Chocolate and Italian Wine (Music and Mayhem Book 1) (8 page)

The pounding of his body forcing her back down, he felt his own climax build, as the delicious clenching of her pussy around his shaft drove him to lustful insanity. Fisting his hands in her coal black hair, he wildly chased his orgasm. Rolling on top of her, his body moved like a tidal wave, as he unleashed.

“Fuuucking shit!” he roared, rocked to his very core. Pounding into her still, his eyes shut tightly, seeing stars as he collapsed on top of the woman who would soon be his.

Struggling to catch his breath, he wiped the sweat from his face and fixed his sapphire gaze on Karisma. Her beautiful eyes were masked. He kissed her soft, full lips, tangling his hands again in her luxurious, wild mane. Slowly, sensually, and unrestrained, she kissed him back. The deep connection they made on this night was unmistakable, neither of them willing to disengage from the other. 

Finally pulling away from her, Paolo reached down between them and deliberately, carefully, pulled off the condom. Giving her a final kiss, he bounded from the bed and into the bathroom. Taking a peek at the retreating male perfection, she noticed the tattooed wings expanding from one shoulder to the other. “You’ve got wings, Paolo. Are you an angel?”

The toilet flushed and the water in the sink ran and then he walked back out to answer her question. “I’m no angel, sweetheart. I’m just a man who experiences heaven between a woman’s thighs.” 

She sat up and frowned at him. “Say what, player?” It immediately made her think of Ray.

He immediately realized what he said and back peddled. “That actually came out wrong. I meant to say that being between your thighs is heaven.” He got in next to her.

“Just how often do you make these trips to ‘heaven,’ Don Juan?”

“That’s easy to answer. Just once,” he said with a smile. He pulled her into his arms, cradling her. He traced his index finger over her bottom lip.

She arched her eyebrow, looking at him suspiciously. It was hard to be critical of a man who’d just rocked her world, but she did have to be cautious. It wasn’t good to hand over her trust without earning it. That would take time.

              “Don’t worry,” Paolo said. He kissed the upper lip, then the bottom, and then kissed her eyelids gently, too. “I love your eyes. I love your lips,” he said, sucking them possessively. “I love everything about you,” he said, kissing her neck.

She smiled widely at him and giggled. 

“Gawd, I love your neck,” he murmured, kissing the spot that always tickled. Well, it didn’t then. It made her hot again.

The way she held the back of his head and moved her bottom on the bed, he knew what she wanted. He leaned her back onto the bed. And as his lips moved south, kissing and professing to love each and every part of her body, he told her he loved one part in particular, and for a long time, he loved her there. Making
her
see stars.

                                              ***

“What does this say?” she asked, tracing the tattoo on his chest as she lay in his arms.

His eyes were closed as he answered. “It’s John 3:16,
For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.”

“You really do have a Jesus complex, don’t you?” She laughed softly as she poked her finger into his old hand wound.

“No, not really,” he chuckled, running a hand through his hair. 

She hesitated before she spoke, but decided to dive right in. “Hmm. How exactly does this work with your fiancé?” Buzz kill question, but necessary. It was also loaded, as Paolo didn’t know that Karisma even knew about her. Somehow, quite unexpectedly, Karisma was feeling a little jealous and possessive. After a night of the most passionate love making of her life, she was ready to stake a claim to this man, but…she needed to put the brakes on emotionally if he had baggage.

He stared at her, surprised, for a while, then said, “It’s complicated, love.” He sat up and ran his hands through his hair again. 

“In what way?” she asked intently.

“In that she doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“That’s ridiculous. What the hell are you talking about, she doesn’t have anything to do with this?” Kari asked, feeling anger replace the euphoria she’d been enjoying. She popped up and put the sheet over her breasts, feeling too exposed. “You do this to her often?”

He looked at her and immediately wanted to lie about the nature of his relationship with Maria Elena. But he wouldn’t do that to her. Cautiously, he said, “Kari, when we were ten years old, our fathers gave us to each other. They made a business deal to increase the wealth of the two families by arranging a marriage between us. When I became a teenager, I realized that I didn’t want to marry her. I didn’t even like her. I went to USC to get away from her, but her parents would send her to visit and I had to pretend I was okay with it when what I really just wanted to tell her was to go find a nice guy who wanted to be with her.”

“You’re not attracted to her?” Kari asked suspiciously.

“No, you can’t force something that’s not there,” Paolo said, shrugging. He was looking at Kari with a different type of intensity, pleading for her to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“So you’re telling me that you’re engaged, but you don’t care for your fiancé. That makes absolutely no sense.”

“My father arranged a marriage for me when I was ten. Who the fuck does that? Actually, he and my mother married through an arrangement, but they ended up falling in love. In all the time I’ve been tied to Maria Elena, I’ve never felt…anything.”

“Arranged marriages? Are you serious? In the twenty-first century? How does she feel? About you, I mean.”

“She’s not like me. She believes that this is the way it should be. She’s happy,” Paolo said. He stopped just short of disclosing that he was expected to marry her in barely two weeks.

“She’s happy and you’re sleeping around on her? Does she know?” Kari asked, narrowing her eyes on him.

“I’m sure she suspects,” Paolo said, “but that doesn’t change what I’m feeling for you, Kari. I need you to know that.”

She looked towards the door. 
I should probably get the hell up out of here
, she thought. “Are you going to marry her anyway?” A lump formed in her throat as she spoke the ugly words.

“I don’t want to,” he said, locking blue eyes to brown.

“That’s not what I asked,” she replied, holding his gaze, crossing her arms around her folded knees.

With the beautiful eyes of Karisma Montgomery holding him captive, his mind was made up, knowing there would be hell to pay. “How can I marry a woman who’s never inspired an ounce of what you make me feel?” he said, hoping she sensed his sincerity.

