“I donothave a concussion.” He and his brother had gotten into more than enough fights in the back halls of their boarding school to gauge that this was far from a concussion. “But feel free to continue your…inspection of me.” He found that he was enjoying all her focused attention.
She took a step back, and her gaze traced his face until he could almost swear it settled on his lips. The stir of desire surged inside him, and he allowed himself to lean into that feeling. Massimo had not forgotten that moment in the d’Avalos library, when she’d looked at him like she was overflowing with innocent desire.
Her long, slim throat was exposed, and the pulse at the base of it was even faster than before. The vulnerability with her father was difficult to wield and certainly contained many unknowns. This baser kind of vulnerability he understood completely. He knew from a lifetime of watching his parents that passion could override everything else. He’d watched his father make decisions that put that reckless desire before his sons, his future and his family name. Maybe desire could make Catarina reckless, too.
Her eyes begged for things she probably didn’t even know how to name. There was naked, raw want in her gaze, want that was already overriding her desire to keep her distance. Massimo told himself he knew exactly how to handle this, to keep it under control and use it as a tool. Even if the situation had veered much too far from his control today. But he could sort that out later.
Instead, he focused on the tempting heat that sparked in her gaze. He leaned forward and let his eyes dip to her mouth, watching the way it parted slowly as he lowered his head. Her eyes widened as he closed the distance between them, but she didn’t move away. Instead, she leaned closer, bringing those lush lips only inches away from his. Her soft breaths came faster, brushing over his skin, kicking his own desire up a notch. But this was nothing he couldn’t handle.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Though she was innocent, Massimo had no doubt she knew what he was doing. He let a satisfied grin spread across his lips.
“You treated my wound,” he said, his voice rasping deeper. “I’m thanking you properly.”
And then he closed the last distance and let his mouth press against hers. He had meant it to just be a brush of his lips, a temptation of sorts to hint at the untapped pleasure between them that could lure her into submission. But the moment his lips touched hers, they were suddenly back in her library, with Catarina’s voice ringing inside him, so lovely and captivating, and the smell of aging leather contrasting with roses and the salty sea-like scent that flooded him when she was close. His last coherent thought was that she had somehow managed to turn the tables on him, that he was losing control. Then everything came together in a resounding chorus that rang inside him once again, the song he had been resisting since she had appeared surrounded in a halo of snow:mine.
His mouth brushed over hers just once, but the caress of his lips triggered an earthquake of unsettling heat that raced through her body. Before she could steady herself enough to fully register these sensations, the heat turned to an ache that pooled in her breasts and between her legs.Just a man, she tried to remind herself. And yet, as this imposing man hovered over her, these sensations threated to overwhelm her body. There was nojustabout him.
Since Massimo had stepped out of the car, she had watched a combination of frustration and confusion flicker across his face, but she had also seen hints of what she could have sworn was curiosity. Interest. Maybe she had misjudged him…or maybe this was her imagination, triggered by the idea of fairy-tale marriages. And happy endings, she reminded herself. That had set off a molten cascade through her that gathered deep in her belly. Now, standing so close, she wasn’t prepared for the way his eyes narrowed imperceptibly with desire, the way they turned dark, filling with a bottomless hunger that called to her. She wasn’t prepared for the craving it awoke in her, the way it cut through marriage bargains and stifling expectations, calling to a part of her that couldn’t resist feeding that hunger.
She pulled back slightly, taking him in. Up close, Massimo was breathtakingly beautiful. Until now, Catarina had not fully registered the way this man made it feel as though the ground under her feet was unstable. The cut she had attended to wasn’t his first injury, she noted. Above his left eyebrow, a thin white line marred the bronze skin of his forehead, jagged and long-since healed, and his nose had a rugged look to it, as if it had been broken at some point. The remains of old injuries only served to highlight the beauty of his face, the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the square line of his jaw, the impossibly long lashes that softened the brooding intensity of his eyes. And then there were his lips. They were two sensual, carnal promises that lit her body and left her fingers trembling with an ache to touch them. God, she wanted to touch them. She was caught between temptation and warning, because though she did not know exactly what those lips promised, she knew she wanted it. Maybe even needed it.
Catarina had been on dates, of course, with appropriate men, and on the whole, she found these dinners exactly what they were supposed to be: entertaining and civilized. Somehow, she had mistaken these experiences for attraction. But what she’d felt during those well-mannered evenings had nothing in common with this sensation that her body was not enough to contain the heat that rushed through her. When he was sitting on the chair, looking at her as she tended to his wound, Massimo’s nearness had felt uncomfortably intimate. But now, as he towered over her, she felt a different kind of intimacy, a different promise that made her shiver. It was a promise too much to even contemplate and she instinctually knew she needed to stay far away.
Catarina was so aware of how close they were and how alone they were, so far from the structures of her life. This house in the mountains was a place that was her own, a place that had always meant independence, but right now, she was so far from the freedom she craved. And though she tried to tell herself that she would run again from him if she could, she knew that this was a lie.
Back in her library, she had still been in the thrall of her fantasies, partly rooted in the fairy tale of a man she had seen from afar at sixteen, and partly rooted in the freedom that she assumed would come from that marriage. But here in the mountains, without her father nearby, watching to assess the probable outcomes of a favorable marriage contract, Massimo Carandini was viscerally real.
