Baby By Accident: International Billionaires III: The Italians (15 page)

“Vico.”

“
Si
.” He turned, forcing his face into a stern, cold stare. “I believe you.”

He shrugged as if it meant little to him. When in actuality, her revelation meant the death knell to his hopes for this relationship. If she didn’t even want him, then what was left to build on?

The baby.

His
bambino
. He would focus on the
bambino
. Focus on finding a way to somehow not let the child down. Forget about the stupid dreams he’d harbored in his dark soul in Paris.

“Well.” Her hands rose to smooth her hair behind her ears. “That’s at least settled.”

What was it he’d meant to do in this meeting? What had to be settled?

His brain was fogged with bitter anguish.

“Now the only thing we have to agree on is that I’m able to keep working as much as I want.”

His decisive CFO reminded him.

“That’s all we have to agree on?” He chuckled. A hoarse, rough choke.

She looked at him, her head cocked as if she tried to figure him out. There was little to figure out. He was a hollow man.

“What’s wrong?”

Women. With their uncanny senses telling them when a man was vulnerable and needy and sick with despair. He laughed at his stupidity. Watched as his wife eyed him with guarded caution. Why not? He must appear to be a complete madman.

“I thought it was mutual.” The words came from his mouth before his pride had a chance to rebel.

“Mutual?” Her wary gaze narrowed.

Why had he said that? What good would it do him to lay his pride before this woman and hope for any mercy? Yet the foolish confessions kept flowing from his damned mouth like an unending emotional river of agony. “The lust that night.”

He didn’t need to look at her to know what he’d see. Contempt mixed with pity.

Aiutarlo a Dio.

God help him, indeed.

Turning his back to her, he squinted his eyes in the sun’s glare and ignored the sting behind them.

Silence descended. A hard, tense silence.

“I won’t lie to you,” she finally muttered. “Not again.”

Her words barely registered over the flow of lost hope gutting the inside of him. Not until he felt her hand on his shoulder did he return to the room, to reality. Her light touch made him shudder, then stiffen. The sexual tie he’d assumed lay between them had been cut. Even now, though, he felt it, felt the strands of lust wrap around his every muscle, tighten around his lungs, jerk him into instant arousal.

But it was only him. Only him who experienced the sticky strands of the connection.

“It was mutual.” Her words were soft, quiet. Halting. As if she had to pull them out from a secret place deep inside her where he’d never been allowed.

Their effect was electric. Jerking around, he stared into her uplifted face. For a moment, he caught something, some emotion…wistfulness? Wanting?

In a flash, though, she dropped her hand from his body, stepped away, lowering her head so her fair hair covered her face.

“No.” Hope bounded forward from despondency and Vico acted with reckless intent. Before she could move any farther away from him, he held her fast in his arms. Her body stiffened, but he still felt the hum between them, the warmth of need and passion lying so close to the surface, only needing one act, one touch to be released.

He hadn’t been wrong. His dreams hadn’t been nightmares.

She’d wanted him then. And
Dio
, she wanted him now.

His
mia dolce
lifted her head. “Let me go.”

“Impossible.”

Her mouth was firm in rejection, yet within seconds it slackened under his heated command. She tasted of mint and myrrh, a cool, bitter blending of spices designed to burn into his memory and his body like a brand. Tangling her tongue with his, she let the honey taste of her flood into his soul, a dangerous mix of woman and welcome.

He staggered back, leaning on the hot glass of the window.

“
Sognavo di te.
” His admission of the endless dreams of her whispered on her cheeks and neck as he tasted the salt of her skin, breathed in the warm scent of lavender wrapping him with her presence.

His woman’s body was plastered so close to his he felt the beat of her heart. The beat matched the drum of his own and melded with the thumping drive of his lust pouring through his veins. Sweat broke out on his skin, sliding down his back and sides.

“Vico.” Her hands sifted through his hair, tugging him closer.

She kissed him.

She
kissed
him
.

She initiated a kiss with him.

