VITTORIO'S LOVER (Vittorio Series) (11 page)

“Look at me,
carissima
,” he said gruffly.

Jenesa’s eyelids fluttered open. She stared up at him, dazed by the pleasure he’d given her and no doubt confused as to why he
had stopped. Raffaele didn’t care for the idea that she’d slept with his brother, but he would deal with it. What he couldn’t handle was the shards of jealousy that sliced through him at the thought of Jenesa sharing her body with numerous other men. Not that he condemned her for it; after all, love was certainly not the only reason two people entered into a physical relationship. It was just…
just what?
Just that you want her to say this is different?
That there was something unique about the chemistry they shared?

It
was ridiculous to believe he had feelings for her, even more insane to be jealous of previous lovers when he barely knew the woman. Raffaele invested time and money in his liaisons, not emotion. So why was he hesitating to have sex with Jenesa when she lying naked in his bed, so warm and willing and more tempting with that aura of innocence than any experienced seductress he’d ever known?

Tentatively, she reached up and touched his cheek, her voice a mere whisper. “What is i
t?”

“The truth
,” he said gruffly. “I want the truth no matter how embarrassing or ugly you may find it. Promise you will answer honestly.”

“
I don’t understand…”

“Promise,” he
repeated with a fierceness in his tone that made her flinch.

Her eyes searched his for a moment before she nodded.

He wasn’t her first, Raffaele knew that, but it was entirely possible that Luca had taken her virginity. And since Jenesa thought
he
was Luca, it was imperative that he pose the question carefully. Except…how could he ask her without sounding as if it mattered?
But it does matter and you know it.
Cursing his own burning need to know, Raffaele forced the words out.

“
You are such a contradiction,
bella donna
. You go up in flames when we kiss, so eager to share your passion, and yet you blush and try to cover yourself as if making love is a new experience. Tell me, Jenesa, how many lovers have you taken before me?”

                                                    FIVE

Jenesa blink
ed.
How many lovers had she taken?
It sounded like a line straight out of a romance novel. Then again, Raffaele Vittorio was perfect for the role of the devastatingly handsome alpha male. As for the shy virgin whose latent sexual passion had been awakened by the hero’s kiss…the description was embarrassingly close to reality. Even now while she floundered for an answer, Jenesa was intensely aware of his potent masculinity.

What possible difference could it make to him how many men she’d slept with
anyway? Obviously, he wasn’t asking for health reasons or the question would have been posed long before they’d shed their clothes. An ugly thought began to worm its way into her head. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Raffaele at all. Maybe manipulating her into a vulnerable position and coaxing out a confession of promiscuity had been the plan all along.

There was no disputing the fact that Jillian wasn’t a virgin when she’d slept with
Luca, but that was hardly proof she made a habit of jumping into bed with men she barely knew. In truth, Jillian had been pure as the driven snow until a brief and disastrous marriage when she was only eighteen had stripped away her innocence and made her wary of relationships. As far as Jenesa knew, Luca was the only other man her sister had slept with.

The suspicion that
Raffaele’s motives for seducing her had more to do with entrapment than desire made Jenesa’s stomach queasy, yet she met his gaze with steely determination. The arrogant bastard would rot in hell before she’d give him fuel for the fire he was plotting to roast Jillian over! What right did Raffaele have to judge Jillian when he was lying naked in bed with a woman he believed had slept with his brother only a week ago? Well, she’d promised him the truth and he would get it, although she highly doubted he was going to like the answer.

“
A husband at one time, but no lovers,” she told him. “I was young and in love and I married on impulse. It was over in less than a year. There has been no one since.”

“No
lovers?” he repeated, as if the concept of being celibate for that long was inconceivable.

Despite the doubts crowding her mind
about Raffaele, she wanted to believe his reason for initiating sexual intimacy was driven by desire. She wasn’t naïve enough to think it was the only reason, but surely he felt
some
attraction for her, didn’t he? The recent memory of Raffaele stripping down to his bare essentials and the prominent display of his proud erection provided the answer to that. Regardless of the rapid rate in which dishonest words had flown between them, their bodies had responded with instinctive primal candor. Perhaps that was the reason Jenesa’s voice trembled on the truth when she finally replied; because Raffaele seemed just as powerless to suppress his hunger as she was.

“
You are my first. Not that I intend to have a string of lovers after you,” she quickly amended. “What I mean is that you’re the only…”

Jenesa’s breath was snatched away when Raffaele
claimed her mouth with a guttural moan. Shock registered first. She’d expected mockery in the form of a cruelly derisive retort regarding her virtue, not this fiercely possessive kiss that seemed to have short circuited her brain! How could this man, who she suspected of having his own hidden agenda, send her senses sky rocketing into the stratosphere with a single kiss? Her mind was in turmoil, her thoughts scattered and disjointed, spider webbing in a million different directions until there was nothing left but raw emotion.

Abruptly, the kiss ended.  Jenesa
stared up at him, bewildered by everything that was happening…and everything she
wanted
to happen.  Incapable of speech, she watched Raffaele’s dark eyes move languorously over her face as if he was memorizing every detail.  His hand made a slow, seductive sweep along her bare thigh to her belly where he stopped to splay his fingers.  Jenesa instantly tensed, once again conscious that she wasn’t built like the stylishly slender women she imagined he was used to being with. 

“I’m…sorry,” she whispered, reality slamming
into her with brutal force.

“For what?” 

“For putting you in this position.”

Raffaele’s lip quirked.  “
I believe it was a joint effort,
cara
.  And I assure you, I am very pleased with my…
position
at the moment.”

