Chapter 12 #2
He stared at her for a long beat and her heart leapt into her throat.
She wanted to drop to her knees, pull his boardshorts down and take him in her mouth.
When he kissed her intimately, it was the best thing she’d ever felt; she wanted to give that to him.
But it wasn’t just about giving; she had been fantasising about it.
Imagining it, daring herself to act on that impulse.
Before she could lower herself, though, he caught her face in his hands and held her there, staring into her eyes for so long that the world seemed to stop spinning.
“Are you hungry, Allegra?”
She moved closer to him, wrapping her hands around his back, melding their bodies together perfectly. “Starving.” The tone in his voice should have left him in little doubt that she wasn’t talking about food.
“Good,” he responded with a deep husk. “Then come with me.”
In the kitchen, he was glad for the distraction of food.
Of raw ingredients they could turn into lunch, a simple recipe that the housekeeper had taught him when he was a boy of eight or nine.
And for the most part, he ignored the disappointment on Allegra’s face.
The way she kept sneaking glances at him, as if to ascertain if he wanted her like she wanted him.
If only she knew.
The darkness was still there—a constant part of him—but it was no longer the ebb and flow of his mood. He was in control again. And they were far enough from his grandfather’s island, from Paolo and Dante, to breathe, and know that out here, Allegra was safe.
Not that he’d feared for her physically, but from the poison of Paolo’s hatred.
The truth of that poison? The fact that the other man had every reason to hate him, and Luca didn’t want Allegra to see him that way.
Not once in his entire life had he shied away from his actions.
Not once had he apologised for them. He was who he was, by necessity and need.
He accepted that. He faced his flaws head on.
He took responsibility for his choices. Marco had died because of his command decision.
And Paolo hated him because all his life, Luca had set out to win, at any cost.
But Paolo was the same. Less effective, but just as motivated. And with beautiful, trusting, innocent Allegra in his midst, Luca didn’t want to think about what Paolo would have said and done. How he might have turned Allegra against him.
“What next?”
She drew his attention back to the kitchen. Allegra had chopped the onion and garlic and was standing there staring at him. He stared back. Swallowed. Wanted with the strength of a thousand suns.
“Oil,” he murmured, wishing he hadn’t put a stop to what she was doing. Wishing he’d just let things between them play out.
He pulled out a pan and put it on the stove, added oil then moved to take the chopping board. But it brought him close to Allegra, and when their fingers brushed, he had to bite back a groan. Why was he tormenting them both like this? Why was he keeping them both in purgatory?
Because you know you don’t deserve her.
He ignored the voice. Who was he to deny her what she wanted? He’d been honest with her from the beginning. He’d told her the truth about what he wanted, who he was. And she’d chosen him. She wanted him.
“Luca.” She clicked her fingers in front of his face. “You’re a thousand miles away.”
“Si. Lo so.” Was that his voice? Deep and raw, edged with something he barely recognised. He reached to his right and flicked off the stove. Stared at her. Stared at her like a drowning man might a life raft.
“Allegra…”
She sucked in a deep breath, and then he was reaching for her, food forgotten, every reason not to do this long behind them, as he lifted her and set her down on the edge of the bench, standing in the triangle of her legs and kissing her long and hard, his tongue duelling with hers as his fingers tangled frantically in her hair, keeping her head pressed to his, trying not to lose too much of himself, even when he knew that was going to be impossible.
“Cristo,” he moaned into her mouth, as his hands curved beneath her and kneaded her bottom, lifting her and pressing her closer against him.
Her hands matched his, wrapping around his back and sliding into the waistband of his shorts, pressing to his ass until he was no longer a man, just a collection of needs and instincts, driven by his body’s cravings.
He lifted her easily and her legs wrapped around his waist, gripping him tight, so she could keep kissing him and he could kiss her right back, as he strode through the living area and into the master bedroom.
Light spilled through the windows, casting the bed in gold, like magic.
Magic for her first time.
He pushed that thought from his mind. He didn’t want to think of this as significant.
No more significant than sex with anyone, at any time, but as he stripped out of his shorts and brought his body over hers, he knew that was a lie.
Allegra was different. Completely, utterly unique in how she affected him.
Danger pounded through his veins as he recognised the risk here—of wanting more than was wise, more than he wished.
And knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Just the feeling of his weight on her was enough to drive Ally wild.
His body, naked and glorious, the planes of him, the warmth of his skin.
She could run her fingers over him for days and not get bored.
She wanted to explore every single piece of him, to lick and taste, to touch and feel.
When she flicked his nipples he made an animalistic sound of pure heated pleasure that made her toes curl; she liked seeing what he liked.
But there was no thought to it. No brain space was available to process his reactions.
She simply did what she wanted and enjoyed his obvious abandon.
They were wild together, though. Wild and untamed, feral.
She’d been worried he’d be too gentle. That he’d restrain himself rather than letting their passion be free, but when it came to it, he was powerless, like she was.
There was something bigger at play, that neither could control.
His stubble dragged over her jaw, her décolletage, her sensitive breasts, leaving a stinging feeling in its wake, her overly sensitive body aware of everything.
His fingers at her breasts were demanding and desperate, his mouth on her was promising pleasures that she ached for.
And then, he was sheathing himself and tilting at her sex, pushing up onto his elbows to look into her eyes. “Remember our deal?”
She didn’t.
She couldn’t remember anything.
He dropped his mouth to hers and kissed the words into her soul. “You will tell me if you need me to stop. If it hurts. If anything is wrong. You just say and I stop.”
She bit into her lip, nodding urgently. “Please?” What more could she say? Her wants were outsized. She was at their whim utterly.
His fingers reached down, separating her seam, then shifted to her sensitive nerve buds, brushing over her as his enormous, hard length nudged inside.
She tensed at that first feeling, a sting, a sense of something being new.
But he paused and she groaned her complaint, lifting her hips as an ancient feminine understanding of this dance moved through her.
Experience be damned, there was a shared, ancient knowledge that had lain dormant in her veins and was now being stoked to life.
When she lifted, he nudged deeper, harder, and her muscles, tight and untested, stretched to meet him, to grip him, so he let out a sound that was definitely not human, followed quickly by a curse in Italian.
“Allegra.” Her name meant nothing. He was saying it as an exclamation, not a question. She closed her eyes as sensations began to storm through her body. “Okay?” He checked with her, and she nodded.
“Better than,” she promised. He moved his fingers faster, so waves of need and heat began to wash through her and her muscles clenched hard as he thrust the rest of the way, filling her up and staying there, while she adjusted to the new sensation of fulness, of complete and utter possession.
She had felt no pain. She’d expected to, and yet in the moment, besides it being unfamiliar, nothing had hurt.
A smile shifted over her face as she blinked up at him, and she said, before he could ask, “So good, Luca. So damn good.”
It was like the bursting of a dam, the opening of floodgates.
The permission he’d been waiting for to take her as he wanted, and she needed.
From that moment on, he was pure perfect lover, driving her to the edge of pleasure time and time again and tilting her over it, calming her, then driving her wild again, all the while, holding off his own release for as long as he could, until she had been soaked in pleasure over and over and then finally, as she crested towards an enormous wave of need, he was there with her, exploding as she wrapped around him, as their voices mingled and euphoric cries filled the bedroom, the room glowing golden with warmth and pleasure, and the promise of this being only the beginning.