‘No. I didn’t.’
‘Neither did I.’
Her smile turned wry. ‘A one-off thing for both of us.’
‘I don’t want it to be.’ His gaze dropped to her mouth as he ran feather-light fingers over her lips. ‘I haven’t had nearly enough of you.’
She breathed in hard, knocked his hand away and spoke with fierce pride. ‘I might be a nobody with nothing to my name, but don’t think you can keep me as your secret little whore, Dante. I had sex with you because I wanted to but I’m not staying around for more of it.’
He raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘Not good enough for you?’
She flushed. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘It is to me. I can’t recall ever having had it so good.’ He glided his hand down her throat to her breasts, caressing them as though there were exquisite to his touch. Which they were. Even more so because of her reluctance to concede to him. ‘Can you say differently?’ he purred, confident of her response.
Confusion swirled in her eyes. ‘That’s not the point,’ she repeated with an edge of desperation. ‘I don’t belong in your world. You know I don’t.’
‘My world is what I make it. I’ve already made you part of it.’
‘As your cousin. A cousin you shouldn’t be touching.’
‘We both know that isn’t true so we’re not doing anything wrong. Why not enjoy what we can have together?’ He reached down to the hot moist cleft between her legs, gently stroking a reminder of how intimately they had connected. ‘It’s about mutual pleasure, which is so far removed from your being degraded by the two of us being lovers that it’s absurd for you to think like that. Secrecy will have to be maintained but I would never view you as selling yourself to me. It’s not in your nature. You’d be milking this situation for all you could get if that was your mindset.’
‘The situation is wrong, Dante,’ she argued, her breathing quickening at the excitement his fingers were slowly re-igniting.
‘No,’ he quickly assured her. ‘You’re providing my grandfather with a distraction from his pain, giving him an outlet for memories he wants to open up before he dies. Only your presence can soothe the feelings of guilt he has over banishing his son.’
‘But I’m not Bella.’
It was a cry of anguish.
Dante leaned over and tenderly grazed his lips over hers, wanting to soothe the turmoil in her mind. ‘Whatever kind of person Bella was, you do her credit by being the person you are in her place. You’re doing good.’
She grabbed his face, lifting it to make him look into eyes that were still pained. ‘It hurts Lucia. I’m taking your grandfather’s attention away from her and she has the right to it.’
Anger boiled up in him and with it a surge of aggression. He ceased the intimate caressing, lifting his hand to her chin, holding it firmly as he inserted his leg between hers and half-covered her body, instinctively using physical dominance to add pressure to his claim on her mind.
‘Lucia…’ he snarled contemptuously, his eyes blazing a conviction that couldn’t be refuted. ‘What was she doing this past week when she could have had all Nonno’s attention? Off shopping in Rome and fixing a visit from Anya. Does that speak of a need to be with her grandfather to you?’
No answer. She stared up at him but the lack of sharp focus in her eyes told him his argument was registering in her mind. All he had to do was nail it home to her.
‘Lucia could have spent that time reaching out to Nonno if that’s what she really wanted. But no. She likes the power of playing her games with people and you were her target tonight, putting you down, stirring you up, making you feel like an unwanted interloper. And she was doing that to Bella, remember. Bella, your friend. Your friend who was like a sister to you. She had no right to do that. No right at all. How would Bella have felt if she’d been here?’
She frowned, not liking the reality of what her friend might have faced.
‘It was cruel,’ he hammered in. ‘And if you let Lucia win, you’ll hurt my grandfather, not her. She’d be preening over your departure, having scored a hit against me for having brought you here, never mind how Nonno would feel about it. And he’s the one who counts. The only one. This is his time—the little time he has left—and he chooses to have you with him. You…’
He kissed her, trying to tease a response, but it wasn’t there.
‘You with your caring,’ he murmured, and slid his tongue between her lips, wanting her to open up to him. Which she did, but passively, her mind still too full of other things.
‘You with your giving,’ he pressed, kissing her more deeply, using all his erotic expertise to get her focus back on what they could share together while she was Bella.
Her grip on his face eased, fingers sliding into his hair. Elation buzzed through him as her tongue slowly tangled with his. He’d won, and the win fired his desire for what she could give him. He wanted to feel the fire in her, wanted to build it to white-hot passion again, so he concentrated on keeping control this time, revelling in pleasuring her, feeding her sensuality with a slow journey of kisses and caresses all over her body, exulting as she squirmed in heat, when she clawed his back, wildly wanting the ultimate completion of his flesh plunged into hers.
Her need heightened his, the first deep thrust inside her feeling like a sunburst of incredible satisfaction. Control instantly evaporated. She made him feel like a great eagle, soaring and swooping, riding currents of air that zinged with sensation. It was brilliant, flying towards the highest of highs and she was taking him there, bucking and squeezing, drawing him on until he was utterly driven by her journey to the peak of ecstacy, reaching it with her, exploding like a nova that radiated out from the molten inner core of her to every cell in his body.
His mind was gone.
His strength was gone.
He floated in a weird kind of vacuum where she was the only anchor. Eventually his senses returned and he realised his body-weight must be crushing her, yet her arms were wound around him as though she didn’t want him to move, or couldn’t bear to break the closeness. He didn’t want to break it, either, but he raised himself enough to kiss her forehead, her closed eyelids, her nose, her lips, and whisper, ‘Say you’ll stay.’
He breathed in her breath as she answered, ‘Yes.’
He’d won.