Sharing even silence with Pia was wonderful.
They had ended the night, because she had a test early in the morning, with a soft kiss that had left him with blue balls. But also with a thread of quiet, incandescent joy he’d never known before.
Another time, she had invited him to sit through her class, and then made him model for her first face carved from wood, because as she had put it, he had classically handsome features with a bold nose and an arrogant chin that would lend itself to that particular type of wood.
He had sat still for almost an hour while the minx had worked with her hands, only to find her dissolving into giggles when he’d asked her to show him what she had so far.
“Mi dispiace, Raphael. I’m so bad at this, I’ve made you into a monster,” she had sputtered amidst her laughter. “I’ll ask Antonio to sit for me next time.” Of course he had said no, to which she had responded by crawling to him on her knees, tracing those blunt-nailed, callused fingers over his nose, temple and then over his lips. She had then taken his mouth in such an erotic kiss, swirling tongue and biting teeth and all, that Raphael had been harder than the block of wood, and said, “I can’t bear to ruin this gorgeous face, Raphael.”
Since he was busy with work and Allegra’s custody suit, and she was busy studying and carving and meeting the new friends she had made, all they could manage one week was two evenings spent together holed up in Gio’s study, which he had been far too happy to give up.
While Raphael had spread out his paperwork on the vast mahogany desk, Pia had settled her textbooks around the sitting area. It was the most enjoyable quiet evening of his life. The sight of Pia with her glasses perched on her nose, studious concentration furrowing her brow, had driven him half-crazy.
The thought of spending the next fifty years in such close quarters with her was surprisingly exciting. He imagined looking up from his work to find her gaze on him with a slight smile, sitting in comfortable silence but with an ongoing sizzling awareness; the absolute knowledge that it wouldn’t make a difference to Pia if his assets grew another billion or not, or if he lost most of it with some bad decisions like his father. The trust that she would never stop looking at him as if he were the most perfect man she had ever met—it filled him with the desire to wrap his arms around her and never let go.
Locking the door against any servants, uncaring that he was dishonoring her under Gio’s roof, he had crossed the room, knelt in front of her, pulled her hair from the tight braid she had forced it into and drunk greedily from her welcoming mouth.
He’d meant to keep his word. He’d meant to let her come to him, to give her the time she’d asked for. And yet, her responsive moans had had him spreading her legs wide, pulling up the long skirt she had worn that day, and then kissing his way up the silky skin of her thighs, all the way to the damp center of her sex.
He had tasted her desire for him while she had sunk her fingers into his hair, gasping and moaning, scandalized by his actions and yet thrusting against his ministrations until she was falling apart against his mouth while digging her teeth into his lower lip. The most potent masculine satisfaction had surged through him when she had collapsed into his arms, limbs trembling.
Cheeks pink, breath serrated, hair in wild disarray and her eyes, those wide, deep brown eyes glittering with an emotion he didn’t want to give a name to. Dio, she’d been the wildest, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Fingers sinking in his hair, she had guided his mouth down to hers for a quick press. “I didn’t know I could feel so much pleasure that I could happily die from it.”
“You’re not dying until I have punished you for your no-sex rule,” he’d said, sinking his teeth into the rough cushion of her palm.
“Poor Raphael, it has been, what? Three weeks?”
A soft flick at the center of her palm with his tongue. Like a spark plug when combusted, she immediately slithered in his lap. “Five weeks and four days, you minx.”
She had crawled to her knees, stroked her palms up his chest, cheeks flaming pink and with the most mischievous grin said, “Raphael, can I…?”