One Night: Sizzling Attraction

CHAPTER TWO

THE SUITE WAS BEAUTIFUL. There were massive windows that overlooked Central Park, letting a generous amount of natural light in, bathing everything in warmth, in sunlight. For a moment, she simply stood in the doorway, pretending she was only taking in the sight of a beautiful room. One that was well out of her price range, one she would typically never even get to look at.

Unless she was running a con.

That’s all this is. You’re just running a con. And on the other side, lies freedom. You never have to do it again. You can be done.

She took a deep breath and kept examining the room, delaying the moment this became real. The floors were marble, rugs stationed throughout, beautifully appointed matching furniture with solid wood detail in the seating area, with a bed that boasted a matching frame in the bedroom. It was a large bed, with rich purple velvet coverings, and more pillows than she had ever seen in one place before.

For a moment, it was nice to look at. For a moment, it seemed innocuous.

But only for a moment.

Then Rocco came to stand behind her, the heat from his body intense, energy radiating from him and throwing everything inside of her out of alignment. As if he’d reached into her chest and moved everything around.

He had certainly reached into her life and done that. Moved everything around, put things on their ends.

“Dessert should be here shortly,” he said, breezing past her and walking into the room. “Make yourself at home.”

As if that was going to happen. “It’s difficult for me to feel at home here.”

“Oh yes, I imagine it is quite different to your little apartment in Brooklyn.”

Charity froze. Of course he would know all about her. He had sent the clothes to her home, after all. But hearing the details of her life spoken about by a perfect stranger just didn’t sit comfortably.

“Do you have to imagine?” she asked, her tone crisp. “Don’t you happen to have full walk-through photographs of my home available for your perusal? You seem to know a lot about me.”

“The art of war. One must know their enemies. Or so I have read.”

“And I’m your enemy?”

He closed the distance between them, curling his fingers around her arm, pulling her close. The contact of his skin against hers struck her like lightning. “You stole from me. People do not steal from me,” he said, his face close to hers, his tone deadly.

She could sense then that he was every inch the predator she had feared. And whatever she had been afraid he might ask of her, it would likely be that and more. Because there was no softness in him. No compassion.

He was the sort of man who only understood one thing. The cutthroat, black-and-white nature of revenge. Of killing or being killed, hunting or being hunted.

That would limit her ability to manipulate. But her strength would lie in him underestimating her.

He thought she was his prey. But he didn’t know that beneath this lacy monstrosity beat the heart of a beast. She had been brought up in a hard environment, with instability and poverty and all the rest.

She hadn’t survived by being weak.

“My father lied to me,” she said, putting her hand on her chest, feeling her heart beating hard beneath her palm. “I really thought he had finally gotten honest work. I had agreed to help him garner investments from reputable companies. I did not know he was going to take that information and siphon money out of your accounts. I promise I didn’t know.” The lie came easy, even looking into those flat, dark eyes. Because protecting her own skin was second nature. Was the most important thing. The only thing.

“Your name is on the wire transfers. Your name is connected to the bank account the money went into.”

“Because I agreed to help him set the accounts up.” And she knew, even as she tried to explain, that it was going to do nothing to move him. But she wasn’t going to simply stand here and allow him to level accusations at her. Not when they weren’t true. Not while she still had a chance to get him to understand.

“Then you are a fool. Because everything I can find about Nolan Wyatt says that he is a con man. Now and always.”

“He is,” she said, her throat tight. “But I—”

There was a knock on the door to the suite and Rocco released his hold on her, stalking to the entryway.

“Room service, Mr. Amari,” the man on the other side of the door said. “Where would you like me to put the tray?”

“I will take the tray.” Rocco took control of the tray and closed the door, wheeling the coffee and two pieces of chocolate cake to the center of the room.

If she couldn’t eat a light meal of vegetables and salmon, she was hardly going to be able to eat this.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to believe the best of someone?” She hoped he had. She hoped he did.

“Never. I only want the truth.”

“I’m giving it to you. And I can only explain away the fact that I helped my father by saying I wanted to believe the best in him when I shouldn’t have. He’s the only family I have. I just wanted him to be telling the truth this time.”

