The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (Italian Billionaires #1)(42)

Packing? A quick glance was enough to locate the small carry-on that sat open on the bed. Beside it was the navy skirt and white blouse he had come to both appreciate and despise. She had been getting ready to leave, it seemed, meant to go without a word. Rage unlike anything he’d ever known surged through him,

“Carisa, enough,” he said, swinging back to his sister.

The edge in his voice seemed to shock her into silence. She stared at him with her eyes luminous with tears, nose running and small mouth still open wide.

Immediately contrite, he knelt before her, drawing her against him to smooth her soft back. “It’s all right, carina mia. Don’t be sad. It’s a mistake. Amanda isn’t going.”

“Truly?” she asked on a hiccup, her voice wobbling. “I don’t want her to go.”

“Nico,” Amanda began.

“No one wants her to go. It’s just a misunderstanding. Everything will be all right, I promise it. Meanwhile, would you like a nice profiterole? I heard—”

He came to an abrupt halt as he realized he was doing exactly as Amanda had said they all did with Carisa. When had it become a habit?

“Profiterole?” she asked with a line of worry between her pale brows.

Amanda took a step toward him. “Nico?”

He did not dare look at her, directing his attention only to Carisa as he brushed her cheek in a gentle caress. “We will discuss it, Amanda and I. While we do that, perhaps you and Aunt Filomena would like to take a walk? You could go as far as the sea.”

“Nico, please. Per piacere,” his aunt said in protest. Her look was imploring as she stood in the doorway.

“Allora, it will do you both good.” His answer was without pity, particularly as a watery smile of instant pleasure and anticipation bloomed across Carisa’s sweet face.

His aunt sighed then came to gather Carisa to her in a huge, soft hug. Speaking softly, she turned with her toward the hall, though she sent him a knowing glance over her shoulder before they disappeared into the hall. He could hear the two of them talking in low voices, explaining to his grandmother. A moment later, the voices faded away down the stairs.

Nico stepped to close the bedroom door. Holding hard to his temper, he turned slowly to face Amanda.

“That was well done,” she said before he could speak.

If it was meant to soothe his anger, it did not succeed. “I do have a concern for my sister. But you? You were going,” he said. “You were running away without even a civil goodbye for her. Or for me.”

“I don’t care to stay where I’m not wanted.”

“Oh, you’re wanted,” he said, moving toward her with deliberate steps. “What I would prefer is that you were not wanted so much.”

She retreated while moistening her lips with her tongue. “But you said—”

“I know what I said, but it’s too late. You’ve already made Carisa love you. My grandmother and my aunt not only enjoy your company but look forward to it. As for me—” He reached for her, catching her forearms to draw her against him. A shiver ran across his shoulders, beading his arms with goose bumps as he felt her warmth against his near-naked, water-chilled flesh. Then he lowered his head and took her mouth like a drowning man seeking the kiss of life.

She resisted for the briefest of moments, holding him away with her hands against his chest. Then she made a low sound in her throat and slid her palms upward, gliding them over his shoulders before clasping the back of his neck. He eased closer to nestle the solid length of him against her softness.

He felt bare skin against his thighs, realized the front of her light robe had parted as its tie loosened. Aching need vibrated through him. He released her arm, skimmed downward to slide his hands inside its open edges, spreading them wider. She was nude beneath it, he discovered, so gloriously naked that the exultation of it heightened his sense of touch to a painful edge.

He spanned the satin skin of her waist, spread his fingers and feathered them over her rib cage and upward until he cupped the tender weight of her breast. It nestled into his hand, so smooth, so soft yet compact and tipped by the endearingly hard berry of her nipple. Blood thundered through his veins and a fever of need spread from inside him, heating his body until he thought steam must surely rise around them.

~ ~ ~

Amanda gasped as she felt the gentle tug on her nipple, the delicate way he rolled it between his fingertips. The fiery sensation caught her by surprise as it spread through her, coalescing in the lower part of her body. She pressed against him, absorbing his heated hardness, the crisp texture of his body hair that rasped her thighs with exquisite friction, his strength that sapped her own until she felt boneless with pleasure.

Never, never had it been like this, such a maelstrom of sensations, each more fervent than the last: his mouth, the twining of his tongue and its insistent probe; the silky yet ravishing roughness of his chest hair against her breasts, and his hands, oh, his hands.

She should stop him, should retreat, but her will had vanished. In its place was mindless craving for more and more of him. His scent, a lingering intimation of his maddening cologne, the whiff of pool chemicals and his own warm male essence jarred her heart into a staggering beat.

With one hand he cupped her bottom before pulling her harder against him, while the other brushed down her abdomen, smoothed the damp curls at the juncture of her thighs and clasped her in firm possession. At the same time, he pressed a line of kisses from the corner of her mouth to the turn of her jaw and hollow of her throat, and lower until he reached the peak of her breast. He wet it, blew upon it, and abraded it with his tongue’s roughness as it knotted ever tighter. At last, at last, he took it into his mouth and suckled with slow and gentle adhesion.