My climax danced out of reach as he slowed his tempo. He knew how close I teetered to the edge and yet he pulled back, a wicked grin curving his lips. “Not so fast, sassy one,” he admonished, taking pause from my lips to suck a puckered nipple into his greedy mouth. I arched on a gasp as my womb pulsed and my heart rate jumped, my head bobbing from side to side as I mewled. My grasping fingers threaded through his hair and held him tight to my breast until I thought I might die from pleasure.
“Fuck me, Dante,” I begged, too bound with need to care how I sounded. I would’ve crawled on hands and knees to be granted my release but he wasn’t ready to give in so easily. He was going to make me work for it. He made his way down my belly, pressing tiny, lingering kisses down to my pubic mound. Settling between my thighs, he parted my damp lips before burying his face there, his tongue seeking and finding that swollen bit of tissue that when touched right would make me do anything without shame. His fingers returned even as his tongue teased and sucked, and if he hadn’t been holding my hips in place, I would’ve bucked from the bed. “Dante!” I groaned with an edge of desperate impatience, so hungry for that promised pleasure. “Please!”
But his muffled laugh was further proof that he planned to torture me. Perhaps it was payback for not giving an inch at dinner, maybe it was simply his favorite game, but either way, when he slowed at the crucial moment, when he knew I was seconds away from tumbling into the abyss, I cried out with frustration. “Finish me,” I demanded, my fingers curling in his hair, yanking hard.
His knowing laughter was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard. “My name on your lips,” he said with a wicked grin, “sounds about perfect.”
Sweat dampened my brow, my chest rising and falling as I practically begged. “Dante... I’ll say whatever you want...just let me come!”
“Say pretty please.”
I licked my lips. “Pretty please.”
“That’s my girl.”
My private heart thrilled at the small endearment even as I knew it shouldn’t, because it meant nothing. I didn’t want it to mean anything but I was wet and desperate to lose myself in the shuddering waves of pleasure I knew he could give me, and I wasn’t thinking clearly.
“I knew from the first time I laid eyes on you, I would learn how you taste, how you feel, how you climax so sweetly, but do you know what I couldn’t have known?” Dante dragged his mouth across the sensitive bare skin of my pubic mound, sending a riot of goose bumps jumping to the forefront. “I couldn’t have known how quickly I would come to crave all of those things.”
I swallowed and closed my eyes, unable to speak, for he had returned to my clit, sucking and nipping, swirling his tongue in clever motions as his fingers strummed my G-spot, pushing me without mercy to that edge.
I couldn’t hold back another moment. Each agonizing second without release felt like an eternity. “Please, please...oh God, yes, Dante,” I babbled, my breath hitching in my throat just as every muscle spasmed in a beautiful concert, nerve endings rapidly firing, leaving me breathless as I rode the wave crashing over me, drowning me in orgasmic splendor until I was left a weakened kitten, too spent to move, much less speak.
He climbed my body and kissed me deep. I tasted myself on his tongue, and it kicked my arousal back into gear even as I lay there stunned. “I love making you come,” he confessed. “I’ve never been with a woman who loses herself so completely.”
I smiled with exhausted amusement. “Yeah? Well, you’re pretty good with your hands and tongue. Plenty of practice, I’m sure.”
He shrugged, saying, “I never kiss and tell.”
“Oh, a true gentleman?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, chuckling as he gently rubbed the firm head of his cock against my soft, damp slit. My breath hitched a little as he grazed the achingly sensitive skin of my clitoris, still pulsing like a dying star in its final moment. “But pleasuring you has become my favorite activity.”
“Lucky for you—” I sucked in a tight breath when he applied more pressure in just the right spot, catching a moan seconds before it popped from my lips “—I haven’t bored of your attentions yet.”
“Lucky indeed,” Dante agreed, though his eyes sparked with wicked promise. I bit my lip, knowing that I would pay deliciously for that sass, and it was the anticipation that left me trembling. Rising above me, he opened my legs and slid between them, my legs going over his shoulders as he bent me with the pressure of his body against mine. I was bared and vulnerable, my pussy eager and ready to feel his length splitting me apart. “If you can walk by tomorrow morning... I’ll have failed to leave an accurate impression of myself.”
I didn’t have time to laugh or tease before he pushed himself deep inside, impaling me fully. I groaned, quickly losing myself to the pleasure of being beneath him, completely under his control. I willfully succumbed to the all-encompassing sensation of being driven toward that edge without a finger on the wheel. It was raw and powerful, totally outside of my comfort zone and intoxicating.
Santa Maria, it was, dare I say, addicting.
And I wasn’t ready to give it up.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dante
THE NIGHT WAS QUIET. We were both exhausted, lying in each other’s arms, listening to the evening sounds from the open window, content to be naked and still, sweat drying on our bodies.
I’d never known such bliss.
For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of peace. Usually after sex, I was eager to send the woman on her way. Having another person in my space after they’d already served their purpose ruined it for me.
Not with Alessandra. Her body in my arms felt as natural as an extension of myself. Her scent on my body smelled like heaven.
Better than freshly baked beignets.
I wasn’t going to allow anything to ruin this moment. There was plenty of time for that later. I wasn’t going to delude myself into thinking this was anything more than two sexually aligned people doing what they did best, but I did feel there was something between us that, in another life, might’ve been something worth pursuing for real.
“Tell me about Enzo,” I said, tracing light figures on her skin with my fingertip. “What was it like having a twin?”
She drew a deep breath as if speaking about her brother, even after all this time, was still painful. “Having a twin is like looking at a living, breathing extension of yourself. You cannot explain the connection to someone who hasn’t experienced it. When he died, I felt it in my soul.”
“What happened?”
“A car accident. He was pinned in the car. They worked to free him for fifteen minutes before they realized the steering wheel buried in his abdomen was keeping him alive. His internal injuries were so severe that the pressure was keeping his organs in place. The minute they freed him, he died.”
Dante felt her pain as if it were his own. As if he’d been gut-punched. “That’s awful,” he murmured, holding her a little more tightly. “I’m sorry.” Even though he and his brothers weren’t close, he couldn’t imagine losing one.
“My nonna said
, ‘Heaven must’ve needed its angel back because nothing would’ve kept Enzo from going home,’ but that had only made me angry at God for a long time. He took my brother from me when I needed him here.”
“What do you believe now?” he asked.
“I believe that bad things happen to good people and the only way to make some kind of sense of those things is to make sure they didn’t die in vain. Enzo loved the wine business, far more than I ever did. He had a passion for the grapes that I had never understood until he was gone. I wish he were here to see his dream finally come true.”
That tiny slip of information pricked my interest. “What dream was that?”
But she was done sharing that much personal information. “What about you? Are you truly happy chasing your father’s dreams? What about your own? Surely, there is something you want that has nothing to do with the errands your father sets you on.”
I laughed but inside I was asking the same question. I’d spent my entire life trying to please my father but always came up short. Frankly, I was tired of fighting the same losing battle, but as much as I wanted to wash my hands of his expectations, I couldn’t quite manage to do it.
My own private shame, I guess. The need for my father’s approval was my inherent weakness.
“I love what I do,” I answered, not ready to go there. Donato Inc. wasn’t just a company, it was an empire. We owned all kinds of business, from magazines to wineries, and we were constantly looking for our next big investment. Being at the helm of that was riveting. “I admire my father’s tenacity and willingness to make the hard choices for the good of the company.”
“You put a lot of importance on the bottom line, but people make up the balance of your company’s worth.”
I chuckled at her naive statement. “Sweetheart, as much as I enjoy your earthy sense of capitalism, what matters is what ends up in the bank at the end of the day. People are replaceable.”