She wanted to move closer. Her whole body was alive with a craving that narrowed her focus to this man in front of her. What would happen if she kissed the hollow at the base of his neck, the place where his heartbeat ticked its relentless reminder that he was a red-blooded man whose physical presence called to her?
He was hovering right above her, his lips just out of reach, and a sudden panic welled up inside her. Would he pull back? Wouldshepull away if she thought any of this through? Before doubts could take over, she slid her hand down his cheek, feeling the smooth, soft skin, where it met the roughness of the stubble. The heat of him shot through her body, and she felt more alive than she had in years.
This was that craving that had swept through her in her library, a room filled with the oppressive weight of her mother’s death and her father’s overbearing designs on her life. This was the craving she had felt when she had kissed him, that gentle brush of her lips against his skin. She was alive and not alone, and even if this feeling only lasted for this fleeting moment, she would not back away. Catarina cupped her other hand to his cheek, holding his face in her hands, and urged his lips back to hers. Just one more time, she thought, just so she didn’t doubt it was real, the way she did last time. Just so she didn’t regret letting this moment slip away. Because whatever regrets she had over the past twenty-four hours, his kiss definitely wasn’t one of them.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she rose to her toes. It was hard to breathe when she was this close, and yet it felt impossible to pull away. His eyes narrowed, as if warning her away, then widened when she didn’t retreat. She focused on his lips. They seemed to call to her, so she answered, pressing her mouth against his. He didn’t move. He didn’t respond, and for a moment, she thought he would push her away. But suddenly, before she could sense the shift in him, his arms slipped around her neck and into her hair, and he was kissing her back. Sensations rushed through her body, flashes of heat that lived just under her skin, addictive and demanding. He parted his lips, and she gasped as his tongue swept against hers, so intimate and sexual. A craving was building deep inside her, a longing, a chasm that had opened inside her. Sheneeded. Massimo let out a low rumble, somewhere between pleasure and frustration. Then his strong hands moved through her hair and pulled her closer. He tilted his head to deepen the kiss, and all semblance of thoughts disappeared.
Then, suddenly and achingly abruptly, he pulled back. His hands braced her shoulders, as if he was physically forcing himself away, despite the connection that sparked and sizzled between them. There was a wild look in his eyes, something new and so out of control that it made her breath catch in her throat. The sound seemed to break the connection. The wild look disappeared, morphing into something more familiar. It was triumph.
“What are you playing at,cara?” he said in a lazy drawl.
She blinked in confusion.
“Playing at?” she finally whispered. Her voice shook, and she was so far from under control.
“You tell me you didn’t want me to follow you here, and then you kiss me as if you’re inviting me into your bed.” His eyes flared with lust as he spoke those words, as if he, unwillingly, was thinking about their kiss again, and exactly where it could lead. He shook his head, and that sheen of desire disappeared from his eyes.
“Which is it, Catarina?” he said, his voice low and seductive. “What do you really want?”
She stared at him. Whatwasshe doing? As a child, her mother had encouraged her to follow her desires and passions, but what would her mother say if she saw Catarina now, awash with a hunger that had pulled her under for a few blissful moments? All the details about this man, details she had been trying so hard to ignore since he arrived, bombarded her: the way his shoulders stretched against the seams of his well-tailored shirt; the hints of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes; the traces of whiskers on his clean-shaven skin; and the scent of him, with hints of pine, masculine in a way that felt undeniably sexual. Now that she had kissed him, she couldn’t stop thinking about this. This was something elemental, as if a part of her was opening, a part that she never knew existed. Also, she was snowbound with Massimo inside this house. There was no way they could leave tonight, which meant they would be spending the night under the same roof. Just the two of them. The night before, when she had fallen into bed alone, this towering house had felt as if it echoed with emptiness. Now Massimo’s presence made it feel stiflingly small.
Everything about him felt sexual, and it lit her body on fire in a way that she could not ignore. And yet, she had to. This was the man who wanted to take away her freedom, she reminded herself.
Massimo raised his eyebrows expectantly, as if daring her to answer him. But she was in control of her voice. Her voice was one of the tools she had learned to use, a skill, if properly honed, that had the power to cut through the forces that steered her life. Her mother had taught her this lesson. A voice was power, a power that could be wielded within the confines of Catarina’s position. Though she had none of her mother’s ambition to sing on stage, she had learned to sing in her own ways.
Catarina felt a sudden urge to laugh, but it came out as a bitter, humorless sound of exasperation. “What am I playing at? I recommend you reassess the situation.”
She didn’t even know where to start with how wrong his accusation ofplayingwas. Yes, she had continued his kiss, but only after he’d kissed her and looked at her in a way that made her feel like he was going to devour her. What was his expectation? That she would sit back and wait for him to take the lead on everything, starting with the terms of their marriage all the way down to how and when they kissed? How very arrogant of him, to assume that even that last space between their lips should have been under his control, that she should act according to his unspoken parameters. It was almost as if he did not consider her as a person, with her own will. This was her worst nightmare. So why did her body burn like he was exactly what she wanted? She pushed that question out of her mind.
