Deceived

  A rush of sickness flooded my belly and sent bile surging up my esophagus. I deserved disgust from her. I deserved way worse. Dropping my head, I rubbed my aching forehead, knowing if I didn’t get out of here soon, I was going to break in front of her. And that was something I couldn’t let her see, because more than anything, I needed to keep up the façade that I was strong and in total control so that she would believe I could keep her safe.

  “So that’s it. That’s…everything. Who my House is, why I left Italy, the reason I hate my family, and why I did every single thing I’ve done since the moment I met you.”

  When she still didn’t say a word, I pushed away from the dresser. “I’m sure you still have questions, but it’s late, and I think we’re both beat from today. I’ll check in with you tomorrow. If you have more questions then, I’ll answer them.”

  She didn’t try to stop me, and somehow, I made it back to my room without collapsing. I tried to think about nothing as I moved. It was the only way I’d survived in the days and weeks after I’d left Italy. Thinking about the things I’d done and couldn’t change had the potential to send me into a dark, downward spiral that could take weeks—no, months—to pull myself out of. I didn’t have that kind of time now. I couldn’t give in to the haunting memories and self-deprecating disgust if I had any hope of keeping Natalie safe.

  I didn’t bother with the lights, just moved through my bedroom into the master bath, peeled off my dusty clothes, and dropped them on the travertine floor. Leaning into the massive shower, I flipped on multiple showerheads—four on one side and three on the other—and didn’t bother to wait for the spray to heat. Ice-cold water stabbed at my skin like tiny knives striking from every direction, making me suck in a harsh breath, but as the water slowly warmed and steam rose around my head, I wished I’d left it cold. Wished I’d kept my mouth shut tonight. Wished I’d never looked twice at Natalie James.

  Sickness swirled in my belly and rushed up my chest. A familiar sickness that told me if I didn’t shut this shit down right now, I wasn’t going to be able to in a few minutes. Leaning forward, I braced both hands on the tile wall and dropped my head. Water hit my belly, my back, doused my hair from the showerhead above. I closed my eyes and focused on that black, empty nothingness. Breathed in and out slowly through my nose to keep the sickness at bay. Listened to the rapid beat of my heart, the rush of water striking the tiles, the ebb and flow of air as it filled my lungs and left on a gentle whoosh.

  My skin prickled. Tormented memories tried to push through my defenses. I knew better than to break my focus, but I couldn’t stop my head from lifting. Couldn’t keep my eyes from opening under the rush of water flowing over my face.

  Pushing away from the wall, I swiped a hand over my hair to brush the water off my forehead as I stepped out from under the main showerhead and turned. Then froze when I spotted Natalie standing in my darkened bathroom, watching me from the shadows.

  For a moment, everything came to a screeching halt. I didn’t hear the shower anymore. Didn’t feel the water striking my flesh. Wasn’t sure I even breathed.

  All I saw was her, standing regally in the shadows, watching me with an unreadable expression. This amazing, incredible woman who made angry look beautiful and weak look invincible and who, even now, even after all the ugly things she’d said and heard and witnessed, was the most angelic thing I’d ever seen.

  My angioletto. The only person in the world who had the power to once and truly break me. And who I was pretty sure would before all was said and done.

  Chapter Nine

  Natalie

  I wasn’t sure what I was doing.

  I hadn’t planned to invade Luc’s space. I’d only sensed he was hurting. His story—the agonizing way in which he’d told it—had made me see him in a different light. I’d followed him with no plan, just a need to make sure he was okay. But standing in the shadows in his bathroom, watching him under the spray of the shower, I felt the pain radiating from him in waves. And that pain was so raw, so fierce, so all-consuming, it pushed my feet forward before I realized what I was doing.

  I stepped beneath the spray—clothes and all—and moved toward him. He didn’t speak. Didn’t even flinch. But I felt his agony. Felt it wrap around my body and squeeze so tight my chest ached. And when I caught the heady scent of his skin—citrus and spice and musk—when his body heat seeped into mine, all my instincts told me to comfort him. To protect him. To reassure him he was not the evil monster he thought he was.