She found herself very convincing. She would be shocked if he didn’t.

“So much that you were willing to take a chance on helping him with another fraud?”

“My dad is small-time. I didn’t expect anything like this from him.” That much was true. She’d had no idea his designs were quite so grand. A million dollars. He’d overplayed his hand. The idiot. Anything smaller and Rocco wouldn’t have noticed, much less pursued her like this. “Yes, he’s stolen fairly large amounts of money before, and I know it. I didn’t live with him most of the time I was growing up, but when I did, we would always have times where we would move, and then we would have something for a while. A house, food, money, clothes. But it would always disappear very quickly. We would find ourselves dodging landlords, dodging police. Then, we would move again. Dad would get jobs, he called them. Then we would move again, and have things for a while. And the cycle would repeat. Eventually, he stopped taking me with him when he moved.”

“I see. Is this meant to make me feel sorry for you?”

“I only want you to understand...I’m a person like you are,” she said, a pleading note lacing her voice. “I made a mistake in who I trusted. Surely you understand?”

He chuckled, a hollow sound that echoed in her chest. That made goose bumps spread over her arms. “The problem with trying to appeal to my humanity, Charity, is that I don’t have any. I can understand why you would assume differently. But let me be the one to inform you definitively that I’m not burdened by conscience. Nor am I burdened by compassion. Every cent I have, I have earned. Getting to this position in life cost me in blood and I will not allow myself to be taken advantage of. I will set an example if I must.” He moved to her again, not touching her this time, merely standing so close she could feel the heat coming from his body. “I will make an example of you if I must. Do not think I will lose sleep over throwing a beautiful woman like you in prison when it is deserved.”

“So, is this my last meal?” she asked, indicating the food on the tray.

Overdramatic, perhaps, but she was starting to feel desperate.

“Either that or it is fuel to help you keep up your strength for the next couple of hours. You might find you need it.”

Adrenaline spiked through her blood. “So, you get off on forcing women into bed?” The words came out slightly harsher than intended.

A smile curved his lips. “Absolutely not. I never force women into my bed. I will not force you. You will come to me, because you want me.”

“How would you know I wanted you? When it’s you or a jail cell it seems as though my choices are limited.”

“I’m comfortable with that,” he said, his smile growing wider. He looked like the Big Bad Wolf, ready to devour her. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No.”

“Very well. Then it is time for me to see if you have kept your end of the bargain.”

She swallowed hard, her hands shaking, her fingers cold. “The lingerie?”

“Did you do as you were instructed, cara mia?”

She couldn’t believe it. She had lost.

Her stomach sank into her feet, the intense weight of defeat crushing her before she was able to process all the implications in front of her.

This was the moment of truth. Either she threw the coffee on his face and stormed out of the room, and took what came, later—charges, an arrest, a trial.

Or she did this.

She took control. She pushed him as he was pushing her. Called his bluff.

She would not stand here and wait to be undressed.

Before she could think it through, her shaking fingers found the zipper to her dress and began to tug it down.

He would stop her. He would stop this. She was sure of it. And it was that certainty that kept her going.

She could feel the fabric separating, exposing skin. Could feel the dress getting loose in the bodice. Then the top fell exposing her breasts, clad only in the whisper-thin lingerie. It was the same color as her skin, a kind of milky coffee color. It made her appear almost bare.

She knew, because she had spent a fair amount of time looking at herself in the mirror wearing this, that he would be able to see the shadow of her nipples beneath the fabric.

No man had ever seen this much of her body before. She didn’t know if she was in shock, if she was still convinced he would put an end to it, or if the moment was simply too surreal for her to absorb it all. But she felt cushioned by something, by a gauzy curtain that had been pulled around her vision, making things seem hazy. Making them seem a little less harsh.

Whatever it was, whatever magic this was, she needed it. Because the character, the nervous ingénue, wasn’t a refuge here. Not now.

It was too close to the bone.

Too close to who she was in this setting.

