“And you blame that on The Inferno?” she asked in patent disbelief.
“No. Iblame it on bad luck.” He couldn’t tell her the rest. Couldn’t admit that he blamed himself for what happened right before and immediately after his father’s death. That piece of guilt he kept locked tightly away. “I’d just graduated from college. The day after their funeral, Istepped into my father’s shoes. Ispent the first year of my tenure dismantling Dantes and the last decade rebuilding it.”
“I’m so sorry.” She slipped her hand into his and squeezed. Just that, and yet it made all the difference. The connection between them intensified in some indefinable way. Before it had been sheer sex, or so he believed. Now another emotion crept in, one he resisted analyzing. She hesitated a split second before confessing, “I lost my mother, too. Iknow how painful that must have been for you.”
That might explain some of the sorrow he’d seen lurking in her eyes. “How old were you?” he asked.
“Five.” Soft. Abrupt. And a clear message that she had no interest in pursuing the conversation.
Not that he planned to drop it. He’d just approach the subject with more care. “It helped that my brothers and I were older, though at just sixteen, Nicolò had a tough time adapting. Fortunately, Primo and Nonna stepped in, which made a huge difference.” He paused. “What about you? Did your father ever remarry?”
“My parents weren’t together,” she admitted, avoiding his gaze. “I went into foster care.”
Oh, God. He tiptoed across eggshells. “Didn’t the authorities contact him?”
“They didn’t know who he was. Ididn’t find out myself until after I’d graduated from college and hired someone to locate him for me.” She picked up the next picture in the line, putting a clear end to the discussion. Aslight smile eased the strain building around the corners of her mouth. “Primo and Nonna on their wedding day, Iassume?”
“They eloped right before immigrating to the U.S.”
The ancient black-and-white showed a couple arrayed in wedding finery. They looked impossibly young and nervous, their hands joined in a white-knuckle grip. But the photographer managed to catch them in an unguarded moment, as they gathered themselves for a more formal pose. They glanced at each other, as though for reassurance, and the power of their love practically scorched thefilm.
“Nonna didn’t want to escape The Inferno, did she?”
“No.”
Francesca returned the photograph to the table with clear finality. “Well, Ido.” She paced restlessly toward the windows. Once there, she glanced over her shoulder. With the sunlight at her back, her expression fell into shadow. But he could hear the tension rippling through her voice. “I’m not interested in you or the Dante Inferno or having an affair with you. Ijust want to be left alone to pursue my career. This is a distraction I don’t want or need.”
“I wish it were that simple. That I could make it go away for you. But I can’t.”
He wanted to see her, to look into her eyes and know her thoughts. To touch her and reestablish the physical connection between them. Without conscious thought, he joined her at the windows. The instant he slid his palm across her warm, silken skin, his world righted itself.
“Why can’t I just walk away from you and never look back?” she demanded. He heard the turmoil underscoring her question, while hunger battled common sense. And he understood what she felt since it mirrored his own reaction to their predicament. “Why can’t I simply return to the life I built for myself?”
“You can. We both can.” Steely determination enveloped him. “The minute we work this out of our systems.”
Sev swept Francesca up into his arms and carried her to the couch. She murmured a token protest, one lost beneath the series of tiny, biting kisses he scattered along her throat. They tumbled onto cushions that molded to their entwined bodies and enfolded them in a private world of suede-covered down. The buttons of her silk blouse parted beneath his hands, revealing a feminine scrap of lace that struggled to contain her breasts. He couldn’t help himself. He reared back, drinking in the sight.
Two nights ago, he’d seen her by moonlight and thought it impossible for her to look any more stunning than adorned in shades of silver and alabaster. But now, with her hair and skin gilded in sunlit gold, she robbed sense and sensibility with her beauty. Inch by inch, he lowered himself onto her. And inch by inch, the heat they generated soared, an inferno in the making. Given the number of promises he’d made and broken, he half expected her to push him away. Instead, she basked in that heat and wrapped him up in an ardent embrace.
It was as though they’d never left off from the night before last. He reacquainted himself with her mouth, plundering inward. She moaned in welcome and met him with a feminine aggression that sent him straight over the edge. There were too many clothes between them. He yanked at his tie and the first few buttons of his shirt, but somehow he’d lost theability to work past the knot imprisoning him. Instead, he turned his attention to her and unhooked the front clasp of her bra. He filled his hands with her bountiful breasts and her breath escaped in a feveredrush.
“We were supposed to have worked this out of our systems by now,” she gasped.
“We will.” Maybe in a decade or two. “But until then I need your hands on me. Ineed to be inside you again.”
He shifted a knee between her legs and slid the hem of her skirt upward, uncovering acres of smooth, creamy thigh and a tantalizing glimpse of butter-yellow panties. He itched to explore all that lay beneath that scrap of silk. To see those soft curls gilded with sunlight, as well. He ran a finger along the scalloped edging, stroking inward toward dewy warmth until he found the sweet heart ofher.
Francesca groaned in response, arich, feminine, keening sound that called to him on every level and drove him ever closer to the edge. He knew that sound, had heard her make it countless times during the night they’d spent together. But there was another sound he wanted to hear. Needed to hear. The sound she made when she climaxed in hisarms.
She shuddered against his stroking touch and he couldn’t stand it another minute. He needed her. Now. In a single swift move, heskimmed her panties down her thighs and tossed them aside. Next, he ripped his belt free and unfastened his trousers, pausing only long enough to remove the protection he’d had the foresight to stick in his pocket before their meeting. Her hands joined his, helping to free him from the restriction of his clothing. And then she cupped him, her touch cool against the burning length of him. Instead of easing the raging fire, it only served to intensifyit.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so desperate to have a woman that he’d been unable to make it to the comfort of his bedroom. With Francesca, nothing mattered except to have her, right here and now. He lifted her and slid deep inside. Her legs closed around him as she welcomed himhome.
His groan of pleasure mingled with hers, the heavy pounding of his heart in perfect tempo with hers. The breath exploded from her and then he heard her siren’s song, signaling her scramble toward the highest of peaks. He joined her there, calling to her, mating with her, locking them together until he could no longer tell where her body ended and his began.
They moved in perfect harmony, continuing a dance that had begun their first night together. The tempo this time around quickened, turning fast and hard and greedy. He couldn’t get enough of her, not how tightly she clenched around him or how she cushioned him againstthe softness of her woman’s body or how she met each thrust with joyous abandon. Long before he was ready for the encounter to end, she spasmed beneath him, and he found he couldn’t hold back, couldn’t resist going up and over the peak with her before crashing down the other side, holding her tight within hisarms.
Long minutes passed without either of them moving, maybe because movement proved a physical impossibility. Finally, the breath heaving from his lungs, Sev levered himself onto his elbows and gazed down at Francesca.
