Читать книгу The Complete Boardroom Collection - Джанис Мейнард, Yvonne Lindsay - Страница 18
ОглавлениеLUCA THREW ASIDE his bow-tie just before he came onto the terrace and bit out, ‘Where the hell were you? I’ve been all over the beachfronts looking for you.’
His anger escalated when he saw Serena put her hands on her hips and say defiantly, ‘What was it? Did you think I’d hit some nightclub? Or that I’d gone to find some late-night pharmacy so I could score some meds?’
Luca stopped. He had to acknowledge the relief that was coursing through his veins. She was here. She was safe. But the rawness he felt because she’d walked out on him and looked so upset when he’d suggested she was acting out a charade was still there.
An uncomfortable truth slid into his gut like a knife. Perhaps this was her. No charade. No subterfuge.
And just like that, Luca was thrown off-centre all over again.
He breathed deeply. ‘I’m sorry.’
Serena was surprised. She blinked. ‘Sorry for what?’
Honesty compelled Luca to admit, ‘For what I said at the function. I just... You...’
He looked away and put his hands on his hips. Suddenly it wasn’t so hard to say what he wanted to say—as if something inside him had given way.
He dropped his hands, came closer and shook his head. ‘You confound me, Serena DePiero. Everything I thought I knew about you is wrong. The woman who came to Rio, the woman who survived the jungle, the woman who gave those villagers the kind of courtesy not many people ever give them...she’s someone I wasn’t expecting.’
Serena’s ability to think straight was becoming compromised. Emotion was rising at hearing this admission and knowing what it must be costing him.
Huskily she said, ‘But this is me, Luca. This has always been me. It was just...buried before.’ Then she blurted out, ‘I’m sorry for running off. I came straight here. I wouldn’t have gone near the beaches—not after what you said. I do have some street-smarts, you know.’
Luca moved closer. ‘I panicked. I thought of you being oblivious to the dangers.’
Now Serena noticed how pale Luca was. He’d been worried about her. He hadn’t assumed she’d gone off the rails. The anger and hurt drained away, and something shifted inside her. A kind of tenderness welled up. Dangerous.
She had to physically resist the urge to go to him and touch his jaw. Instead she said, ‘I’m here...safe.’
His hands landed on her hips and he tugged her into him. She was shorter without her heels. He made her feel delicate. Her skin was tingling now, coming up in goosebumps in spite of the warm air. Emboldened by his proximity, and what he’d just said, she lifted her own hands and pushed Luca’s jacket apart and down his arms.
He let go of her so that it could fall to the ground.
Without saying anything, Luca took her by the hand and led her into the apartment, stepping over his coat.
Serena let herself be led. She’d never felt this connection with anyone else, and a deep-rooted surge of desire to reclaim part of her sexuality beat like a drum in her blood.
Yet when Luca led her into what she assumed was his bedroom, because of its stark, masculine furnishings, trepidation gripped her. Perhaps she was being a fool? Reading too much into what he’d said? Didn’t men say anything to get women into bed? There was so much in her past that she was ashamed of, that she hadn’t made peace with, and Luca seemed to have an unerring ability to bring all of those vulnerabilities to the fore. What would happen when he possessed her completely?
Her hand tightened around Luca’s and he stopped by the bed and turned to face her. Serena blurted out the first thing she could think of, as if to try and put some space between them again. ‘I lost my virginity when I was sixteen...does that shock you?’
He shrugged, his expression carefully veiled, ‘Should it? I lost mine at sixteen too—when one of my father’s ex-mistresses seduced me.’
Serena’s desperation rose, in spite of her shock at what he’d just revealed so flatly. ‘It’s what men expect, though, isn’t it? For their lovers to be somehow...innocent?’
Luca made a face. ‘I like my lovers to be experienced. I’ve no desire to be some wide-eyed virgin’s first time.’
A wide-eyed virgin she certainly was not. Innocence had been ripped from her too early.
Luca pulled her closer and heat pulsed into Serena’s lower body. She could feel his arousal between them, thick and hard. It scattered painful thoughts and she welcomed it like a coward.
‘I want you, Serena, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. I’ve wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you...’
For a heady moment Serena felt an overwhelming sense of power. She reassured herself that the emotions rising inside her were transitory; sex had never touched her emotionally before, so why should it now?
When he reached for her Serena curled into him without even thinking about it. It felt like the most necessary thing. The world dropped away and it was just them in this tight embrace, hearts thudding, skin hot.