In life, she had very little in the way of innocence. But here? In the bedroom? She’d never trusted a man enough to be this intimate with him. Had never wanted to.

And she didn’t trust him. But she didn’t need to. For some reason, right now, she realized trust didn’t matter. This was all about power. And he had underestimated hers.

She finished pulling the zipper down the rest of the way and pushed the dress down her hips so that she was standing there in nothing but the high heels and the matching bra and panty set. The panties were as sheer as the bra, and she knew he could see the shadow of dark hair at the apex of her thighs.

She stared straight ahead, not looking at him, her eyes fixed on a blank spot on the wall. She was still in this chess game and her new revelation was adjusting her strategy. Putting her in view of Rocco’s queen.

Power. Control. That was the game here. It wasn’t sex.

All she had to do was take his control.

“Look at me,” Rocco said, his voice laced with steel, the command impossible to ignore.

She redirected her gaze, her eyes clashing with his, and all the breath rushed from her lungs.

There was an intensity to his dark gaze that was unmatched by anything she had ever seen before. It could never be said that Rocco looked passive, at least not in her very brief experience of him. But this was different. There was a fire burning beneath this that set something ablaze low and hot inside of her.

He moved toward her, reaching out and touching the silken strap of the bra, sliding his thumb and forefinger over the fabric. “You were a very good girl. I must confess I am surprised.” He never took his eyes off hers, and the heat inside of her intensified.

What was happening to her? Why was he touching her? Not her skin, but beneath it? Why was he making her feel all this heat?

She could still leave. She could still pick up her dress, put it back on and go.

But she didn’t. Instead she stood, frozen, as fascinated as she was terrified by what might happen next.

He leaned in slowly and she held her breath. He pressed his lips against the curve of her neck, just beneath her ear, and a shiver went through her body.

She wasn’t cold at all anymore. But she was still shaking. And it wasn’t from fear.

“I will make you beg for me,” he said, his voice a dark whisper that wrapped itself around her mind.

She angled her head slightly, pushing down every bit of insecurity. She hated this man. This beautiful, horrible man. And she didn’t care what he thought about her. She didn’t care what he thought of her body. What he thought of her soul.

He was her enemy and after today she would never see him again.

For some reason that realization sent a shock wave through her. Confidence, pleasure, a rolling feeling of satisfaction that she couldn’t have explained if she wanted to.

She leaned in, her lips a breath away from his. “Not if I make you beg for me first.”

His lip curled and he leaned in, tracing the line of her jaw with his forefinger. “Do you think you could make me beg?”

“Can you walk away?” she asked, taking the roughness in his formerly smooth and cultured voice as evidence of the effect she was having on him. “Right now, could you leave this room?”

“I am not finished with you yet,” he ground out.

She forced a smile to curve the corner of her mouth. “I guess that says it all. You’re the one who can’t walk away. And I don’t even have prison to threaten you with.”

He gripped her chin tight, and she stared him down. His dark eyes were blazing and she was certain hers matched. Then he slid his thumb across the edge of her lower lip.

And closed the distance between them.

The fire in her stomach ignited, sending flames roaring through her. It was no longer contained, no longer content to merely burn in the hearth. And she realized her fatal mistake too late. She might have taken his control, but hers was gone, too. Whatever this heat was had taken over everything, threatening to reduce all that she was to ash.

She’d never been kissed like this. Had never been held close to a man like this, his arms so tight around her, his body hard and muscular against hers.

This was the last thing she had expected. For him to kiss her as if he was a man dying of thirst and she was an oasis. She had expected him to be cool. She had expected him to hurt her, humiliate her. She hadn’t expected him to make her want.

Make her feel.

Wanting him was almost scarier than the alternative. Because she was only here for one reason, for him to extract the debt she owed from her body. She meant nothing to him beyond that. In fact, he hated her. Saw her as an enemy.

She had a feeling that right at that moment, neither of them had the control. She wasn’t even sure if they were fighting for it. If each brush of his lips against hers was a press for more dominance, or if they’d both given up altogether.

She was forgetting. Forgetting everything but his lips against hers.

