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  His breath hitched in his throat. Hers caught in her lungs. A moan escaped her throat. A groan emerged from his lungs. His hand slid down her narrow waist to her hips, fingers bunching in her skirt while his mouth took hers again. She went up on her toes, reaching for more, drowning in his taste, in his dark passion. His hand slid over her bare thigh, up to her hip, and then down around to the inside. The feeling of the pads of his fingers was exquisite. All the while his mouth commanded hers. Taking her to places she hadn't known existed.

  She needed to be closer, much closer. Skin to skin. On the far wall, over his arm, she saw their shadows merge, and felt the jolt of lightning, as if she'd been struck, as if somehow their two bodies became one inside the same skin. The blaze of fire sizzled down her spine, up through her belly to her breasts. Scorching hot. Making her hungrier for him. Addicted to his taste. His scent. The feel of his hard body against the softness of hers. She'd never been more aware of herself as a woman.

  Abruptly, Stefano's hands locked around her upper arms like a vise and he put her away from him. Holding her still at arm's length, breathing heavily, shaking his head. She took a step toward him. Mesmerized by him. Completely under his spell.

  "No, bambina. We can't do this."

  "Yes, we can. I want this," she whispered, once again stepping toward him.

  His arms locked, holding her away from him. "No."

  One word. She saw his face. Uncompromising. Without expression. She was on fire, her body not her own, but his, and yet . . . he didn't want her. She was making a fool out of herself. Never in her life had she offered herself to another man. Humiliation burned through her.

  Francesca turned away from him, pressing her fingers against her mouth to still the trembling. To seal the taste and feel of him to her. He didn't want her. She'd thrown herself at him and he'd rejected her. How could she have been so stupid? She didn't have a lot of experience, but she shouldn't have convinced herself he wanted her just because she wanted him. She'd never felt more mortified in her life. She wasn't certain how to salvage the situation, or even if she could.

  "Don't." His voice was low.

  She didn't turn around to face him; she didn't dare. Color had swept up her neck and into her face. She took a step toward the hall, away from him, thinking to flee to her room. She had nowhere else to go and she wanted to hide. To give herself time to pull herself back together, because he'd totally unraveled her. She would have allowed him to take her right there in his great room. On the couch. The floor. It wouldn't have mattered as long as she had him. But he didn't want her.

  She'd never thrown herself at a man in her life. Never. She'd never been rejected and she didn't know how to act. What to do or say. She wasn't sophisticated. She didn't run in his circles, and she didn't know the first thing about casual kissing. To her, those kisses had been anything but casual, but what did she know?

  "Francesca, don't." He repeated the command softly. Imperiously. "Look at me." Another command.

  She refused to face him. She shook her head and took another step, the need to flee overcoming her pride. She whirled around, thinking to run to the elevator, but he was on her before she'd taken a single step. His hands caught at her hips and he kept moving, propelling her backward as he took her straight through the wide archway to the wall in the hallway. She would have fallen over, had he not been holding her up.

  Heart pounding, back to the wall, caged in by his body, she could only stand there, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her. She refused to look at his face, into his eyes. She didn't want to do this with him, listen to him try to let her down easy. That was even more humiliating.

  "I want to go," she murmured softly. "You can't keep me here."

  "Look at me, Francesca." It was another one of his orders. Clear. Clipped. Expecting obedience.

  Her breath hissed out. She braced herself to meet his eyes because she knew she had to comply with his command. He wouldn't let her go until she did. She didn't want to see pity there. Or compassion. She slowly forced her gaze up his chest to his strong jaw, that beautiful mouth, his aristocratic nose, and finally, finally, to his amazing blue eyes. At once she couldn't look away. Captured. Held prisoner there. Right in the depth of all that blue. Her breath caught in her throat. Not pity. Definitely not pity. Desire burned there. Hot and raw. Possession. Primal and a little savage.

