body of yours,” he told her, and if she hadn’t known him she might have thought him cold. Unmoved by all of this. But that wild, uninhibited lover she’d known lurked there in the sensual curve of his lips, that gleaming thing deep in his gaze. Giancarlo might hate her, but he wanted her as much as she did him. And Paige clung to that, perhaps harder than she should have. She clung to it as if it was everything and opted not to listen to the alarms that rang out in her at the thought. “Then we’ll worry about what to do with that body.”
“Whatever you say, Count Alessi,” she murmured, which was as close to obedient as she’d ever come. She saw a certain appreciation for that—or for her wry tone, more like—in his dark eyes, but then it was time to dance.
Because that was what this was. Paige didn’t pretend otherwise. The only music was his breath and hers, the only audience the primeval explosion of stars above them. She hadn’t danced in years. Ten years, in fact. But she could feel him in her feet, in her hips. In the glorious stretch of her arms over her head. Her pulse and her breath. She could feel him everywhere, better than any sound track with her own hopeful heartbeat like the kick of drums, and she danced.
She poured herself into each undulation of her hips, each exultant reach of her hands. She’d kicked off her shoes when she’d stood and she curled her toes down hard into the smooth stones beneath her, feeling what was left of the day’s heat against her soles and that wildfire that only arced higher between the two of them as she moved. She tried her best to catch the sensation in the movement of her hips, her legs, her torso. She took her time peeling off her trousers, managing to kick them aside with a flourish, and then she moved closer to him as she rid herself of her shirt, as if his intent expression beckoned her to him.
She took her time with her bra, offering her breasts to him when she finally dropped it at her side, and she smiled at the way he moved in his chair, his gaze a wild touch on her skin, so fierce it made her nipples pull taut. And she wasn’t done. She kept up the dance, the ecstatic dance, and she made it her apology, her regret. She told him all about her love and her silly, shattered hopes with every move she made, and when she stepped out of her panties she didn’t know which one of them was breathing more heavily.
Paige only knew that he was standing, too. And that she was naked before him and she still wasn’t done.
Naked in the Tuscan night, she danced for all those dreams she’d let carry her away as a girl. For the dream she’d destroyed with a single phone call and a cashed check ten years ago, and none of it worth the sacrifice, in the end. It was like skinny-dipping, warm and cool at once, the summer air a sensual caress against her flesh. She danced for the joy she’d only ever felt in this man’s presence, the laughter she still missed, the love she’d squandered for good reasons that seemed nothing but sad in retrospect.
She danced and she danced, and she might have danced all night, but Giancarlo swept her into his arms instead, high against his chest, and that was like a much better dance. Hotter and more intense, and then his mouth came down on hers, claiming her and destroying her that easily.
He came down hard on top of her and she loved it. That lean, hard body of his crushing her with his delicious weight, his narrow hips keeping her legs apart, and it took her a moment to realize that he’d moved them over to one of the sun chaises that sat around the gleaming, sleek pool that jutted out from the loggia toward the vineyards. And that he’d lost his jacket in the move.
And he looked as gorgeously undone as she felt, and very nearly as wild.
“Giancarlo,” she whispered, the dance still running madly in her veins, almost as addictive as he was. “Don’t stop.”
“I give the orders, not you,” he growled, but his lips were curved when they took hers all over again.
And then everything slowed down. Turned to honey, thick and sweet.
Giancarlo feasted on her as if she were the gourmet meal his chefs had prepared for him, and beneath his talented mouth she felt almost that cherished, that perfect. She wanted his naked skin pressed to hers more than she could remember wanting anything else, ever, but he kept her too busy to peel his shirt back from his strong shoulders.
He kissed her until her head spun, and then he followed the line of her neck, tasting her and muttering dark things in Italian that she told herself she was happy she didn’t understand.
Even if they moved in her like music, dark and compelling, sex and magic and Giancarlo, at long last.
He found her breasts and pulled one of the proud nipples deep into his hot mouth, and she didn’t care what he said. Or in what language. She arched into him, mindless and needy, and he punished and praised her with his lips, his tongue, the scrape of his teeth. He played with her until she begged him to stop and then he only laughed and kept going, sending a catapult of pure wildfire straight down into her core.
She thought for a panicky, wondrous second that he might throw her straight over the edge with only this—
But he stopped, as diabolical as ever, raising his dark head to take in the flushed heat on her face and all down her neck. Her sensual distress. Her driving need.
“This punishment appears to be far more effective than you imagined it would be, cara,” he murmured, his voice another sensual shiver against her sensitive skin, with its echoes of the playfully wicked lover she’d met so long ago. “It’s almost as if you forgot what I can do to you.”
“Thank you for the harsh lesson, Count Alessi,” she whispered, not trying too hard to keep her tone anything approaching respectful when she was this close to the edge. “May I have another?”
He laughed, and she did too, and she didn’t know if she’d been kidding or if she’d meant it when he returned his attention to her body, shifting to crawl down farther. If these were harsh lessons indeed, or gifts. He left a shimmering trail of fire from her breasts to her belly, and when he paused there, his breath fanning out over the hungriest part of her, Paige realized she was breathing as heavily as if she was running a race. The marathon he’d mentioned earlier, God help her.
“You’d better hold on,” he warned her, dark and stirring and right there against her sex. “I’m going to stop when I’m done, not when you are.”
And then he simply bent his head and licked his way into her.
Paige ignited.
She went from the mere sensation of burning straight into open flame. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She arched against the exquisite torment of his wickedly clever mouth, or she tried to escape it, and either way, it didn’t matter. He gripped her hips in his strong hands and he tasted her molten heat as if it was his own greatest pleasure, and before she knew it she was bucking against him, her hands buried deep in his thick, dark hair.
Calling out his name like a prayer into the night.
And he was as good as his word. He didn’t stop. He didn’t wait for her to come back down, to come back to herself. He simply kept on tasting her, settling in and taking his time, laughing against her tender flesh when she begged him to stop, laughing more when she begged him to keep on going.
The fire poured back into her, hotter and higher than before, and then he plunged two fingers deep inside of her and threw her over the side of the world. Again.
This time, when she shuddered her way back to earth, Giancarlo had moved off her to stand beside her, his hard hands impatient as he pulled her to her feet. It took her
