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She swallowed hard, past the flock of butterflies in her throat. He was close, too close, and her heart was beating so hard in her chest, it was difficult to function. So she grappled for the most pressing piece of information she could find to avoid what seemed like the inevitable. “Alessandra,” she breathed, her eyes on his. “I am not stepping into the middle of a relationship between you two, Cristiano. It isn’t my style, as much as the media likes to paint me as Mata Hari incarnate.”
He frowned, a furrow marring his handsome brow. “Alessandra? We are not together.”
“But you will be,” she countered, far more out of breath than she would have liked. “Everyone knows it.”
“Except me,” he responded silkily. “Perhaps you will provide me with the benefit of the doubt on this,bellissima, because I am sure I am correct. Alessandra and I broke up months ago.”
She caught her lip between her teeth. “I saw you together at the party. When you went to get the car. It looked intimate, Cristiano.”
The furrow in his brow deepened. “So you thought there is still something between us? That’s why you walked away from me in the kitchen?”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “I walked away from you because it was a bad idea. Which itis,” she added quickly at the dark glitter that entered his sapphire eyes. “Alessandra is only a secondary reason.”
He raked a hand through his rumpled hair. “Alessandra,” he said, after a moment, “was...emotionalthe night of the party. We have tried to make things work multiple times, and yet they are not working. She seems determined to make it happen. I have my doubts it ever will.”
So what was he doing with her? Entertaining himself in the meantime?Blowing off some steam?Because surely he would never be serious about her. She wasn’t about to do that with Cristiano. Not with the depth of the feelings she already had for him, feelings that seemed to be growing exponentially stronger by the moment.
“I’m not interested in being yourplaything,” she murmured. “Someone you blow off some steam with when you feel like it, Cristiano.”
An offended look moved across his aristocratic face. “Is that what you think I’m doing?Blowing off some steam?”
“Yes,” she said staunchly, “I do. We are attracted to each other. That’s clear. Both of us are having a difficult time controlling it. Also true. But I won’t put my career in jeopardy so I can have a dalliance with you, Cristiano. It’s not happening.”
His brow hiked higher, the offended look on his face deepening. Setting his glass down on the side of the pool, he moved until he was so close the heat emanating from him seared her skin. “Although I am a fan ofblowing off some steamat this very moment,” he murmured darkly, “because I think we both need it, my interest in you is more than surface deep, Jensen. Ilikeyou. I desire you. I would like to get to know you on a deeper level,ifyou will let me in. As for your career,” he tacked on evenly, “I made it clear that night in the kitchen I am capable of separating it from any personal relationship we might have.”
He said that, but did he mean it, when the two were so inexplicably intertwined? Which wasn’t at all an effective deterrent when she was already melting inside at his words. Dissolving into a simmering inferno of emotions she had no idea how to manage. Because Cristiano announcing his intentions toward her—serious, unapologetically stated intentions of his desire to get to know her—was as terrifying as it was beguiling. Because the last time she’d done that, the last time she’d opened herself up to someone,trustedsomeone, she’d had her heart broken. And that she could never stand. Not from Cristiano.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her heart hammering louder than the quietly trickling waterfall. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just—” She raked a hand over her sleek ponytail, searching for the right words. “I’m used to men viewing me as a...prize. As a distraction, until they move on to something better.Serious. It’s a lot for me to put myself out there, when it’s happened so many times before.”
His gaze darkened to a deep midnight blue. He reached a hand out and tugged her closer, his palm settling on the lower curve of her back. Held this close to him, against the hard, hot length of him, she felt as if she’d been zapped by an electrical wire. “Do you think,” he murmured, his sapphire eyes on hers, “that I would be stepping across the line if I didn’t think there was something here? Because I wouldn’t,bellissima. Trust me.”
The languid warmth spreading through her melted her bones completely. His sincerity, the heat in his blue gaze, doing something strange to her insides. “I didn’t put a halt to things in the kitchen because I’d regretted what I’d done,” he said huskily. “I stopped things because it was insanity to be doing what we were doing in the kitchen, where any of the staff could have come in at any moment and found us. Not because I wanted to stop, Jensen.”
