Maid for the Billionaire(47)

―I have a confession. I thought the whole kidnapping thing was sexy. That conquering warrior tone is a real turn on and being whisked away to your private island had me imagining all kinds of wicked fantasies.‖

―Really?‖ he said. His heightened interest was obvious in his eyes and the way he instantly hardened within her eager hands. He quickly shed his shirt and bent to effortlessly lift her before him. His tongue made a tantalizing path from her abdomen to circle one of her nipples lightly.

It tightened and puckered beneath his attention. ―So when I was angry, you were picturing me doing this?‖

He slid her down the front of him, enjoying the feel of her hardened nipples against his chest. Abby arched backwards and sighed with pleasure when he reached down and slid a finger inside her already excited folds. She shuddered and whispered, somewhat shyly, ―When you came back to the plane and threw me on the bed, I wanted to pull you down on top of me.‖

He plundered her mouth while maintaining a firm rhythm with his hand, a rhythm that had her bucking against his gifted thumb and tightening her inner muscles around his finger. His voice was thick with passion. ―You should have.‖

―What would you have done?‖ she asked breathlessly, hanging on to her last shreds of coherent thought as waves of warm pleasure spread through her.

Dominic carried her to the bed and poised himself above her. His tip teased, entering then withdrawing, until she was grasping at his shoulders with need. ―What all conquering warriors want to do,‖ he said with satisfaction and buried himself deep within her, taking them both to a place where further conversation was impossible.



Chapter Seventeen

Isola Santos, Dominic‘s private island, rose out of the sea about seventy miles off the coast of Naples like a rocky fortress. His immense steel and glass mega mansion which dominated a quarter of the nearly hundred acre island looked like it would have fit better in a business district of any major city rather than overlooking the 18th century stone structures Dominic said he planned to one day remove.

Like so many of his other possessions, it made no effort to blend into its surroundings. The compound screamed money and power. Its massive main entrance foyer was three floors of glass and polished chrome which branched out into a large rectangular structure that encircled gardens, Olympic sized pools, and even a small stable like some modern fort.

During the tour, Abby lost count of the number of bedrooms. She loved the private movie theatre, but stopped at the sight of a set of sliding chrome doors. Hand on hip, she turned to Dominic and asked, ―Really? An elevator? Was that necessary?‖

Dominic flushed slightly. ―Too much?‖

Abby shook her head in confusion as the tour led out a back door and onto an enormous veranda that overlooked one entire side of the island. There was no denying the cold beauty of the modern paradise he had crafted for himself, but it didn‘t fit the man she knew any more than it did the island itself. ―Dom, don‘t get me wrong. This place is beautiful…‖

Dominic wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and breathed in the scent of his lover‘s hair, sighing with contentment. ―I hear a but in your voice.‖

Abby hugged his arms into her stomach. ―It doesn‘t seem like you. And if this is you, could you have actually left it for Boston? What if I had asked you to?‖

Hugging her closer, Dominic said, ―A month ago, I couldn‘t have. This house, like so much of what I own, was built out of some compulsion to prove to my father that I was better than him.

Sad, isn‘t it? To waste so much time and money on things that aren‘t important.‖

Abby‘s chest tightened at the pain in his voice. ―It wasn‘t wasted, Dominic. Look at what you created. It‘s beautiful.‖

He turned her gently in his arms and met her eyes with such sincerity that it nearly broke her heart. ―No, you‘re beautiful. You don‘t have to sugar coat it for me, Abby, this place is gaudy and overdone. Before I met you, I had an emptiness I couldn‘t explain. I used to think that if I made more money, purchased something better, or built something bigger it would fill that void, but it never did. All of the things I bought, all of the decisions I made, were for my benefit and none of it made me happy. Our Chinese scholarship program is the first thing I‘ve done in a very long time that I‘m proud of. I can‘t even take credit for it, since you forced me to do it, but it still feels good.‖

―Oh, Dom, you don‘t give yourself credit for the good you‘ve done. What about Mrs.

Duhamel? She told me about how you helped her when she had no one else to turn to. Does that sound like a self-absorbed man?‖ She laid a comforting hand on his cheek and felt his smile even before she saw it.

―One kind gesture does not make a saint,‖ he said ruefully.

―I don‘t want a saint, Dom. I want you.‖ When he cocked his head to the side in a blatant request for her to continue, she said, ―I fell in love with the complex man who returned to Boston because his sister needed him and didn‘t want to meet her alone so he was willing to blackmail me into going with him.‖

Abby adored the flush she saw in his cheeks. ―I‘m not sure at that point I was thinking about too much more than how to get you naked.‖

The light pinch Abby gave his stomach was a playful reprimand. ―Say what you want, but the way you clung to my hand told me everything I needed to know.‖

―I did not - ‖ he started to say then wisely stopped himself. ―Regardless, I want you to know that I‘m no longer the man who built this monstrosity of a home. I want to do something more important with our money in the future. What do you think of a scholarship for inner city children in the United States? I think Corisi Enterprises could spare another five percent.‖