  My pulse raced. Heat spread all through my belly, seeped into my veins, and prickled my flesh. Common sense told me I shouldn’t be here, but I didn’t care. He needed this. He needed help. When his eyes slid closed, I lifted my hands to his chest and pressed my fingers against his damp skin, then inched even closer, until my nose and lips brushed his chest and he was all I could see.

  His hands came up and cupped my jaw on each side, lifting my face toward his. And in that moment when our eyes met, I was sure the world stopped spinning. Everything else fell away until we were the only two people left on the planet.

  His eyes were glazed. Pained. Sad. But lurking beneath all the sorrow, I saw hunger. And heat. And a passion I thought I’d only imagined back in Italy.

  He groaned and lowered his mouth to mine. And I gasped and opened, unable to do anything but let him take me, taste me, and to kiss me so deeply, I forgot whose air I was breathing. To claim me, exactly the same way he’d claimed me in that elevator back in Rome.

  My heart pounded hard. The blood in my veins turned to a roar in my ears. I reached for him, drinking him in like a desert traveler guzzles water in the middle of an oasis. A growl rumbled from his throat, and then I felt myself moving. Felt the cool tile wall at my back. Felt my entire body melt when he pressed his hard, hot, very naked and very aroused body against my wet clothes and all but devoured me with his mouth.

  All the reasons this was wrong seemed to slip from my grasp. I still had a dozen causes to be angry with him, but at the moment, I didn’t care about any of them. I just wanted this. I just wanted him. I just wanted us.

  He drew back, his breaths fast and hot against my lips, and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Cradling my face, he kissed the corner of my mouth. Nipped at my bottom lip until I groaned. Dipped inside for another taste before easing back once more to look down at me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from them. I’m sorry for everything that happened and that I couldn’t stop it.”

  His eyes were glassy. His hair wet and dripping across his rugged features. But something in the way he looked at me tightened my chest. I saw doubt. I saw confusion. And I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking and why he was suddenly apologizing when these last few days, he’d seemed only to want to bully me into accepting this marriage.

  “I’m fine,” I said, my voice shakier than I wanted it to be.

  A pained expression crossed his features just before he pressed his forehead against mine. “No, you’re not. You’re not, and it’s all my fault.”

  I didn’t like the haunted sound of his voice. I didn’t like the way it made my whole body tremble with a fear I couldn’t understand. Lifting my hands to his face, I brushed the wet hair back from his temples, drew a breath away, and kissed his forehead, wanting only to banish that fear from both our minds. “Don’t talk.” My lips skimmed his cheek. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” I pressed a soft kiss to the scruff at the corner of his mouth, knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop. “Everything will be fine.”

  He lifted his head, and for a heartbeat, he froze, his lips millimeters from mine. And when I glanced up, I saw the heat in his unique eyes. I saw the need. And my body answered with a rush of warmth that condensed in my stomach and pooled between my legs.

  His lips captured mine in a searing kiss I felt all the way to my toes. I sucked in a breath as his tongue swept into my mouth, tasting me, invading me, taking me. His hands streaking down my body to grasp my drenched tank, and I did
n’t stop him from pulling it up over my breasts. Didn’t stop him from breaking our kiss and wrenching it above my head until I was standing bare and glistening and aroused in front of him against the shower wall.

  His eyes locked on to my breasts, and he groaned again as he palmed the right one, then did the same with the left. Electricity arced from my breasts to my sex, and I moaned as he pinched my nipples, then lowered his head to lick and lave the sensitive tips.

  I dropped a hand onto his wet head, couldn’t seem to stop myself from arching so my breast filled his mouth. He sucked and squeezed and licked until I was writhing against him, all but begging for more. And even though I knew we needed to talk about so many things, I didn’t want to talk right now. I wanted to forget about Houses and Ententes and unseen forces lurking in the shadows. I wanted to forget the outside world existed and get lost in pleasure for however long it could claim me.