His fingers spread out over her back, making her nipples harden almost painfully against the material of the dress. And then he lowered his head and his mouth was on hers, fitting like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Serena’s lips opened to his on a sigh, tongues touching and tasting, stroking intimately. Her hands wound up around his neck, fingers tugging the short strands of hair, exploring, learning the shape of his skull.
Luca’s wicked mouth and tongue made her strain to get even closer. After long, drugging moments he drew back, breathing harshly. Serena had to struggle to open her eyes.
‘I want to see you,’ he muttered thickly. ‘Take down your hair.’
Serena felt as if she was in a dream. Had she, in fact, had this dream more often than once in the past seven years? She lifted her hand to the back of her head, feeling incredibly languid, and removed the discreet pin. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, making her nerve-ends tingle even more.
Luca reached out and ran his fingers through it, then fisted it in one hand as the other reached around her to draw her into him again, kissing her with ruthless passion, tongue thrusting deep.
Serena’s legs were starting to wobble. Luca’s mouth was remorseless, sending her brain into a tailspin.
His hands came to the shoulders of her dress and pulled with gentle force, so the material slipped down her arms, loosening around her chest. She broke away from his mouth and looked up into dark pools of blue, feeling insecure.
Her arms came up against her breasts. Luca drew back and gently tugged them away, pulling the front of the dress down, leaving her bared to him.
She wore no bra, and Luca’s gaze was so hot her skin sizzled. He reached out a hand and cupped the weight of one breast, a thumb moving over one puckered nipple. She bit her lip to stop from moaning out loud.
And then Luca put his hands on her hips and pulled her into him, hard enough to make her gasp, and replaced his thumb with his mouth, suckling on that hard peak roughly, making her back arch.
His erection was insistent against her and Serena’s hips moved of their own volition.
Luca lifted his head. ‘Feiticeira.’
Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, ‘What does that mean?’
‘Witch,’ Luca replied succinctly.
And he kissed her again before her mind could catch up with the fact that his hands were now pushing her dress down over her hips so that it fell to the floor in a silken swish.
He put one hand between their bodies and Serena held her breath when he explored down over her belly and lower, until he was gently pushing her legs apart so that he could feel for himself how ready she was.
Serena felt gauche, but wanton, as Luca moved his hand between her legs, over her panties. She lowered her head to his shoulder when her face got hot, and her breathing grew harsher when his wicked fingers moved against her insistently.
He slipped a finger under the gusset of her panties and touched her, flesh to flesh. Serena bit her lip hard enough to make tears spring into her eyes. She wanted to clamp her thighs together—the sensation was too much—but Luca’s hand was too strong.
Her legs finally gave way and she collapsed back onto the bed, heart thumping erratically.
Luca started to undo his shirt, revealing that broad and exquisitely muscled chest. A smattering of dark hair covered his pectorals, leading down in a silky line under his trousers to where she could see the bulge of his arousal.
Serena’s brain melted and she welcomed it. She didn’t want to think or analyse—only feel.
His hands moved to his trousers and he undid them and pushed them down, taking his underwear with them. His erection was awe-inspiring. Long and thick and hard, a bead of moisture at the tip.
‘Seven years, Serena,’ he said throatily, ‘For seven years I’ve wanted you above any other woman. No one came close to how I imagined this.’
She looked up at him, taken aback. She watched as he reached for something in a drawer in the side table. He rolled protection over his length. There was something unashamedly masculine about the action.
‘Lie back,’ he instructed gruffly.
Serena did, glad he was giving instructions because she couldn’t seem to formulate a single coherent thought.
Luca curled his fingers under the sides of her panties and gently took them off. Now she was naked. And even though she’d been naked in front of men before it had never felt like this. As if she was being reborn.
Luca came down over her on strong arms, their bodies barely touching. He kissed her, and those broad shoulders blocked everything out. Serena reached up, desperate for contact again, her hands touching his chest and moving down the sides of his body, reaching around to his back, sliding over taut, sleek muscles.
Luca broke away. ‘You’re killing me. I need you...now. Spread your legs for me.’
Serena’s entire body seemed to spasm at that husky entreaty. She moved her legs apart and Luca came down over her, his body pressing against hers. She could feel the thick blunt head of him pushing against her, seeking entrance.
She opened her legs wider, every cell in her body straining towards this union. Aching for it. She looked up at him, her whole body on the edge of some unknown precipice.
