One Night: Sizzling Attraction: Married for Amari's Heir / Damaso Claims His Heir / Her Secret, His Duty. Annie West
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“Did you sleep with someone else?” Her chest tightened painfully.
“No,” he said, his tone definitive.
The knot loosened slightly, her heart pounding hard. “Don’t lie to me. Not about that.”
“I have no reason to. You know that.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Don’t lie to me. And don’t sleep with anyone else.”
He put his palm on her cheek, his dark brows drawing together. “Forever, cara mia? That’s an awfully long time. I doubt either of us can predict the future quite that well.”
She couldn’t imagine ever wanting another man. But then...she was inexperienced. He was not. She couldn’t fathom it now—but maybe someday.
But she doubted it. “Then at least not while you’re sleeping with me.”
“I promise,” he said, his tone grave.
It was enough for her. It was enough for now. So she leaned in and kissed him, leaning in to his lips, to his promises, to his decadence. Because she was tired of wanting.
And in Rocco there was satisfaction. So she was determined to seize it.
For as long as possible.
* * *
Rocco was certain he had left some of his sanity back in that bed. Back beneath the covers with Charity. And for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to be disturbed by that.
He had promised her fidelity.
Granted, he didn’t think he could make his body respond to another woman even if his brain wanted him to. Hell, he knew he couldn’t. He had tried. He had failed.
Even so, he didn’t promise such things to women. Because he knew they might start thinking that they had a more permanent place in his life than they did. Though, if any woman had a permanent place in his life it was Charity. Not as his lover, certainly, but as the mother of his child.
As his lover... She was incredibly beautiful. Incredibly responsive. And right now he couldn’t imagine preferring anyone over her. But sex was all about satisfying the immediate need. And he had no idea how his immediate needs might shift over the course of the next few weeks. He had never practiced long-term commitment. And he didn’t intend to start now.
But he would honor his promise. His promise not to take anyone else to bed, as long as she was in it.
He didn’t want to hurt her. Which brought him back to his missing sanity.
He couldn’t even regret it. She was too beautiful. But it was more than beauty. There were many beautiful women in the world, and he had been with a good percentage of them.
It was everything she was. Her inexperience, combined with her enthusiasm. The smooth perfection of her coffee-colored skin, a confection so sweet he could lick every inch of it and never be satisfied.
He wanted to buy her something. A necklace. He could envision it now. Something with a heavy pendant that would settle in the valley between her breasts. He could picture her wearing that and nothing else.
Damn, he was obsessed.
And he was beginning to think he might want to bring her to the gala he was attending this weekend. He never brought dates to such events. It was a chance to find a woman for a night of fun, not come shackled.
But he was well and truly shackled, so he might as well embrace it. He had always enjoyed showing off his new things, after all.
A new car, a new villa, new suit and tie even. He liked those outward shows of power. Those claims to his new life that couldn’t be taken from him. And he liked others to see them.
Perhaps it would do him well to show Charity off, as well. His newest acquisition.
For some reason the idea of it sent a wave of satisfaction through him, a sharp adrenaline rush that always came from adding another thing to his collection. The kind of rush he never experienced over a woman, because sex, while enormously satisfying, was cheap and easy to come by. The woman never mattered, only that he got what he wanted.
Though, Charity mattered. If only because she was the mother of his child. Really, he could not come up with another reason why she should. Unbidden, his thoughts flashed back to the afternoon he’d spent in bed with her. It was difficult to pretend that didn’t matter. The taste of her, the scent of her. Every damn thing about her. The way her black curls tumbled over his pillow, as untamed and wild as she was.
Just thinking about her got him hard.
He shifted, adjusting his position at his desk. She had him acting like a schoolboy. It was disturbing. But delicious in its way. If only because he couldn’t remember enjoying anything quite so much at any other point in his life.
Yes, he would bring her to the gala. And he would take her out today to find a dress. She said she had had a lack of decadence in her life, and he would see to it that it was rectified.
He would mourn the lost time with her in the bedroom. But she had scarcely been out of the villa since they’d arrived in Italy, and he wanted her to have a chance to experience the beauty of his home country. A smile curved his lips. He would make a private appointment at a boutique in town. That way if he had a desire to remove every gown after she tried them on, they would not be disturbed.
He reached toward his phone, his decision made.
Adrenaline fired through his blood as he thought of what it would be like to walk into the gala with Charity on his arm. A clear and outward sign of his possession. And yes, he did want to possess her. There were a few things he was uncertain about these days, but at the moment that wasn’t one of them.
She would be his. On that score there was no uncertainty.
* * *
Charity had been surprised by Rocco’s abrupt announcement that they were going out. Mainly because every time he had walked into the room over the past couple of days it had ended, not in them going out, but in them getting naked and satisfying their need for each other on the nearest available surface. Not that she was complaining.
It was a strange thing, to have shared so much physically with someone while exchanging so few words. To exchange such deep, intense intimacies without the common intimacies you could simply speak.
Even so, it was more than she had with anyone else in her life. More than she had ever had. And he was doing strange things to her heart, twisting it around, cinching it in tight, making her feel as though she couldn’t breathe.
She was surprised when today he hadn’t taken her clothes off. He had ushered her into his car instead. And now he was driving them into the heart of the village that was down the mountain from the villa. She had done absolutely no exploring of their surroundings, not since he had driven her up to his home at the beginning of the week.
He maneuvered the car effortlessly through the narrow cobblestone streets, coming to a stop in front of a shop with an unassuming facade. Red brick and the wooden trim all painted in black with a round sign hanging above the door.
“We have an appointment,” he said, putting the car in Park and killing the engine before getting out. He rounded to her side of the car and held the door open for her, the show of chivalry unexpected and dangerous to her already-vulnerable heart. A sense of warmth joined the squeezing feeling.
“To do what? You realize that you have been very cagey. Possibly more cagey than I am on a daily basis. And that’s saying something.”
He smiled, something he was doing with more and more frequency these days. “It’s a surprise.”
Her stomach tightened, hope mingling with fear. Because things just didn’t come through in her life. Surprises had never been anything good. And she was afraid to hope now that they might be.
She didn’t understand this