  “Per te farei di tutto.”

  I didn’t know what he said. I didn’t care. All I wanted was more of his hot breath washing over my skin, making me forget.

  He kissed his way down my torso, sliding his hands from my aching breasts to the waistband of my pajama bottoms. His tongue traced a wicked circle around my belly button as he pushed the soaked fabric down my hips and over my legs. I shivered as I braced a hand against the wall for support and looked down at him. Wetness gathered between my legs, a wetness that had nothing to do with the shower and everything to do with the hunger I saw in his eyes.

  When the fabric hit my feet, I stepped out of the garment and lifted my chin so the spray couldn’t hit me in the face. And then his mouth was on me, faster than I expected, devouring me in a way I hadn’t anticipated. And as his wicked tongue licked a path of fire straight up my sex, all I could do was groan long and deep and hope I didn’t collapse from the ecstasy.

  Pleasure arced through my whole body, then condensed in that spot between my legs he knew how to strum and lick and tease to the perfect rhythm. My eyes fell closed. I laid my head back against the cool tiles and flexed my hips forward, seeking more, seeking everything. He took the cue and licked faster. Moaned against my clit so vibrations echoed all through my lower body. Then drew the nub of nerve endings between his lips and suckled until I saw stars.

  My orgasm spiraled toward me at the speed of light. I rocked against his mouth. Braced one hand on the slick wall and the other in his wet hair to hold him closer. And cleared my mind of everything except the stroke of his slick tongue, the suck of his talented lips, the way his thick finger—Oh, yeeeessss—was suddenly filling me.

  The climax hit me hard, stealing my breath, sending a shock wave of light and heat and mindless pleasure through every cell in my body. I cried out as it consumed me. My knees buckled and my hand slipped against the wall of the shower. Water sprayed in my face, but before I collapsed, Luc’s arms were around me. And with the release still vibrating through my limbs, I felt his lips blazing a trail of heat up my abdomen, over one breast and then the other, before finding my mouth again and claiming me with a kiss that rocked the floor right out from under me.

  I was breathless. Light-headed. Trembling from my release. But one taste of his sinful lips, one brush of his rock-hard body against mine in that steamy shower, and I wanted more. I wanted everything.

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, sucked his tongue into my mouth, and moaned. His arms came around me. His erection—hard and thick and weeping with his own need—brushed against my stomach, making me ache to feel him inside me. I slid my hands up into his hair, fisted the wet locks, and kissed him deeper. He answered by groaning into my mouth, turning me away from the wall so the spray hit us on both sides, and palmed my ass to lift me up off the floor.

  My legs immediately wrapped around his waist. My whole body tightened in anticipation of his touch, right where I needed it most.

  “C’è un vuoto dentro di me che solo tu puoi colmare,” he mumbled against my lips as he shifted one arm underneath me to hold me up and hit the power button on the wall panel to turn off the water with the other. I groaned as the shower stopped. Kissed him again. His fingers dug into my ass as he carried me out of the shower. “Sei la mia ossessione. Ho bisogno di te.”

  I didn’t understand his words. I didn’t know where he was taking me. I didn’t care either. I just wanted more. Tightening my hold, I lifted myself higher in his arms and kissed him deeper. He groaned into my mouth again and licked my tongue as if he couldn’t get enough. Cool air brushed my spine. Hot, hard male flesh pressed against my front. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. I wiggled in his arms, searching for his cock, desperate to have him fill me.

  Before I could find it, I felt myself falling. My back hit the mattress, then Luc kissed me hard as he climbed over me. I let go of his shoulders and reached for his hips. My fingertips grazed his steely length, and my whole body shook with the need to draw him inside me, but I didn’t get the chance. In a rush, he drew back from my mouth and flipped me to my stomach.

  I gasped. Pressed my hands against the comforter. Drew my knees in so I could push myself up, flip back, and grab him like I wanted. But he held me still at the hips and said, “Apri le gambe.”

  He pushed my knees apart, and then I felt his cock straining against my thigh. “Spread your knees wider.”

