CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

D ANTE WAS DROWNING in her. Drowning in Emma’s kiss.

A growl rose in him as he caressed her lips.

The confirmation that she wanted to come back to him, to where she belonged, took his breath away. He couldn’t get close enough to her, to the source of sustenance his body craved.

He had fantasised about this moment for too long. The fantasy had once been his reality. The taste of her lips. Warm. Spiced. And he’d sipped from her lips, again and again, indulging in her mouth, her tongue, until all he could taste was her.

Until she was gone.

Then the fantasy had become his wildest dream. Fevered nights and days remembering her. Trying to forget her. But wanting her. And here she was now, wanting him.

He tried to get even closer. To satisfy the compulsion to get nearer.

He bowed his chest into hers. Into her breasts. Pressed his hardness into her softness.

He palmed her with his hands. Caressed her naked shoulders. Stroked her waist as he inched his way towards her back, towards the naked dip in her spine, and pressed his fingers into her flesh. Dragged her into him.

But it wasn’t enough.

So he devoured her.

He swept the crease of her mouth with his tongue until it opened for him, allowing him to taste her more deeply.

It still wasn’t enough.

There was nothing between them but the thin barrier of their clothes. And what he wanted was to release her so that they could shed them, but he could not release her. Could not command his brain to do what he wanted. What he knew they both wanted.

‘Emmy...’ he moaned against her. And he barely recognised the visceral rawness.

His body was on fire, but his brain was whispering in tongues. His body was responding to a language he didn’t speak.

Restraining him.

The shackles were invisible. But he felt them on his wrists. Holding him back.

Dante pleaded in silent prayer. He wanted to be gentle with her the first time they came together. But he felt anything but gentle. He wanted to take her here, in this garden.

But everything inside him was urging— demanding —he go slower. Taste every inch of the skin he had missed. Press against the heat of her and linger there, in the warmth of her.

Emma suddenly pushed him away, tearing his mouth from her.

The urge to reach for her, to keep his hold on her, was so strong.

Her eyes, wild and wide, heavy with desire, locked onto his.

And he watched, mesmerised, as she moved over to the table, took a seat, right on its edge.

He stood rooted to the spot. Aching. Watching.

‘I want you. Here ...’ she breathed, and the confession halted whatever air had made it into his airways.

And still he could not move. Could not join her at the table’s edge.

‘Please,’ she said, and his heart hammered.

If he took her here, now, that would be her memory of them.

The first memory of them coming together. He did not want that.

What do you want?

His gaze moved over her swollen lips. Proof of how strong their desire was. How strong it had always been.

And yet, it was not the same. He was not the same. She was not the same. He didn’t know why. Only that it was different.

The people who had met at that charity event were not here.

Something snapped inside him.

Released him.

She deserved more. And so did he. He moved then. Claimed her chin beneath his thumb and forefinger, ignoring the rasp of her breath, the shudder she made as her bottom lip trembled.

She deserved more than quick satisfaction. More than an indecent encounter anyone could see.

‘I can take you here,’ he told her, and his erection pulsed. ‘I can fall to my knees and taste you again. I can make you come with my mouth on you, with my fingers. I can ready you for me. I can do all those things. More . I can thrust inside you, right here. Right now.’

The delicate tendons in her throat constricted. ‘But you won’t?’

His thumb and forefinger gripped her chin more tightly. Forced her gaze to stay locked on his. Because he hated what his confession had caused her. He saw it. A flash of doubt. Of pain.

She thought he was rejecting her.

‘Do not,’ he growled, ‘doubt how much I want this.’ He released her chin and sought her hand. Claimed it and brought it between them. Placed her open palm on the part of him that ached for her.

‘Do not doubt,’ he said again, the hardness of him pulsing beneath her fingers, ‘how much I want you, Emmy.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘I want you in every way imaginable. To be inside you...’

He closed his eyes because it was painful to resist. A deep hurt was growing inside him with his every word that opposed his frantic desire.

‘Then why won’t you?’ she asked, her fingers on him. Tentatively she stroked him.

He opened his eyes. ‘We deserve a bed,’ he breathed raggedly.

He knew what he wanted now. Her in his bed. To savour her. To keep her there between the sheets where she couldn’t escape. Wouldn’t want to leave. Today. Tomorrow. Or ever.

‘A bed?’

‘I would prefer our bed in Mayfair,’ he said, his abdomen flexing at the flash of an empty bed. Their bed. Abandoned by her.

‘But we would never make it that long.’

His confession caused him to tremble at the effort it took to restrain himself. The effort of not doing what she’d asked him to do and take her. Here.

But he would not.

‘You’re shaking,’ she gasped.

