he and Sofia got together.”
“Tsk, tsk,” she murmured, swiping her drink back and finishing it, staring him down as the last drop of the astringent liquid hit her mouth. “That sounds an awful lot like sour grapes.”
“You’re calling me a poor loser?”
“If the shoe fits…”
“I don’t like to lose,” he agreed. “But I’ll tolerate it when it’s fair.”
“Now you’re crying foul?”
He shrugged laconically. “If you can be happy winning work just because we were essentially disqualified…”
“Would it kill you to tell me my design was better?”
“I’ve never been much of a liar.”
Heat flooded her cheeks, and she was torn between hate and lust. “You are such a piece of work. You can’t even bring yourself to congratulate me?”
He grinned then; a sexy, twisty smile that made her wonder if he was being so outrageous just to provoke her. If so, it had worked. Spectacularly. Anger fizzed in her veins, reminding her of the fact she’d spent a lifetime hating these people with every fibre of her being.
And this line of questioning was only making it worse, because the truth was, while she believed their design was superior to the Santoro tender, ever since being awarded the project, they’d been beset by problem after problem. From an obstructive government to a major issue with one of their suppliers, Emilia had spent the last few months practically tearing her hair out over the details—and halfway wishing they hadn’t been successful in winning the project after all.
But then, the alternative would have meant leaving it to the Santoros, and there was no way they’d ever have done that. When it came to beating this family, the Valentinos had a clear mission in life.
“I would never have come to this thing if I’d known your family was a major sponsor.”
“Scared to see me?”
“Not interested in being in the same room as you.”
“Says the woman who just followed me into the fire escape,” he pointed out, and his hand on her hip pulled her closer, hard against his body, so she felt the jut of his cock and that same smothered groan made a bid for freedom. The most that emerged though was a quick burst of breath—an indignant sound of surprise.
“I was intrigued, what can I say?”
“And now?” His hand shifted from her hip to the small of her back, pressing her further forward. Her gaze dropped, helplessly, to his throat, locking to the stubble covered Adam’s apple there.
“ Now,” she said, desperately trying to think of something pithy and condescending to say, but her mind drew a blank.
His finger beneath her chin angled her face, so her eyes were locked to his once more, held captive by his attention, and the way he stared through her.
“Yes?”
His hand began to ruche the silky fabric of her dress, pulling it into his fist, one inch at a time, until he’d caught it all and she felt the cold air of the stairwell against her exposed legs and backside. She wore a flimsy thong—really just a scrap of fine lace—to avoid visible lines beneath the dress, so it was easy for him to bring his other hand around and cup her naked butt.
She gasped again. “Salvatore!” His name was supposed to be a curse, a criticism, but she was very aware it came out as a plea. Just as it had the night they’d slept together, when he’d mimicked her desperate, hungry cries and she’d sworn she’d never forget how much she hated him. When she’d made them both swear that it would be the one and only night they shared.
“I’m not sleeping with you again,” she said, on a husk.
Another grin flickered on his lips—all sexy, confident. “Who said anything about sleep?” His mouth meshed with hers in a manner that was as demanding as it was fierce. It had been six long months since they’d been together—six months since she’d been with anyone, even just a kiss, a look or a touch—and her body seemed to be rejoicing in this sudden burst of intimacy, and the promise of what was to come.
A voice in the back of her mind—the sensible voice of Valentino reason—was shouting at her to knee him in the groin or pull away from him and shoot him down with a withering glare and a few choice words, but that voice was drowned out by the rampant, incessant hum of need pounding through her.
“I hate you, you know,” she said against his mouth, as her hands pulled his shirt from his pants, so her fingertips could trail over his naked flesh.
“You’re supposed to hate me,” he murmured, as he dragged his mouth from her lips along the side of her jaw, to the sensitive pulse point just beneath her ear and flicked her there. She arched her back in an uncontrollable physical response to the waves of desire he was so effortlessly evoking. “That’s what we do, remember?”
It was hard to remember anything when his hand was pushing her thong down her legs, until she’d stepped out of them and the underwear was on the cold concrete floor beneath them.
“Hate each other,” he promised, moving his hand to her sex. While he touched her there, he pulled his head away, so his eyes could spear her, watching her reaction.
And damn it, she wasn’t quick enough to conceal the pleasure he gave her. She wasn’t quick enough to hide the way his touch set her pulse racing, the flush in her cheeks, the way her lips parted on a giddy sigh of anticipation.
“Yes, hate each other,” she mumbled, not entirely cognizant of what she was saying.
“But that’s no reason we can’t still do this,” he said, as he drove a finger into her, and she bucked her hips hard.
“Actually,” the word came as a breathless plea. “I think it’s a damn good reason we shouldn’t do this, but I don’t care,” she moaned. “Fuck me, Salvatore, now.”
“Here?”
“Unless you can produce a bed out of thin air, then here will do fine.”
His response was to unfasten his trousers and pull himself from them, at the same time he reached into his jacket pocket and removed a condom, opening the packet and unfurling it over his length.
In the minuscule fragment of her brain that was still capable of thinking rationally, she couldn’t help but register the fact he had the condom, like he knew he’d be using it tonight. If not with her, then with someone else. Because that’s who Salvatore Santoro was. She’d known that even before they’d landed in Moricosia. Whereas she’d spent the last six months in the sexual wilderness, she had no doubt he’d been happily taking whomever he fancied to bed.
But before the realisation could lead to anything less pleasant, like a change of heart and mind, he was pulling her with him, further down the stairs, sitting then on the top step of the next landing, his hard cock protruding from his pants, his brows quirked expectantly.
