Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

H E WAS ABOUT to go in and fetch her when she emerged. And his heart nearly exited his chest, straight through his rib cage. He had never been affected so by a woman. And he couldn’t quite pinpoint why it was happening now.

But with or without reason she affected him all the same.

The dress was... She looked like a present. All red and satin and he wanted to unwrap her more than anything.

It was a complicated series of straps that crossed low in the front, showing her glorious cleavage.

The back was almost entirely bare, the satin hugging the curve of her rear, before cascading out around her feet like a waterfall.

She was... Everything.

“You will do,” he said.

She looked at him like he was certifiable. Nobody ever did that. Nobody was brave enough. Nobody but her.

“You are beautiful,” he said. “Does that fix things?”

“Why is it so difficult for you to compliment me?”

“What is difficult is finding words for what I feel.” That was honest. He wasn’t sure that he liked it, because he felt as if she had extracted a compromise from him. And he was determined not to be changed by this.

He wanted to build a hedge around his space, as he had done when he was a child, to keep himself protected. Pure. Controlled.

Control.

A word that cut both ways with such precision. He did not care for it.

And yet, it was what also protected him. Even while it was what had victimized him. But his control, that never failed him.

And so, his control was how he would choose to live.

“You look all right too,” she said, lifting a brow.

It astonished him, the way that she was so... Resilient. Even so soundly out of water as she was. A little fish who shone brightly in spite of it all. He thought of how he had tried to chop wood and cook at the bed-and-breakfast. The way that he had tried to bend himself to care for her when she was ill. He had made a mess of everything. It had been torturous. And none of that torture was visible here, now with her.

“Let us go,” he said.

He was about to put his arm out, but she closed the distance between them and held his hand. “I will probably need a coat,” she said.

“Yes, of course.”

He knew that one had been placed in the coat closet by the door, and he opened it up, producing a white, faux fur dress that would fall nearly to her ankles.

He put it on her, slowly. Her scent mesmerized him. The way she looked up at him. He was held in thrall for a moment. Perhaps this was what it was like when one got to know a lover. He had no experience of that. Sex was a need that he wrapped tightly in control. Because to share with someone else was to engage in give-and-take. Never his strong suit.

But perhaps this was the other side of it. The benefit. He had always imagined that one would grow bored with a lover eventually, and yet he found himself growing more and more intrigued by his.

She held his hand again as they made their way down to the front of the building, and got into the waiting limousine.

“Very fancy,” she said.

They had only taken a town car from the airport.

“It is meant to give us room,” he said.

Her brows lifted. “For what?”

He chuckled. “I don’t know. Perhaps you could think of something.”

“I have only just put this dress on. I’m not taking it back off.”

He growled. He hadn’t even meant to do that.

Her eyes went wide. “Feral.”

“I’m not feral,” he said.

“You kind of are. Strange, feral man. In the most luxurious of surroundings. And yet... You don’t quite know what to do with people. Do you?”

“I am very good with people. My position demands it.”

“Are you good with people, or do you find yourself in a position of power over them and they respond accordingly?”

“What is the difference?”

She shook her head and leaned back against the seat. “Nothing of note to you, I suppose.”

“You mean if I did not have power, people would not treat me with deference.”

She shook her head. “No. They wouldn’t. And that actually has nothing to do with your personality. That’s just life.”

He didn’t like that thought, because it made him feel powerless. It made him feel like his position in the world was tenuous. It made him feel like a small boy again. Because he could remember well what it had been like when he had no influence in his life, in his house growing up. And for just a moment, he had the flickering glance that she would not be here if he didn’t have power over her life.

If he hadn’t manipulated her.

He pushed that to the side, because there was no benefit to the thought whatsoever.

None whatsoever.

The car pulled up to the gala venue, a stately museum with vast steps, and pillars.

He was gratified by the look on her face. Because he was giving her something. This was an experience far outside her own, and she might not have known that she wanted it, but he would see that she benefited from it. And it didn’t matter then, why she was here. It didn’t matter. Because the truth was, he had the control.

He had the influence.

He got out of the car ahead of his driver opening the door, and attended to it on behalf of Noelle, taking her hand and pulling her against him as he closed the door. “You do look beautiful,” he said.

Perhaps to add more to the moment. Perhaps to make her remember that it wasn’t only his offer to let her keep the bed-and-breakfast that had brought her here. It was the passion between them. That was real. It had nothing to do with his influence.

It certainly had nothing to do with his soup-making skills.

“So do you,” she said softly, touching the side of his face. Then he felt as if she had grabbed the thread inside of him and pulled it hard, unraveling something. He did not know what to make of that.

He did not know how to proceed. Except to walk up the steps holding tightly to her, entering the building.

There were so many women dressed in colorful dresses, and yet they remained indistinct blurs to him. The trouble was, everyone did. Even people who held influence at the event, the people that he wanted to network with, and speak to, meant so little. Because what he really wanted to do was take that dress off Noelle. To the degree that he resented that they had to go out at all. Of course, if they hadn’t gone out she wouldn’t have put that dress on.

