The Marriage He Must Keep (15 page)

A real, true, fresh beginning.

Lifting her hand, she hesitated, briefly unsure, but didn’t let herself overthink it. The line of his spine begged to be traced and she did, nudging the sheet a little lower on the curve of his buttocks, then coming back up to the edge of his fresh haircut and the shadow that had come in on his jaw.

He drew in a long breath, big body stirring as he opened one eye. “Is he crying?”

“No,” she said softly, feeling defenseless as she said, “He’s fast asleep.”

And because he was a very smart man, he didn’t ask her why she’d woken him. He read the want that she didn’t try to disguise and lifted his arm to gather her and pull her half under him. “Is he?”

She felt him thicken against her thigh as he pressed over her. He hadn’t even kissed her, but he was instantly aroused. His body was smooth and hard and strapping, his neck still faintly scented with his cologne, his chest hot and hard against her kiss.

Liquid heat rolled through her veins as they shifted to lie stomach to stomach, chin to chin. The contact made her sleepy muscles feel even more like melted wax. As they kissed lazily and moved against each other, her nightgown climbed. He slid his hand up her thigh and stroked her hip, her waist, her lower back and bottom, her spine and rib cage and then, ah, yes. Her breast.

He was gentle and possessive and it felt so good she had to moan and bring her knee up to his hip and press with her calf against the back of his thigh, encouraging him to position himself to rub against her.

“I have always thought you had beautiful breasts, but,
cara
...” He dragged her nightgown up and off. “Oh,
bella
.” He kissed the swell and admired how it overflowed his hand, thumb circling her nipple so it was a firm, eager point.

The sweetest nerve endings tightened in her inner thighs as he played, making her ache for his touch. His thrust.

He was wearing his silk boxers again, but she could feel the insistence of him against her as if one move was all that was needed and he’d rip through silk and be inside her. She could hardly breathe she was so gripped by anticipation, but...

“I should tell you,” she murmured, self-conscious, but unable to keep from caressing his chest, tracing the pattern of hair and splaying her hand down his waist. “The books said it might hurt at first, so, um, can you be careful?”

He drew back. “I thought we were just fooling around. It hasn’t been six weeks.”

“It’s close enough,” she grumbled. “That was just a recommendation. The doctor said if I felt like it sooner, I could, but to use condoms. There are some in the drawer.”

His brows went up and he rolled away to look, almost as if he didn’t believe her. When he came back with the little square in his hand, his eyes were pure green and brilliant with desire. “If I’m dreaming, I’d better not wake up.”

She smiled until he kissed her again, then she couldn’t do anything but respond to the deep, drugging way he made love to her mouth. They kissed for a long time, as if this was all they were planning to do. He wove his fingers into her hair and she traced light fingertips over his throat and shoulders and up to where their lips devoured each other.

She loved that he wasn’t rushing her. In fact, it was as though he was returning to a place he’d almost forgotten and had to make a point of touching each inch of her skin, inhaling deeply near her ear, licking at her neck and backing off to watch as he stroked his hands over her. He was focused wholly on her, bringing her hand to his heart, kissing her temple and collarbone, then the inside of her elbow. He glanced to see if she liked his lips on the underside of her breast, against her scar, on her inner thighs and against the lace of her panties.

She swallowed, moved and aroused, trembling as she met his gaze, so steady and yet so emotive. She’d thought him adept. A playboy. A practiced seducer. He was, but this wasn’t a routine. He wanted to pleasure her. She saw earnestness in him. A desire for forgiveness.

This was more than a physical reacquainting. It was reconciliation.

She touched his face, memorizing his features with her eyes and her touch. He pursed his lips against her thumb pad, seeming in agreement that they had time, lots of time. That reassured her in a way nothing else could.

When he started to peel her panties away, she lifted her hips, modesty tossed away with the blue silk. Unashamed as he admired her.

Kneeling between her legs he pushed off his boxers, sending them to the floor before he covered himself and lowered to settle over her. She lifted again, seeking and inviting his penetration where she was wet and so needy.

