So I hadn’t sat with her at the fashion show. I’d stood across the room and talked shop with anyone I could find. Then I’d flirted at the after-party with every willing model I could, which hadn’t been difficult since they all knew who I was. Many, even, were more than familiar with my family and were up for any kinky shit I might ask of them. And I’d almost taken one blonde up on her offer. I’d been a heartbeat away from dragging her too-skinny ass into an empty back room and screwing her brains out just so I could stop lusting over my simple and naïve assistant. Until, that is, I spotted Natalie across the room, a drink in hand, a flush to her cheeks, talking quietly with David Bonello.
My blood pumped hot—but not from arousal. Bonello was one of Giovanni’s friends. The two went way back, and they shared the same perverted tastes—and often the same women.
“Excuse me,” I said to the model who could easily have sucked me dry with her collagen-enhanced lips. Turning away from her, I headed across the ballroom. At my back, I heard the model call my name, but I didn’t glance back. All I could see was the piece of shit in my line of sight playing the part of Prince Charming when I knew he was really Lucifer in disguise.
Sonofabitch. I had not dragged the girl halfway around the world to keep her out of Giovanni’s clutches only to have her fall prey to David Fucking Bonello.
“Luc,” Bonello said as I drew close, his black eyes catching sight of me over Natalie’s shoulder. “Your beautiful assistant here was just telling me about your meeting with Valentino this morning.”
I didn’t bother to glance at Natalie as I stepped up next to her, but from the corner of my vision, I caught the way her smile wobbled.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I asked Bonello in Italian, not bothering to hide my contempt. The asshole knew I didn’t like him. He knew, and he’d targeted Natalie on purpose.
Bonello’s eyes narrowed with a familiar, malicious glint, and in Italian, he fired back, “Enjoying myself. Something you should learn to do.”
All I wanted to do was pound my fist through this guy’s nose, but I held back my rage—barely.
“Call the driver and meet me in the lobby,” I said to Natalie in English without looking away from Bonello. “We’re leaving.”
Natalie glanced from me to Bonello. “But—”
“Do it,” I snapped, still not looking at her.
Her face reddened. I knew I’d just humiliated her and that she was pissed, but I didn’t give a shit. Quietly, she said, “Good night, David,” and turned to leave.
As the sound of her footsteps faded at my back, I watched Bonello watching her. He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “That is one very fine piece of ass,” he said in Italian. “If you’re not gonna fuck her, Salvatici, there are plenty of us who can.”
The cap on my fury blew free. I captured Bonello by the throat and slammed him up against the column at his back. Bonello’s eyes flew wide with surprise, and the glass of champagne in his hand shot from his fingers and shattered against the marble floor to my left. The group of models chatting in a cluster nearby yelped and jerked away from the broken glass. Voices in the ballroom quieted, and at my back, I knew all eyes were watching, but I barely cared.
“Touch her, and I’ll kill you,” I growled in a low voice.
Bonello’s soulless gaze locked on mine, no longer shocked but calculating. “She means something to you. Interesting.”
I tightened my hand around his throat, silently cursing my short temper and the fact I’d reacted without thinking. “She’s my assistant. That makes her my responsibility, and I don’t need her distracted from her job. She’s not a fuck toy for you or anyone else.”
“News flash, Salvatici.” His eyes darkened until they were nothing but hard cold pieces of coal filled with the promise of retribution. “They’re all fuck toys, and you know it.”
Fury coiled tight in my muscles as I held him against the pillar, but I forced myself to relax my grip and finally release him. I’d made my point. He knew not to cross me. “Stay away from her,” I said in a low voice.
Bonello rolled his shoulder, and as his gaze held mine, a cocky grin pulled at his lips. One that told me he’d absolutely go after Natalie again as soon as my back was turned. “Good talk, Luc.” Casually, he slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks and moved away. “You have a pleasant evening now.”
