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“Breathe,” he murmured, his gaze on hers.
Erotic whispers shivered across her skin as she did as he commanded. Felt the pulse of his heartbeat buried deep inside of her, an achingly intimate connection she felt all the way to her soul. Slowly, inexorably, her body adjusted to his. Melted around his possession. And when his hands tightened around her hips and he started to move, holding her still as he stroked up deep inside her, so thick and masculine he stretched her completely, she knew it would never be like this with anyone else. This mind-numbingly good. This soul-shattering.
Drawing his mouth down to hers, she kissed him, her nails scraping down the hard muscles of his back, each hard stroke melting her insides to liquid and deepening his dominant possession. Until she was completely his. And when he curved his fingers around her thigh and wrapped it around his waist, his palm raising her bottom so he could hit a sweet spot, an angle that promised ecstasy, a scream ripped from her throat and shattered the night air as they came together in a hot rush of pleasure that made the whole room go black.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CRISTIANOARRIVEDHOMEwell after seven, exhausted from an hours-long meeting with his lawyers in which they’d attempted to work through the red tape surrounding his deal with Nicholas Zhang, set to close as soon as they’d manage to do so. It was a relief, given the stakes he was gambling with. But it still didn’t mean he hadn’t pushed the company to the brink, that every piece of his complex, multifaceted plan had to go as envisioned or it could and would come tumbling down around him. A pressure that coiled around his neck like a golden noose.
With hours of work still left to do, he retreated to his office, requested more strong coffee from Filomena, and attempted to revive his brain, which refused to work on the few hours’ sleep he’d had over the past week. Avoided the fact that Jensen was home this evening, and just a stone’s throw away, a respite he had allowed himself far too many times this past week, because it felt like the actions of a drowning man, grabbing hold of a lifeline. A foreign vulnerability he had no idea how to process, because it felt like weakness—a state of affairs he avoided like the plague.
He’d never allowed himself to feel this depth of emotion for a woman before. He’d always dated women like Alessandra, safe, predictable choices who wouldn’t cause waves in his life, because it hadn’t been a luxury he could afford. But maybe, he acknowledged, it went deeper than that.
His parents had loved each other to distraction. Too much so, in his opinion, because in the days following the boating accident which had killed his father, his mother had been so heartbroken, she hadn’t had the will to fight for her own life, a critical factor that had determined her survival. She had died days later, leaving him and Ilaria with their own heartbreak.
Maybe he had decided that that level of emotion just wasn’t worth it. That he would build a world so impenetrable, so shatterproof, that it could never come crashing down on him like it had that hot afternoon in July. Had built impenetrable walls around his heart to protect himself, walls Jensen had decimated with her intense vulnerability and beautiful smile. And now he didn’t know what to do with what he’d been handed. Was navigating uncharted territory—territory he couldn’t contemplate negotiating with everything he had resting on his shoulders.
Before his wayward thoughts derailed him completely, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. It was close to nine when a light knock sounded on the door and Jensen walked in, dressed in an olive-green dress. She closed the door behind her and took up a position leaning against his desk, her concerned gaze resting on his fatigued face.
“Cristiano,” she said quietly, “you are exhausted. You’ve hardly slept this week. If you keep going like this, you won’t make it through the rest of the week.”
“I’m fine,” he murmured, attempting to put up some kind of a fight against the pull he felt toward her, which had never been in doubt, but seemed ten times stronger now. “I’m almost done.”
“And what will you have for tomorrow?” She didn’t attempt to question why he hadn’t come to her, or why he was holding back. He almost thought he read the same elemental wariness in her rich ebony gaze, as if she, too, knew the power of what they shared and its ability to decimate them both. Instead, she cocked her head to the side. “You once gave me a speech about knowing my limits, yet it’s clear you don’t know yours. Every person at that company is depending on you to pull this off, Cristiano. You need to pace yourself.”
