“I need to know who.”
Reiko pulled in a shaky breath as his low, faintly muffled words reached her ears. Her hand in his hair slid down toward his neck as he tipped his head back, looking up at her from his knees. Fire burned in his eyes.
“Who did this to you, beautiful?” His question was surprisingly calm for the intensity of his features. “Who put you through this pain? What was their excuse? All of it. Please, baby. If you can tell me, you’ll never have to tell the story again. Not once.”
Her throat constricted. She knew he’d ask. She’d expected it. She had told herself she could say the words, despite her fear of the response. Still, she couldn’t help but to curl her fingers a bit in his hair or twist them in the fabric of his shirt. “That story … will make you angrier.”
Santino’s brow furrowed. He bent forward, this time pressing a kiss to her stomach over her belly button—away from her scar. His hands dragged over her skin, lowering back toward her hips as he rose higher. He was close enough that his face brushed against her boobs in her humiliatingly plain bra, and he dipped in to catch the inner side of one with a wet, open-mouthed kiss. The action was brief but startling, and her flesh was bright red when he lifted off and resumed his ascension. A moment later his tongue hooked over the ridge of her collarbone and he licked that, too, all the way up to her bra strap.
Reiko wasn’t sure if she was about to implode or faint. The physical sensations in her body warred intensely with the emotional ones, all of them leaving her breathless.
He kissed and nipped his way up her throat, teasing the skin and surely leaving marks even as he curved over her jaw. Until, finally, he reached her lips.
She opened for him without thought. Without hesitation. Without question. He’d kissed so much of her, but not yet her lips. She’d never experienced such a strange jealousy.
He didn’t keep her waiting. He crashed his mouth to hers with a deep, throaty groan, his tongue immediately plunging inside. He kissed her like he was famished. Like they were long-lost lovers finally reunited.
Reiko clutched his arms as she leaned into the kiss, her knees buckling from the onslaught of sensation. Never in her life had she been kissed, touched, or remotely treated in such a way. His lips were over hers, his tongue sliding along her own, but he may as well have been making love to her soul.
And she wanted more.
Santino broke the kiss with another groan. “Damn. You’re distracting.” He flashed her a grin.
Reiko sucked in a breath that did little to stabilize her. “That … was your fault.” She attempted a grin of her own, but flirtatious and playful was not something she was experienced in.
Still, he smiled wider.
Until two careful raps sounded from the direction of the doorway.
Reiko’s eyes blew wide and heat rushed over her. She’d completely forgotten he had asked someone to bring them food, and she’d taken her shirt off! Whoever it was was going to think she was just some gold-digging whore throwing herself at the rich pretty boy.
Santino swung them around with an effortless movement and she nearly missed as he reached back and ripped his own, perfectly good, shirt off his head. He handed the bundle of fabric to her, very conveniently in a way that covered nearly all of her exposed front from collar to belly, and said firmly, “Hold this.”
Reiko latched onto the fabric and stared at him.Hold it?
He was already facing forward, standing mostly in front of her. But the table where any food might be delivered was too central for her to be fully hidden. “Enter.”
Two seconds later, one of the doors opened and a middle-aged man probably in his late forties, dressed in a sleek black chef’s coat, coasted into the room carrying a gleaming silver tray. The tray was loaded with plates, pitchers, and glassware.
Reiko flushed harder and tried to surreptitiously shuffle more behind Santino. His shirt kept her body arguably covered—most women displayed more by choice on a beach, to be sure—but she was still embarrassed. And his shirtlessness only added to the vibe of the scene.
The man barely glanced at them as he set the items on the table. “Your lunch, sir,” he said. He set out two plates with identical-looking sandwich offerings, a bowl of sliced apples and grapes, and then the napkins and drink stuffs. What had to be crystal glasses, and two whole pitchers of liquid—one containing what looked like ice water and another something darker, like cold tea. “Is there anything else you require?”
Santino turned his head partly over his shoulder. “You want anything specific, beautiful?”
He was addressing her in front of the man. She had not expected that. Reiko swallowed hard and looked everything over again. She usually did like a cup of tea to help her relax, but she didn’t want to have to go through this twice. “No, thank you.”
Santino dipped his chin and spoke forward. “You’re dismissed, Guiseppi. Take a couple hours. Dinner’s in the air.”
The man inclined his head, still staring downward. “Always appreciated, sir.” He turned, tucked the tray under his arm, and swept from the room. The door made no sound as it closed behind him.
Santino blew out a breath. “Sorry about that. Probably I just should’ve told him to have something ready when we wanted it.” He turned to face her. “You okay, beautiful?”
Reiko flexed her fingers in the shirt she still clung to. The man hadn’t even looked her way, so he couldn’t have seen more than a glimpse of skin tone. Most of which, really, would have been Santino’s.
Her gaze dropped over his torso, finally absorbing the sight her reflexive panic had blocked out. And she very quickly determined any flaws he had were not of the physical variety. His muscles were cut like stone and she suddenly understood why he’d practically climbed up her body with his lips—because she wanted to do the same.
And then her exploring stare snagged on the strangest thing. A blemish. A scar. Not like hers, not large and jagged and ugly, but a scar nonetheless. Shorter, straighter, better healed. And another one, she realized, up higher and on the opposite side of his torso, closer to his lungs. That one looked like a small starburst.
