He could only remember one or two times when getting on with life had not been his after-sex goal.
This was one of them.
What had just happened… It had damn near turned him inside out.
He was an experienced lover. Over the years, he’d had good sex. Great sex. Mind-blowing sex. As for games… He’d played them before. Every now and then, they were fun. They were exciting.
But this—this had been different.
He hadn’t planned to take her this way. Binding her hands. Tearing away her gown. Not permitting her to touch him. Sure, teasing like that could be exhilarating, but what had had changed everything had been her response to him.
He was not given to wasting time philosophizing, but he didn’t have to be a student of Zen to know that something had happened to Cheyenne tonight.
And to him.
When her pleas that he release her from bondage had become pleas that he take her in pleasure…
“Luca.”
He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to do his usual that-was-wonderful-cara thing as reality crept in and random thoughts about tomorrow’s appointments, the stock market, the weather, whatever it was that normally filled an idle mind, took over.
All he wanted was to lie here with her in his arms, wait for the world to right itself and then do what they’d just done all over again.
“Luca.”
Except, he had to move. She wasn’t wrapped around him anymore. Of course, she wasn’t. He was probably all but crushing her; he was far too heavy to use her as a mattress even if he liked the feel of her beneath him. Soft curves. Silky skin. The scent of flowers and sex and woman…
“Luca!”
“Si, bellissima.” He brushed his lips over hers, rolled to his side and took her in his arms…
Except, he couldn’t.
She had rolled, too, not toward him but toward the edge of the bed, clutching the edges of her torn gown to her breasts.
He smiled. Modesty? Now? He laughed softly, reached out, trailed the tip of his index finger the length of her spine.
“Don’t,” she said, jerking away and rising to her feet.
Luca sat up. There was a world of meaning in that ‘don’t.’
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Bellissima—”
“You can give up the bellissima routine. It’s done its job. Where are my shoes?” Her gaze swept the room. “Didn’t I have them with me when we got here?”
So much for cuddling and pillow talk and post-coital whatever it was. Luca swung his feet to the floor, reached for his discarded trousers, got a foot into one leg.
She was already heading for the bedroom door.
“Cheyenne? Wait a minute. Where are you—” Merda! He caught his toes in a trouser cuff. “Goddammit,” he roared as he recovered his balance, yanked the damned pants on, zipped the fly and went after her. He caught up to her in the hall, gripped her by the shoulders and swung her toward him. “What the hell is this?”
“Let go of me, Bellini.”
“Answer me,” he growled. “What’s going on here?”
“Surely you have the brains to figure it out for yourself.”
“Watch that smart mouth, McKenna.”
“You watch your hands, Bellini,” she snapped, shaking herself like a dog coming in from the rain. “I don’t want them anywhere on me, understand?”
“You’re good at this.”
“At getting trapped by you? So it would seem, but it won’t happen again.” Another shake. “Damn you, take your hands off me!”
“You’re good at running from what you can’t face.”
“Psych 101. Another of your marvelous skills.”
“Funny. I wouldn’t have figured you for a coward.”
Her eyes, hot and wild, narrowed to glowing slits.
“I’m not going to honor that with an answer.”
“One session between the sheets, you came like you never have before, and you bolt.”
“Oh, that’s charming, Bellini. So poetic. So—”
He kissed her, although it was more than a kiss. It was a claim, a statement that she was his and not all the denials in the world could change that.
Only one problem.
She bit him.
He jerked his head back as her teeth sank into his bottom lip. He stroked the tiny wound with the tip of his tongue and tasted the salty tang of blood. She was staring up at him, her breathing rapid, her cheeks scarlet, her gaze rebellious. Everything about her said I dare you, and he was a man who had never turned his back on a challenge.
“Poetry isn’t what I want,” he said in a low voice. “What I want is to fuck you.”
She didn’t so much as blink.
“Get yourself a copy of last month’s New York Fashion. Open it to page seventy-eight. The lipstick ad. I’m right there and you can go into your bathroom and je—”
He said something raw and savage. The shredded gown fell to the floor as he hauled her against him and lifted her off her feet.
“Don’t,” she said, but his arms were hard around her, his mouth was on hers and the bulge of his erection was pressing against her naked belly. “Don’t,” she said again, but she was lying, lying, lying. If he stopped kissing her, she would die.
She needed this, needed him, and she gripped his hips with her legs as he carried her to the dresser and swept it clean of whatever small objects it held.
No silk bonds this time. No lingering seduction. She reached between them. Unzipped him and he drove deep inside her. Fast. Furious. No lead-up, no questions, nothing but this.
His need.
Her desire.
The sound of her cries as he moved.
The feel of her, hot and wet around him.
The power of him, primitive and male.
No mercy offered. None wanted.
A cry of incoherent joy burst from her throat. A groan of primitive satisfaction growled in his.
“Luca,” she wept, “Luca…”
“That’s right. Me. Only me. Never anyone else. Just me.”
He felt the start of her orgasm, the delicate contractions of muscle around him. His vision blurred; his heart felt as if it might explode.
Not yet, he thought. Not until he heard the words.
“Tell me what you want, bellissima,” he demanded. “Tell me!”
Her eyes, glazed and swimming with tears, met his.
“You. You. I want—”
He drove deep on last time. She cried out and fell forward in his encircling arms, and he whispered her name and tumbled into the starry abyss with her.
* * *
He held her that way for a long time.
She felt the heat of his breath against her throat, the thud of his heart against hers. His body was slick with sweat.
He smelled of sex and man.
She had always hated those smells. Getting rid of them was what hot showers were made for, but not tonight.
Tonight, she found herself burying her nose in the crook of his shoulder, inhali
ng him, making his scent a part of her.
It didn’t make sense, but nothing she’d done tonight made sense. Nothing she’d done the entire day made sense.
Her world had turned upside down.
It was a terrifying thought.
Move, she told herself. His arms around you make a lie of everything you believe, everything you know. Instead, she found herself shutting her eyes, burrowing even closer and all but purring when he stroked his hand slowly down her spine.
He kissed her temple.
“You okay?”
She nodded. She was lots of things, but ‘okay’ would have to suffice. For the moment, that was about all she could manage.
Sex was an easy topic of conversation in her world.
How bad it was. How good it was.
Girls talked about it over coffee, over endless waits backstage at runway shows.
She’d never been part of those conversations—that was another mark against her, she suspected, that she didn’t ‘share’—but she’d heard enough to know that her comments, had she chosen to make them, wouldn’t have fallen into either category.
Sex was sex. That was all it was.
Not tonight.
This was—it was—
“Cheyenne? Are you all right?”
She nodded. Talking would have taken too much energy.
“Because I was kind of fast.”
That needed an answer, never mind her almost non-existent energy. “No,” was the best she could manage.
She felt his lips form a smile as he pressed them to her temple again.
“Good. That’s good.” He gave a soft laugh. “Only one problem. I don’t know if I can move.”
At least, it wasn’t just her. She couldn’t have moved if a fire alarm had gone off.
Slowly, he drew back and framed her face with his hands.
“But we have to. Move, that is.” He flashed a grin that was 100% pure male pride. “Otherwise, we’ll scare the hell out of my housekeeper when she comes in Monday morning.”
The image made her want to smile, but you didn’t smile during sex. Well, this was after-sex, but it came to the same thing. Sex was sex. A bodily function.
“I can hear the news flash now,” he said solemnly. “Couple Found Hungry but Happy in Manhattan Penthouse. Details at eleven.”
It was impossible not smile. Truth was, it was impossible not to laugh. When she did, he put his hand under her chin and titled her face up to his.