The Marriage Clause (Dirty Sexy Rich 1)

And we were both naked.

Because we were in the tub.

Together.

If I could get through this without succumbing to my baser desires, I was golden. I could get through the week, no problem.

Oh, Mother Mary. My fingers itched to curl around his cock. If he wasn’t hard already, I knew it wouldn’t take long. I sank lower into the bubbles so he didn’t see my nipples pearling, ready.

I might have overestimated my own strength. My own hubris might’ve just screwed me harder than Luca ever could.

“Admit it...you hated the hostel,” Luca challenged with a teasing grin. I laughed, relieved to draw my focus away from the pornographic thoughts populating my brain. “C’mon, just admit it. I know you well enough to know that, for you, sharing a bathroom with strangers was the worst thing ever.”

“I didn’t love it... Sort of like dorm life, ” I hedged, not quite willing to concede that my booking had been a terrible idea, insisting that the run-down roach motel had a “certain charm.” But I couldn’t sell the outright lie with any conviction and we both knew it. I relented with a resigned bite into another strawberry. “Okay, yes, I hated the hostel. It was awful, but to be fair, the pictures on the website were far more quaint and boho chic.”

“You thought it was going to be like ‘glamping,’” he correctly assumed with amusement, and I both hated and enjoyed that he knew me so well.

“Nico told me about that time you and your brothers got the bright idea to try camping behind your house. None of you had ever pitched a tent before, but you refused to ask for help. Nico said you nearly suffocated when the whole thing collapsed in the middle of the night.”

“That was Dante’s fault. He was in charge of the poles, but he took shortcuts and I was practically brained when the top pole came down on my face. I had a black eye for a week.”

“What’d you say you got the black eye from?”

“Sailboat accident,” he answered with a grin. “Sounded much better than how it actually happened. Did Nico also happen to share that he was the first to run back to the house like a giant baby, leaving us in the dust? He’d thought a bear attacked the tent.”

“He did not share that part,” I admitted, laughing. I could believe Nico booking it back to the house, shrieking. “To be fair, he’s the youngest. He was probably pretty freaked out.”

“We all were,” Luca said, sharing my laughter. “You try being woken out of a sound sleep by the sound of tearing nylon and poles clattering all around you. I think Dante pissed his pants.”

I giggled at the vision of Dante, the smug prick, wetting himself. “I might enjoy that vision a little too much.”

“You and Dante were never close,” Luca said, shaking his head.

“He was always so mean.”

“Probably had a crush on you. Lord knows, half the guys in your class did—Nico told me. Can’t say I blame them... I felt the same way.”

Luca’s quiet compliment caused a strawberry to lodge in my throat for a brief second. I swallowed, meeting his gaze, shocked, not so much by his admission but because it was the first time Luca had ever shared something so private and real with me.

Luca broke the spell, saying with a crooked grin, “Not a bad first day in San Francisco. Bet your feet are killing you, though.”

I jerked a short nod, tangled momentarily in the complicated threads that wound around us.

Luca surprised me by finding my foot beneath the water and gently rubbing the insole. I groaned without thought.

He shifted, murmuring, “Keep making sounds like that and I’ll start rubbing more than your feet.”

I bit my lip before challenging him to go for it. I was playing with fire, but I’d forgotten how addictive the heat between Luca and me had always been.

When we’d been together, the sexual tension had been off the charts. It was no different now, except everything was different.

We weren’t young lovers anymore. There were only expectations and family drama between us now. Something Luca had mentioned earlier rose up in my memory, and it occurred to me that I’d never considered how the pressure to live up to Giovanni’s expectations might weigh on Luca.

Neither of us had been given a choice in the way we were raised and how we were expected to fulfill our obligations.

“Do you love your father?” I asked.

My question took him aback. “That’s an odd question,” he said slowly, trying to figure out where my head was. “Do you love your father?”

“No.” My answer was simple. “How can I? He’s a stranger. My mother died when I was two. Instead of raising me with love within a real father-daughter relationship, he tossed me into the arms of a nanny. I was expected to be polished and pretty so that I reflected well on his image, but I was nothing but a bartering chip to him. When he and your father arranged this marriage, I’d served my only purpose. Why would I love a man like that?”

Luca nodded, a hint of shame coloring his cheeks. Did it embarrass him how I’d come into his life? I knew Luca didn’t approve of his father’s actions, but he’d been young, too—what choice had he had?

Both of us had been powerless to affect the situation we were put into.

But I wanted to know, did he love his father?

“Pretty deep question for a soak that’s meant to be relaxing,” he finally answered, his brow lifting in question. When I didn’t let him off the hook, he sighed, saying, “I don’t know. My relationship with my father is...what you’d call strained. But I suppose somewhere, deep down, I love him. He is my father, after all. He afforded me many opportunities, and he’s taught me how to succeed in a cutthroat world. I owe him my respect, if nothing else.”

“That sounds like something you’d say about an asshole mentor, not your father.”

“He’s a difficult man.”

I suppose that was a fair answer to an unfair question.

“Let me wash your back,” he suggested, changing the subject. I hesitated, but we were already in the bathtub naked together, and it’d been my idea—not sure how I could possibly try to maintain some sort of distance now. I turned around and scooted toward Luca, sliding between his legs.

The soft washcloth on my back felt good. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the simple pleasure.

Then I felt Luca’s lips brush against the top of my shoulder and I shuddered with a tiny sharp inhale, the only sound between us.

“Every inch of you is perfection,” he murmured, pressing another kiss to the column of my neck. I arched slightly, giving him better access, which he took without reservation. “Your taste, your smell, the way you cry out when you come. You’re all I ever think about.”

His hands reached around to cup my breasts possessively. There was such hunger in his touch I practically vibrated with the need to feel him inside me. There was something so arousing about the way he held me tight, his palms filled with my tits, the hardened nipples poking out between splayed fingers. He knew how responsive my nipples were. All it would take for me to lose all sense of reason would be for him to latch onto my breasts with that greedy mouth.

“We should get ready,” he said against my skin, pressing one last kiss against my bare shoulder as he released me.

I fought to control the rush of disappointment. “Good idea,” I agreed with false calm as I scooted away so he could climb out of the tub. This time I didn’t avert my eyes. A smile curved my lips as his cock sprang out, hard and ready, from the nest of dark hair.

At least I wasn’t the only one suffering.

But this was good, I told myself. Sex would only complicate an already messed-up situation, and it might contaminate my judgment. I didn’t want anything to veer me off course.

Eventually, I’d forget how good we were together between the sheets.

Eventually.

CH

APTER TWELVE