Star of Wonder (5 page)

“Ohhhh!”

Target achieved.

“Mmmmm.” He drawled it as he hit her clit again. But this time Celina jumped beneath him, letting out an adorable yelp of pleasure. Before he thought about what he was doing, Dante reached up and smacked the meat of her ass in retaliation.

“What the—” She jerked again. He gave the other side a hard spank. “Damn it, Dante! Why—”

“What part of the instruction wasn’t clear, stellina? You told me you understood. And I told
you
not to move without being told.”

“Are you freaking kidding?” At the two spanks he gave in answer, she shrieked. “Oh God! Dante—please! Ohhhhh!” She keened with the last of it as he reattached his mouth to the moist lips of her cunt. He’d returned to his ministrations partly out of curiosity. Did the blows coax even more of her cream out to play?

Damn straight they did.

He closed his eyes, sucking at her with greedy abandon, loving how she shook with the torment of staying still for him now. Soon, her gasps came faster and her whole body trembled. Her sobs gained intensity. She pushed back into his mouth, utterly ignoring his swats now, perhaps even wanting them.

It was the moment he pulled away.

“Dante!”

He grunted in victory as he rose, flipped her over, and slid her higher onto the mattress. “Yes,
stellina mia
?”

She writhed and bucked like she needed him to exorcise a demon from her. “You’re making me crazy!”

He followed her onto the bed, but not before pushing her thighs back and giving her glistening pussy one last swipe with his thumbs. When he climbed there, replacing his fingers with his cock, he grabbed her hands under both of his, slamming her arms to the mattress above her head.

“No more crazy than you make me.” He said it against her mouth, and she parted her lips in readiness for his kiss, but he didn’t give it to her. Instead he hovered there, watching her intently as he worked his erection back and forth along her labia and clit, savoring the desperate, pleading little sounds that burst from her, loving the pieces of control she gave up with each passing minute, giving herself over to his rule. Her thighs clenched and coiled against his. She tried to twist her wrists from his hold, but that enforced his resolve to keep her trapped. Now compressed by his chest, her nipples puckered tighter.

“Oh!” She nearly shrieked it this time. “Please!”

“Yes,
cara
.” He praised her, pressing his forehead to hers. “Give it all to me. Let it all go.”

She trembled, wrenching in his hold again. “I—I don’t know how—”

“Let me have it, Celina. That’s all you have to do.”

“L-let you have what?”

“The control.” He had no idea where that answer came from, but it fit. It more than fit. It was the truth. What he wanted from her. What he needed. “Stop fighting. Let me have it. Let me have it all as I get inside you…”

Remarkably, her arms went slack in his hold. She looked at him with eyes brilliant as emeralds and forced in a breath. “I…I’ll try.”

He smiled his way into giving her a deep kiss. “Good girl.” Locking his stare to hers again, he murmured, “Do you have supplies nearby, stellina?” Hell, he hoped the answer was yes, while bracing himself for the opposite. He had a condom or two in his wallet, but that was in his jacket back out in the living room, and things between their bodies were officially at level red in the potential detonation department.

“Supplies?” Her frown of confusion burst into wide-eyed comprehension. “Oh! Shit! Uhhh…” She blushed furiously, looking so damn innocent, he pulsed against her pussy with a new surge of readiness. “Nightstand,” she said. “I think. Maybe at the back.”

He’d already found the package, thank fucking God. He tore it open, noticing how Celina watched him with the fascination of a child looking at a balloon artist. He smiled, wondering how many times she’d really had a man in here, fishing through her bedside drawer for a rubber. When he pulled out the latex and her curiosity suddenly skittered, hiding behind a dropped gaze, he had his answer. There’d been nobody here before him. At least not recently.

Good. That was
really
fucking good.

He gritted his teeth as he rolled on the sheath, especially when he beheld her eyes on him again. Her mouth fell open, the tip of her tongue peeking from her teeth, and her eyes went from that bright jewel green to the shade of dark nettles. His flesh pushed even more impatiently at the condom, his head already taking a dip in the puddle of his precum, with every moment of her open desire. Thank crap the navy hadn’t picked the woman for a covert-ops position. She wore every thought and emotion across her face and was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen for it.