He groaned as he kissed her and started to press into her.

“Oh!” she said, startled by the sting.

The noise he made was pure, maddened pain. He rolled away and threw his arm over his eyes.

“Sandro—”

“Give me a minute,
cara
,” he said, voice tight.

“I was only going to say it’s not that bad. I want to. I want
you
.” She splayed her torso over his, sliding against him in a full-body caress. “Please.”

He made another agonized noise and said, “I’m the one who wants to beg,
cara
. Like this then.” He dragged her to straddle him. “You do it. Go as slowly as you need.” He spoke through his teeth, not even opening his eyes, and reached up to catch his hands under the edge of the ornate headboard.

She took a moment to admire the taut strip of muscle he made, straining beneath her, nipples hard and jaw clenched. Then she guided him and took a few careful inhales and exhales as she brought him into her. When she was seated right against him, his thick shape filling her like the pulse of her own heart, she gloried in the perfection of it.

She stroked her hands over his hard chest and his rib cage swelled under her touch, breath moving through his teeth in hisses of tested control.

It made her smile. So much man. So much discipline held so very, very tightly.

So unwilling to let himself let go.

Bracing her hands on his chest, she scraped her nails into his hard pecs, liking the way he shivered like a stallion feeling spurs. Could she crack his restraint?

“You’ve always been the one to call the shots,” she mused, moving experimentally. So much pleasure sparked through her, she gasped and almost lost the plot.

His eyes opened in glittering slits of green. “You’re enjoying this,” he gritted out.

Her smile widened. “That’s the point, isn’t it?” She moved with more purpose, teasing them both, arching as another streak that was even more intense went through her.

His nostrils flared and he brought his hands to her hips, fingers flexing in with warning, abdomen sucked tight as he cautioned her to take care with her movements. “
Dio
, you’re beautiful, riding me like this.”

“So are you,” she allowed, moving in a way that was absolute joy, hips undulating instinctively. Irrepressibly. “I missed this,
caro
,” she confessed in an unrestrained whisper, growing greedy. “So much. And I want you to—” Her voice caught as climax rose hot and fast. “Oh, Sandro,” she breathed.

“Yes,” he growled. “Let it happen.” He lifted beneath her, maintaining the surging rhythm, driving her over the edge. She arched her back, not caring that he watched as her breasts flushed and trembled and she shuddered atop him, sobs of ecstasy escaping her parted lips.

Her cries died away and her bones dissolved.

“Come here,” he commanded. His hand slid up to curl around her neck and bring her down, then tangled in her hair as they kissed deeply, bodies moving in gentle adjustment. “Your hair,” he muttered, burying his nose in a handful of it as it fell across his face.

“I’m sorry—”

“No, I adore it. I want to feel it all over me. I want you like this, naked and hot around me, all the damned time. I missed this, too,” he said fiercely.

“You were supposed to come with me,” she pouted. Damn his control. She tested the sandpapery roughness of his cheek with her fingertips, unable to be truly disappointed when she felt this good and he was still hard inside her, promising another release just like the first.

With a little purr of adulation, she blanketed herself over him and took possession of his throat with openmouthed kisses.

“Make love to me again. Take me with you this time.” His hand shook as he smoothed her hair back from the side of her face so he could look into her eyes.

She felt sultry and seductive and powerful as she sat up. She was used to the stretch inside her now and began to move without restraint, wantonly, determined to unravel his willpower one rock of her hips at a time. Her skin dampened, his teeth bared, the pleasure climbed and she felt as though she was drowning in the tropical sea of his eyes.

“Now,” she told him as the waves of expansion washed up from where they were locked together. Her mouth opened in a silent scream and he pressed her hard onto his hips, thrusting up to her, releasing ragged cries of abject pleasure.

This time when she sank down to let her breasts flatten against his chest, he twisted her beneath him, withdrawing carefully before aligning her half under him, his breath still coming in pants against her cheek.

She nuzzled the prickling stubble on his chin and bit at his lips with her own.