Whenever someone talked to her, monopolized her attention, he resented it. It made him miss the bed-and-breakfast. It made him want to go back to the top of the secluded mountain with her where he did not have to consider anyone else ever.

It made him want to reclaim her for himself.

He hated that town. He hated that mountain. There was no reason for him to harbor fantasies about returning there. To that cluttered old house filled with dust catchers that she called knickknacks. Filled with memories that weren’t his own, and never would be.

He felt himself growing impatient. And perhaps it didn’t really matter if he was here at all. The business was now his to run by his own design. He no longer had to engage in endless expansion. He could simply maintain what was. Make better what existed, rather than cluttering up the earth with more resorts that nobody wanted or needed.

That was his mother’s grand design, of course. It was not his, and it never would be.

So maybe it was all right that he didn’t want to network. Maybe it was all right that what he really wanted to do was take Noelle straight back to his apartment.

Though there was a small amount of joy to be had when he watched her interact with the people around him. She was entirely out of her depth, and yet there was a glow about her that people seemed to find irresistible. God knew that he did.

Even as he grew jealous when other men monopolized her attention, he also felt pride that they saw what he did.

He found it increasingly difficult to keep his hands to himself. He went from holding her hand to wrapping his arm around her waist. Pressing himself against her, moving his hand over her bare back, and then kissing her neck.

“Rocco,” she said.

“What?”

“We are in public.”

“I find myself bored of the public,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

Noelle had had a lovely evening, but Rocco had clearly been growing impatient. And every time he touched her it felt like he ignited a spark inside of her. Realizing the effect that she had on him, even in his environment... It emboldened her.

When they got out of the building, and into the limo, she positioned herself across the way from him. “That wasn’t very polite,” she said.

“What? We stayed an hour.”

“Barely,” she said. “And I was having a lovely time.”

“I’m glad for you,” he said. “But I found myself growing exceedingly impatient.”

“I gathered that.”

“Witch,” he said.

“Hardly,” she said.

But inside she felt satisfied. That he was undone. That she had this much power.

The way that his eyes glittered when he looked at her sent a shiver through her. This handsome man wanted her.

She wasn’t just the only woman available at the top of a snowed-in mountain. There had been beautiful women all over that gala. He was impatient to leave with her.

She needed to hear him say that.

Because she wanted... Something intense. Something reckless tonight. She felt like when she had slipped this dress on she had put on new skin with it. Like perhaps she had uncovered new depths to herself, new layers.

Like she wasn’t just Noelle, with the Christmas tree farm and the bed-and-breakfast. Unassuming and sweet.

Trying to hold together the warm, glowing images of her childhood.

Wholesome. That was what she had always been. Trying to maintain this air of wholesomeness, essentially, as she clung to a two-dimensional vision of her past.

Of her parents.

She had kept herself simple because she resented the complexity of her mother.

That was a stunning realization.

And yet, not one she needed to deal with just at the moment. What she really needed was him.

“Do you want me, Rocco?”

“Yes,” he growled.

“I don’t mean opportunistically. I don’t mean because I’m the woman who you decided to marry for your own convenience. I don’t mean... You know, how I pointed out to you that people are nice to you because you have power over them. I don’t want you to want me simply because this arrangement gave power to you. Or because we were stuck on a mountaintop.”

“I could not even see the faces of the other women there. I could not track the shapes of their bodies. They were brightly colored orbs, orbiting around you. They meant nothing to me. No memory of sex means anything to me. Only the reality of you. You are correct, I am a man with exceeding power. I have trapped you with me, haven’t I? Because of that, I do not have to give you my fidelity, do I? I could have left with one of those women. What would you have said? What would you do?”

“I would be hurt,” she said.

“And that would only matter to me if I cared about your feelings. My point is, nothing is stopping me from taking another woman if I want her. But I do not. I want you.”

That was what she needed to hear. She closed the distance between them, crossed the space, and claimed his mouth. She kissed him deep and long, as she had wanted to do all day, but had felt so disoriented, she simply hadn’t. Or perhaps she had been protecting herself. But not anymore.

He was starving. She could feel it in every line of his body. The growl that exited his mouth, even though he was bound and determined to pretend that he was not feral for her.

He was.

She was.

They arrived at the penthouse too fast and too slow. And she moved away from him reluctantly, allowing him to take her hand and lead her out of the car.

She was covered by her coat. It felt cumbersome. Like too many layers, when she wanted to be naked against him.

What a strange thing to know exactly what she wanted. To be in this strange place, in a new situation, and yet to know this.

It was like an anchor, holding her fast to the earth.

What a glorious thing.

The trip up to the apartment was a blur. And when they entered, he pulled her hard against him, kissing her deep, letting her feel that iron hardness of his body, letting her feel exactly what she did to him.

He pushed the coat off her shoulders, as she began to loosen his tie.

They moved, in synchronous rhythm, to that expansive black couch.