He shifted, cupped her face, tilting his head and deepening the kiss, his tongue sliding against hers. The delicious friction sent a shiver through her. It shocked her, sent a wave of pleasure through her and, for a moment, she could only process how good it felt.

How could he touch an enemy like this? How could he hate her and taste her so deeply? With such care?

No one else ever had. Only this man. This man who despised her.

That should make her want to run, but she didn’t. She stayed. Rooted to the spot. Anchored to him.

When they parted, he was breathing hard, his fingers going to the knot of his tie, loosening it with startling efficiency, before casting into the ground. “Yes, you are a very good girl indeed,” he said, his voice ragged.

He pulled her back to him, kissing her again. She wanted to fight him. Wanted to fight this. The way it felt as if he was stripping her bare without ever touching the silken undergarments that covered her skin.

But she couldn’t. She felt so small, but she didn’t feel weak. She felt protected. And as things started to crumble and fall inside her; as the walls, the anger, the fear, started to crack, in the deep, empty well that lived inside of her, an insatiable and hungry thing that had craved this simply opened up and allowed itself to be filled.

Oh, it hadn’t been sex she desired specifically. But touch, attention. To have someone look at her as though she mattered. As though it had to be her standing there in front of them and no one else.

To have someone pay attention to what she wanted, what she liked. To have someone lavish pleasure on her. Because that was the only way she could think of it. She was entirely bathed in sensation, the singular focus of this large, powerful man.

He wasn’t handling her roughly, not with anger. He was in supreme, complete control and he was exercising that control to make her feel...good.

It wasn’t what she had expected and it made her feel vulnerable. Strange.

No one had ever wanted her. No one had ever needed her.

And even if it was naive, she felt in this moment that Rocco needed her. And it made her want to give in to him. It made her want to give him everything.

He hates you. And you are trading your body to keep yourself out of jail.

You can’t do this.

She could still leave. She could walk out the door and damn the consequences. He wouldn’t physically stop her. She was confident in that.

But you don’t want to.

No. Because she’d never had the courage to touch a man like this. To kiss a man like this. And now there was nothing holding her back. Nothing stopping her. Why not have this? Why not have him? She pressed her palms to the hard muscle of his chest, and leaned in deeper for the kiss.

Rocco growled, tightening his hold on her waist, and backing them both across the room, and to the bed.

Yes.

This wasn’t about money, or jail, or freedom or fear. This wasn’t about control. Not now. This was about him. About everything she’d spent her life too afraid to grab. She was so tired of it. So tired of herself. Of being a ghost that no one could touch or connect with because she was hiding her past.

He was touching her. And he knew her past. He knew it and hated it and he still wanted her. That meant it didn’t matter what she did now. Didn’t matter that she was a virgin who had no clue what she was doing.

She slid her hands to his shoulders, and down his back, exploring the feel of him, the sheer breadth of him. So different to her. To her body.

He moved one hand to her thigh, lifting her leg and bringing it around his own, opening her center to him. He pressed himself against her, the hard length of his arousal making contact with the source of her desire, sending a shot of pleasure through her body.

It was happening so fast, and yet she found not fast enough. She couldn’t think anymore, couldn’t reason. Couldn’t work out why she had been so afraid of this being the outcome. Because this wasn’t scary. And it didn’t hurt.

It felt wonderful.

And everything melted away. Who she was. Who he was.

He wasn’t a mark. And she wasn’t a con artist.

He was a man. And she was a woman.

And they wanted.

He tore his mouth from hers, kissing the line along her collarbone, to the edge of the lace bra that she knew had cost more than a month of her wages. He traced the scalloped edge of the delicate garment with the tip of his tongue, and she shook, sliding her fingers through his hair, holding him tightly to her.

“You are delicious,” he said, forcing one of the lace cups down, exposing the entirety of her breast to him. Then he lowered his head, taking her nipple into his mouth and sucking deeply. “Delicious,” he said, turning his focus to the other breast and repeating the motion.