“
Mia bella moglie
,” he breathed, snuggling her naked body to his own. “That was perfect. Utterly perfect.”

Not quite. He was still too contained, but they were closer than they’d been.

CHAPTER NINE

S
ANDRO
COULDN
’
T
RECALL
having spent any real time with Octavia’s parents. His dealings with her father, Mario Benevento, had left him with an impression of a shrewd businessman. They’d hammered out the marriage contracts as objectively as any other business deal would be negotiated.

As for her mother, Trista, he recalled her coming to dinner with Mario at the
castello
only the once. Sandro’s mother and grandfather had been there with Giacomo and his wife. Primo had been there, too, along with a handful of others. If Trista had said more than a few words, he couldn’t recall what they were.

He’d spoken to his in-laws at the wedding, of course, even danced with his mother-in-law. Once he and Octavia settled into the town house, he recalled mentioning that they should have her parents to dinner. Octavia had said something about asking when they might be available.

They must not have been, Sandro now realized, because he had never sat at a table with just the two of them. He would have remembered an evening this painful.

It didn’t help that his respect for Mario had fallen into the gutter weeks ago, after Octavia had opened up and called the man a cheat, then plummeted further when she confided they’d forced her to end a friendship. Sandro had already thought Mario a chauvinist, but he now saw the man was an outright sexist without any sensitivity genes at all. He monopolized the conversation with politics and business, not asking his daughter how she was recovering from Lorenzo’s birth and not giving his wife opportunities to address personal topics, either. He loved his wine and had taken little notice of his grandson.

Thankfully dinner was almost over. Dessert had arrived. The baked half pear was stuffed with walnuts and honey. A ball of gelato next to it held a sprig of mint. All the food had been excellent. Sandro might have enjoyed himself if it had just been a date with his wife, but he had to tolerate
this
.

“Did you bring a copy of the DNA report? I want one for my files before we officiate the hand off,” Mario said as the summary of his latest and greatest executive decisions came to an end.

Across from him, Octavia paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth.

“I had some notarized copies made,” Sandro said smoothly. “But we can discuss all of that at the office sometime next week. I’ll have my PA call yours to set it up.”

“That’s not why you’re here tonight?” Mario said with a degree of incredulity.

“No, this is a social call,” Sandro said. He looked across at Octavia, unsure why that wouldn’t be clear. “Octavia wanted to visit and introduce you to your grandson.”

Which wasn’t quite true. He had suggested it and she had made the arrangements with a mutter about inevitability and her mother not being happy. Now her dark gaze met his, black-coffee eyes turbulent in her otherwise expressionless face. In the past few days, she’d been quick to smile and reach out to him, but tonight she was the pretty mannequin again.

Mario snorted. “There was no need to rush that. Boy won’t speak for years.”

Octavia’s fingers tightened around her spoon.

Sandro was offended on their son’s behalf, too. And Octavia’s. This was a stark glimpse at the sort of disconnected childhood she had hinted at. He had to catch himself from turning on Mario with a few home truths.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to react. Octavia blurted, “Even longer before he’s allowed to.”

A moment of stunned silence, then Mario said, “What did you say?” in a tone infused with ominous warning.

“Octavia,” her mother scolded in a murmur.

“No, I’m going to say it,” Octavia said on a burst of suppressed wrath. “He put you through all those miscarriages, insisted he wanted a boy, I finally deliver one and he can’t even be bothered to hold him. I don’t understand you.” Her voice rose as she leveled the last at her father.

“Cara,”
Sandro said gently, trying to keep this from becoming a scene.

“An heir and a
spare
, Octavia. That’s what I need.” Mario turned his red face to Sandro. “And so do you if you want to finalize the merger. Control your wife.”

Sandro took issue. Very strong issue, but Octavia went off enough for both of them.

“Really?” she cried, rising to toss her napkin over her dessert. “All this time and you still don’t understand how biology works? What if I don’t have another boy? What if I don’t want to go through another pregnancy? What happens to the merger then?”