  "Dolce cuore, you're a runner. You've gotten in the habit of taking off when things get too hot. I'm not easy. I'll never be easy. I'll own you. You won't have one moment when I'm not aware of where you are and what you're doing. That's who I am. I'll always be that man. You have to be certain you're going to stick with me no matter what, because once I make you mine, once your body belongs to me, there's no taking it back. Not ever. You have to know what you're committing to."

  She shook her head. "Don't say things like that, Stefano. I read the magazines and you had sex a thousand times with a thousand women. They can't all belong to you."

  "It was sex, Francesca. I fucked them because I needed release and I like to fuck." He ignored her wince and continued. "I didn't bring them home. They weren't ever going to live with me. Or know me. Or know anything about me. I didn't claim them in front of my entire family or my neighborhood. None of those women belonged to me. I didn't want them for more than a few hours. We used each other--that was it."

  Francesca bit down hard on the side of her lip, her heart pounding. She could barely believe what she was hearing. Somehow, she was different to him from all those other beautiful, sophisticated women? More to him than models? Heiresses? Actresses? The rich and beautiful?

  "My life is fucked up, Francesca. It was from the moment I was born. I have no choice in what I do. I was born into a family business, trained for it, and have people depending on me. My life has never been my own. I've got all the money in the world, and nothing that I want. Until you. I want you. You're what I want for myself."

  She curled her fingers tighter around his biceps, afraid if she didn't hold on she would fall. The things he said made her weak with desire. There was stark honesty in his voice--raw emotion on his face.

  "I'm not a nice man, bambina. I'm never going to be that nice man. If you give yourself to me, you're entering into a world that will scare you. You'll have to trust me implicitly. Trust that always, always, before any other, I will have your back. I'll keep you safe. I'll make you happy and give you the world. It isn't going to be casual sex, Francesca. You give me your body and that's it. I won't let you take it back."

  "You're scaring me." He was. The part about his life, entering his world and coming right out and saying his world would scare her, she was afraid of what that meant. He wasn't being dramatic, or embellishing; he was stating facts, she could tell.

  "You should be scared. I want you to see me, Francesca. The real me. The man you will be spending your life with. No illusions. I'm ruthless and implacable. I get the job done with whatever means necessary. I keep what's mine. I want children. A family. A woman who will love those children and get up with them in the middle of the night and comfort them when they're upset. I want that woman for myself and for my children."

  He had said he got up with his sister when she had nightmares and he was the one who made her hot chocolate and sat up with her. Not his mother. Stefano had done that.

  "I'll try to curb the way I am and give you some room, but I know myself. You're already my world. I think about you day and night. I worry about you. You'll convince yourself that once the threat to you is over and Barry Anthon has been eliminated from your life, I'll lighten up. But I won't, dolce cuore, I won't. I'll always need to know you're safe and that when I say something to you, you'll listen."

  She heard the regret, the sorrow in his voice. As if she couldn't ever love him because of who he had become. What he'd been born and bred for. Whatever his life was, whatever his family business was, he wasn't giving that up. Not for her. Not for anyone. He would expect her to live with whatever it was. He wo
uld expect her to live with the rules of his world, the ones he laid down.

  I'm not easy. I'll never be easy. I'll own you. You won't have one moment when I'm not aware of where you are and what you're doing. That's who I am. I'll always be that man. His declaration echoed through her mind. On that thought came the next--that she would always know she was safe, that her children were safe. "Safe" meant the world when you hadn't had it.

  I'm not a nice man, bambina. I'm never going to be that nice man. If you give yourself to me, you're entering into a world that will scare you. He didn't think himself a nice man, but in the next breath he told her just as honestly . . . Trust that always, always, before any other, I will have your back. I'll keep you safe. I'll make you happy and give you the world. He didn't understand how beautiful he was to her. How amazing that a man like him existed.

  "You don't know anything about me. What I'm like. What my character is. It's impossible to want to be with me, to say I'm your world, when you don't even know me." It killed her to state the truth, because she was giving him up. And she wanted him. But it was the truth, and she wasn't going to live a lie just so she could have him.