  Anticipation curled hot and needy inside me at his domineering tone, the same tone he’d used on me in Italy. I did as he said. He leaned over my back, sank his teeth into my earlobe, and wrapped his arms around me. I shivered in anticipation. With one hand, he found my breast and squeezed. With the other, he trailed a path of heat down my stomach and into the wetness between my legs.

  “Oh God…” My eyes slid closed. I rocked into his hand as he stroked me, as he spread my wetness all around my clit. Reaching back, I hooked one arm around his neck, pulling him closer to my spine. The other I braced on his thigh as he ground his erection against my ass, the teasing sensations making me high with lust.

  He sucked my earlobe until I trembled, squeezed my other breast, then slipped his fingers lower, sliding one thick digit up inside me.

  I groaned at the exquisite fit, but when his thumb found my clit and he stroked in time with his shallow thrusts, I almost came right there on his hand. “Oh yes…”

  “Dio, you’re so wet. Does that feel good?”

  “So good.”

  “Do you want more?”

  Tingles rushed all through my body, and I tightened around his finger, aching for him to press deeper. “Yes, yes, more…”

  He drew out with one finger and pressed back in with two, making me groan and gasp. Then his thumb flicked across my clit, and it was all I could take. “Please. Give me more.”

  He growled and pulled free of my sex. I gasped as he drew away and pressed a hand against my spine. “Arch your back.”

  The pressure pushed me forward. My palms hit the mattress, and I grunted. My hair fell over my eyes to block my vision. But I didn’t protest, I didn’t cry out because he was already grasping me at the hips with his wicked hands, positioning his magnificent erection at my slick entrance, and pulling my hips back until I was completely impaled on his thick, pulsating cock.

  We both groaned at the tight fit. He held still inside me for several seconds, letting me adjust to his size. And even though we’d fucked like rabbits in Italy, even though this wasn’t our first time, something inside my chest broken open wide, and I felt as if it could be. I wanted it to be.

  Tears sprang to my eyes, tears that made zero sense considering everything that had happened between us. I had an overwhelming urge to savor the moment. To hold him inside me as long as I could. To cement this connection before the outside world could shatter it. Reflexively, I tightened around him, trying to keep him with me, not understanding why I was such an emotional mess when only moments ago, I’d wanted friction and fucking and a rapid release as hot as the sun.

  And then he moved, and all those thoughts slipped right out of my
head.

  I groaned as he drew his hips back so his cockhead dragged along my inner walls, stopping just when he was nearly free of my body, then whimpered when he thrust deep again with a grunt, hitting my G-spot at the perfect angle. Each time he drew out, I tightened around him, increasing every inch of friction, and the orgasm I’d almost reached before came screaming back, overwhelming every one of my senses.

  His thrusts picked up speed. Skin slapped in the darkness. Perspiration dotted my spine. Shaking from the pleasure, I dropped to my elbows, angling my body so he could drive deeper, pushing back against him with each thrust, desperate for the release I knew only he could give me.

  “Don’t stop.” My hands fisted the comforter. My eyes slammed shut. I was close, so close to coming undone. “Please don’t stop.”

  He thrust harder. Deeper. Dug his fingers into my hipbones. “There?”

  Electrical arcs shot all through my body as I rocked back against him. “Yes, oh yes. More.”

  He leaned over my back, wrapped an arm around my waist, and slid his fingers over my clit. “There?”

  “Oh yes.” I lifted my head, loving his hot breath against my neck. My skin was on fire. My body ready to ignite. “More.” He pounded into me and stroked in time with his thrusts, but my orgasm still hovered just beyond my reach, and I groaned because it was close, but for some reason, I couldn’t seem to reach it. “I need more…”

  He drew my earlobe between his lips again and sucked hard. “You can have as much as you want, as often as you want it. Tell me you want it.”

  My body was slicked with sweat, my mind a whir of nothing. I groaned as he continued to fuck me hard and deep, knowing it wasn’t enough. “I want it.”

  “Tell me you want me.”