“Damn. I need to do this.” He rushed it out, the words potent with the need that shook him. “I need to be inside you, Celina. Now!”

She nodded. At least he thought she did. He lost all awareness as he lined up his hardness to her softness and got sucked into the incinerator of her tight tunnel. For at least a dozen thrusts, a hurricane could’ve hit, and he wouldn’t have noticed anything beyond the ecstasy hitting his body through the funnel of hers. She gripped him, milked him, destroyed him, renewed him. But she cast her spell with more than what she offered anatomically. It was how she gave it to him, leaping outside every comfort zone she had to succumb to him in this way, even letting him pin her wrists down again as he thrust into her with long, deep, primal strokes of pure, pounding possession.

“Oh!”

She broke into her litany of sighs and moans to let it out. He stared at her, worried he’d hurt her somehow, especially when her head jacked back against the pillows, her neck straining. Then she called out again. “Please. Again. Oh please, Dante!”

A king-of-the-hill grin spread his lips. It had damn good justification. His name pouring from her lips like that, and his cock, clearly finding her G-spot. Her muscles, trembling with the sensations he’d brought to them. This whole moment, ungluing the goddess inside this stunning woman. It felt like something prewritten in the stars, if he believed in bullshit like that.

He dipped his head, claiming the column of her neck with a hungry kiss before telling her, “Lift your legs higher, stellina. Wrap them around me. I’m gonna do it again, I promise. And I’m gonna make it really good.”

She complied while teething her lip in a bashful smile, torpedoing his mind just like she had at the party. Only now, his body was part of the annihilation too. He gladly let the whole thing burn, surrendering as fully to her as she had to him. All the power she’d given over, the trust she’d shown, was now his gift back to her in the bliss he rendered to her body. She writhed beneath him, open in every way, her face a portrait of pleasure, her skin aglow, her breaths coming faster and faster until, in one starburst of a moment, she seized and screamed.

“Oh, Dante! Ohhhh, hell!”

Her fiery tunnel convulsed and throbbed, gripping him with every explosion of her orgasm. Panting against her shoulder, Dante managed three words before the glory of his own release came, mind-robbing and white-hot.

“No, sweetheart. Heaven.”

Chapter Six

Celina woke up with a jolt.

Where the hell was she?

The room was still dark. But it was her room. Okay, she was at home. So why did she feel so…off?

The clock on the nightstand read 5:30 a.m. Well, that much was normal. Unfortunately, her brain was preprogrammed for the time, weekends or not.

Weekends. Right. It was Saturday. Again, normal so far. She dragged a hand through her hair as the events of her not so normal Friday night began to hit. The froufrou party downtown. Her escape to the Blue Sax, and the huge mistake of that decision. Then Dante barging in when those knuckle draggers had her cornered. Then Dante taking her home. Here. Then Dante—

Oh God. Then Dante flipping her world upside down and her body inside out.

“Shit!”

She whispered it, not wanting to wake him up. After what he’d done with her—done
to
her, even a second time—the guy deserved a little sleep. Warmth suffused her all over again at remembering how he’d massaged her into slumber first, after he’d gently toweled her off. She craved so much more of it all, and was so tempted to scoot back under the covers and up against that honed sienna body of his, but it was time to put the fantasy away. Best to let him get out of here without the awkward good-bye and the empty promise to call her sometime.

If she sneaked quietly enough, she’d be out of bed and out the door to the gym before he even—

He wasn’t there.

She ran her hand across the other side of her bed as if maybe he’d pulled an
Invisible Man
on her. He was definitely gone. But the sheets were still a little warm. And damn, they still smelled like him. Patchouli and musk stirred with her touch, reminding her all too clearly what they smelled like on his skin, under her tongue. The man definitely knew what looked
and
smelled amazing on his body.

She sat up a little straighter and heard him now. He was talking to someone, though his tone was deliberately subdued, so she couldn’t make out the words. She listened to the timbre that constantly ran beneath his baritone, trying not to think how nice it sounded in the house, a perfect match to her hardwood floors and iron accents on the craftsman furniture. She scooted back against the pillows, lulled by the comforting sound of it.

