Their teeth banged. Their lips nipped and bit.
His thigh lodged between hers, hard muscle rubbing against the apex of her sex. Just where she desperately needed it. “Dannazione, Pia.” His forehead leaned against hers, his warm breath feathering over her face. “Come to bed, cara mia. I will happily show you how much power you have over me. We could spend all day in bed and by nighttime, you would know whether you like me above you, or under you or behind you.
I will show you how to use that sweet, deceiving mouth to drive me to the edge. I will show you what I can do to you here—” he emphasized by rubbing at the spot that ached for his attention “—that will…”
A rush of wetness filling her sex, Pia drew a sharp breath. And stumbled away from Raphael. The man could seduce her just with words.
And like her, he was breathing hard. His pupils dilated, his nostrils flaring, as if he had just engaged in a physical fight. The front of his trousers was tented and when her gaze lingered there, his growl was feral.
Raphael undone—or at least close to—was the most glorious sight she’d ever seen.
Swallowing away the longing burning through every inch of her, she slowly wiped the moisture from her lips with the back of her hand. “I know you want to spend the day with Alyssa and I have to study. But I’ve been dying to see one of the cars you’ve restored,” she added. Proving to herself that she could affect him just as much as he did her was a small victory. But having won the battle, she wasn’t really interested in the war.
A vein pulsing in his jaw, he stared at her for so long that Pia wondered if she had pushed him too far. “Friday evening.”
When he passed by her without touching her again, her heart sank.
“And Pia?”
“Si, Raphael?”
“You will be my wife, and I know how to exact retribution.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
TORTURE BEGAN TO take on a new personal meaning for Raphael over the next month, thanks to his unofficial fiancée’s unwillingness to let him give them both what they desperately needed.
If he had thought Pia biddable, she had proved he was utterly wrong. Dio mio, under the naive, smiling, ready-to-please demeanor was a core of steely stubbornness.
When she’d said she wanted to spend time with him, she’d meant it. And not in his ex-wife or mama and sisters kind of way, where what they wanted was for him to show them off in their designer gowns, the latest of Milan’s haute couture fashion, at parties, and theaters. Where they could show off their connection with Raphael Mastrantino, CEO of Vito Automobiles, a man with powerful friends.
With them, it was always about the glitter he could add to their standing in society. It was the veneer of power that spread to them when they could claim a connection to him. It was what Raphael could provide and nothing else.
But with Pia, Dio, when she’d said she wanted to spend time with him, she’d meant she wanted time with him. Learning about him. The two of them hanging out with each other.
It had become Raphael’s favorite phase in all of the English language.
She had insisted that he show her the vintage car he was restoring currently. So Raphael had taken her to his house in Como one afternoon. What he’d expected was for her to ooh and aah over it, and then expect him to show her the sights of Como, the only village along the lake she hadn’t seen.
Instead, driven by Emilio, Pia had arrived in the cutest overalls he had ever seen. Uncaring of the fact that her hands could get greasy or that her hair would be messed up—though Pia’s hair was always messy and he loved it like that—she had crawled under the hood with him, asking him to explain what it was that he was currently doing.
Talking about the chassis and suspension while the scent of her curled in his muscles, her hot breath stroked his cheeks—he had never had a more diverting evening.
They had ended it with a glass of Chianti and mac ‘n’ cheese that Pia had cooked in his kitchen, having informed him that that was the extent of her culinary abilities.
Having never spoken to another soul at such length about his passion, Raphael had spent most of their dinner in quiet rumination and with a burning need to peel the overalls off her lithe body. To kiss and lick every inch of her silky curves.