As if some lingering tension shimmering between them had just dissolved, Luca thrust in, hard and deep, and Serena cried out at the exquisite invasion.
It was sore...he was so big...but even as she had that thought the pain was already dissipating to be replaced by a heady sensation of fullness.
‘Serena?’
She opened her eyes. Luca was frowning. She hadn’t realised that she was biting her lip.
He started to withdraw. ‘I’ve hurt you.’
There was a quality to his voice Serena had never heard before. She gripped him tight with her thighs, trapping him. ‘No,’ she said huskily. ‘You’re not hurting me... It’s...been a while.’
He stopped, and for an infinitesimal moment Serena thought he was going to withdraw completely. But then he slowly thrust in again and relief rushed through her.
Luca reached under her back, arching her up into him more as he kept up a steady rhythm that made it hard to breathe. She could feel her inner muscles tight around him, saw his gritted jaw, the intense look of concentration on his face.
Luca pressed a searing kiss to her mouth before trailing his lips down, closing them over one nipple and then the other, forcing Serena’s back to arch again as spasm after spasm of tiny pleasures rushed through her core.
She locked her feet around the back of Luca’s body and he went deeper, but she couldn’t break free of that sliver of control that kept her bound, kept her from soaring to the stars. A blinding flash of insight hit her like a smack in the face: she recognised now why she couldn’t let go in this moment of intense intimacy—the reason why she’d never let herself feel this deeply before—it was because she’d always been too afraid of losing control.
Which was ironic. But being out of control on drink and medication had been—perversely—within her control. This wasn’t. This was threatening to wrench her out of herself in a way that was frankly terrifying.
A small sob of need escaped Serena’s mouth as that elusive pinnacle seemed to fade into the distance. The turmoil in her chest and body was burning her. But she couldn’t let go—even as she heard a guttural sound coming from Luca’s mouth and felt his body tense within her before deep tremors shook his big frame and his body thrust against her with the unconscious rhythm of his own release.
She felt hollowed out, unsatisfied.
Luca withdrew from her body, breathing harshly, and Serena winced minutely as her muscles relaxed their tight grip. As soon as Luca released her from the prison of his arms she felt the need to escape and left the bed.
She barely heard him call her name as she shut the bathroom door behind her, locking it. Her legs were shaking and tears burned the back of her eyes as the magnitude of what had just happened sank in. There was something fundamentally flawed, deep inside her. She’d been broken so long ago that she couldn’t function normally now. And Luca had to be the one to demonstrate this to her. The ignominy was crushing.
Serena blindly reached into the shower and turned the spray to hot, stepping underneath and lifting her face up to the rush of water. Her tears slid and fell, silent heaves making her body spasm as she let it all out.
She heard banging on the door, her name. She called out hoarsely, ‘Leave me alone, Luca!’
And then, mercifully, silence.
Serena sank down onto the floor of the shower as the water beat relentlessly down over her body. She drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her head onto them and tried to tell herself that what had just happened wasn’t as cataclysmic as she thought it was.
* * *
Luca looked at the locked door. He wasn’t used to feeling powerless, but right now he did. He cursed volubly, knowing it wouldn’t be heard because he could hear the spray of the shower and something that sounded suspiciously like a sob.
His chest hurt. Was she crying? Had he hurt her?
Luca cursed again and paced. He went to his wardrobe and took out some worn jeans, pulled them on, paced again.
Dammit. No woman had ever reacted like that after making love with him. Running to the bathroom. Crying. And yet...
Had he really made love to Serena? Luca asked himself derisively. Or had he been so overcome with lust that he’d not taken any notice of the fact that she clearly hadn’t been enjoying herself?
He winced now when he thought of how tight she’d been. And her husky words...It’s...been a while. To be so tight he’d guess a lot longer than ‘a while’. Which meant what? That her reputation for promiscuity was severely flawed, for a start. And she’d been awkward, slightly gauche. Not remotely like the practised seductress he might have expected.
He’d seen how her face had tightened, become inscrutable. She’d shut her eyes, turned her head away... But Luca had been caught in the grip of a pleasure so intense that he’d been unable to hold himself back, releasing himself into her with a force unlike anything he’d known before.
For the first time in his memory Luca was facing the very unpalatable fact that he’d behaved with all the finesse of a rutting bull.
The spray of the shower was turned off and Luca became tense. He felt a very real urge to flee at the prospect of facing Serena now. But that urge stemmed from some deep place he wouldn’t acknowledge. She hadn’t reached him there. No one had.