That lasted for all of thirty seconds. She bolted up again. What the hell was she thinking?
Comforted?
No.
Lulled?
Hell, no. Dante Tieri was still in her house, and that should only be inciting one reaction in her. Anxiety. A lot of it.

That decision got her up and moving. And okay, so she routed through her drawer for her best sweats, bra, and T-shirt. So what? If she was going to toss a CEO hunk out of her house, she needed to look halfway decent, right? The same thought justified why she brushed her hair until it shined, then scrubbed her teeth followed by a mouthwash chaser. She felt better about seeing him already. Correction: confronting him.
Time to leave, buddy. Now. It was nice, but the party’s over.

Hell.

He was still breathtaking.

He lolled in one of her easy chairs, pretty much taking over the thing. He’d put his black dress pants back but without the belt. They slung low on his hips, exposing the twin lines of muscle that led her gaze inexorably to his crotch. Trying to look away was equally exasperating, because the panels of his open shirt were an ideal frame for the lightly haired planes of his dark chest. His hair was a tousled mess, an inky, tempting tangle that had her fingers itching to dive in again.

It was official. The man was just as mesmerizing after sex as before.

He turned when she walked in, winking but not breaking his conversation. “Okay, let’s hold off on pouring the foundation for the marketplace until we have the secondary geo surveys back. I know it’ll set things back by a few days, but we’re not gonna do this thing half-assed, Parker. Yeah, Mexico City isn’t coastal; so what? You and I both know that the Laguna Salada fault has swapped more than a little spit with the San Andreas. If they’ve had a secret geologic love child happening there, we need to know about it. Otherwise, we’ll be pulling concrete back up and—” He stopped and looked at his phone. “Parker, I’ll get back to you in a few. Gotta take this other line.”

Celina pretended to putter around in the kitchen, pouring a cup of the coffee he’d already made, though she didn’t hide her curiosity at what yanked him away from a business call so urgent, it warranted a five a.m. call on a Saturday. She observed his face through her lashes, then wished she hadn’t. His face went soft, tender, loving. An expression like that could only be caused by a woman.

She raised the cup to her lips and glared at him over the rim. The bastard was taking a call from another lover before even leaving
her
house?

“
Mamma
?”

She burned her tongue because she forgot to swallow the coffee.
Mamma?

“Sì, mi è
. Of course it’s not too early.
Tutto sta bene? Lei è giusto? Come Aldo è?
No, I’m not at home.” He gave an amused chuckle. “How did you know that?
Donna astuta.
”

At that moment, something started beeping behind Celina’s butt. She jumped, then looked behind her in shock. What the hell was that?

“
Mamma
, I have to interrupt you. I need to get this frittata out of the oven.”

This time, she choked on the coffee.
Frittata?

“Here; talk to Celina for a minute.” He said that part into the phone as he approached her, then kissed her lightly. Celina didn’t have a moment for half a glare, let alone a protest, before he pressed the phone to her ear and then rushed off to the oven. Not that the sirens in her head hadn’t picked up the slack in the distress signal department.

“Hello? Hello?” said a musical little voice in the phone. “Dante?
Agori mou? Ragazzo impetuoso! Dove è corso via a
?”

“Errr…good morning, Mrs. Tieri.” Her voice shook like she was going through oral exams all over again. The woman sounded like she could spit tacks through the phone. She tossed a glower at Dante, who kicked the oven shut as he pulled out a steaming egg dish that turned the rumble in her stomach into a roar.

Just like that, the bristles in
Mamma
’s voice melted. “Well…hello,” she replied, her thick accent making the words more gooey. “Ah, now who is
this
?”

“My name is—er—Celina. Lieutenant Celina Kouris, ma’am. I’m—uh—”

“Is my boy taking care of you right, Celina?”

She glanced at Dante. He was slicing the frittata with a knowing smirk on his face that clenched her sex and spiked her ire. He probably knew exactly what his mother was saying—because she’d said it to a thousand women before her. “He’s been a good friend.” She pressed hard on the last word, hating that it merely thickened the heat in his eyes.