  He laughed softly, shaking his head, his gaze drifting possessively over her face. "Do you think after spending an entire lifetime knowing bad, studying bad in every form, I don't know good when I see it? I've spent thousands of hours in the company of superficial. Of shallow. All about looks. Money. Image. Grasping and greedy. That's the last thing you are."

  "You can't know that, Stefano," she whispered. Her heart pounded so loud she feared he might hear it.

  "Really? Bambina." His fingers curled around the nape of her neck. "You gave your coat to a stranger, a woman in the street, when you needed it desperately. Joanna has money, a family, a warm house to live in. She was with you. She didn't offer her coat. Neither did anyone else walking down that street seeing Dina shivering and cold. They saw a homeless woman if they saw her at all. You saw a human being."

  "But . . ."

  "I gave you my coat, Francesca, with well over a thousand dollars in the pocket. How many women or men for that matter would have left that money there?"

  "I bought boots." Her voice was small and color crept up her neck. Her gaze slid from his; she was ashamed at having to admit she'd taken his money and still couldn't pay it back.

  His thumb slid along her jaw and then traveled to her bottom lip. He traced the soft curve, sending little shivers down her spine.

  "Bella, I sent my brother into the store to make certain you bought yourself shoes. That was important to me. And you took extra care of my coat. Hanging it in Pietro's office away from anyone else. You were freezing in that horrible apartment, yet instead of using the coat to keep warm, you hung it carefully."

  "I thought about using it," she admitted. The floor was dirty and even after she'd scrubbed it, she didn't want his coat ever touching it.

  "But you didn't, even though you should have. You didn't want anything to happen to it. It mattered to you."

  It did matter more than she cared to admit to herself. She kept saying she wanted to return his coat to him. It seemed so much of a responsibility, but if she was being strictly honest with herself, she knew the truth was she wanted to wrap herself in his scent. He made her feel safe. Having his coat was a little like having a part of him. She moistened her lips, the tip of her tongue tasting the pad of his thumb. Her heart jerked and her sex clenched and went slicker, hotter. Needier.

  "Stefano, if you knew the things they say about me . . ."

  "The things Barry Anthon said about you? Made up about you? Manufactured evidence against you?" His voice went cold. Hard. Scary. "When you woke up from your nightmare and you told me about him . . ."

  "Stop." Now her face was cherry red. She was so ashamed of deliberately dragging him into her mess. "You have no idea what I did. I manipulated you. I knew you were scary protective. Off-the-charts protective. I told you about Barry . . ."

  "Because you were half awake and scared out of your mind. You think holding you in my arms I couldn't feel that? We're connected. I know you feel that, too. The moment you were awake enough, you backtracked."

  She had. "Still, I did drag you into my nightmare. It doesn't count that I regretted it afterward. That is a terrible character flaw, to use someone because I felt so alone and tired and . . ." She broke off.

  "Scared. You were scared and you needed someone."

  "Not just anyone." She had to give him that much. Give him truth. "You made me feel safe for the first time in what seems forever, since my parents died, since my sister was murdered," Francesca confessed in a little whisper.

  "I want you to feel safe when you're with me, dolce cuore. Most importantly, when you thought Anthon had found you, you decided to run to protect me. In my lifetime, I can't remember another human being protecting me. I was raised to be a shield standing between harm and everyone else. I learned that from age two. You have no idea what it meant to me, knowing that you were terrified, no money, nothing at all, yet you would leave in order to protect me."

  She shook her head. "Stefano, you're making me sound far better than I am."

  "I knew what kind of woman I wanted in my life, for the mother of my children, and when I saw all those things in you, I knew. I knew it was you. Not to mention, the chemistry between us is off the charts. I think I mentioned to you that I like to fuck. I do. A lot. I came off a job and needed a woman desperately. I couldn't get relief because suddenly no other woman would do but you. There's only you for me. You're the woman I want under my body. You're the woman I want to see coming apart when I take you. I want to be with you in every way a man can be with his woman."

