VITTORIO'S LOVER (Vittorio Series) (12 page)

Stars exploded behind her eyes
, the friction of his finger moving across that magical spot causing a chain reaction of powerful convulsions that rippled through her in unrelenting waves.  She felt the heat of it pool in her abdomen, instinctively arching her hips and rocking against his hand as the tension mounted and finally burst in a rush of liquid fire.  In a haze of ebbing sexual pleasure, she felt Raffaele shift his magnificent body and lever himself over her.  She smiled up at him, her inhibitions momentarily forgotten as she silently worshipped his male perfection.

It no longer mattered that
she knew so little about him.  It didn’t even matter that he’d only skirted her away from the party to protect his brother.  Raffaele wanted her.  She could see it in his eyes, felt it in his touch and the way the air hissed from his lungs when he nudged her legs apart.  Cradling him between her thighs, surrounded by his masculine scent, Jenesa knew in her heart that she’d made the right decision.  What man could ever hope to compete with Raffaele Vittorio? 

And if
these next few days are all you ever have with him? 
It would be worth it, she told herself.  Whatever the consequences, whatever price she had to pay, it was worth it to have this man as her first lover…to know that for a brief period of time he had unleashed the passionate woman inside of her and left her with a beautiful memory she would cherish forever.  With renewed confidence, Jenesa curled her arms around Raffaele’s neck and pulled his mouth down onto hers, pouring everything she had into that single kiss.

“
Madre de Dio
, I need to be inside of you,” Raffaele ground out with a fierceness that made her quiver with anticipation.    

For a
moment, the room was cloaked in silence as he held himself over her.  She could feel the tension in his shoulders, self-restraint taking its toll as he drew his hips back and then slowly, slowly pressed forward into her unyielding body.  It didn’t hurt at first; Raffaele was being far too gentle for that, but as her muscles stretched to accommodate him, a dull, throbbing ache began to well up inside her.  Naïve as she was about the intimacies between a man and a woman, it wasn’t difficult to grasp the reason for these strange new sensations.  Her body was crying out for Raffaele, begging him to unite them and satiate this merciless hunger.

She wasn’t aware that she’d spoken out loud, but she must have because Raffaele leaned down
and kissed her.  “Easy,
mia bella
,” he crooned softly, “I promise the discomfort will only last a moment and then...the greatest pleasure you have ever known.” 

He kissed her again
; a deliciously methodical full-scale mouth invasion that left no doubt in her mind there was more honesty than arrogance in Raffaele’s claim.  Beneath the onslaught of his marauding tongue and drugging kisses, Jenesa felt as if she’d swan dived straight into the heart of a powerful undertow and was slowly being dragged under by the swirling vortex.  She was drowning in a sea of sensuality where Raffaele was both lifeline and anchor, and it was the most exhilarating experience imaginable.

If kissing her senseless was
a diversionary tactic, it was an extremely effective one.  With her mind floating in a euphoric mist and her inner muscles still slick and pulsating in a climatic afterglow, Jenesa’s body welcomed him with only minor resistance.  There was one, brief moment of sharp, piercing pain when Raffaele penetrated the barrier of her maidenhood, but it quickly dissipated as the sensation of  having him inside her overrode everything else. 

His mercilessly slow impalement
seduced her muscles into contracting around him, heightening her sensitivity as nerve endings danced to the surface.  Jenesa writhed beneath him, desperately seeking the illusive release that only his full possession could provide.  Raffaele tore his mouth from hers, a fierce look of determination on his face as a string of expletives in both English and Italian were hurled at her.  There was a feral gleam in his eyes, a savagery in the tightly drawn lips that sent a primitive thrill racing through her.

Somehow Jenesa knew his anger wasn’t directed at her, although she was definitely the cause for it.  A man like Raffaele Vittorio prided himself on maintaining control at all times, and right now, that iron grip was slipping at an alarming rate. 
That she was responsible for enticing him into such a state was an empowering and heady notion, and she felt no shame in taking advantage of it.  Jenesa curled her legs around his thighs and met his steely gaze with one of wild abandon.

