am in love with you.”
He snorted. “If you really loved me, wouldn’t you be begging me to stay?”
“Because begging works so well with you.”
Slowly he lowered his head until his mouth was inches from hers.
“It’s just lust, cara,” he whispered, his lips almost brushing hers. “Not love....”
And holding her against his hard body in the shadowy bedroom, he kissed her, clutching her as if he were a drowning man and only she could save him. His lips plundered hers, teasing, gentling, searing.
As they stood together, he slowly kissed down her throat, his fingertips roaming softly over her naked skin. She felt the warmth of his hands cupping her breasts, stroking tight, aching nipples that peeked through white lace.
Leaning back in his arms, she gasped with pleasure and need. Until she lost her balance, and fell back against the bed, his arms still around her, their bodies entangled in their embrace.
The bed felt made of feathers beneath her. Still in her bra and panties, Emma slid against the duvet cover, and felt something sharp and cold beneath her thigh. She pulled it out and looked at the shining platinum face with confusion. “Your watch.”
“Forget it.” Taking it from her hand, he tossed the expensive watch across the room, causing it to scatter noisily across the hardwood floor before it hit the wall with a soft thunk.
She realized what the “feathers” she’d felt beneath her body actually had to be. Twisting, she tried to look beneath her. She was lying almost naked beneath him on a bed of money. “Everything’s still on the bed—”
“I don’t care,” he said roughly, and kissed her, until she forgot about the money, and wouldn’t have cared if she did.
Pulling away, he pulled off his shirt in an abrupt movement. Emma’s throat constricted as she reached out to touch the intoxicating vision of his naked chest, muscular and hard, with tanned skin that felt like silk over steel. She stroked down to the flat six-pack of his belly, laced with a scattering of dark hair. He was flesh and blood, this man she’d wanted so hopelessly, and loved for so long.
Covering her body with his own, Cesare kissed her. She felt his weight crushing her breasts, felt the slide of his warm bare skin against her own. He released the clasp of her bra and pulled off the slip of white lace, tossing it aside. He pulled her panties slowly past her hips, over her thighs, down her legs.
She was naked beneath him. Lying on a pile of money. She shouldn’t be doing this, she thought. Then he pulled off his pants and silk boxers, and rational thought left her entirely.
She gasped as she saw how large he was, how huge and hard. Slowly, he kissed down her body, licking and suckling her breasts. He caressed down the curve of her belly, then kissed her lips in a long, deep embrace that seemed to last forever, until she forgot where she ended and he began. Their bodies fused together in heat, skin to skin, slick and salty and sweet. Moving down her body, he pushed her legs apart with his knee, spreading them wide with his hands. Lowering his head, he nuzzled between her thighs. She felt his hot breath.
She gasped as, holding her hips firmly against the bed, he spread her wide and tasted her.
She twisted, rocking beneath him. The pleasure was too sharp, too explosive. Beneath the ruthless insistence of his tongue, she trembled and shook, gasping on the bed. Every time she moved, money went flying into the air. Durhams and dollars, pounds and pesos flew violently, then fell back softly like snow, sliding down the naked bodies clutched together on the bed.
The money felt whisper-soft, brushing against Emma’s face or shoulder or breast while she felt the hard, bristly roughness of his masculine body between her legs.
“Lust,” Cesare said in a low voice.
Their eyes locked over the curves of her naked body. She shook her head.
“Love...”
With a low growl, he lowered his head back between her legs. She felt the heat of his breath on her tender skin, and his tongue took another wide taste of her, then another. Slowly he caressed her, licking her in delicate swirls until her breathing came in gasps and her hands were gripping the bedsheets beneath her, along with fistfuls of yen and euros.
“Lust,” he whispered against her skin.
“No,” she choked out.
He thrust his tongue an inch inside her. She gave a shocked gasp in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. His hands roamed possessively over her, cupping her breasts, her waist, her hips. Reaching beneath her, he pressed her bottom upward, lifting her more firmly against his mouth, and impaled her more deeply with his tongue. His lips and soft wet tongue suckled the aching center of her need as he moved two thick fingertips inside her, where his tongue had been. She cried out, overwhelmed by the intensity of pleasure.
Her back arched from the feel of his fingers inside her and his tongue swirling over her and she gripped his shoulders as waves of ecstasy started to pull reality beneath her feet, crashing over her. She exploded, and as if from a distance, she heard herself scream—
Rolling beside her, he pulled her into the warm haven of his arms. Emma looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
It wasn’t just lust between them. It wasn’t.
If he’d only just give her a chance. If only he’d say something that would make her think she could tell him about the baby...
Leaning up, Emma put her hand on his cheek and kissed him in a deep, lingering embrace that left her chin and cheeks tingling from the rough bristles of his jaw. She could still feel his body straining against her. As he kissed her back, holding her tight, breathless hope ripped through her. She could show him he had nothing to fear. That their relationship could be so much more than lust. She knew the man he really was, yes. But she also knew the man he could be....
“Love,” she whispered silently against his lips.
Emma abruptly rolled him beneath her on the bed. He looked up at her, surprised. She smiled, her soul welling up with sudden certain joy. If he wouldn’t let her speak words of love...
She would show him.
* * *
Cesare stared up at the woman who’d just rolled him beneath her on the bed. He felt Emma’s hands stroke down his chest, as her legs straddled his hips.
She was so impossibly beautiful, he thought, dazzled by the pink flush of her creamy skin, the emerald gleam of her eyes. She looked down at him fiercely, like an ancient warrior queen who commanded an army of thousands eager to die in her name. Power emanated from her proud, curvaceous body like light. Power he’d never seen in her before.
“Emma,” he breathed. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Haven’t you figured it out?” Her full red lips curved into a smile as she lowered her head. She whispered against his mouth, “You have.”
She kissed him, and he felt that something had changed in her. Something he didn’t understand. She seemed—different. New. Beneath her touch, sparks flew up and down his body, a fire that burned him to blood and bone.
He’d wanted her for months. Years. But never like this. His body shook with need. She’d never, ever made the first move before.
He could hardly believe he’d once thought of Emma as having no feelings. This was who she really was: a seductive sex goddess, innocent and wanton, powerful and glorious...
As her lips caressed his, her long dark hair tumbled over his body, sliding over his overheated skin. Her full breasts brushed against his chest. With a moan, he cupped them with his hands. Breaking off their kiss, he wrenched his head to suckle a taut, pink nipple, licking it, pulling it into his mouth. His hand tangled in her hair, stroking down her naked back. He heard her moan. Felt her thighs tighten around his hips. He felt the soft, wet core of her brush the tip of his hardest