‘As you will be,’ he promised. ‘If you let me take you to bed. I will make you come so hard your knees will shake. Uncontrollably . And then I will do it again, and again, until all you know, all you understand, is this. The need pulsing between us. A need that never dies. That always wants more.’

He was rigid with it now. Painful desire, and something else. Something he couldn’t place.

The day he’d readied their new contract, three more years to explore the depths of their desire, he’d felt a contentment. An easiness he’d never had. Because for once, he’d not felt the urge for more, as Cappetta men always did. To climb higher peaks, or to parachute over more perilous terrains. His only urge was simply to keep her.

He felt that now, alongside his desire. Contentment.

He wasn’t so naive. This obsession with her, his little crush, would end. Eventually . And then and only then would he end it.

But not yet.

‘Will you let me take you to bed?’ he asked, because that was what he needed. A bed and her in it.

There was nothing else to want. Nothing else he needed. Only her flesh. Only her body. Only sex.

‘There will be no need to rush. No need to be quick. And I won’t be quick, Emmy,’ he promised. A promise he’d keep like all the others he’d made to her. ‘I will take my time with you. Savour you.’

‘Savour me?’ she asked, her lips parting on a mew.

It fed him.

Revived him.

His neck stiff with tension, he nodded his confirmation.

‘Slowly,’ he promised. ‘I will savour every inch of you.’

He leaned down until his mouth hovered above the soft flesh beneath her ear and whispered, ‘Will you come with me, Emmy?’

He pulled back just enough to watch as her blue eyes sought his and he let her hold them captive. Let her search their depths. Because he knew what she would see. Only the heat between them.

Tentatively, her fingers rose to his waist, travelled farther up, with feather-light precision. With splayed fingers and open palm, her hand sat on his chest.

Just like it had been at the beginning of them.

Then, slowly, she moved her hand from his chest and reached for his hand. And claimed it.

‘I’ll come with you.’

When he looked down at their hands, he saw their gold wedding bands glistening. Reminding him of the promises they’d shared with one another. The rules they’d vowed to obey.

She trusted him to take her back there. Back to the marriage they’d had before. Could still have by following the rules they had created.

Because without the rules there was no them.

His fingers tightened around hers.

‘Come,’ he rasped, and tugged her down the white stone path, back through the double doors.

Soon, so very soon, their clothes would be strewn on every surface, and they would at last be in bed, together. And they would stay there. Stay there until his obsession died.

With every step across the marbled foyer of the Cappetta hotel, Emma’s skin tingled with anticipation. It spread up from her toes, up the backs of her calves, up the muscles in her thighs and pooled at the intimate heart of her.

Then it radiated out in waves.

Neither had spoken. But still he held her hand. Still, she held his.

Even as they entered the private lift to their suite, even as the steel doors closed.

Side by side, they stood, and the silence pulsed.

Never had a man shaken with desire for her. Never had a man wanted to...

Savour her.

Slowly .

But Dante had done, wanted to do, both of those things.

And it spoke to her. To the secret parts inside her that longed for those things. To be savoured. To be precious to someone. Protected because someone cared.

And he cared, didn’t he?

The realisation was acute. It was a piercing pain in her chest. Because all the things her mother had been waiting for her father to provide, Emma had. With Dante.

He was taking care of her, had taken care of her, in all the ways she hadn’t been able to take care of herself. Hadn’t seen herself as worthy of. Or allowed herself to want them. Because belief and hope, they were dangerous. Deadly.

She closed her eyes. Shut everything out. Because all her life she’d been running from her feelings, her needs, her secret desires. Afraid she’d turn out like her mum. Unloved and unwanted. But Emma was wanted. Not loved. But she was cared for. Protected.

And it was enough.

It was what she wanted.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, turned her head and looked up at him from behind lowered lashes.

So why had she left when she had it so good?

Did it matter anymore?

Higher and higher the lift climbed, until it announced its arrival at the top floor.

Dante turned, the invitation in his gaze mirroring her own.

‘We deserve a bed,’ she said, because he was right. They deserved to explore, to rediscover, their marriage with care. With softness. With consideration.

‘We do,’ he agreed roughly.

Emma moved her gaze to the lift doors. Eyed her reflection in the steel. Stared at her body. A body he knew intimately.

She wondered if he would cradle her breasts as softly as he’d cradled her face in the hospital? Would he slowly apply pressure as she moaned into his mouth? Would she tell him what she liked? That she wanted her nipple in his mouth and that she wanted him to suck? To bite? Would he caress the swell of her stomach? Would his hand move slowly or urgently to the dark hairs curling between her legs?

She wanted to know all these things. How he would touch her. How his touch would be different.

The steel doors opened to their suite.

‘Ready?’ he asked roughly.

Was she? Was she ready to not only survive the night, but to own it.

‘I’m ready.’