I watched the asshole stroll across the ballroom toward the bar, my heart pumping hard, my body still tight and ready for a fight. Disgust rolled through my gut with the force of a tidal wave. In this sea of immorality, Bonello had managed to zone in on the only truly decent person here, as if she’d been wearing a flashing neon sign that screamed Innocent. I couldn’t be satisfied with only keeping her close to me at night. From now on out, I’d have to keep her close every other hour of the fucking day as well.
A string of expletives filled my head as I clenched my jaw and moved through the crowd, heading toward the lobby door where Natalie—the current source of every one of my fucking frustrations—waited outside with the car. I didn’t want this girl anywhere near me. I didn’t want her in my world at all. But for the immediate future, I was stuck with both.
She was already in the back of the town car when I exited the building. I slid into the backseat, careful not to look at her to my left, just as careful to stay on my own damn side so I didn’t accidentally touch her. At the moment, I wasn’t sure what that would do to me.
She sat a foot away—still too close for my liking—and stared out the window as we headed back to the hotel, seething, I knew, at the way I’d treated her. I tried to bite my tongue—I really did—but that fucking dress rode too damn high on her thigh, tempting not only me but every other sick sonofabitch out there, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“If that man is at any other event we’re attending,” I said in a low voice, keeping my gaze locked out my window, “you’re not to talk to him, you’re not to look at him, you’re to stay the hell away from him.”
Her head swiveled my way, and from the corner of my vision, I saw the way her deep blue eyes narrowed with veiled anger. “I’m not to? Is that an order?”
“Yes, it’s a fucking order,” I snapped, pinning my gaze on her and wishing that I hadn’t, because the defiance lurking in her eyes only fired me up more and made me want to bend her over my knee to teach her a lesson.
I didn’t care if she’d done a good job today. All I could think about was David Bonello and what the fucker could have done to her if I’d disappeared with that model as I’d planned. “While you’re working for me, you’ll do every single thing I say, and if you defy me, I’ll toss you on the first damn flight back to Idaho. If I tell you not to look at someone, you won’t look. If I tell you to hurry the hell up, you’ll bust your ass. And if I tell you not to dress like a slut, you’ll fucking listen. I don’t want to see that dress on you again.”
Her eyes flew wide with shock, and her teeth ground together, turning her delicate jaw to a hard slice of steel beneath her skin. I could literally see the rage rolling through her, threatening to consume her, just as it had in my office that day when I’d told her she wasn’t Covet material, but she didn’t let it out. She snapped her head away from me and stared out the window once more, every muscle in her body tight, her hand curled into a fist against her bare thigh.
My body vibrated as I waited, watching her across the car. Somewhere inside me, I wanted her to fight back, though I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t like women who were headstrong and independent. I liked them kinky and submissive, both things I knew she wasn’t. I didn’t like to be challenged, and she seemed to want to challenge me on every front—except this one.
The contradicting thoughts whipping through my head didn’t settle my roaring pulse. All they did was fucking confuse me.
Forcing my gaze away from her, I stared out my window as we wound back up the hill toward the hotel, knowing the driver had heard every word we’d said. Focusing on that
—instead of the alluring, pissed, insanely sexy woman next to me—I wondered who the driver was loyal to. In this country, I couldn’t trust anyone. A fact that only enraged me more.
We pulled up in front of the hotel. Natalie popped her door open before the driver brought the car to a complete stop, climbed out, and rounded the car toward the lobby doors. Drawing in a breath for patience, I told the driver not to bother getting out. I opened my own door and followed her into the hotel.
Her heels clicked ahead of me on the marble floor as she made a beeline straight for our private elevator. I didn’t think it was possible, but she was even more appealing to me now, fired up and spitting mad, a fact my body recognized because it was heating up all over again. Except now that we were away from that party and back at the hotel where I knew she was safe, my own anger had dampened, cooling down at least one part of my brain, leaving me feeling like shit.
“Merda.” I rubbed a hand across my forehead, trying to figure out what it was about this girl that made me so insane. My goal in bringing her on this trip had been to piss her off so she’d run home to Idaho, right? I’d done that tonight. So why the fuck did I feel guilty about it?
Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest as she stood at the elevator, waiting for the car. I reached her just as the double doors opened. Jaw tight, she moved inside and stepped toward the wall, standing as far from me as possible.
Sighing, I followed her in and slid my hands into the pockets of my slacks as I tried to come up with something—anything—to say to diffuse the explosive situation I’d created. I couldn’t think of one damn thing. All I knew was that regardless of my goal where she was concerned, I didn’t want to spend the next week—or however long she decided to stay—at war with her.
The elevator doors opened, and she immediately stepped out of the car and moved through the living room of the suite with quick steps, heading right for her bedroom.
Fuck it. “Natalie, stop.”
Her shoulders tightened, but she listened and stilled in front of her door.
In the silence, I was achingly conscious of the fact it was the first time I’d spoken her name aloud. Every other time I’d addressed her, I’d called her Ms. James, but after tonight—after everything today that had gone through my head—Ms. James no longer seemed to fit.
“When I tell you to do something, I do so for a specific reason.” Dammit, I didn’t owe her an explanation. I just wanted her to get it. But I also recognized that for her to “get it,” I needed to cool the fuck down. “The man you were speaking to at the party is not a friend. He’s dangerous. I do not want you anywhere near him.”
She didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. Didn’t give any indication she’d heard me. Just stood still as a stone facing away from me.
I tipped my head, a little ticked by that fact and even more turned on because it was definitely an act of defiance. She’d kept her mouth shut in the car, she was keeping it shut here as well, but she was challenging me just the same. In a way that made my dick absolutely ache.
“Did you hear me?” I asked calmly, itching for her to turn around and lay into me, though why, I didn’t know. I craved a physical altercation with her almost as much as I craved her hot little body. Was so excited by the idea of it, my blood was practically humming. “Natalie, answer me.”
“Yes, I heard you, Beast. Loud and clear.”
Those eight simple words roared like fire through my blood, shooting me forward. She reached for the door handle of her room and the freedom it contained, but before she could even turn the knob in her hand, I was on her, my fingers closing over her wrist to prevent her from opening the door, my body pressed up against her back, pinning her between wood and vibrating stone.
She sucked in a surprised breath and stared down at my hand wrapped tightly around her slender wrist, but didn’t move.
I could feel her pulse thump faster with every heartbeat where I held her. Could hear her shallow, scared breaths as her sexy spine brushed against my chest. And I could smell her excitement all around me, making me light-headed, making me ache, making me hunger with a need I was afraid only she could sate.
“What did you call me?” I asked in a low voice, challenging her to say it again, hoping and praying that she wouldn’t so this volatile lust suddenly churning inside me wouldn’t detonate into something I couldn’t control.
For several moments, she didn’t move. And then, instead of cowering like I wanted her to do, she shifted around to face me so her back pressed into the door and her breasts grazed my shirt.
My pulse jumped at the light contact, but I didn’t step back. Didn’t release her wrist against the door handle, and she didn’t try to wriggle free or put space between us either. She lifted her chin and locked her gaze with mine. Defying me with those gorgeous eyes all over again.
“I didn’t call you anything.” Her hot breath tickled my mouth, drawing my gaze to her succulent lips. “I said yes I heard you, at least. Loud and clear.”
The phrase sounded idiotic—not something a smart girl like Natalie James would say—and it forced my gaze away from her tempting lips and back up to her eyes. And that was when I saw it. The smug victory in those glittery blue pools that said she’d won.
From anyone else, that look would have enraged me because I didn’t let others win. Even when I was cornered—as I was currently with Covet—I always found a way to come out on top. But this girl… For some reason, I wasn’t enraged by her now. I was amused. That haughty little spark in her eye that said she thought she’d beat me shattered the rest of my anger and tugged one corner of my lips up into a smile.