He threw down the pen. Raked a hand through his hair. Maybe she was right. His head would likely be much clearer in the morning.
He took her in. The dress she was wearing, one of those deceptively innocent, flirtatious short dresses of hers, that made the most of her undeniably perfect backside. How the olive hue, embroidered with little white daisies, enhanced her sun-kissed skin and devastatingly dark eyes.
“How was the luncheon today?” he murmured, feeling the visceral heat rise between them.
“Good,” she replied quietly. “Uneventful. It will play well in the media.”
“Bene. And the shoot in Cannes. Did you get it straightened out with Tatiana?”
“Yes.” She hesitated for a moment, disquiet glittering in her eyes, then plunged on. “I have to be there for another day. Until Thursday. But I will fly back right after that. It’s not a problem.”
“Cristo, Jensen.” He blew out a breath. “This timing makes me very uncomfortable. Reschedule the shoot. Let someone else do it. It’s not worth the risk.”
“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I will have the jet. I can make it work, Cristiano.Trust me.”
He did. She had proven herself to him over and over again. And he wanted what was best for her, because he cared about her that much.“Bene,”he agreed. “Do it, then.”
“Thank you.” She dug her teeth into her lip. Looked loath to speak, but did anyway. “I missed you last night,” she admitted huskily. “I didn’t sleep well at all.”
He crumbled then. Melted completely. Pushed back his chair and beckoned to her. She came to him, slid onto his lap, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him in that way that had always seemed holy between them. He should have stopped it,wouldhave stopped it, given there was still a handful of staff roaming the villa, but he didn’t have the willpower to deny himself her. Not when she ran her palms over the hard muscles of his thighs under the fine material of his trousers and found the hot, hard length of him aching for her.Cravingher as he always did.
On the kiss went, burned brighter and hotter. Her name left his throat, raspy and broken. She unzipped him and pushed the skirt of her dress aside. It took him a moment to realize she had nothing on underneath, a fact that made his head want to explode with need, until he realized he had no protection and a smothered oath left his lips.
“It’s okay,” she murmured against his mouth, “I’m protected.” Which had never been a promise he’d elected to accept in the past, given the responsibilities that lay on his shoulders, but in that moment, he could not deny himself what his body was screaming for. And when she took him inside her with a languid tilt of her voluptuous hips, and he was buried in tight, hot, wet velvet, he thought he might lose it, right there and right then, from the pure sensation of it all, because she felt like salvation.
Somehow, he kept his composure, hanging on by a thread, counting backward in his head to maintain some type of control, the connection between them unparalleled as she rode him slow and deep, her eyes on his, his fingers clenched tightly around the arms of the chair. And then she punctuated those slow, sensual, maddening circles with sweet kisses that undid him completely. He held out as long as he could, his body desperate to find release, until the flames threatened to suck him under.
Releasing his death grip on the chair, he found the swollen, slick flesh between her thighs, intent on giving her pleasure. His thumb on the tiny, hot nub he’d come to know intimately, he watched her face as he took her apart with a slow, lazy touch, her beautiful brown eyes glazed with passion, a muffled scream leaving her mouth before he allowed himself his own release, sinking his teeth into the satiny curve of her shoulder as he spilled himself deep inside of her, claiming her in a way he’d never done before. Breaking his last rule.
When they were done, spent and wrapped around each other, when the shudders rippling through their bodies had subsided, he picked her up, her legs wrapped around his waist, and carried her to his bedroom. Once there, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, Jensen curved against him, his arm around her waist, his surrender complete.
Jensen woke as the first filtered light of day entered the room, arcing across the massive canopied bed and bathing her in a warm, golden glow. Cristiano had left for the office hours before, intent on finishing the work he’d left undone the night before. She closed her eyes and reveled in the rightness of it all. How adored and protected she felt. How, for once in her life, she felt whole, as if the pieces that had always seemed misplaced inside of her had right-sided themselves. As if she wasenough.