But now they were alone. Her frantically beating heart tattooed the message on her overstimulated senses. There wasn’t a soul who would be around at this time of night.
She wanted to take a leap, to trust him, to give in to this thing between them so badly, it was a living, breathing entity inside her. Obliterated her common sense. Stripped away all her barriers, until it was only them, the heat between them and the moonlight. What seemed so utterly and completely right.
Reading her thoughts, Cristiano removed the glass from her hand, set it on the side of the pool, then cupped her jaw, lowering his dark head to hers. She whispered his name, right before he captured her mouth with his in a sensual, devastating kiss designed to seduce. And this time, she gave him full permission to do so.
Her fingers curled into the thick, coarse hair at the base of his neck, anchoring her as she met his kiss. As meltingly slow and thorough as their first kiss had been, this was even more sensual with the warm play of the water across their skin, as hands slid against warm flesh and body parts settled against each other, the rock-solid breadth of his chest an impenetrable wall that held her steady.
When he moved his mouth to the sensitive skin at the base of her ear and sank his teeth into the tender lobe, she shivered. When he traced a fiery path lower and explored the vulnerable skin at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, she shuddered, her pulse racing beneath the intimate exploration. And when he traveled even lower and brushed the callused pads of his thumbs over the peaks of her nipples, jutting through the silky material of her swimsuit, she gasped low in her throat.
Back and forth he played her, until her nipples were hard, painful peaks, aroused by his sensual touch. Until she felt it deep inside her, stirring an aching, insistent warmth. Anxious for more, she moved closer. She felt his hands move to the tie at the base of her neck, releasing the bow, and then the fabric fell away from her heated flesh, her lush curves filling his hands. She arched back in his arms to watch him, registering the dark arousal in his gaze. The reverent way he cupped her paler flesh in his hands. The way he teased the taut, rosy peaks with his fingers, igniting a firestorm of want deep inside.
“Cristiano.” The need in her voice that rang out on the still night air shocked even her. Her stomach muscles went taut, clenched with need as he slid his palm down the flat surface of her abdomen to the edge of her bikini bottoms. Toyed with the flimsy edge as he took her mouth in another hot, mind-bending kiss. And then he was sliding his hand beneath the silky material and down to the tender, soft flesh at the apex of her thighs.
She moved her thighs apart on a low moan, his knowing, expert touch finding the hot, wet flesh that ached for him. His mouth on hers, he whispered sexy things to her in Italian as he stroked her from top to bottom, exploring her soft femininity, every breathy moan she made guiding his journey. And when he’d completed his survey, he set his thumb to the soft nub at the heart of her and played her in a soft, seductive motion that tore low sounds from her throat.
His name falling from her lips, she moved her hips against his hand, urging him on. And when she was writhing against him, begging for release, he slid his fingers lower and sank one inside her, sliding slow and deep. She broke the kiss, too breathless, needing air, her hips arching into the sensual, knowing caress, which went deeper with every slide, until he hit a place inside her she didn’t even know existed.
Sweet, all-encompassing pleasure coursed through her, deeper than before. Even better. And when she moaned and pleaded desperately for more, he slid two of his fingers deep inside her and took the pleasure to a whole other level.
Shaking in his arms, needing release, but afraid to go there because the pleasure was so intense and she’d never felt anything so good, she rested her mouth against his cheek, gasping in a deep breath. His sensual mouth moved to her ear, his husky, accented voice a reassuring, firm command. “Let go,cara mia. I’ve got you.”
Closing her eyes, her head anchored against the strong wall of his cheek, she gave in to the pleasure. Allowed the deep stroke of his big, knowing hands to catapult her over the edge into a pleasure so searing, so exquisite, she lost her breath completely. He held her through it, his fingers continuing their sensual caress until the tremors inside her had subsided.
She had barely recovered when he lifted her out of the water and placed her on the edge of the pool, his hands sweeping aside the silky material of her bikini, while his mouth found the sweet, hot flesh still reverberating from her orgasm.