* * *
When Serena emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a voluminous terrycloth robe, she still felt raw. The bedroom was empty, and a lurch of something awfully like disappointment went through her belly to think that Luca had left.
And then she cursed herself. Hadn’t she told him to ‘leave me alone’? Why on earth would he want to have anything to do with a physically and emotionally wounded woman when there had to be any number of willing women who would give him all the satisfaction he might crave without the post-coital angst?
Still...it hurt in a way that it shouldn’t.
Serena belted the robe tightly around her waist and, feeling restless, went out to the living area. Her hair lay in a damp tangle down her back.
But when she looked out through the glass doors she saw him. He hadn’t left. Her heart stopped as something very warm and treacherous filled her chest.
As she came closer to the open doors she could see that he’d pulled on soft faded jeans. His back was broad and smooth, his hair ruffled. From her hands or the breeze? Serena hovered at the door, on the threshold.
And then Luca said over his shoulder, ‘You should come and see the view—it’s pretty spectacular.’
Serena came out and stood not far from Luca, putting her hands on the railing. The view was indeed exquisite. Rio was lit up with a thousand lights, the Sugar Loaf in the distance, and the beaches just out of sight. It was magical. Other-worldly.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ she breathed, curiously soothed by Luca’s muted reaction to her reappearance.
He said lightly now, ‘I find that hard to believe.’
Serena’s hands tightened on the railing. ‘It’s true. Before...I wouldn’t have noticed.’
She could sense him turning towards her and her skin warmed. Just like that. From his attention. She glanced at him and his face looked stark in the moonlight.
‘Did I hurt you? You were with me all the way and then...you weren’t.’
‘No!’ Serena blurted out, horrified that he would think that. ‘No,’ she said again, quieter, and looked back at the view. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Then...what?’
Why wouldn’t he let it go? Serena wasn’t used to men who gave any consideration to how much she’d enjoyed sex—they’d usually been happy just to say they’d had her. The wild child.
Luca’s voice broke in again. ‘You’ve already come in my arms, so I know what it feels like, but you shut down.’
Serena got hot, recalling the strength of her orgasm when he’d been touching her in the jungle... But that had been different... He hadn’t been inside her.
And she hadn’t been falling for him.
The realisation hit her now, as if she’d been blocking it out. She was falling for him—tumbling, in fact. No wonder her body had shut down. It had known before she did. She’d been right to fear his total possession.
She looked at him, shocked, terrified it might be written over her head in neon lights. But he was just raising a brow, waiting for an answer. Oblivious.
Her mind whirling with this new and fragile knowledge, she whispered, ‘I told you...it’s been a while.’
‘What’s “a while”?’
Serena stared at him, wanting him to let it go. ‘Years—okay? A long time.’
Something in his eyes flashed. ‘You haven’t had any lovers since you left Italy?’
She shook her head, avoiding his eye again, and said tightly, ‘No—and not for a while before that.’
God, this was excruciating!
‘The truth is I’ve never really enjoyed sex. My reputation for promiscuity and sexual prowess was largely based on the stories of men who’d been turned down. I’m afraid I’m not half as debauched as you might think...a lot of talk and not a lot of action.’
Luca was quiet for a long time, and then he said, ‘I could tell you weren’t that experienced. But you were touted as one of Europe’s most licentious socialites and you didn’t do much to defend yourself.’
She sent him a dark glance. ‘As if anyone would have believed me.’ She looked out over the view and felt somehow removed, suspended in space. ‘Do you know how I learned to French kiss?’
She could sense Luca going still. ‘How?’
Serena smiled but it was bitter, hard. ‘One of my father’s friends. At a party. He came into my room.’
She let out a shocked gasp when Luca grabbed her shoulders and pulled her around to face him. His face was stark, pale. His reaction took her aback.
‘Did he touch you? Did he—?’
Serena shook her head quickly. ‘No. No. My sister Siena was there...we shared a room. She woke up and got into bed beside me and the man left. After that we made sure to lock our door every night.’
Luca’s hands were still gripping her shoulders. ‘Deus...Serena.’
He let her go and ran a hand through his hair, looking at her as if she was a stranger. On some deep level Serena welcomed it. The other thing was too scary. Luca looking at her with something approximating gentleness...
She saw a lounger nearby and went over and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. Luca stood with his back to the railing, hands in his pockets. Tense.
As if the words were being wrung out of him, he finally said, ‘It’s not adding up. You’re not adding up.’