“What do you feel?” she asked.

“I feel like the world has opened up for me. I feel…more. I want more. I want
you
. Not just in bed, Kari, I
want
you.”

She felt his words. Crazy though it was, she wanted the same. “Then what are you going to do? Maybe we should hold off on this, whatever this is, until you can…get your house in order,” Kari replied. She couldn’t afford to have another dawg in her life.

“I don’t want to hold off on us, beautiful.” He kissed her shoulder.             

“And I don’t want to be your side piece,” she spat, holding her chin up.

“You’re more than that to me, can’t you tell? Something ignited in me from the first moment our eyes met. And I believe it happened to you, as well. Don’t you feel what’s between us?” he asked, pulling her to him possessively.

Looking into his intense eyes, she shook her head and said, “Listen. My last boyfriend, Ray? You met him. He fucked around on me for three years. I never caught him, but the rumors were always out there. I finally walked in on him, in
my
bed, with one of his hoes. That was the last straw. It took me three years to get to that last straw. I’m sorry, sweetie. One thing my experience with Raymond taught me was to 
NEVER
 let that happen again. And I won’t. I can’t.”

She moved to get out of the bed, and he seized her by the wrist.

“Kari, fuck Raymond. How he could fuck other women when he had
you
is beyond me. But…look at me,” he said, making sure she heard him. “I’m not him. Give me the chance to change things. I think we owe it to ourselves to explore this. What we’ve shared tonight has been beautiful, beyond intense. Let me get out of my obligation. Don’t walk away. Allow me to take care of it.”

She looked at him and he lessened his hold on her wrist as they laced their fingers together. He pulled her closer and kissed her lips and it was more than convincing. It was what she wanted to hear and she wasn’t sure if it was wise to play with fire, but she was already addicted to him in some way that was almost inexplicable.

“Would you have broken it off with her if we hadn’t met?” she asked, pulling away.

              “First of all, I’ve always wanted to meet you,” he confessed, shrugging his shoulders. “I want you, Karisma. And for that, I will do what I need to do.”

“You’ve always wanted to meet me? Why? Because I’m rich? Famous? Or is it because you like the way I look?” she asked, suddenly feeling stung. That was a familiar conversation—get close and find out that it was the illusion of her life, not her.

“I have money, Kari, as you can see,” he said, his accent quite evident. “And I don’t chase fame, I create it. And as for your looks, well, you’re beautiful and everyone knows that. It’s rather hard to miss. Of course it’s what attracted me to you before I knew you, but it took just one conversation for me to see that you are more than your looks. You have got to be one of the most talented people alive. Look at what you’ve accomplished. You write and arrange music. You have had over fifty songs hit the Billboard Top 100 Chart. Your group, Goldust, is the biggest selling group of all time. And you’re just twenty-four. It’s still more than that. We’re just getting to know each other and I feel so drawn to you. You’re not jaded by all of this Kari. Hell, you’re on a commission with the freakin’ Pope to end world hunger. At 
his 
request. And look at all the things you do for charity.” Oh yeah, he’d kept up with her for years. He stopped and stared at her. Softly, he said, “And you’ve got me feeling things, sweetheart, that I’ve never felt before. I like it. I’m asking you to trust me, Kari. I’ll handle this. I have every reason to, and no reason to let you down.”

His eyes bore into hers. Unable to break his stare, she nodded. “This is crazy, Paolo, we just met. I don’t want you to do anything that you’ll regret. You say you don’t want her. But you’re engaged to marry her. Will she just give you up?”

“She’ll have no choice. It’s a relationship that should have ended long ago.”

“When are you supposed to get married?” she asked, wishing she hadn’t.

She noticed his hesitation, immediately. “Shit. I’m leaving,” she said, rising.

“I’m not getting married,” he said adamantly, standing with her.

He lowered his face and touched his forehead to hers. “I want to get to know you better, Karisma.”

She sighed. “I want that, too,” she said. “But…don’t play with me, Paolo.” She wondered what she was doing and why her heart was talking so much louder than her common sense.

“This isn’t a game, Kari. I’ve never wanted anything or anyone more than I want you.”

The resistance faded for Kari and eventually, she drifted off to sleep, her body exhausted from the bliss that had invaded it.

Morning came and Paolo woke up to the warmth of a golden sun splashing through his window. He glanced over to the clock and saw that is was already 8:35 AM. Then he looked over to the beauty next to him and stared at her, appreciating the moment to watch her while she slept.
So fucking beautiful. I’m the
luckiest bastard
alive,
he thought.

              Her eyes fluttered open and Kari saw Paolo looking at her. “Good morning,” she said, smiling and stretching.

              “Morning, beautiful,” he said. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock. Maybe ‘cause I got rocked,” she said playfully.

He let go a bellow of laughter and molested her under the covers, his morning wood growing larger. Their tongues frantically met. Paolo brought her forward toward the hard bulge beneath the sheets. His hands searched for her breasts, caressing and squeezing them. His hard body rubbed against hers while continuing to cup her breasts in one hand while feeling up her soft buttocks with his other. With reluctance, his lips left hers as he went to work on her jugular.

“Paolo, baby. Stop. I have to use the bathroom,” she said. He pulled away from her neck with a smack and a playful whack to her butt. “I won’t be long.”

“Better not be,” he warned.

She jumped up and gave him a seductive look and walked over the bathroom like a model on the catwalk. Then she shut the door.

Paolo immediately grabbed for his cell phone to call the office. He was already late and Willa would have to cancel his appointments for the morning. Just as he hung up, Karisma came back into the bedroom. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, kissing her again, this time hard and intense.