He slid a thumb over one of the tightened buds, his eyes rapt on her body, watching as it tightened further while he teased her. He pinched her gently and she gasped, arching against him, bringing the heart of her body into contact with his hardness again.

“I did not anticipate wanting you so much,” he said. “You are so responsive.”

Was she? She wanted to ask him if she was especially responsive, but she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything but feel.

“Responsive,” he said, kissing the valley between her breasts, “and very delicious. I mentioned that, but it must be said again. And I must taste you again.” He moved lower, kissing her stomach, and lower still, his lips hovering above the waistband of her panties.

He couldn’t mean to...he wouldn’t. Because somewhere in the back of her mind she thought that this was a selfless act. One that would mean giving to her, and revenge wasn’t selfless. Revenge wouldn’t allow him to give that.

But then he was pulling those expensive panties down her legs and forcing her thighs apart, opening her to him. And he looked. More than looked, he stopped, frozen for a moment, and gazed as though she was a work of art in a museum, and he was poring over her every detail.

She could hardly breathe, her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst through her chest.

Then he leaned in, his eyes never leaving hers, his tongue trailing a line along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Then he moved close to...to...

A burst of insecurity broke over her. “I don’t...you don’t have to...”

He growled and pushed his hands beneath her bottom, tugging her close to his mouth, his eyes still on hers. “I will have whatever I like.”

He closed the distance between them then, laving the sensitive bundle of nerves with the flat of his tongue. And she stopped pushing at him. Instead, her fingers curled into claws, dug into his skin. For a moment she was afraid she was hurting him, but he let out that low, feral growl again and pulled her more tightly against his mouth, tasting her even deeper, and that thought, along with every other thought she’d ever had, fled from her mind.

She found herself flexing her hips in time with his tongue, pushing herself closer to the edge of climax. She’d never done this with a man before, but she was familiar enough with how her body worked. Though, it was different when someone else had so much of the control. Wilder. More exciting.

He shifted, and she felt his finger slide through her slick flesh, testing the entrance to her body. She tensed, unsure of what to expect next. He pressed into her, the sensation unfamiliar, but not at all painful.

She let out the breath she’d just brought in, and relaxed into the new rhythm, into the feeling of being filled by him. Pleasure started building again, harder, faster. And then it broke over her, a wave that pushed her out to sea, tumbling her in the surf before bringing her up short, spent, and breathless.

She forgot everything. Why she was here. That he was a stranger. That he was her enemy.

How could he be a stranger when he had just touched her more intimately than anyone else ever had? How could he be an enemy when he had taken greater care for her pleasure, her needs and her comfort than anyone else in her life ever had?

And for a moment, just for a moment, he moved up so their bodies were aligned, and he held her in his strong arms, against his solid chest, so that she could rest her head against him and feel the raging of his beating heart, and she felt...she felt home.

Safe.

Cared for.

More for him, more in his arms than she’d ever felt before.

He moved his hand down between her thighs, then leaned in, kissing her neck as he teased her clitoris with his fingers, arousing her again, much more quickly after her orgasm than she would have imagined possible.

She wanted to beg. But somewhere in her mind she remembered him saying she would. And so she bit her lip to hold it back.

Then he lowered his forehead against hers, sweat beading on his skin. She could feel his arousal pressed against her inner thigh, so close. So close to what she knew they both wanted.

“Per favore.” He whispered the broken words in Italian, and his need was the final bit of fuel on the flame.

She released her hold on what was left of her control.

“Yes,” she said, her voice a sob. “Please. Please take me.” She was desperate, and she didn’t care if he knew it. And it wasn’t just for pleasure, but for a connection. For an answer to the deep, unending emptiness inside her she hadn’t been aware of until this moment.

“You want this?” he whispered, the words frayed. “You want me inside you?”

“Yes,” she moaned, arching against him.

He kissed her lips before moving away from her, opening the drawer of the nightstand by the bed and producing a little square packet.

A condom.

Oh yes, they weren’t done. This was it. She was going to lose her virginity now. To him. And she couldn’t even muster any fear. No shame. No doubt. Because she just wanted. More of what he’d given her only moments ago, more of being skin to skin with him. More of his lips against hers, his body in hers. She wanted more.

