VITTORIO'S LOVER (Vittorio Series) (10 page)

His bedroom. Oh God, was she really in Raffaele’s bedroom, half undressed and only minutes away from tumbling into bed with him?
Jenesa had never done anything like this before. She wasn’t the impulsive type, had never committed a reckless act in her life! Until tonight, that is. Consumed by the passion Raffaele ignited in her, she hadn’t been cognizant of anything except the way he made her feel and an insatiable desire for more.

She wanted to tell him, to somehow convince Raffaele that she wasn’t like
the hoards of experienced and sophisticated woman that had fallen into bed with him in the past. Women who treated sex like a commodity, something to barter with for expensive jewelry and clothes and the privilege of being seen with a rich and powerful man like Raffaele Vittorio. Oh, Jenesa had no doubt any woman who slept with Raffaele had thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but when the affair was over they would have moved onto their next conquest without leaving a broken heart behind. It wouldn’t be that easy for her, regardless of the previous notion she’d had of playing the seductress in order to gather information about his brother.

She opened her mouth to tell him it was a mistake to have come here and offer an apology for letting it get this far. He would probably be angry,
and who could blame him? But she hadn’t meant to lead him on and certainly hadn’t anticipated the bitter disappointment she felt at having to relay that to Raffaele. Foolishly repeating the blunder she’d made earlier, Jenesa gazed up at him and once again found herself floundering in a sea of sensuality.

Raffaele’s pupils dilated, his nostrils flaring as if he’d caught
her feminine scent and recognized its sexual nature. Perhaps he had, Jenesa acknowledged. Her entire body vibrated with sexual awareness, sizzling and dancing around inside of her like a live wire. The lighting in the room was dim, although apparently not so dark that he couldn’t see the inner battle she was fighting.

“You do not have to do this,” he said softly as he slipped one of the thin straps off her shoulder. “Say no, and I will stop.” The other strap went the way of the first. Raffaele
’s head dipped to the bare skin he’d exposed. “Say yes…” shards of pleasure exploded, shooting in all directions when he feathered a kiss from her shoulder to her neck. “Say yes,” he repeated, gently nipping her ear lobe, “and I will give you what your beautiful body craves, what it has been begging for all evening.”

Jenesa didn’t answer. There was no need.
The fact that she all but melted into Raffaele when he planted a searing kiss on her lips negated any feeble objections she might have offered. She was lost. Instantly. Irrevocably. The temptation to remove the rest of his clothes in the same frantic, feverish manner she’d rid him of his shirt was almost too much. The only thing that held her back was Raffaele’s obvious fascination with undressing her with excruciatingly languid movements; something Jenesa found erotically exciting.

Raffaele guided the dress down over her hips and let it slither to the floor, slowly
running his hands back up her thighs and then curving around to her bottom. She was grateful the clingy dress hadn’t allowed for panty hose; the silk stockings at least lent to the illusion she was somewhat sophisticated. His hands were warm against her skin, creating ripples of pleasure as they glided up her back to unhook the barely-there strapless piece of lace that constituted a bra. Jenesa’s breath was shallow and uneven, her heart fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird as Raffaele tossed the scrap of lace aside.

The sensation of having her breasts pressed against the soft hairs on his chest drew a gravely moan from Jenesa
. Even the slightest of movements created a delicious friction that made the tips bead and grow hard, which only heightened their sensitivity and made her ache for more. She had no idea that stimulating the peaks of her breasts could cause such a visceral reaction, or that one gentle squeeze between Raffaele’s callused thumb and forefinger would send an exquisitely sexual jolt of electricity surging through every erogenous zone in her body.

Jenesa erupted
with a convulsive shudder that left her gasping for air and clinging to Raffaele like a human vine. Undoubtedly, he was used to seeing women shatter into a million pieces at his touch,
and
having to peel them off of him when the trembling finally subsided. In a daze, she watched him reach around her and draw the covers back on the bed, her slumberous heartbeat slamming against her chest when he eased her back onto the cool sheets and lowered himself over her.

