LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      BY THE TIME she and Raphael rode the glass elevator to his ninth-floor apartment, Pia’s nerves had stretched to breaking point. Desire was a live wire left unearthed between them as they sat at the ends of the seat in the taxi, speeding through the seven or so miles to his apartment in the affluent fashion district, a world away from the busy nightlife through Corso Venezia.

      Raphael’s cell phone gave that shrill ring the moment they stepped inside and Pia almost jumped out of her skin.

      His hand at her lower back, Raphael steadied her. His own pithy curse when he looked at the screen painted the air blue. “I have to take this call.”

      While Pia stood there in the middle of the huge lounge, her pulse ringing like a bell all through her body, Raphael returned, after only a few minutes. His mouth took on that hard cast that she didn’t like. Another darker tone added to the awareness sizzling between them.

      She thought they’d grown comfortable with each other over the past few weeks, that they had crossed a milestone in their relationship, had gotten closer emotionally too.

      Yet it seemed that all it took was one of them to give voice to this need between them, to express desire for sexual intimacy—she blushed when she realized that was what she had done—and every word became explosive, every look rife with promise.

      “Who was that?”

      He shrugged off his suit jacket, carefully folded it and left it on the chair. “Nothing important.”

      Struggling to keep her dismay off her face, she said softly, “That’s what you say when you don’t want to tell me.”

      His fingers stilled on his shirt buttons. “I don’t want to tell you because it’s not important.”

      “And yet, it made you curse like that? I’ve seen very little that causes you to lose your arrogant confidence. I know you’re used to keeping matters close to your chest, that you probably never had a chance to confide in any—”

      “It does not concern you, Pia. Bene?”

      A sudden prickling heat behind her eyes, Pia simply nodded.

      Raphael exhaled harshly, the tight line of his shoulders relenting. His hair, already messed up by Milan’s humidity, became a little wilder when he pushed his hand through it. “I did not mean to be short with you.” A sigh that made that broad chest rise and fall. “Mi dispiace, Pia.”

      Whatever hurt she had felt, his genuine apology instantly placated it. The matter was nowhere near resolved, she knew. It was her right as his future wife, it was her deepest wish that he share everything with her. But Pia had enough patience to wait. In every way, Raphael had proved that he was worth waiting for. “It’s okay, Raphael.”

      “You mean it, don’t you?”

      “Si.”

      His dark eyes, liquid with desire, swept over her. “I knew there was more than one reason I wanted to marry you.”

      Swallowing away her own anxiety about what was coming, she wanted to do something bold but in the strange mood he was in, it was hard to hold on to her newly discovered confidence.

      “Would you like something to drink? I have some nice Chianti.”

      Despite the thick tension in the air, Pia smiled. She loved that he always remembered those small details. From the most trivial to the most important, he was always looking out for her. Part of it, she knew, was his nature. That sense of responsibility that had fallen on his shoulders at a young age had never quite left him.

      He was one of those alpha males who walked into a situation and immediately took charge of it. Protected the innocents and chased away the threats. And remained aloof even amidst a crowd.

      Part of his protective instincts toward her were also because she was Gio’s granddaughter. And he was big on loyalty.

      But a small part of it, she hoped, was because of what she meant to him. Was because of who she was.

      She covered the few steps between them, until the tips of her breasts were barely grazing his chest. “I feel like I’m already drunk. So no thank you.”

      He grabbed her wrists and pushed them behind her until the front of her was pressed deliciously up against his hard body. “Always so polite.” His mouth flicked a silky, wet trail from her jaw down to the crook of her neck. He sucked her skin rough and hard. Pia jerked as wetness rushed between her thighs. She couldn’t even clench them because he had jammed his hard thigh between hers. “Raphael, wait...”

      “Always so ready to forgive and forget. Always so generous.”

      A keening moan rose from her throat as his wicked tongue softly licked the hurt he had inflicted with his teeth. Pain and pleasure fused, love and desire roped together and ran hot like a cocktail through her blood.

      Somehow she managed to pull back, clasped his jaw and forced him to meet her gaze. “Raphael, will you not tell me what has made your mouth become hard again?”

      His hands started torturing her then, stroking up and down her back, kneading her hips, cupping her behind until his arousal pressed against her lower belly. Her temperature shot up ten degrees at the least. “My mouth becomes hard?”

      “Yes.” She moaned when he rubbed it against her. “And you get that

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