His soul swelled into an overflow of hot, turgid, racing sweetness. There was no way he would ever get enough of her mouth on his, her tongue on his lips, her taste on his own.

Touch. He had to touch her. Everywhere.

There was no longer any need to hold her to him. His wife leaned on him, burrowing into him like a fiery missile of need. She gave him what he wanted. The opportunity to sweep his searching hands down her elegant back, across her rounded hips, down to her perfect bottom. He used the chance well. Lifting her, he pressed her into the part of him which yelled and screamed for her every moment of the day and every second of the night.

She groaned. A husky, womanly plea.

For
him
.

His spirit soared. Over and under and through him. It leapt in delight and reeled in hope.

“Vico.” Her lips moved along his roughened jaw, sipped on his neck, tickled his ears.

Lust growled its approval as he lifted her into his arms. He looked wildly around for a place, any place. The leather couch was the best bet, his scrambled brain said. Too far, his body bellowed.

She landed on the desk. Her hair splayed out around her dazed, glazed face in a fan of blonde and white strands. How had her hair suddenly acquired the beauty and lushness of Paris? Her face was flushed and warm, her skin glowing with Parisian health. Her eyes no longer carried the studied frost of the past two weeks. Instead, they were pure blue, a shining blaze of joy.

Her arms rose, beckoning.

For him
.

The heart, the damaged heart inside of him managed to keep pounding, keep pumping. However, it was surely ten times the size it had been mere moments ago. Surely. Vico leaned down and kissed her. Her slender hands moved along his sweating neck and tangled her elegant fingers into the long, dark curls falling around them as they came together.

His own fingers were clumsy and klutzy as he tried to finesse the pearl buttons on her shirt. He needed more skin, more of her to kiss and touch. She chuckled at his attempt, the warmth of her breath caressing his mouth.

“Let me,” she murmured.

Pushing himself off her, he stood, shivering with need as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse, revealing a pretty lace bra by slow, tortuous steps. The primitive male inside him urged him to rip and raid. Yet he managed to stifle it, forced himself to relish the moment she gave herself to him.

Her smile threatened the control.

Her smile sang to him like a siren off the Amalfi coast.

The blouse fell open. The bra unsnapped.

She gazed at him, the last of the ice melting in her eyes, the smile growing on her lips.

Vico swore he heard the snap when his control cracked.

His wife
arched into his hands as he lifted her breasts to his mouth. She was lush and full, more womanly than before. But he’d take her thin or plump. Or anything in between. Because the essence was still Lise. Her skin was still a salty pearl of delight to his lips. Her nipples were still tight buds of magic begging for his tongue. The round, plush weight of her breast was still meant to fit in the palm of his hand, made for him since the beginning of eternity.

The Italian words flowed over her body.

He was no longer capable of any speech other than the one he’d been born into. Yet it wasn’t the words, it was him he gave her with his native tongue. All the reckless vitality of his temperament, the restless energy of his character, the emotive nature of his culture.

She took his gift. He felt it move between them.

His lips moved with reverence across the round bump of her belly. Whispered words of his home slipped beyond her skin to touch his
bambino
. A child he didn’t deserve, but already loved.

A clutch of fear shivered through him.

“Mmm,” she purred as she slid her fingers around his head, holding him to her and the child.

The burn of tears welled, threatening to wet her skin.

His
mia dolce
was determined to drive him insane with desire, though. She left him no time to wallow in the desperate love and fear he had for his
bambino
. Her long, lithe legs wrapped around his hips, tugging him into her, shattering his anguish and swamping the remnants of his control with an overwhelming need.

She tugged once more.

The mist of tears in his eyes disappeared under the torrent of primitive lust. He pushed himself between her thighs, fitting his body to hers as she lay on the table watching him. Somehow, her skirt had ratcheted high up her hips, allowing him to look his fill of the pale beauty of her skin. His hands slipped along her thighs, pushing the wool skirt aside, staring down at the lace at the end of her stockings, wrapped lovingly around the soft skin at the top of her legs. The lace was echoed in her panties, the frills edging the silk. The wet silk.

