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He had just caught her when they heard the whir of rotor blades.
The sound fractured the moment so effectively that she flinched. Instantly, Stefan pulled her behind him. Shocked at how low the chopper was flying and the long-range camera directed toward the terrace, Clio clutched Stefan’s shirt and hid her face in his muscled back.
A pithy curse fell from his mouth.
“Is this all so that they can have a story on Alessandra?” she asked, remembering the scandal that had haunted Rocco’s sister.
“Yes. But they won’t get anything on her as long as I have something to say about it.”
Her heart raced as the muscles of his back tensed under her fingers. “How? Even you can’t sprout wings and block the chopper.”
His arm shot out and pulled her forward. Tripping against her own feet, she fell onto Stefan. And jerked at the sudden male heat that surrounded her. His arm around her waist was like a muscular rope she couldn’t pry off her.
Warmth crawled up all over her body, the scent of him swirling around her, binding her to him.
“No, I can’t sprout wings, bella.” Slumberous heat came alive in his gaze. “But I have a beautiful woman next to me and I can give the hounds a juicier piece of meat first. By the time they’re through with us, Christian will have his own security armed and Alessandra protected from the worst of it.”
Realizing too late what he intended, Clio pushed away from his chest. “No, Stefan. There has to be another way.”
But he was as solid and impenetrable as the walls of the Parthenon. He clasped her face with his palms, and tilted it up toward him.
“Look at me, bella. Pretend like you can’t get enough of me.”
She didn’t have to pretend. The errant thought stole through her, inciting a panic. She didn’t have to pretend that she was already flailing, falling into the haze he cast over her senses with ease.
She struggled again and their legs tangled, the tensile, hard muscles of his thighs rubbing against hers.
The sound of his jagged exhale settled over her skin, while the whir of the rotor blades of the chopper above felt like a death knell.
Her breath left Clio in a dizzying whoosh, every inch of her thrumming and pulsing. “Wait...I...”
Words melted away from Clio’s lips as the pad of his thumb moved over her chin, traced the curve of her lower lip. “It’s just one kiss, bella. If you flinch every time I lay a finger on you, no one’s going to buy it, Clio. Least of all Jackson.”
Her breath hitched like a balloon inside her, crushing her chest with a weight she couldn’t bear... The last thing she wanted was a kiss and that, too, from the man who could so easily shred the small part of her that was still intact.
But the reminder didn’t work quite as well as it should have.
Because when he dipped his head and touched her lips, Clio felt her own walls tremble and quake, her skin burn with need and fire, felt the shudder that racked his wide, solid frame.
His lips were rough and soft, his jaw bristly against her skin, and his thick eyelashes not hiding his shocked expression for once.
“Cristo, bella,” he whispered, touching his forehead to hers.
His nose rubbed against hers, a strange intimacy growing around them.
“Stefan,” she begged, desperate to flee, but yearning to feel that rough mouth against hers again. Desperate to be touched again, desperate to feel his muscles tense. “Don’t do this.”
His fingers crawled over her nape and into her hair, his gaze almost angry. “I can’t stop, Clio. Not now.”
He slanted his mouth over hers and dragged it across.
Fiery need burst across the seam of her lips and Clio shuddered all over.
With a curse that resounded in the air, Stefan tightened his grip until her scalp prickled. Buried his nose in the crook of her neck and breathed.
“You smell like sunshine and oranges, bella. Dio, you taste like...”
Clio didn’t know what else he said. All the fight left her as he found her mouth again and devoured it with little bites and nips. Stroked and tasted her lips as if she was a feast to be savored.
Kissed her as if there was nothing else he wanted to do, as if nothing but her total surrender would do.
And Clio surrendered. To him and even more, to the desire inside her, both freeing and binding.
Their bodies fused to each other as they crossed a line they shouldn’t have.
A kiss they could never undo because it already engulfed them.
* * *
A day later, Clio and he were due to leave for New York in a couple of hours and the chasm of need that the kiss had ripped open felt just as raw to Stefan.