Threading his fingers in her hair, Raffaele held her captive while he showered
her face with tender kisses. “
Bellissimo
,” he murmured. “You are so soft, so incredibly feminine. If I wasn’t so impatient to make love to you…” Raffaele ground out an oath when the muffled trill of his cell phone cut him off, an oath that was repeated when he had to leave her in order to retrieve the phone from his shirt pocket.

He answered the call with an impatient, “
Ciao,
” listening for a moment before replying in rapid, clipped Italian. That he was irritated by the interruption, there was no question, although he never raised his voice. The conversation couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes, but it was long enough to make Jenesa painfully aware of her nudity as well as the enormity of what she’d been about to do. Thank God, Raffaele was standing with his back to her, sparing Jenesa the embarrassment of having him watch as she slipped out of bed and scooped her dress from the floor.

The whole evening had been a series of blunders and bad decisions
; this was Jenesa’s chance to set her world right side up and start thinking with her head instead of her libido. Easier said than done, she thought with a regretful sigh as the soft lighting danced across his broad shoulders and along the bronzed skin of his back.

                                                      ***

Raffaele ended the call with an annoyed grunt. Tossing his phone on a chair, his surly mood quickly dissipated when he thought of the lusciously sexy woman in his bed. He turned around, the smile dying on his lips when he discovered Jenesa standing a few feet away, clutching her dress to her chest and looking incredibly young and vulnerable. He was going to kill Grady for his poorly timed call, but right now he had more important things to do. Like rekindling the fire that had been burning inside of her only moments ago.

He reacted purely on gut instinct, perhaps knowing on
a subconscious level that any attempt to talk her into staying would be futile. There was mutiny in her eyes, but the white-knuckled hold she had on her dress and the trembling lips told him everything he needed to know; Jenesa may be thinking about fleeing, but she still wanted him as much as he wanted her. Which called for a different method of persuasion, one that eliminated the need for words altogether.

Closing the distance between them in one long stride, Raffaele clamped
his arm around Jenesa’s waist and hauled her up hard against his chest. It was obvious by the startled squeak she emitted that he’d surprised her, but Raffaele didn’t give her the opportunity to resist what they both knew was inevitable. The sexual attraction was too strong to be ignored and now that he had Jenesa all to himself, he saw no reason to fight it. Crushing her soft lips with a fiercely possessive kiss, he basked in the triumphant flare of male satisfaction when she opened up to him.

Madre di Dio
, had any woman ever turned him on so quickly or effortlessly? The scent of her skin was intoxicating, her greedy kisses a potent aphrodisiac; not that he needed anymore stimuli. Her soft body was pressed so close he could feel the pebbled tips of her breasts stabbing into his chest, and despite the fact Jenesa was still holding her dress in place, he found it wildly exciting. Impatient as Raffaele was to bury himself deep inside her feminine warmth, there were other pleasures he wanted to lavish on her first.

Inching Jenesa
towards the bed, he continued to bombard her senses with arduous kisses and roaming hands until she finally wrenched the dress from between them with a throaty moan. Raffaele eased her back onto the mattress, consumed by the impulse to strip off the rest of his clothes and take what he wanted…what he
needed
. Sheer will power alone kept him from doing it. Knowing his control was tenuous at best, Raffaele forced himself to slow it down.

Gentling
his kisses, he shifted his attention to the delicate line of her jaw and then nibbled his way down the silken column of her throat to the swell of her generous breasts. He could feel her heart hammering against his lips and the rapid rise and fall of her chest as he curved his hands around each perfect globe. Kneading them with the tender reverence they deserved, Raffaele lifted his head, groaning inwardly at the rapturous look on her face. Jenesa’s eyes were closed, her ivory skin flushed with color as he drove her towards the same precarious edge that he was teetering on.

