protecting her.
No man she wanted to know more. No man she wanted to risk her heart with.
* * *
Raphael had just finished his quickly put together 2:00 a.m. dinner, and poured himself a glass of red wine when he heard soft steps behind him.
Dannazione, he had tried not to wake her...
Closing his eyes, he stayed where he was, with his back to her. But he could see her reflected in the glass panes in front of him.
Clad in his white shirt, which fell tantalizingly to her thighs, she was rubbing sleep-mussed eyes behind him. He should have trusted his instincts and stayed at the hospital.
But he’d given his answer to Gio tonight and the knowledge of it was like the continual strike of a spark plug to fuel.
“Raphael?” Her husky voice floated toward him across the kitchen.
Swallowing the last of his wine as if it were water, he turned.
Her hair created a vaguely golden halo around her face, her long, long legs—toned and nicely tanned, bare from her thighs down—hit him hard. All these days, he had watched her, wanted her, with a desire that grew stronger by the minute. He’d held off because he had no intention of taking her when he didn’t want a relationship. No intention of being roped into anything he didn’t want.
Now there was nothing to hold him back. Nothing to stop him from possessing her.
“Sorry I disturbed you. Go back to sleep,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes.
She shook her head and a mass of hair fell forward. It was an utterly feminine gesture he was sure she didn’t even realize she’d made. He kept the marble island between them, as if physical distance could somehow negate the hot pounding of blood in his veins.
“I had already woken up. For a few minutes, I couldn’t remember where and why.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
That she felt so comfortable with him to stand in his apartment in the middle of the night, half-dressed, when she’d always been like a skittish horse around him, it denoted a level of trust he’d never wanted. “And then I had this sick, twisted feeling in my tummy. I thought I had lost Gio and you were... Then it all came crashing down and I jerked awake.”
She leaned back against the wall, which made the shirt pull up. Another inch of toned thigh was displayed and his body tightened another notch. Her pose made those small high breasts of hers jut forward.
Alluring and sexy and like a gift for him to unwrap. He swallowed hard.
He needed to go to bed and so did she. Separately. And yet he couldn’t help asking, “I did what in your ghastly nightmare, Pia? What could be so much worse than walking away when you were trembling from the orgasm I gave you?”
“You were screaming at me that it was all my fault. That I... I killed Gio.”
Reaching her, careful not to touch her, he said, “You’ve had a strenuous week.”
She dragged her fingers over her face, leaving impressions, “Oh, God, what are we going to do?”
“We’re just going to sleep for about forty-eight hours.” The image of sleeping with her—their limbs tangled, her lithe body pressed against hers—hit him with a fierce longing.
“I couldn’t sleep with all these thoughts swirling in my head. Would you tell me the truth if I asked you, Raphael?”
He instantly became wary. “If I can,” he said reluctantly.
He’d always been the protective type with his sisters and even with Allegra. After everything she’d done, it was he who had finally dragged her to the rehabilitation program. Whether he believed she’d get through it was a different matter.
But with Pia, he was aware of all of his shortcomings. It was as if she constantly held up a mirror for him and he couldn’t bear to see what it would show. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to do anything that would break her pure spirit.
He couldn’t stay away from her either. Not anymore. Suddenly, he felt as if he could breathe again.
“Did I cause Gio’s attack?”
“Pia—”
“No, please. You don’t know. But I...a few hours before the attack, I told him I wanted to...to take a trip.”
He stayed silent, not trusting himself to pour out the whole terrible argument he’d had with Gio.
He had been pushed and shoved to this step by Gio, by circumstance, even unknowingly by Pia, but he wasn’t going to doom their relationship from the beginning.
Pia, he knew, didn’t give two hoots about VA or the stock or Gio’s fortune. The last thing she needed was to know what Gio had offered Raphael.
“I wanted to get away for a while. I thought I could go back to the States and tie up some loose ends. I told him it was just temporary—”
“Because you wanted to avoid me after what I did?” This more than anything angered him. “Did you think of how Gio felt at that? Do you always run away if it gets hard, Pia? Isn’t that what you did when that man cheated you?”
She paled as if he’d struck below the belt. She tilted her chin in that stubborn way of hers. “I wasn’t running away. I needed a break. It was hard to be around you knowing that every minute you spent with me was under sufferance.”
“That’s—”
“Please, no lies. The one thing I know I’ll always have from you is honesty. Don’t take that away from me now. You can barely stand to look at me when we’re together.” Pain flashed through her eyes, the raw intensity of it skewering Raphael where he stood. “You... I forced you to give me what you didn’t want to. I clearly can’t take a message.”
“Dio mio! Is that what you think? When will you understand that—?”
“You’ve made it clear that I’m nothing but another millstone of responsibility around your neck. Another person who’s dependent on you, another duty you perform even though you resent the hell out of it.
“I’m not angry with you. I see all the responsibilities you shoulder, how seriously you take them. I just can’t bear to be one of them. I don’t know how to make Gio believe that I can look after myself.”
He reached her and ran a finger over her jaw. She had such soft skin and he wondered if she was like that all over. “And what if saying no to you was the hardest thing I ever did. That even if you hadn’t waylaid me, I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it with... Ava. That every time I close my eyes, I feel that velvety, swollen center of yours between my fingers. That every time I hear your voice, it reminds me of your soft moans and throaty cries. That every morning, I wake up with an erection and that I get myself off like an uncouth teenager by picturing you bare and writhing beneath me, begging me to take you.” She stared at him with such wide eyes, such naked lust that Raphael was tempted to take her right there.
He