Emilia wished she had it in her to walk away from him. Bastard deserved it. The thought of leaving him like this, high and dry and desperate for her, was infinitely appealing—except she had no doubt he’d just zip himself up and find someone else.
And then she’d be the one going home alone, a small point scored. She’d have won this battle, yet the war would be his. A hollow victory indeed.
So she caught her dress in her palms as she came to straddle him, the concrete cold beneath her palms as she braced herself above him.
“I really do hate you,” she promised once more, because it felt as though it somehow lessened the betrayal of her family, a little, if she only made love to him when she was reminding them both of the true state of affairs.
“That may be the case, cara, but you also love to fuck me, don’t you?”
She sucked in a sharp breath at the confidence in his voice, and the brief spurt of indecision that fired through her—the worry that maybe this wasn’t as mutual as she’d thought?
Except then, his hand was moving to the back of her head, his fingers toying with the neat, professionally styled bun, pulling her hair out over her shoulders. His eyes had an intensity that almost burned her alive when he said, “I like your hair like this.”
It caught at something inside her chest, something she didn’t want to feel or analyse, so she moved over him then and took his length deep inside her, hard and fast, smothering a curse at the feeling of fullness, the sheer size of him, his strength. And then, her hips were rocking to their own dance, moving in a desperate, hungry tattoo, until he was exactly where and what she needed. She arched her back as she came, her breasts pushed forward, and through the fabric of her dress, he took a nipple in his mouth, sucking it and pressing his teeth into her flesh until she was crying out, over and over, her whole body lighting up like a Christmas tree, as pleasure burst through every single part of her central nervous system.
She’d been wrong, in Moricosia. That orgasm had been great, but this…this was beyond description. Emilia was floating, and it was impossible to care that it was all because of Salvatore.
“You bastard,” she said, staring at her reflection in a small compact mirror from her clutch purse. She looked…like a woman who’d just been ravaged in the cold, barren wilderness of the fire escape stairwell. She looked like a woman who’d sold herself to the devil. Her hair wasn’t just in disarray, it was completely wild—made that way by the fast, furious tangle of his fingers, as he’d combed and pulled at the ends, in a dramatic mirroring of their making love. But her dress was a whole other level of bad. The soft silk was crumpled all over, a thousand tiny creases from the way it had been scrunched at her hips, and both breasts showed round circles of moisture, from where his mouth had hungrily sought her nipples, tormenting her in a way she hadn’t even registered would leave marks. Her lipstick was smudged, too—but she could fix that. The rest was a disaster.
“You look good,” he promised, but with that infuriating, irritating, overly-cocky smile, that made her wonder if just maybe he’d planned this. To embarrass her? She wouldn’t put it past him.
“I can’t go in there like this, and you know it.”
“Why not?” His smirk made her itch to slap him.
“Oh—just—go to hell,” she muttered. Then, as an afterthought, “Actually, make yourself useful?—,”
“I thought I’d already done that. Three times, if I’m not mistaken?”
Heat bloomed over her face. “Hold this.” She shoved the mirror towards him. “And stop gloating. It’s not attractive.”
He shot her a look that was laced with skepticism but at least he did hold the mirror for her while she attempted to return order to her hair. It only took a few minutes, and it wasn’t quite the same effect, but at least the stylist had used enough of a setting spray that it seemed to want to be molded back into a bun shape.
“You should leave it out.” The husk in Salvatore’s voice was like a fresh breath of need, catching her by surprise. How could she possibly want him again? He was right—she’d been tipped over the edge of pleasure three times in under ten minutes. Her first assessment of him as ‘God’s gift’ was sticking. And, as with the first night they spent together, she knew it shouldn’t have happened, even when she easily accepted wild horses wouldn’t have stopped it.
“It would raise questions.”
“And your dress won’t?”
She threw him a frustrated look. “No, because you’re going to lend me your jacket.”
He laughed then, a sound of disbelief, but quickly sobered. “You don’t think that will raise even more? If I appear without a jacket and you’re wearing one all of a sudden?”
“I just need it to get to the ladies’ room. I’ll dry my dress there. Though next time, if you could show a modicum of restraint and not ruin my clothes, I’d be very grateful.”
“Next time, Emilia? Isn’t that a little presumptuous?”
Her lips parted in surprise at the stupid slip she’d made, and the way he’d easily capitalised on it. Embarrassment had her toes curling. “You’re right. Better to assume there won’t be a next time.”
“We’ll see.” His smile was all smug, and she could barely look at him, so she went back to fixing her face, pleased that she looked almost completely normal. “Jacket?” She held out her hand, not meeting his eyes.
He removed it, watching her the whole time—she could feel the heat of his gaze on her—before he handed it over. The second she pushed it on, she wished there’d been an alternative, because it was still warm from his body, and it had his citrusy masculine fragrance in it. She resisted the urge to breathe it in.
He turned and stalked up the stairs and she took a few moments to collect herself before following behind.
“I’ll leave your jacket here once I’m done,” she said, frowning as she looked around for her discarded underwear.
They were nowhere to be seen.
“Salvatore…” she looked at him helplessly, but his response was just a flicker of one brow. He walked back towards her, slowly, intent in his gaze.
“You have something of mine,” she said weakly—his proximity had made it hard to speak.
“And you can get it back from me…next time.” Then, he was kissing her once more, pulling her against his body, holding her there, all fire, flame and the same urgent need that had pulled them apart earlier, and six months ago. “You have my number, Emilia.” Another kiss. “Use it.”
Anger made her want to shout after him, “Never in a million years!” but it turned out, they had something in common after all: neither of them liked to lie.