“I want you
. 
All
of you,” she said, surprised by the smoky husk in her voice. 

Raffaele’s granite expression faltered
.  She saw his massive chest expand as he sucked in air between his teeth, felt the sexual static between them sizzle and pop.  Jenesa held her breath.  Waiting.  Waiting. Waiting.

He surrendered with a
harsh groan, surging into her with a heavy thrust that sent arrows of scorching white heat spiraling through her abdomen.  Raffaele drew his hips back, a second groan vibrating in the back of his throat as he buried himself inside her once more.  Gradually, the urgency behind each powerful thrust gave way to a slow, sensual rhythm of long, deep, thorough strokes.  With each rocking motion, he carried her higher and higher, fueling the fire with a gentle hand and feathery caresses that left her trembling and aching for more. 

Even without the experience to gauge Raffaele’s skills as a lover,
she couldn’t fathom any man making her feel the way he did.  In fact, it would have been perfect in every way if only she could stop dwelling on the disturbing thought that Raffaele had refrained from kissing her since they’d first starting making love.  For the most part, he’d teased her with kisses to her shoulder and neck, occasionally nibbling along her jaw line to the sensitive spot behind her ear.  It was silly to worry about whether he found her lacking in that department, but why else would he avoid kissing her on the mouth?

Raffaele provided the answer
a few minutes later when he whispered her name and waited for Jenesa’s eyelids to flutter open. 
The man is positively lethal
, she thought when he lowered his head and traced her lips with his tongue.  He’d known all along what depriving her of this intimacy would do and how easily he could achieve the desired response if he withheld it. With exquisite tenderness, Raffaele claimed her mouth, and it was that one solitary bone-melting kiss that finally pushed her over the edge.

Jenesa
went up like a roman candle.

 
                                                    ***

It wasn’t until afterwards that Raffaele fully realized the enormity of the mistake he’d made in taking Jenesa to bed.

After seeing her lush body and caressing her petal-soft skin.  After holding the weight of each perfect breast in his hands and tasting their sweetness.  After sheathing himself within her incredible warmth and feeling her muscles tighten around him.  After possessing her mouth with a hunger that shook him to the core…only then did Raffaele realize he was treading on extremely dangerous ground.  Jenesa had waltzed right through the tightly guarded barrier he kept around his heart and touched him emotionally; something no other woman had done before.

He tried to convince himself
there was nothing special about this woman, that she was no different from any of the others he’d enjoyed having great sex with.  Except…what he had just experienced with Jenesa Harding went beyond great sex.  It was explosive, mind-blowing, and very, very addictive.  Even now, when his body was still trembling in the aftermath of a climax so intense he was weak as a kitten, he couldn’t stop kissing her.

Raffaele had never
felt the desire to cuddle afterwards, although he understood a woman’s need to do so and did it simply to satisfy their longing for closeness.  After a sufficient amount of time passed, he usually made up some excuse to leave; an early morning meeting or business trip.  If he did doze off, it was never for more than an hour or two.  Sometimes he stuck around to make love again, inevitably making his escape once she fell asleep to return to his house and his own bed. 

O
n those rare occasions when he’d been foolish enough to stay the night, he sorely regretted it.  Easier to retreat in the night than endure the morning after when he was made to suffer through a moody pout or tears after explaining the boundaries and the consequences of crossing them.  Looking at Jenesa now with her face still flushed with color and a dreamy smile on her delectable lips, Raffaele was surprised to discover he was actually looking forward to spending the night with her.  The image of waking to find her curled up beside him was so vividly arousing, he considered calling Grady and telling him to postpone the flight until tomorrow.

Another image of running into Luca on the way out of his suites to the helipad quickly nixed
that idea.  Sending Grady home and asking him to return just before dawn would have been an option if Raffaele wasn’t so sure he and Jenesa were going to get very little sleep that night.  Admittedly, restraining themselves for the duration of the flight and being given the opportunity to undress her all over again held a certain appeal. 