‘What’s not adding up?’ Serena asked quietly, her heart palpitating at Luca’s intent look.
‘You’ve had nothing but opportunities to be difficult since you got here and you haven’t been. No one can act that well. A child who is medicated for being difficult, wilful...who grows into a wild teenager hell-bent on causing controversy wherever she goes...that’s not you.’
Serena’s heart beat fast. She felt light-headed. Faintly she said, ‘It was me.’
Luca was grim. ‘Was? No one changes that easily, or that swiftly.’
He came over and pulled a chair close, sat down. Serena knew her eyes had gone wide. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice, teetering, about to fall.
‘I want to know, Serena... Why were you put on medication so young?’
‘I told you...after my mother died—’
Luca shook his head. ‘There has to be more to it than that.’
Serena just looked at him. No one had ever been interested in knowing her secrets before. In rehab the professionals had been paid to delve deep, and she’d let them in the interests of getting better.
Luca was pushing her and pushing her—and for what? As if he’d welcome her darkest secrets...
The desire to be vulnerable and allow herself to confide in him in a way she’d never done before made her scared. It was too much, coming on the heels of what had just happened. Realising she was falling in love with him when he was only interested in bedding her. She’d been at pains to let Luca know that this was the real her, and yet she knew well it wasn’t. There was a lot more to her. And she couldn’t let it out. She felt too fragile.
Acting on a blind instinct to protect herself, Serena stood up abruptly, making Luca tip his head back.
Coldly she said, ‘There’s nothing more to it—and I thought men didn’t like post-coital post-mortems. If we’re done here for the evening I’d like to go to bed. I’m tired.’
She went to walk around Luca, her heart hammering, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. He stood up slowly, eyes narrowed on her.
‘What the hell...? If we’re done here for the evening? What’s that supposed to mean?’
Serena shrugged and tried to affect as bored a demeanour as possible. ‘We’ve been to the function, we’ve slept together...’ She forced herself to look at him and mocked, ‘What more do you want? For me to tuck you in and read you a story?’
Luca’s face flushed. He let her wrist go as if it burnt him. He seemed to increase in size in front of her, but instead of intimidating her it only made her more aware of him. He bristled.
‘No, sweetheart, I don’t want you to tuck me in and read me a story. I want you in my bed at my convenience for as long as I want you.’
He was hard and cruel. And more remote than she could remember ever seeing him. Something inside her curled up tight. But still that instinct to drive him away from seeing too much made her say nonchalantly, ‘Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d appreciate spending the rest of the night on my own.’
Liar, her body whispered. Even now between her legs she was getting damp with the desire to feel him surge deep inside her.
So that she could shut down all over again? More humiliation? No, she was doing the right thing.
He came close...close enough to make sweat break out over Serena’s skin... If he touched her he’d know how false she was being.
But he stopped just inches away and said, ‘We both know that I could have you flat on your back and begging me for release in minutes...a release that you will give me next time, Serena.’
He stepped back and Serena felt disorientated. He thought she’d wilfully kept herself from being pleasured just to thwart him in some way?
He swept her up and down with a scathing glance. ‘But right now I find that my desire has waned.’
He turned and strode back into the apartment and Serena started to shake in reaction. Everything in her wanted to call out to him.
But wasn’t this what she wanted? To push him back? The shackles of her past had never felt so burdensome as they did right then. She recognised that they were protecting her, but also imprisoning her.
She could imagine Luca getting changed, walking out through the door, and her gut seized in rejection. Luca was the only person she’d come close to telling everything. She could remember the look on his face just before she’d turned cold. He’d been concerned. Until she’d convinced him that she had nothing to say except that she wanted him to leave.
And why wouldn’t he leave? He was proud enough to take her at face value. She knew how quickly he damned people—after all he’d damned her for long enough... But that had been changing.
A sense of urgency gripped her—so what if he did just want her in his bed? Suddenly Serena knew that in spite of how terrified it made her feel, she desperately wanted to lean on Luca’s inherent strength and face these last demons that haunted her still. She was sick of letting her past define her, of being afraid to get too close to anyone in case they saw inside her.
After all, what was the worst that could happen? Luca couldn’t look at her any more coldly than he just had. And if he didn’t believe her...? Then at least she would have been totally honest.
She heard a movement and saw Luca stride towards the front door, dressed now in black trousers and a black top.
He looked utterly intimidating, but Serena gathered all of her courage, stepped into the apartment again and said, ‘Wait, Luca, please. Don’t go.’