“The inheritance moves through regular channels,” Sandro interjected, taking satisfaction from throwing the reminder in his father-in-law’s face. “It will go to your mother, you, then any children we have. Stopping with Lorenzo would only delay my takeover, not prevent it. And we should get him home to bed,” he added, rising to move to the door of the dining room where he requested their car be brought around and that Bree put the baby into it.

“Yes. Leave. Come back when you’ve found your manners,” Mario said patronizingly.

“Why on earth would I ever come back?” Octavia cried. “I married the man you chose for me— No! I married a man
better
than the one you chose for me, and you’ve never so much as said, ‘Thank you.’ Now I deliver an heir and you turn your nose up. Do you think I want my son near a man incapable of showing either of us a shred of affection or respect? No. I don’t. Mamma may come and see Lorenzo anytime she likes, but you will never see me or my son again. You have nothing I want, especially your precious money. Give it to Sandro, spend it, throw it in the bay. Do whatever will make you happy with it because it’s obviously the only thing that ever will.”

“Buonanotte,”
Sandro said, gathering his wife and shuffling her out of the room.

“Don’t act like I’m the one behaving badly. He deserves to hear this. Or are you worried I’m ruining your secret backdoor deals?” She pulled away from him as they reached the front door.

“There is nothing secret about any of it,” he stated, not liking her accusation. “You never asked.” He dropped her coat on her shoulders and pressed her outside.

She shoved her hands into the sleeves and folded the edges over herself before throwing herself into the back of the car.

He went around the other side and climbed in, regretting they didn’t have a privacy window. “We talked about having three or four children before we married,” he reminded.

“Pregnancies,” she snapped.

“
Si
. You’re right. I take the hopeful view that all of your pregnancies will be successful. Sue me for being an optimist. And the gender doesn’t matter. Your father wanted to make it a condition they be boys, but I struck that. I begin the takeover with the birth of our first child and assume majority control with our second. We needed a trigger of some kind for these things. In the unlikely event we had no children, he very rightly made provisions to maintain control and leave his fortune to his family through his estate.”

“It’s all just business,” she jeered.

“Yes,” he bit out. “It was.”

* * *

Octavia fumed at him across the peaceful baby sleeping between them. Their
trigger
.

Her mother, at least, had held Lorenzo. Her expression had even softened a bit. While Octavia had stood there waiting for her father to say something like,
Good job. Thank you. I’m so proud of you. So pleased for you
.

But there’d been nothing.

She’d spent the next hour realizing what a tremendous fool she’d been for ever imagining she could earn something from him beyond a flickering glance of disappointment. When he had dismissed her son as something he didn’t want to see
for years
, she had reached her limit.

The fact that Sandro had hustled her out of there before she really told her father what she thought of him was infuriating. She had nearly a quarter century of resentment stockpiled and was eager to let it out.

“I have a right to be angry,” she told him when she entered their suite after tucking Lorenzo into the proper nursery they’d had fashioned for him across the hall.

“Because I signed contracts a year ago that you don’t like?” He set aside his phone with a rattle onto the night table and shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it over the back of the nearest chair.

“Because you won’t let me be angry!” She kicked off her shoes in the middle of the floor and began pulling out her earrings, dropping them into the dish on the vanity table. “I don’t care about the stupid contracts and how you and my father planned to transfer control of his all-important fortune. All I ever wanted was to make my father proud.” Her necklace went into the dish and she picked up her hairbrush, waving it wildly as she railed, “He wanted a son and I couldn’t turn into one, but I gave him a boy and all he said was, ‘Give me another one.’ I had a right to tell him to go to hell, Sandro. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you let me be angry?”

Her arm shot straight in punctuation and the hairbrush slid out of her grip. It skittered across the bedroom floor, landing near her shoes.

His mouth tightened as he stared at it. With a jerky nod, he said, “
Si
. He is insufferable. You were right to tell him you won’t see him again.” He pulled his tie loose and unbuttoned his collar, something flashing in his eyes that was both keen and sharp. Dangerous. “Come here, then.”

