Chapter 12
“IWILL.”
She held her breath, staring up at him.
“But not tonight.”
“No,” she groaned. “That’s not fair.”
He pulled her to him, though, holding her tight, and something in his features showed that he was relenting.
She held her breath. “I will take you to bed, and I will make you feel. I will make you scream and see stars. I will make you lose your very beautiful mind; but I will not take you like this.”
“What’s wrong with this?”
He stared down at her, torment in his eyes.
“I hate him. I hate him with an intensity you could never understand. You are too good, too pure, to know what darkness moves in me. But if I take you tonight, that will be a part of it. My hatred of him, the fact you’ve met him, how he looked at you. It’s not what I want for you.”
“Isn’t that my decision?”
“You wouldn’t choose that. I know you wouldn’t.”
“Then you don’t know me at all,” she flung back at him. “I’m asking you to sleep with me, and I don’t care if it’s partly because of Paolo. I’m sick of waiting. Take me to bed, Luca, I’m begging you.”
“I told you, I will. I will take you to bed tonight, but I will not take you. Don’t ask it of me.
” And then he was kissing her with all the dark intensity he’d said he felt, his mouth overtaking hers, his tongue a desperate plea, his hands running urgently over her body before lifting her to him and carrying her across the deck and through the door to the boat’s interior.
As soon as they were inside, he pressed her to a wall, holding her there, legs wrapped around his waist as he pushed at her clothes, his hands seeking, desperate to feel her skin, his whole body conveying the emotions that were overtaking him.
She couldn’t do anything but cry out. With pleasure, need, longing.
She tilted her head back and called his name into the room, and when he kissed her, those cries were swallowed by him.
When his mouth moved first to one breast and then the other, her voice filled the air around them, and then his hand was between her legs, finding the sweetest spot of all and expertly wielding it to drive her senseless, until she was incandescent with feelings, and he was the master of them all.
It was not the end, though. He pleasured her again and again.
There, against the wall, atop the grand piano, and finally, the sofa, so by the time he carried her to the enormous cabin and laid her in the bed, she was heavy with exhaustion and pleasure, satiated even when there remained a small part of her that knew true satisfaction was yet to come.
But he had done what he’d set out to: he had worn her out. She couldn’t beg for him anymore, but when she fell asleep, even her dreams were filled with him, so too her memories and hopes. It was all Luca.
He stared at the sea, but barely saw it. In his mind, it was a desert night, on the other side of the world. He was in the Middle East, watching the horizon for action, ever vigilant, carrying the weight of his regiment on his shoulders. Aware that their safety was his duty.
In his mind, he was far away from her, this moment. The perfection he didn’t deserve.
Darkness pitted his memories.
Darkness swirling through him, as always. Marco. The war. Coming home so different to how he’d been before. And now, Allegra.
The way Paolo had looked at her.
The way it had made him feel.
He’d hated his brother a long time; that was nothing new. They’d fought. Each been jealous of the other. They’d sworn to destroy one another’s interests. But never had he felt that he had something valuable enough to care about losing. Not more than the damned company.
And yet, how could that be? Allegra was a means to an end, not the means to it all.
What did he care if Paolo had a stupid crush, or simply wanted to protect her from Luca?
Paolo wasn’t wrong, in any event. Luca had probably given her the same warning his marginally younger brother no doubt had.
He was bad news. Always had been, but the Middle East and Marco had made him completely unsafe.
Broken beyond repair, liable to break anyone who stayed close to him.
And yet, she had chosen him.
Knowing what she did about him, understanding what he’d said, Allegra was still there. Begging for him. It went beyond sex. It went beyond need. This was elemental. It was fate. It was something stronger than either of them.
And he could not keep slamming the door on it.
She would be his, Dio io auti. She would be. And he could only pray to deserve her faith in him, to keep her safe. Not to break her or lose her, as he had so many others.
She slept late, and little wonder. He had exhausted her.
Knowingly, she guessed. He had driven her to climax again, and again, and again, until she was breathless and spent, barely able to keep her eyes open, and then he’d carried her body to the bed and laid her down so reverently that she’d wanted to point out there was nothing dark or tormented in his soul. Not when such gentleness existed.