  "I don't know what I'm doing."

  "A little trust, bambina." There was a hint of amusement in his voice. "I know what I'm doing, and I'll make certain it's always good for you."

  "What about being good for you? That's important to me, Stefano," she confessed.

  He went still, his blue eyes darkening, intense, moving over her face with that raw possession and something else she couldn't quite name. "There it is," he said softly. "The reason I want you with every fucking breath I take."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Stefano's fingers tightened on the nape of Francesca's neck and he bent his head slowly toward hers. He needed her mouth. The taste of her. No matter what she said, no matter that he'd acted as if he was giving her a chance to get away from him, he knew better. He knew she was already lost. His. He'd never thought he'd really have a chance at finding a woman of his own, one he could love and center his world around, one who would accept him and his fucked-up life, but now that she'd stepped into his world, he knew he wasn't about to let her go.

  She should have pulled away from him. He'd told her the truth about himself and hinted at his world. He'd let her know exactly what she had to look forward to with him. She should have tried again to make her escape, but instead, she lifted her face to his. Offered herself. Her eyelids drifted down, covering that sexy, slumberous look that sent scorching arrows igniting the blood in his veins.

  He took her mouth. Ruthless. Merciless. A little savage even. Hungrier than he'd ever been in his life. Her lips were soft, parting for him instantly on his demand, and his tongue slipped into her mouth. Her sweet, sweet mouth. Instantly his blood rushed hotly through his veins to pool low. Brutal. He devoured her. Taking everything he could get from her and demanding more. He would never get enough of her, of the way she kissed him. Giving to him. Giving him everything. She didn't know what she was offering him. Trust. Absolute trust. Her body went boneless, melting into his, her mouth moving under the assault of his.

  It didn't matter that he was wild. Rough. That he was allowing the kiss to spin out of control. She just gave and gave to him. That got to him as nothing else could have. She didn't think she had anything to offer him. He got that. She had no money, no family, nothing at all in her eyes. Yet she gave him everything because she gave him this magnificent gi
ft--her and her trust, when she had no reason to trust anyone, least of all him.

  He had never had a woman who didn't want something from him. He knew the score and he was all right with that. Francesca was . . . extraordinary. A gift. A miracle. She just gave herself to him. He was connected to her through their shadows and he knew how she felt. Frightened, bordering on terror. Still, he mattered to her. She saw him, not the Stefano the rest of the world saw, but the man inside who needed. Who didn't want to stand alone. She gave herself to that man. And God help him, he wasn't ever going to let her go, so he had to do this right. He had to give the best he could, certainly not ripping her clothes off and taking her the way his body demanded.

  He drew back before it was too late, before he took her right there in the hallway on the floor. Before the roaring in his head became too loud and the need in his body took away every ounce of sense he had. Dimly, he heard the ping of the elevator and instantly, even with his body on fire and his cock so damned hard and full he was afraid he might burst, he turned, blocking Francesca's body with his own, dragging his gun from his shoulder holster and tracking the elevator doors through the archway.

  Ricco stepped into the foyer, followed by his other brothers, all of them, and his New York cousins. They looked grim. Determined. The truth was, he wasn't surprised to see them. He knew why they were there. Francesca represented hope to them. Already, knowing that he was claiming her, she was family to them. They took family seriously. They wanted to know what had her spooked, why she would think she had to run. More, why she would think she had to protect Stefano. He also knew that if they believed he was in danger, they would pull out all stops to ensure his safety as well as Francesca's. Any other time he would have been glad to see them, but the timing was poor.

  "My brothers, bambina," he said softly, turning back to her as he slid the gun back into his holster. "And two cousins from New York." His cousins were the family investigators out of New York. "They will be asking you a few questions. If you aren't comfortable answering, look to me. I'll handle it. Understand?" Because even with his family, he would stand in front of her. Always. She didn't know that yet, but she'd learn.