She stayed where she was, suddenly wary. “Why?”

“I’m not going to have you tossing lamps and smashing mirrors,
cara
. If you’re angry, come here. Take it out on me.”

She choked out a laugh. “What do you mean? Hit you? No!”

“Do whatever you need to release this energy. I’ll make sure you don’t damage anything.”

“Because you don’t want me acting like your mother, screaming and yelling, calling him to swear and hanging up?”

“Precisamente.”

“You just have to control everything, don’t you?” She was annoyed now, on top of her anger. “I want to
yell
, Sandro. I want to...” She lifted helpless hands and shook her fists in fury. She hadn’t been this pent up and determined to let go since boarding school.

“I can see that.” He finished opening his buttons and dragged his shirttails from his pants. “Come here.”

There was a note in his voice on top of the command, one that said he was anticipating sex. It affected her, always, but fueled her fire tonight. She was
so
angry. Angry at her father, but angry at Sandro. At that unwavering control of his. She wanted to batter against it, break it down and break through to the man behind the armor.

Did
nothing
affect him?

Picking up the emerald drape of her skirt because it was too long now that she was out of her shoes, she swept toward him, ignoring self-preservation instincts and heading for the heart of the battle.

He opened his belt, pulled it free and dropped it away, gaze never leaving hers.

He was so tall. She wished she wore her shoes. She wanted to... Oh, he frustrated her. Reaching out, she splayed her hands on his bare waist, felt his muscles tense under her touch and dug in her nails, dragging her claws over his skin.

He bit out a curse cut by a sharp laugh, gaze flashing as he caught her wrists and pinned them behind her back, mashing her against him so she could barely move.

“You’re not going to let me explode, after all?” she asked, shaking back her hair.

“Explode,” he invited. “I’m here to absorb it.”

She wriggled, testing his grip.

He smiled, not even exerting himself a little bit as he easily restrained her. He was that much stronger than she was. It was maddening, but inflaming, too, making her that much more determined to get a reaction from him. A strong one.

She narrowed her eyes and, quick as a cat, nipped his chest with her teeth.

“Oh, you think?” He manacled her wrists in one hand and used his free one to take a handful of her hair, dragging her head back. Rather than kiss her, though, he set his teeth against her neck, not hurting, just letting her know he could return her injury and then some if he wanted to. He had all the power here.

She struggled with more determination, but only wound up rubbing herself where he was hardening. Her breasts began to ache from the friction against his hard chest. The strap of her gown fell off her shoulder and he opened his mouth on her bared skin.

How could this be turning her on?

“This is kinky,” she accused. She might have lived a sheltered life, but she read. She surfed. She knew a little about the games couples played. “Don’t we need a safe word if you’re going to overpower me?”

“Or you could just tell me to let you go,” he said with a silent laugh, releasing her hair to push the other strap of her gown down, baring the cup of her bra. He didn’t lift his gaze from the poke of her nipple against the blue lace. “Are you going to?” His voice was gruff and hungry.

When he looked at her like that, as if he was going to eat her alive, she didn’t want him to ever let her go.

She struggled again, more earnest this time, seeing if he would release her. Seeing if he really could withstand this energy inside her.

He barely seemed to notice how hard she was trying, just pinned her hips to the hard length of his erection and circled her nipple with the tip of his finger.

“What if I scream?” she threatened breathlessly, wanting to.

His gaze dragged upward and his eyes were green with lust. “Do you want to be faceup or facedown on the mattress?” He began backing her toward the bed.

Her stomach flip-flopped with wicked excitement.

“You wouldn’t!” She secretly loved it when they were on their knees and he was behind her. It felt earthy and animalistic and was always intensely satisfying. “Brute.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,
cara
. Never,” he promised as he unzipped her gown. He finally released her so he could push the dress all the way off.

She grasped at his arms so she wouldn’t fall onto the bed, but he pressed her there anyway, coming down over her and covering her with his big body, thigh moving imperiously between her bare ones to part her legs wide.