Contemplating other alternatives was
abruptly curtailed by the insistent drone of his cell phone.  He lingered for a moment longer, offering an apology in the form of a tender kiss before leaving the bed to retrieve his phone.  With an irritated sigh, he snatched it off the chair and glanced at the caller I.D., thoroughly annoyed to see Grady’s name displayed on the screen. 

“
Perhaps you misunderstood my instructions,” his tone was frigid.  “I believe you were informed that
I
would call when we were ready to leave.”

“Sorry to interrupt your cozy chat,” Grady replied, unaffected by
Raffaele’s censure.  “I thought you’d want to know there’s a storm brewing east of the island.  If it maintains its current course, you’ll get a little rain and not much else.  If it changes directions within the hour, it will be too choppy to set down by the time we reach the island.”

Raffaele scowled into the phone.  “In other words, if we don’t take off in the
next fifteen minutes, we may not be able to leave until tomorrow.”

“Could be longer than that.  If it turns on us, it
might be two or three days before we can safely approach.”

He knew from experience that Grady wasn’t afraid to fly in a storm.  Raffaele had every confidence his pilot could navigate in the worst kind of weather, which meant Grady was concerned it would unnerve Jenesa. 
A spark of jealousy settled in his gut.  Had Grady seen in her the things Raffaele had missed upon his first assessment?  Had he noticed the soft, gray eyes, the perfect shape of her mouth, the enticing curves that begged a man’s hands to touch her?  The idea of any man exploring her body as intimately as he had just done sent a bolt of blind fury streaking through him.

Regardless of Grady’s attraction to her, real or imagined, he couldn’t chance letting the storm prevent them from flying to the island. 
“We’ll meet you in fifteen then.  And Grady…don’t forget who I am,” he added pointedly.

Raffaele dropped the phone on the chair and returned to the bed, fighting the urge to crawl back under the covers.  Leaning over, he stroked the side of
Jenesa’s face, his self-control on the brink of crumbling when she turned to nestle her cheek in his palm and grazed his skin with her lips.  Storm or no storm, the sooner they got to the island, the sooner he would have her all to himself without any unwelcome interruptions.

“As tempting as it is to make love to you again, I am afraid we must leave now.”

Anxious eyes peered up at him.  “I heard what you said about not being able to leave until tomorrow if we didn’t go now.  If your pilot is too tired to fly…”

“No,
cara mia
, it has nothing to do with my pilot’s ability to fly,” he said with an indulgent smile.  “Although Grady would probably say he is capable of flying in his sleep, it is nothing more than a scheduling issue.  One of my brothers has need of Grady’s services early in the morning.”  It went against Raffaele’s grain to add yet another lie to the others he’d told her, but it was worth the twinge of guilt to see the lines disappear from her forehead. 

“We must hurry.”
  Scooping Jenesa’s clothes from the floor, he was amused by the furious blush that fused in her cheeks when he laid them on the bed and held his hand out to her.  “You hide nothing beneath those covers that I have not already seen,” he reminded her.

Jenesa sat up, the rose colored
tint even more alluring against the paleness of skin.  His eyes followed the crimson stain from her face to her neck and the swell of her breasts where it disappeared beneath the sheet she was being so careful to keep tucked up under her arms.  Maybe she possessed the acting skills to play the part of a virgin who had just experienced her first sexual encounter, but she could hardly fake the heated blush.  Which meant she was telling the truth about Luca being the only lover she had taken since the dissolution of her marriage.

Raffaele reached out and cupped her chin, more determined than ever to
enslave her.  Whatever had transpired between Jenesa and his brother could not possibly compare to the fiery passion they ignited in each other.   He was so consumed by it, in fact, that he’d made the same foolish mistake Luca had and forgotten to use protection.  What an ironic twist of fate that would be if
he
was the one to impregnate Jenesa.  Something deep inside him shifted at the thought of her belly growing round with his child, and along with it, a half formed idea that he did not have the luxury of examining more closely at the moment.