It excited him to know he had this effect on her, that she was so incredibly sensitive to his every touch. It wouldn’t take much to make her climax
, or to work her into that state of arousal over and over. Raffaele knew he was a considerate lover. He always made a concerted effort to insure his partner was satisfied first and that she felt pleasing her was as important to him as reaching his own sexual gratification. But this was the first time that making love to a women felt so
natural
. There was nothing contrived about what he was doing to her, no skilled maneuvers that had proven successful in the past were brought into play. The desire to fulfill Jenesa in every way possible was genuine and as essential to him as drawing his next breath.

Everything about this woman excited him; the soft, mewling sound that caught and held in her throat as his tongue swirled around the taut peak of her breast,
and the way her back arched when he drew it into his mouth. He loved the uncontrollable tremors that rippled through her restless limbs and how her stomach quivered with each moist kiss he planted as his lips traveled down to the velvety smoothness of her belly.

Raffaele was fascinated by the soft layers of flesh he found there. The women he normally dated had concave bellies and their hip bones jutted up, jabbing him repeatedly as he drove himself into her. Jenesa’s hips were round and full, the bones barely discernible beneath the padded skin, and her belly
was supple and cushy.
This was how a woman should be built
, he thought.
Soft and round, designed to cushion a man’s body while he made love to her.

Cradled as he was between her thighs enticed him to linger, but ridding them both of their clothing was imperative if he was to continue the intimate exploration of her body. Besides the painful strain of his erection against the zipper on his pants, Raffaele didn’t want to stop to undress once they reached the point of consummation. Pushing himself back onto his knees, he removed her shoes and then slowly rolled the stockings down each shapely leg. A pair of black lace panties followed the stockings, revealing soft curls with the same golden sheen as the hair on her head.

Raffaele’s eyes traveled upward,
taking in every dangerous curve along the way until his gaze reached her face. The heaviness in his groin intensified at the vision Jenesa presented. She’d drawn her legs up, knees clamped together like a shy virgin, and her arms were crossed over her chest, each elegant hand covering the rosy tips from his view. But her expressive eyes exposed Jenesa far more than the removal of her clothes had done; there was fire and hunger and need, all of which Raffaele intended to relieve in the very immediate future.

Jenesa
watched him rise from the bed and begin to undress, a vivid scarlet slash staining her cheeks. Acutely aware that she was following every movement as he kicked off his shoes and removed his socks, Raffaele took pride in the fact she openly admired his body. He heard the sharp intake of breath when he unhitched his belt and reached for the zipper, saw her tongue dart out to moisten her lips as he lowered it. Hitching his thumbs beneath the waist band of his pants and boxers, Raffaele pushed them both over his hips in one economical movement and let them drop to the floor.

Never before had Raffaele allowed his
libido to override logical thinking, but maintaining a straight thought at the moment was like trying to rope the wind. His sexual appetite was ravenous, and right now Jenesa Harding looked as ripe and succulent as a Georgia peach. He could feel the heat radiating off her body as he stretched out beside her and gently pried her hands away, unveiling the pure perfection of her breasts. Two pink tipped buds jutted up invitingly, eager to be drawn into his mouth once more. Raffaele was extremely accommodating.

While his mouth was occupied
with the delectable task of feasting on her breasts, his hand wandered over the soft flesh of Jenesa’s abdomen to stroke her thigh. Her muscles quivered beneath his touch, her breath little more than ragged gasps as his fingertips slipped between her legs. Desire like nothing he had ever known speared through Raffaele to find her so hot and moist, and yet she didn’t open to him as he expected her to do.

Lifting his head, Raffaele was mesmerized by the look of sheer rapture on her face.
  Clearly, she liked what he was doing to her. Why, then, were her knees still pressed firmly together? Was it possible he’d misjudged her, that Jenesa wasn’t nearly as experienced as he believed? And why did that please him when it shouldn’t have mattered whether she had been with one man or twenty?