AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His low groan split the air. His brother was going to lose his mind.
Matteo paced to the other end of the patio, looking out over the water. He was a different man than he’d been three years ago. He had been laser-focused on this deal, had laid all the groundwork in a brilliant, understated fashion that would win it for them. He had done his job. Differently than Riccardo would have done, but strategically, it was perfect. Riccardo would crucify him anyway. He didn’t get him. Never had.
He lifted his gaze to the sun slipping up from the line of the horizon. It struck him he should be taking the advice he’d given Quinn. He needed to stop trying to live up to everyone’s expectations of him and do what he knew was right. Being with Quinn had been right. He knew it in his bones. He needed to convince Riccardo to believe in him. That he would win this deal regardless. That he had always had his eye on the prize.
He was about to go back inside and shower when he saw a lithe figure slicing through the ocean toward their suite. Quinn. He sat down on the edge of the pool while she swam the last hundred meters. She hit the edge, reached up to grip the concrete and blinked the water out of her eyes as she looked up at him, wet dark hair floating behind her like a mermaid come to visit.
He cocked a brow. “You like 5:00 a.m. swims too?”
She reached back and squeezed the water out of her hair, a rueful smile curving her mouth. “Only when I’ve had earth-shatteringly good sex with a man I’m supposed to be doing business with and I’m trying to process. Other than that I’m usually an end-of-the-day, sneak-out-of-the-office-for-a-class kind of girl.”
“Earth-shatteringly good,” he repeated, liking the taste of that on his tongue. “That’s when you’re supposed to stay in bed for more of the same.”
“Did you hear me say process?”
“Processing is overrated.” He leaned down, took hold of her hands and hauled her up onto the concrete. “Regrets, Quinn?”
She settled herself down beside him, water dripping from her wickedly good curves. “I think,” she said with a wry twist of her mouth, “I’ve processed that right out of me.”
“Good.” He captured her chin in his fingers and lowered his mouth to hers for a long, lingering kiss. Her lips were soft and salty, capable of endless exploration. There was something so right about being with Quinn that he couldn’t see the wrong in it. Even when there were ten million reasons why he should.
Her breathing was choppy when the kiss ended. “Maybe,” she said unsteadily, “you should convince me some more.”
He set her away from him with reluctant hands. “Maybe you should talk to me about Julian first.”
She blinked. “Julian?”
“I want to know.”
Her emerald eyes clouded, her gaze falling away from his. “There isn’t much to say. Our marriage was a disaster on all fronts. Julian married me because I was Warren’s daughter. Because I was the ultimate networking opportunity. He didn’t love me and he couldn’t cope with the wife he got in return.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘couldn’t cope’?”
“He wanted a wife who’d rather host dinner parties than work. Someone who was content to stroke his ego 24/7.”
“Did the man not know you at all? That isn’t you, Quinn.”
“He thought I’d want to give it all up at some point. That he should be enough.”
“Did you love him?”
She hugged her knees to her chest. “I was infatuated with him. He was good-looking, successful, everything I should have wanted in a husband. The catch of the century if the prebilling was to be believed. But then I learned who he really was.”
A man who had hurt her so badly she didn’t want to go near a bedroom... He ground his teeth together. “So what happened? I know he hurt you and I know the fact that you took up Krav Maga isn’t an accident.”
She looked out over the sparkling water. “I was inexperienced sexually when I married him. I’d had a couple of relationships, none of them great. Julian didn’t like that. The more I disappointed him as a wife, the more I disappointed him out of bed, the more frustrated he was with me in it. The more he wanted to punish me.” She pushed her hair out of her face in a movement he now recognized as a nervous tick. “The more angry he got, the more I retreated. I couldn’t seem to please him. In the end, I was afraid of him. It became Julian asserting his dominance over me in the only way he could.”
His body went tight. “He assaulted you?”
She shook her head. “I never refused him. I thought that would just make things worse.”
Flames licked at his skin. “So what would you call it then?”
She chewed on the corner of her lip. “Like I said, he was rough.”
He closed his eyes. “Quinn, why didn’t you leave him?”
“Because he was Warren’s choice. Because I knew the dissolution of my marriage would be my father’s biggest disappointment.” Her mouth turned down. “And it was. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for it.”
His face darkened. “Please tell me your father didn’t know.”
She turned a scathing glance on him. “How would I tell my father that? Daddy, the man you wanted me to marry has verbally abused me every day of our marriage...has been borderline abusive. Cheated on me with other women...”
The heat flaming through Matteo threatened to fry his brain alive. “He was unfaithful to you?”
She nodded. “At the end. But honestly by then I would have begged him to use someone other than me.”
He pressed his fists against the concrete, the desire to use them on Julian Edwards immense. “You should have left. You should never have been with him, your father’s choice or not. Warren would have lost his mind had he known what was going on.”
“But you see that’s not what we do.” A haunted smile curved her lips. “We Davises specialize in making things work. No matter what. A merger, a marriage. You do not give up. You make it a success.”
“That’s an insane statement. What if he had escalated things? Started hitting you?”
She paled. “He wouldn’t have done that. Control was his power. If he had that he was satisfied.”
“You think that. That’s how it starts, Quinn. It doesn’t usually end that way.”
She was silent for a moment. Lifted her gaze to the horizon. “He’s gone now. That’s all that matters.”
He studied her defiant profile, her upturned delicate chin. “Didn’t you ever think you deserved more?”
She shook her head. “I saw my marriage as my failure. I didn’t want to admit I was incapable of a relationship.”
“That marriage was not any kind of an assessment of you,” he scowled. “Your husband was a monster. He should have been stopped.”
She looked at him, the vulnerability shining in her beautiful eyes making his heart hurt. “I was hopeless at letting him in. I know in the beginning it was equally as much my fault as it was Julian’s. I can be a supreme bitch when I want to be. I shut people out.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But you can also be an insightful, compassionate, sexy, warm woman if you dig deep enough to find out.” He ran a finger down her cheek. “And you aren’t pushing me away right now.”
Her gaze softened. “You,” she said wryly, “are another matter entirely.”
“Si,” he agreed, reaching for her. “Story of my life, bella. But I know you like it, in fact, I know you love it.”
Quinn was attempting to choke out a reply when he sank his hands into her waist, deposited her in his lap and pulled her wet limbs around him. “Sometimes the penny doesn’t drop,” he murmured, tipping her heart-shaped face up to his. “Sometimes things are exactly as you see them.”
He watched that overactive mind of hers try and process that. Then she reached up and ran her finger over his bottom lip, a sultry glitter in her eyes. “What am I supposed to be seeing right now then?”
Matteo captured her finger in his mouth. Ran his tongue over the soft underside of it. Watched her pupils dilate. “You. On top of me. Now.”
A dull rosy glow stained her cheeks. He released her finger. Bent his mouth to her ear, a raspy edge to his voice. “Up on your knees, cara.”
She did it. Set her knees down on the concrete on either side of him. And he knew from the sparks in her eyes she was just as turned on as him. Needed more as much as he did.
He ran his hand down her trembling stomach, inside her briefs and explored her soft, yielding flesh with teasing strokes that made her body moisten and ready for him. He hardened so quickly he had to bite back a groan. Then she pressed her lips to his stubble-covered jaw, her breathing jagged, uneven, and he did it anyway. She was so sexy when she let herself go.
“Condom,” he croaked, stumbling inside in an Olympic-worthy performance. When he returned, she straddled him, released him and slid the condom on. He reached down and pulled her bathing suit aside. “Portami dentro di te tesoro,” he murmured. “Take me inside of you, sweetheart.”