They stood at the edge of it, her back to the window, and he began to untie the straps that held the dress to her body.

It fell away, leaving her naked except for the red high heels she was wearing. She hadn’t put any underwear on beneath the dress because it simply hadn’t allowed for it. The fabric was to slippery and silky. And now she was grateful for it, because the look on his face was... That was a look that she wanted to pursue. Not just now, but maybe forever.

She felt like she was enough. She felt special.

Not just in the context of being the only woman on the mountain.

It was intoxicating.

He stripped his tie away, and shrugged his jacket off, then he began to unbutton his shirt, and she watched with rapt attention.

As he revealed that gorgeous chest, his rippling stomach. He cast the shirt to the ground, and began to undo his belt slowly, and she found her breath hitching slightly with each articulated movement. He stripped himself entirely naked, and sat on the edge of the couch, like an emperor. “Come to me,” he said.

She was very aware that her back was to an open window, and that her front was to a naked man. That she wanted him, as fiercely as he wanted her.

The center of her ached. Felt hollow with the need for him.

She could feel how slick and wet she was with each step she took toward him. It didn’t even occur to her not to obey. Not when obedience would lead her exactly where she wanted to go.

“Take your hair down,” he said.

She reached up and quickly dashed the pins out of her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders in a wild cascade.

“Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Now you are feral for me.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Because of course she was. She always was. She had been from the beginning, hadn’t she? After thinking herself tame for so many years, the truth of it was she had never met anyone who made her wild.

But he did.

And that was when she did something entirely out of character, without even thinking. She ran her hands over her aching breasts, summing the nipples, pinching herself, watching as his expression went from stormy to the black eye of a hurricane.

She let her hands move down her own waist, her hips, before pressing one down between the center of her thighs, where she touched her own slickness. Where she zeroed in on that beat of pleasure, and began to stroke herself.

“Noelle,” he growled.

She didn’t know who she was. Who was this woman? Bold and naked in front of a window, pleasuring herself as a man watched her. Who was this woman, in nothing but red high heels?

Who was this woman, in New York City, with a heavy diamond ring on her left hand.

She was her. That was the stunning thing. She was Noelle Holiday. All things Christmas and bright. And yet sensual and needy with him.

It was like finding herself. Like seeing herself for the very first time.

She continued to walk toward him, and she didn’t have to be asked. She knew exactly what to do. She straddled his lap, bringing her slick center against his hardness. He growled, his large hands cupping her ass as he brought her forward, arching against her, rubbing himself through her slick folds.

“Mine,” he said.

And she could only agree, in small, short bursts of need.

It was like heaven to have his hands on her. And she luxuriated in it. He moved them up her back, down her arms, around to cup her breasts, and his touch on her sensitized skin was so much better than her own could ever be.

He teased her, his thumbs moving over her aching peaks, and then he moved his head there, sucking her deep, biting her. She cried out, the pleasure/pain paradox making her head spin.

Making her ache for more.

He wrapped one arm tight around her waist, and gripped her chin with the other, making bold eye contact with her as he thrust himself up inside of her. She moaned, his possession thorough, complete and glorious.

And she began to move over him, as he held her steady, as he let her have the control. Was there any control to be had? She was this creature that he had made her. One of need and desire.

One of absolute earth and fire. He had broken something in her, or made something in her, she didn’t know which. Perhaps it didn’t matter.

There was nothing but them. All she could see were those dark eyes, gazing deep into hers. The sparkling ring on her left hand, his muscular chest, her hand against his shoulder. He whispered things against her mouth, dirty and beautiful all at the same time.

And when they went over the edge, it was together. Her nails digging into his skin as he poured himself deep inside of her.

She collapsed against him, and he lay back on the couch, still buried inside of her, his hands moving through her hair.

“Stay on the pill for a while,” he said.

The comment jarred her back to reality.

“What?”

“There’s no need for you to fall pregnant immediately. And... I think it would be better for you to become accustomed to this life.”

Confusion twisted inside of her. “I thought that it was important...”

“This is important,” he said.

The granite in his voice rebuilt something within her that had cracked only a moment ago. He didn’t want to have a baby because he didn’t want to be distracted from the attraction between them. She was actually happy with that. Happy to put it off for a little while.

“It would be better,” he said. “Anyway. The optics. If you waited at least a year to get pregnant, there would be no question as to why I married you.”

She nodded. Except of course, if people asked questions about why they got married, and came to the conclusion it was not for love, then they would be right.

But something had certainly shifted within her.

This thing that moved her further and further away from who she was. Further and further from home.

She clung to his shoulders then, desperate. Because he was the only thing keeping her here.

On his whim, the bed-and-breakfast could go away. On his whim this relationship could end. And she would be the one left picking up the pieces. It felt hideously imbalanced. Except he wanted her.

He had said it.

This was her power.

What a strange thing, for a woman who had never wielded power in any way, but least of all this way.

“Yes. We can wait.”

“Good. I think that you should spend tonight in my bed.”

So she did.