CATARINA HAD ONLYthe haziest memory of being carried back to her bed, boneless and still half-delirious from pleasure. The whole encounter was a jumble of dreamlike sensations: the press of Massimo’s hard torso on hers; the delicious bliss of his erection between her legs; the rasp of his voice in her ear, taunting, demanding, each word setting off more fireworks inside her. All these came together in an irresistible crescendo too tempting to resist. In the exquisite bliss that followed, he gathered her into his arms with a gentleness that went against everything she knew about him. As she nodded off, clinging to him, the pit of loneliness that sat inside her did not seem as unfathomably deep.
But her memory sharpened the moment Massimo laid her down in her bed. The moment he let go, she looked up at him, silently begging for more, but his expression was an impenetrable mask. Then he was gone. Moments before, she had felt sated, but alone in her bed, the ache inside came back. So quickly and worse than before. In the empty silence of her room she wanted him enough to wake her up after fitful bursts of sleep.
Still, in the light of the morning, Catarina couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Though her late-night adventure had probably made the day in front of her more difficult, the vulnerability quickly faded the moment she realized that, for the first time since her mother’s death, she wanted to play the piano. The piano had been the one place in her life where she was allowed free rein to sort out her feelings, a space where she would be left alone because she was using her time “productively.”
And then, when her mother died, the music stopped. Every time she sat on the piano bench, a tsunami of grief overtook her. The emotions that had always flowed so freely through her body to her fingertips suddenly buried her in a sea of loss.
But today she had awoken with a giddiness, a feeling that her skin was too small to contain the feelings that were running through her. Quickly, she threw a soft sweater over her silk pajamas and rushed downstairs to the grand piano that shimmered in the bright morning light. Here, she could make sense of these sensations that ran through her. Here, she could get them under control. She opened the lid, bracing herself for five years of grief to wash over her. The grief was still there, hovering, but it didn’t cascade onto her the way it had before. Instead, the sensations from the night before came back, punctuated by a burst of hope. Freedom, she told herself. That was what this was; a taste of the long-elusive freedom she had been searching for.
Catarina stared at the keys, suddenly wondering what Massimo would hear as she played. Would he detect these strange layers of old grief and new possibility mixing inside her? Would he know that it was his body, his touch, that had awakened this strange brew of emotions? Everything about this man seemed to be designed to leave her vulnerable. Catarina sat with her back straight and her hands ready, listening to the music that finally played again in her mind and through her body, letting all these thoughts swirl around her.
A creak from the staircase startled her out of this purgatory and into a different one. Catarina swung around, and her heart jumped in her chest. She was entirely unprepared for how it felt to see him again in the clear light of day. He was wearing just a white T-shirt and his perfectly fitted dress slacks that showed off his muscular thighs, the flat planes of his chest and the well-honed contours of his biceps that she had studied so carefully the night before. Massimo had been devastatingly handsome in his white button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his corded forearms, just a suggestion of the physical nuances of his body underneath. But the T-shirt put these nuances into sharp focus. Catarina couldn’t ignore all the ways Massimo filled out the shirt, stretching at the shoulders and pressing against his hard biceps. In these clothes, the businessman disappeared, leaving just the man, and the bandage that peeked out from behind the silky locks of his hair gave him a rougher appeal.
Her breath caught in her throat. Last night had been so very physical, so very real, and something about that had stripped her layers of protection away, leaving her raw. Vulnerable. She called on her years of practiced distance and found those walls far less sturdy than she remembered.
“Do you play?” Massimo nodded to the piano.
“Not recently.”
He tilted his head. “Why?”
This question made her vulnerable in an entirely different way, but she resisted the urge to look away. Powerful men like him were well versed in rooting out people’s vulnerabilities as weapons. The best way forward was frank honesty.
“I haven’t played since my mother died,” she said with a lift of her chin, then braced herself for further prying. He studied her quietly, and his expression softened to what she might, in another man, call gentleness. After a moment, he gave a hint of a nod and asked, “And before that? Did you perform?”
She gave a little laugh. “Only when my parents cajoled me to play a few pieces for guests in our home.”
“The first day we met, you said you didn’t have a taste for performance.”
Catarina was surprised that he had been paying such close attention to what she’d said that day, not between all his orders and demands. A twinge of hope inside her pushed her to continue.
“My father was thrilled at my interest in at least one of the high-value talents that well-bred women of our social standing were supposed to possess,” she said wryly. “And my mother encouraged any and all forms of musical interest in hopes that it might lead me closer to a life of performance, the kind she had enjoyed and excelled at. But I’ve always seen the piano as something for me.”
Somehow, the way he was looking at her now felt just as intimate and dangerous as the unguarded desire in his eyes when she was in his bed, underneath his hard, naked body. This thought was a mistake, because a new jolt of heat ran through her body and made her breaths uneven. Massimo’s eyes narrowed with desire.
“I trust you slept well,” his deep voice called to her as he came closer, sending a new flash of lust through her.
The inquiry was of the most banal nature. Innocent on the surface, but the wicked quirk of his eyebrow made the bubbling heat inside her rush to her cheeks as she flashed to the memory of the delicious weight of his body over hers as she fell apart in his dark bedroom.
Catarina swallowed and gave him what she hoped was a challenging smile. “Are you looking for praise?”
She felt a surge of satisfaction when his eyes flashed with a mix of surprise and humor. But as he came to a stop next to her, his expression shifted to something both arrogant and sexual.
“I was there, Catarina,” he rasped. “I know you enjoyed yourself.”
She rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the heat that flashed through her body. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
He let out a low chuckle. “Are you worried I’m making plans for the next time you show up in my bedroom?”
He said it in that low, seductive voice that suggested he had already thought through said plans. In detail. Her heart pounded in her chest, the way it had the night before. He oozed sensuality, especially when his gaze fixed on her. It was too much. Even under the cover of darkness the night before, she had felt like she was drowning. But in the daylight, there was nowhere to hide when his eyes flashed with undisguised desire. It was like a burst of direct sunlight, and she felt its burn, a warning that suggested the irrevocable harm he could do.
She wanted to create some distance between them, but standing only brought her closer to him. She could simply run away. Part of her wanted to. And yet, something was keeping her in place. Something that kept her there against her will, she told herself. Because wasn’t it freedom she was after? And this, right now, felt like the opposite of freedom. So why wasn’t she running? Catarina searched for an excuse, for something to say that would break this spell.
“I should get you a change of clothes,” she said in a voice that she hoped passed for breezy. “I’ll search the Christmas jumper drawer.”
Massimo simply looked at her, and she felt his gaze penetrate her, as if he was searching for her vulnerabilities and was on the brink of discovering all of them. He parted his lips, and her first thought was that he was going to kiss her. Instead, he spoke.
“You never answered my question last night,cara. Why did you climb into my bed?” His voice was soft and low, coaxing and sensual. A new shiver of desire spread through her. It was simply his physical nearness, she told herself, and the fact that she had never been so close to a man like this, snowbound with no escape. “What do you want?”
