A Hunger for the Forbidden(44)

Sharp nails dug into the flesh on his shoulder, but this time, the pain didn’t bring him back. He lost himself, let his orgasm take him over, a rush of completion that took him under completely. He was lost in a wave, and burning. Burning hot and bright, nothing coming to put him out. To give him any relief. All he could do was hang on and weather it. Try to survive a pleasure so intense it bordered on destructive.

And when it was over, she was there, soft arms wrapped around him, her scent surrounding him.

“Will it always be like this?” Alessia’s voice was broken with sharp, hard breaths.

He didn’t have an answer for her. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. And he hoped to God it wouldn’t always be like this because there was no way his control could withstand it. And at the same time he knew he couldn’t live with her and deny himself her body.

He would keep it under control. He would keep his heart separate from his body. He’d done it with women all his life. He’d done it when his father had asked him to learn the family business. The night his father had forced him to dole out punishment to a man in debt to the Corretti family.

He had locked his heart in ice and kept himself from feeling. His actions unconnected to anything but his mind.

He could do it again. He would.

“We should go inside,” he said, sitting up, his breathing still ragged.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I have grass stains in … places.”

He turned to her, a shocked laugh bursting from him. A real laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed and meant it. “Well, you should be glad I made quick work of your gown, then.”

“You tore it,” she said, moving into a standing position and picking up her shredded garment.

“You liked it.”

He could see her smile, even in the dim light. “A little.”

There was a strange lightness in his chest now, a feeling that was completely foreign to him. As though a rock had been taken off his shoulders. “I’m hungry,” she said.

She started walking back toward the house, and he kept his eyes trained on her bare backside, on the twin dimples low on her back. She was so sexy he was hard again already.

He bent and picked his underwear up from the ground, tugging the black boxer briefs on quickly and following her inside. “Do you want to eat?” he asked.

“Yes, I do.” She wandered through the maze of rooms, still naked, and he followed.

“And what would you like?”

“Pasta. Have you got an apron?”

“Have I got an apron?”

“You have a cook, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Does he have an apron?”

“She.” He opened the pantry door and pulled a short red apron off a hook.

Alessia smiled and slipped the apron over her head, tying it tight. She was a lot taller than the little round woman he’d hired to cook his meals. The apron came down just to the tops of her thighs and it tied in the back, exposing her body to him from that angle.

“Dinner and a show,” he said.

She tossed him a playful glare, then started riffling through the cabinets. “What kind of pasta have you got?”

“Fresh in the fridge,” he said.

She opened up the stainless-steel fridge and bent down, searching for a few moments before popping up with a container that held pappardelle pasta and another that had marinara sauce.

She put a pan of water on the stove, then put the sauce in another pan to reheat, and leaned back against the counter, her arms crossed beneath her breasts.

“Didn’t you ever hear that a watched pot never boils?”

“No. Who says that?”

“People do,” he said.

“Did your mom say it to you?”

“No. A cook we had, I think.”

“Oh. It’s the kind of thing my mother probably would have said to me someday. If she had lived.”

“You miss her still.”

“I always will. But you lost your father.”

Guilt, ugly, strangling guilt, tightened in his chest. “Yes.”

“So you understand.”

He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure I do.”

“You don’t miss him?”

“Never.”

“I know your father was hard to deal with. I know he was … I know he was shady like my father but surely you must—”