The wanting in her was back to being that wild, reckless thing that had gripped her the night of the ball. Voices of caution and shyness were drowned out by imperatives of an earthier nature. She wanted his weight. His hard heat moving inside her. His firm hands steadying her. His mouth ravaging hers.
She held up her arms, inviting him back.
He set one knee on the mattress, one hand on the inside of her thigh, asking her to make space for him. But as she hesitantly opened her legs, he pressed for a wide space and settled low between her thighs, like a lazy jungle cat. He made a noise somewhere between a growl and purr as he warmed her intimate flesh with a hot breath that made her sob. Then he leisurely tasted her.
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t process this much pleasure delivered in such an intimate fashion. Couldn’t understand how he made her feel fragile and feral at once. Greedy and flagrant and willing to give herself up to him completely. But the pleasure he wrenched from her was magnificent. Unstoppable.
“Angelo!” she cried as her climax lashed her, devastating her so she was nothing but panting ash.
He peeled her fist from his hair and bit the inside of her thigh, shocking her buzzing nerve endings back to life.
The animal craving to mate had her fully in its grip now. Her mate had her fully in his grip as he rose over her and thrust deeply, pressing a keening cry from her. She closed her legs around him, clinging on in a small battle of strength as he thrust with muted power.
The act grew wild as he scraped his teeth against her neck and she dug her fingernails into his buttocks, urging him to shed what control he retained. She wanted all of him. All of his heat and greedy hunger. All his strength. All his craving and all of the roaring beast within him.
Her vision paled and her breaths were nothing but jagged, helpless soughs, pleading for the crisis. They crested in the same moment, the world making one glorious, silent rotation as they were held on that beautiful precipice. Then the universe exploded into colors and streaks of joy and every molecule in her body caught fire as she slowly fell back to earth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANGELO HAD THOUGHT he knew what he wanted—to burn past Pia’s layer of reserve and remind her how they had ended up in this situation. Along the way, he expected her to quit acting like she was better than him. Then he would issue a press release announcing he was hitching his common bag of bones to one of the aristocracy’s privileged princesses, dragging all of them down a peg. The photo of Pia wearing some of the stolen jewelry would be an especially insolent nose-thumbing to his brothers.
He hadn’t expected his hunger for Pia to be outright insatiable. They had made love three times through the night, the third time when she woke him at dawn by sliding languorously against him. Her sleepy mouth had painted a path across his chest to tease his nipple. How was he supposed to resist that? As they’d rolled into each other and twined their limbs, he’d been hard and she’d been slick and ready. Their joining had been natural and lazy and so sweet his teeth still ached.
He wanted to be smug, he really did. Physically, she was an easy conquest, but damned if he wasn’t easier. He had taken her apart and she had destroyed him right back, then managed to look very wan and delicate over breakfast, stirring protective instincts he hadn’t known he possessed. She was avoiding eye contact and blushing and obviously so self-conscious about losing her inhibitions, he couldn’t help but caress a knee here and kiss the inside of her wrist there and reach across to slide a tendril of hair behind her ear.
“Is that your journal?” he teased, not sure if he should be flattered or worried that she might be recording her thoughts and impressions of his performance last night.
“It’s a data log of my pregnancy.” She frowned as if that ought to be obvious.
No casual food diary for Dr. Pia Montero. She proceeded to show him how she ruthlessly recorded caloric intake and nutrition, her morning weight and hours of sleep, physical measurements, the supplements she was taking, type and duration of exercise, and general notes on symptoms, physical and mental, including what time they occurred.
“Why?” He estimated this would take an hour of her day for the next thirty-plus weeks.
“I’m a willing subject. Why wouldn’t I make an effort to contribute knowledge and understanding of a condition that affects the majority of women, directly or indirectly, at least once in her lifetime?” She blinked owlishly behind a pair of glasses that were provoking serious librarian fantasies in him.
“Aren’t you turning it into more work than pregnancy already is?”
“Recording my observations relaxes me.”
Did she realize how much she revealed with that remark? He could have asked what she could possibly be nervous about, but she was so earnest as she noted every detail of their baby’s life as it formed within her that he found himself suppressing a rueful grin. Especially because she wasn’t doing it to impress him or anyone else, but for womankind in general. He couldn’t mock her for that.
Which made his own goal of highlighting the farce that was her noble birth seem petty and misguided.
He clung to his ambition until he began setting out the jewelry on his desk, when his desire for retaliation began to be smothered beneath a wave of revulsion.
“Family heirlooms?” She scanned the ostentatious pieces. Most were reflective of late twentieth-century indulgence. Intricate pendants hung from thick chains of yellow gold. Layered pearl necklaces were bedecked with amethysts and emeralds.
“This reminds me of the royal engagement ring.” She touched a pair of blue sapphire earrings surrounded by white diamonds.
Angelo had to resist pulling her hand away, as though she were a child reaching out to touch a hot stove.
In the height of his anger after leaving her parents’ home, he had coldly calculated that he would dress Pia in the extravagant white diamond choker with the matching bracelet. It was a notable piece that some elderly contemporary of his grandmother’s might glimpse and recall, causing the first stir of rumors. Definitely his brothers would recognize it. He had planned an ambiguous headline saying something about the secrecy of their relationship coming to light—one that would incite panic that a darker family secret was about to be revealed.
But the thought of these blood diamonds touching the smooth, fragrant skin he had tasted and stroked through the night sent an oily sensation into the pit of his gut. No. Just, no.
“I don’t wear jewelry as a rule.” Pia eyed the enormous, pear-shaped diamond in a platinum setting. Sprays of diamonds came off either side. Her impassive expression was the furthest thing from covetous. “Rings and bracelets get in the way when I’m reaching into tide pools and necklaces get caught on the microscope. I appreciate that these have special meaning to you. I’ll wear something for the photo if you insist, but I’ve never been one to adorn myself. I’m hideously practical that way.”
“I’m glad you hate it,” he said flatly.