And yet that wasn’t true. She’d seen it.
His torture and torment, the anger that had run through him.
His protectiveness of her. She didn’t know how to tell him he’d already saved her from a fate she couldn’t describe.
He wasn’t exactly her knight in shining armour; she refused to believe she needed saving.
But he’d stood between her and something so much worse than Paolo, a threat she truly hadn’t been able to handle.
Stretching in the bed, she glanced to her right even when she knew she was alone. His side of the bed was empty. She stretched her fingers out and ran them over the sheet, trying to imagine being back in his villa and sleeping in separate rooms. And failing.
It brought a frown to her face. They were only a week and a half into their marriage and already she wanted to substantially shift the goal posts.
She wanted more, even within the limitations of what she knew was possible. And she wasn’t arguing with that. She understood why he would never commit, why he couldn’t be what she wanted and needed, but it didn’t stop her from craving more now. While she had him.
She pushed the sheet back with impatience, stepping out of bed and stalking, naked, towards the window. The coastline, in the late morning, was both beautiful, and in a state of movement. Or rather, they were moving.
She frowned, remembering his suggestion that they explore a town, her joking correction that they could have groceries brought aboard. She grabbed a robe and went in search of him, and clarification.
He was above deck, at the navigation wheel, gaze fixed on the coastline.
She hesitated a moment. Not from nervousness, but from the sheer force of awareness that hit her like a wall. It wasn’t just how he looked, but who he was, a strength that was conveyed by every single cell of him.
Did he sense her arrival? Surely he couldn’t have heard her. Yet he turned, before she could reach him, lips tugging in something close to a smile. “You’re up.”
She nodded, realising she had no idea of the time. “What time is it?”
“Almost lunch time.”
Her eyes flew wide. “You’re kidding?”
He arched a brow.
“I don’t think I’ve slept that late in…ever.”
Sheer masculine pride shone in his eyes. “You must have been tired.”
“Oh, completely worn out,” she murmured. Yet there was something about the expression on his face that irked her. Or rather, challenged her. The pride bordering on arrogance. The knowledge he possessed—and not wrongly—that he could drive her to distraction so easily.
She moved to stand behind him, as though just admiring the view, and then snaked her hands around his waist, innocently enough.
Only she felt his harsh intake of breath and knew that the second she touched him, he felt the same spark in his bloodstream as she did in hers.
His hands clenched; she saw it and knew. Understood.
Her hands moved lower, shaking slightly, at the daring of this. Of moving to touch. Of holding.
“Allegra,” he growled, but he didn’t stop her. He didn’t ask her to stop. “You shouldn’t—,”
“Why not?” Her own voice was a purr. She barely recognised herself.
Her pulse was firing far too fast as she slipped her hands into the waistband of his shorts, and lower, to find his enormous, hard cock. She was rewarded with a harsh exhalation, a rough, jagged hawing of his breath as he tilted his head back and surrendered to this.
“You’re beautiful,” she said, and it was true. Though it might have seemed strange to describe a man like Luca that way, she thought it whenever she looked at him. A work of art, from head to toe.
“Allegra,” another growl, but this one more of a plea.
She had no idea what she was doing, every touch and movement was instinct, but somehow, those instincts were confident.
She ran her fingers from his tip to his base, and when he breathed harder, she kept doing what she was doing, the movements rhythmic and then gaining speed until he was reaching for her hands and pulling at them, turning to face her, his cheeks slashed with dark colour, his eyes glittering with wildness.
“Basta. Stop.”
She flushed to the roots of her hair, chastened. Had she done something wrong?
“No, no.” He closed his eyes, breathing rough. She realised she’d asked the question aloud. “You did everything right. Too right. Perfect. I have decent control, but I am not a machine.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“That I am about to come, and I do not wish to. Not like this.”
Pride mixed with confusion. “But…why not?”
He shook his head once.
“That’s not fair,” she said, without waiting for him to answer. “You touch me and I fall apart. Why can’t I do the same to you?”