His nostrils flared as her aroused scent drifted to him. Salty, spicy, sexy.

“Vico.”

He tore his gaze from the heart of her with a monumental effort. He breathed in, trying to find some small stitch of sense, yet her fragrant need slipped into his nostrils once more. “Lise,” he croaked.

“I want you.”

Her words cut through the painful need thrumming in his body.

A gift.

Another gift for him.

If he’d been capable of moving, he would have fallen to his knees at her feet. A submissive subject ready and willing to slay any dragon or fight any foe. But he wasn’t capable of doing anything other than stare into her eyes.

The blue was startling. Not a shred of ice or frost. Only a cerulean, brilliant blue. He was sure he’d never seen the purity of a soul as clearly as he did at that moment. She blinked and then smiled as she lifted her hand to slowly trail it down his heaving, hot chest.

Down, down. To the ravening beast she’d unleashed. Willingly asked for.

The groan ripped out of him as he tipped his head back and felt. Felt her clever fingers smooth over the hard, demanding primitive part of him. Within seconds, he was fast at the point of no return.

A raspy huff of breath escaped him as he yanked her hand from his body. “Too much.”

She smiled her siren smile.

He grinned back, suddenly so full of life and happiness and hope it nearly exploded inside of him with a shining joy he hadn’t felt since he’d been a kid. Two could play the seduction game. Grabbing her hips, he pressed the wet silk to his aching groin.

She cried out.

He gasped.

The time for anything other than this, this—

The animal in him took over. With one swift jerk, he unzipped himself, tore the silk off her and plunged into the hot, wet, glorious lips of her sex. With one more thrust, he pushed her into bliss and he forced his need down so he could concentrate on her. The slender paleness of her neck as she arched into her rapture. The sound of her soft cry as she slid deep into the ecstasy he gave her. The clutch of her muscles around his cock, milking him, pleasuring him.

Claiming him.

His body could hold on no longer and the thrust of his hips could not be contained. Lust rode him, drove him into a pounding punch of ache and glorious need. There was no time or meaning to anything except this.

This male body in her female body.

This sense of blind bonding he’d never experienced before.

Except with her.

The orgasm overtook him and he shouted. The painful pleasure drenched him with sweat as he spilled himself into her. Bucking back, thrusting one more time, he found himself unable to breathe or think or do. All of him came into her, into the heart and core of her. He lost himself inside of her, his
mia dolce
, his wife, his lover.

His harsh breathing filled the room. Vico stopped himself from slumping down on her, by propping his shaking arms on the desktop. Dazed, he stared at her stomach, her ivory skin shining with sweat, highlighting the round belly.

It was as he’d thought. Even if he’d dismissed it during the past few months.

That night had been as amazing and astounding as he’d thought. The sex had been as astonishing and affecting as he’d remembered. This woman, this woman was the apex of everything he’d ever dreamed of.

“Ruddy hell.”

Her quiet words managed to cut him out of his stupor. He looked up.

His heart sank to the bottom of his feet.

“What have I done?” Her eyes were no longer blue. They were iced glass.

The very core of him froze and tentacles of freezing pain wound their barren arms around his soul.

How could she?

How could she reject this beauty between them?

How could she not know what he’d given her mere moments ago?

Fury burnt straight through any remaining lethargy. He pulled out of her, the sucking sound of her body holding onto his the exact opposite of what her face and gaze and manner were saying.

Turning away from her, he zipped his pants, smoothed his sweaty shirt down and tucked it in. Squared his shoulders for what was to come. He heard the thump of her feet hitting the carpet, the rustle of clothes being re-arranged behind him. The fact he had to find the courage to turn around to confront her astounded him.

The blonde brows were drawn into a deep frown as she met his gaze with one of her own. Her eyes showed clearly she was not happy about what had just occurred.

If it were possible, his heart slid further down the well of defeat.

“This won’t happen again,” she announced, with only a quiver of emotion at the end.

He laughed. It was the only thing he could think of to do. Laugh in the face of death, whether it was physical or spiritual.