“You know what I mean.  If I hadn’
t shown up tonight…”

“I would not be here with you now
…doing this?”  Raffaele cupped her breast in his palm, slowly raking his thumb back and forth across the peak.

A different kind of tension begin to coil deep inside her; the same heaviness in the depths of her abdomen that she’d felt in the gardens when he kissed her.  She wanted to give into it, to cast her insecurities and doubts aside
and savor the sexual pleasures he was offering. 

“Please…you don’t have to do this.”  Jenesa
tried not to let her disappointment show when his hand went still, but how could she let him continue?  She’d almost convinced herself that Raffaele’s reasons for taking her to bed weren’t important, that she was capable of using him in the same manner because she wanted him so badly.  In the end, she will have gained nothing except the loss of her virginity and a bucket of shame. 

Luca would have described Jillian as
elegant and graceful; the type of woman who lured him with the sensuality of a siren and had pleased him in ways Jenesa could never hope to fulfill a man.  If Raffaele hadn’t discovered by now that she was a fraud based on the fact she wasn’t the exceptional beauty her sister was, it wouldn’t take him two minutes to figure it out once he started to make love to her. 

What in the world had made her believe she could ever pull this off? 
She didn’t possess Jillian’s sleek body or her innate sexuality and had already disappointed him on that level.  She didn’t even have the experience that Raffaele was expecting, which only added to the certainty he would be bitterly dissatisfied when it was over. 

“What do you mean, I don’t
have
to do this?”  Raffaele demanded.

“I
…I just meant that I understand why you wanted to get me away from the party and why you felt it was necessary to employ seduction as a means of accomplishing that.”  Thank God, her voice hadn’t faltered.  She’d sounded calm and reasonable, objectively detached even, which helped fuel Jenesa’s resolve to call the whole thing off.  “I don’t think either of us will enjoy this when you’re doing it out of obligation.” 

Raffaele’s eyebrows shot up.  “
Obligation? 
Let me explain something to you,
carissima. 
Only women are capable of offering sex out of
obligation
; it does not work that way for men.  There has to be sexual attraction, desire.  If a woman has little or no desire for a man, she may not enjoy having sex with him, but it does not mean she can’t perform.  For a man, desire is imperative.”  Raffaele held her eyes with his dark gaze while he took Jenesa’s hand and guided it to his rigid erection.  “Tell me,
bella donna
,” he said in a seductively deep voice, “does this feel like obligation…or desire?”

Jenesa’s heart was racing as she tentatively curled her fingers around him.  His skin was smooth and softer than the finest satin, in total opposition to the
solid flesh beneath.  Emboldened by Raffaele’s throaty groan, she held him more firmly and discovered with some trepidation that his already impressive length was growing harder and thicker. 
You shouldn’t be doing this
, she told herself.  But it useless to pretend it didn’t excite her to feel the way his big body trembled when she inched her hand upward and gently squeezed the bulbous tip.

“Enough,” he rasped,
grabbing Jenesa’s wrist and pulling her hand away.  “I have never…” he stopped to drag in a ragged breath before starting again.  “I have never been with a woman that affected me the way you do.  I wanted to take this slowly,” Raffaele said, his accent growing heavier with each word, “to bring pleasure to every inch of your body until you were so close to the edge, you would climax the moment I entered you.  But I cannot make it last if you continue to touch me.”

Embarrassed by her lack of skill and convinced th
e bumbling attempt to turn him on had done just the opposite, Jenesa croaked a pathetically weak, “You…you don’t want me to touch you?”

Raffaele
laughed; a low, husky sound that tweaked the strings of longing and curled her toes.  “Oh,
carissima
, I want you to touch me very much, but I am a ticking bomb; every stroke from your elegant hands threatens to set me off.  Do not prolong my agony,” he murmured as his hand slipped between her thighs. 

Her body
did a convulsive jerk at the first intimate caress of his long fingers, but Jenesa was too immersed in the searing heat it created to feel self-conscious.  He knew exactly where to touch and how; when to use a feathery stroke that whispered across her sensitive flesh, and when to apply more pressure.  Raffaele was a master at making love, enslaving her with the each erotic sensation he evoked.  There was no chance of backing out now.  Even if she asked him to stop, it would have been like slamming on the brakes after the car had already sailed over the edge of the cliff.  Jenesa was airborne and it was too late to do anything except cling to the euphoria as it carried her higher and higher.

Jenesa
clutched at the sheet on either side of her, afraid that if she let go she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands off of him.  But when he lowered his dark head to her breast and drew a taut peak into his mouth, triggering a series of violent tremors, she threw her arms around his broad shoulders in a desperate attempt to anchor herself to something solid.  It was a torturous form of ecstasy that made her want to shout at him to stop and at the same time, beg him for more.

Oblivious to the helpless whimpers that escaped with
increasing regularity, he continued to torment her, slowly driving her mad with excruciatingly languid movements.  After lavishing her other breast with the same copious attention, Raffaele kissed his way back to her mouth, the devastating tenderness gradually giving way to an urgency that spurred her own burning need to give herself to him.

“You like this?” he
whispered, circling her moist entrance with his finger while his thumb played across the intensely sensitive bud just above it. 

She tried to answer, but no words came out.  How could she talk when she was being consumed by such exquisite pleasure? 
Raffaele repeated the question as he slipped his finger inside of her, honing in on the throbbing G spot with unerring accuracy. Jenesa had always wondered if she actually had one; she’d read somewhere that not all woman do.  Now she knew.