She’d called me a beast. I hadn’t missed that. And I couldn’t stop myself from wondering just how long she’d been thinking of me as a beast or how long she’d been thinking about me period.
“Am I dismissed now?” she asked in a superior voice, her gorgeous eyes still filled with defiance and victory. “Or do you want to order me around some more?”
My whole body hardened. Yes, I wanted to order her around. I wanted to order her to her knees. I wanted to order her to suck me dry with that insolent little mouth. I wanted to order her to bend at the waist and slide her dress up like a naughty girl so I could shove my cock inside her and fuck her until we both screamed.
But mostly I wanted her.
Slowly, because I was afraid of what that realization might make me do next, I released her wrist and moved back. Cool air washed over my palm, replacing all her sultry heat, leaving me feeling empty in a way I didn’t expect. I fought back the disappointment letting her go shot through me, though, and told myself I was doing the right thing, but my voice was tight as shit when I said, “Yes, you’re dismissed, Ms. James.”
For a heartbeat she didn’t move, but something that looked a lot like her own disappointment shone in her eyes. And when her gaze slid down my body and held on my straining erection, I thought I saw it shift to desire.
She moved before I could figure out what I’d seen, slipped into her room, and slammed the door in her wake. And as I stood still staring at where she’d been, wondering what the hell had just happened, I realized that defiance she kept showing me wasn’t a product of her hatred for me as I’d thought. It was hunger. Raw, primal, erotic hunger. The same kind of hunger I felt every moment I was near her.
The little minx wanted me as much as I wanted her.
My mouth went dry because that knowledge didn’t just light me up like a firecracker, it terrified me right down to the core of my soul.
She had no idea what kind of beast I really was, but I did. And if I didn’t do something to stop this combustible attraction between us, Giovanni wouldn’t be the biggest threat to her safety.
I would be.
Chapter Eight
Natalie
The Beast had smiled at me.
No, he hadn’t just smiled when I’d stood up to him outside my bedroom door; he’d looked downright pleased.
I couldn’t get that
look out of my head. I’d tossed and turned most of the night, wondering what I’d seen in his face, what it meant, what he’d been thinking in that moment, and why his gaze had lingered on my lips for so long. And even though I hadn’t wanted to, I’d dreamt about it. About what he would have done if, instead of running like a cornered animal, I’d pressed my lips to his. If I’d ripped open his shirt, if I’d explored every inch of his skin and muscle and play of bone with my fingers and tongue and teeth. If I’d devoured him the way his eyes had seemed to devour me.
I’d dreamt about it for two freaking nights and imagined it during two days of meetings and endless fashion shows. And just thinking about it now made me hot and bothered all over again. Shifting my back against the aged plaster wall where I stood on the edge of the vast room, I waited for Luc to finish his meeting with Bianca, a representative from Bandini, with wavering patience.
I was desperate for this private showing of their upcoming line to end. Desperate to get out of this room. Desperate for any kind of movement to cool myself down. The slacks and blouse I’d chosen from the outfits Luc’s stylist had left for me felt claustrophobic. After his little rant in the car the other night about my dress, I’d gone for conservative instead of comfortable the past two days, and I was sweltering in the cloistering clothing as a result. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure my body temperature had little to do with the outfit and summer heat spilling through the wide open doors that led out to a loggia, and everything to do with the fact I couldn’t stop fantasizing about that stupid dream and the frustrating-as-hell man who’d inspired it.
That man currently stood across the room chatting with the sharply dressed Bianca while three models swept in and out in different ensembles. He’d removed his suit jacket in the car on the ride to our second appointment today, tugged off his tie, and rolled his dress shirt up to his forearms, telling me with a sexy half grin that it was too hot today for so many layers. I knew it was hot, dammit. I didn’t need an announcement about it, I’d been sweating all freakin’ day. And I definitely didn’t need him to be nice to me, but for some insane reason, that was what he’d been ever since our confrontation in the car—nice, pleasant, even agreeable all yesterday and on the drive outside the city to this private estate today.