She wanted it all.

He worked the buckle on his dress pants and shoved them partway down his lean hips before positioning himself over her, and tearing open the condom. He was still almost entirely dressed, and she saw nothing but the deft movements of his hand as he rolled the condom over himself.

But when he moved to her entrance, she felt the blunt head of him, stretching her, tearing the thin barrier she’d never before given much thought about. She tensed, squeezing her eyes shut tight as the burning pain reached its peak, then dissipated slowly after he’d buried himself to the hilt.

She gritted her teeth, fought to keep from crying out, but she wasn’t successful. A whimper escaped her lips and she shivered beneath him as pain laced its way around all the beautiful pleasure she’d felt only a moment before.

He swore, violent, rough against her ear, and pushed himself up, dark eyes blazing into hers. But he said nothing.

Instead he angled his face and kissed her, long and deep, as he withdrew slowly from her body before sliding back home. It didn’t hurt at all that time, and as he established a steady rhythm to his thrusts, discomfort faded to a kind of neutral fullness, and from there grew, expanding to a deep, pulsing pleasure that was unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

She arched against him, as she’d done when he’d gone down on her, meeting his every thrust, the motion sending little sparks of heat through her, a familiar tightness coiling low in her stomach.

She felt him start to shake, felt the control in his movements start to slip. A groan escaped his lips, and he bucked hard against her, freezing above her, pushing them both over the edge to oblivion.

When she came back to herself, she was lying on her back, starting at an unfamiliar ceiling, with his warm, protective weight covering her. As if she was something precious.

Except...he wasn’t protective. And she wasn’t precious.

She was nothing more than a criminal, who had tried to make good for a while and failed. And he was...he was...

She tried to push away the reality that was crowding in. Tried to ignore the truth she would have to face eventually. She didn’t want to. Not now. Not while pleasure was still buzzing through her. Not while she still felt so good.

The power she’d felt only a few moments before was slipping through her grip like sand through an hourglass and there was no way for her to turn it back over and start again.

Then he was up, moving away from her, turning and walking into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

And she could only lie where she was, still staring at that ceiling. At the way the molding formed different tiers and textures. She listened to the sounds of the streets outside filtering up, audible even through the closed windows.

Life was moving out there, and yet, in here, in this room, in this moment, she was frozen.

The bathroom door opened and Rocco reappeared, his shirt buttoned, his pants redone. Except for the lack of tie, he looked exactly as he had done when he’d first walked into the restaurant. As though nothing had happened. As though past minutes hadn’t existed.

They might have just shared cake and coffee, instead of their bodies.

“I have a meeting to get to,” he said, his voice as unaffected as his exterior. “You may stay here if you wish. The room is paid for through the night.”

“I...I...”

“That is all I will be requiring from you. Though, I confess, I didn’t expect you to give in quite so easily.”

His words were cold, distant, and she tried to recapture the feeling she’d had moments ago, of feeling close to him, and found she couldn’t. She would wonder if it had all been in her mind except she was still naked, on the bed.

She sat up, holding her hands over as much of her body as she could. Trying to reclaim some modesty, some dignity, some...something.

“I would have taken a lot less from you, cara mia, but you played the part of whore so well, who was I to stop you?”

She felt as if she’d been slapped, a sick, cold feeling of shame trickling through her veins. And she had no mask to recall. None to put in place and hide her nakedness, her vulnerability. “But you...I...”

“Speechless?” He arched a dark brow. “It was quite good, I’ll give you that. But, regrettably, I don’t have time for seconds.” He bent and picked up his tie, tying it quickly before buttoning his jacket.

He was untouched. Invulnerable. And she was still stripped. Of everything.

“As I said, I require nothing more from you. Consider your debt paid.” He turned away from her. “The sex was...incredible. But I’m not sure it was worth a million dollars. I think, in the end, you got the better part of the deal.” He strode away from her, pulling the door open and pausing, turning to face her. “I want you to remember something, Charity.”