Her body bowed, her legs shook, and her scream remained locked behind his rough fingers. He took her roughly, with barely any rhythm but a madness he was chasing, molding her body into what he needed.
As his thrusts became faster, his free palm moved from her chest to her clit. When climax broke her apart, when he groaned at his own release, when he picked her up and carried her to the tub and washed her body as if she were infinitely precious, Sam didn’t have any thoughts or words left.
All she wanted was more days like these. More moments like this.
Her greedy heart wanted forever with the man who made her feel gloriously alive.
A few days had passed in a hazy, dreamy blur along with hot, steamy nights when Alessandro walked to Sam’s studio on the second floor and stalled at the threshold.
For once, she wasn’t at the easel, covered in paint like he usually found her. Found her and then distracted her whether she was done or not.
He’d had the room emptied and tidied because three walls were all-glass doors and the lighting in here was perfect. It had once been his mother’s craft room, Papà had informed him. But he had no memory of her, neither did it hold any kind of sentimental value for him.
Now he could think of it as nothing but Sameera’s studio. And when she left… The thought ran around in his head like a bullet ricocheting against the walls of an empty chamber, looking for a target.
But there was nothing to pin down, he reminded himself. He was able to feel this much, take all of what she gave because this was only a small pocket of time. If she were truly his for the rest of their lives, he didn’t think he could survive the intensity of his feelings. Nor would she.
Months, or maybe years from now, the memories associated with this room, memories of Sam during this time, would simply fade. She’d become an interesting highlight in his past.
He knew why he was thinking such morose thoughts too. The banquet that was held for the cancer research foundation he’d established in Violetta’s memory was tonight.
Though, tonight, he didn’t want to think of the woman that had slipped away from his life. Tonight, as much as he couldn’t skip the banquet, his mind constantly dwelled on Sam. As it had done since her arrival.
She was standing on the small balcony that the French doors led to. The smock she’d tied around her neck left her back bare except for the strap of her bra. The low-slung shorts hugged her bony hips and curvy ass, the only place she wasn’t skinny, which she’d flashed and jiggled and rubbed up against him since she’d discovered it was his weakness, the cunning minx.
The shimmery orange of dusk’s rays picked up the golden highlights in her hair, the result of a salon visit with Angelina.
Their friendship, as strangely as it had begun, didn’t surprise Alessandro. For her youth—well, relative youth, he corrected in his head because she didn’t like it when he called heryoung—Sam had an innate ability to empathize with people that made everyone like her.
Her elbows resting on the sill, she looked thoughtful.
“Sam?”
She turned and blinked, but he didn’t miss the sheen of tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he said, cutting the distance between them with long strides.
Leaning back against the balcony, she swept her gaze over him, a tremulous smile coasting her lips. “Every time I think you couldn’t be any sexier, you prove me wrong. You know what the tuxedo makes me want to do?”
“What,bella?” he asked, knowing that she was distracting him. It was a miracle that they’d managed to learn anything about each other at all. She was as secretive as he was. As stubborn as he.
“It makes me want to rumple you up. But then I think, nope the world can have this sophisticated version of you. The hungry, savage version is mine.”
The raw, naked claiming both excited and tethered him, as always. “Give me a few hours and I’m all yours.”
Reaching her, he pulled her until her back was against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her waist.
She fought a little first—a symptom of her clear upset, but he didn’t relent.
It was strange how he was the one who had resisted touching her like this, outside of sex, and yet, now she was the one who fought any kind of tenderness or affection. Initially, he had worried that he had scared her with his unrestrained need at all hours. Nearly three weeks hadn’t remotely dampened the intensity of his sexual hunger.
But no, she demanded release, she demanded every tender and filthy thing he could do to her, as insatiable as he was.
Still, something had made her spirit dim just a little, and he could not bear it. While he continued in the same vein outwardly, a quiet panic was beginning to build inside. That she was changing, that she was leaving soon. That she…
“Whatever it is that has been upsetting you these past few days,” he said, holding her a little too tight, “we shall fix it, Sam. Together.”
“How sweetly you make that offer, Mr. Ricci,” she said, turning to look at him. Her fingers traced his lips while her gaze did the same to his features. “But we both know life doesn’t bend to our whims. Not even to arrogant, powerful Italians whose kisses are pure sin.”
