One Night: Sizzling Attraction: Married for Amari's Heir / Damaso Claims His Heir / Her Secret, His Duty

“Not at all?”

She shrugged again and began to walk toward the steps of the pool. Slowly she rose from the water, revealing her body inch by delectable inch. He could not yet see any changes from the pregnancy, though she was nearly at the three-month mark by now. She was still slim, the rounded curves of her body pure perfection. He could remember clearly what it had been like to run his hands over all that bare skin...

“It doesn’t mean anything to me. In my position in life either you use your beauty to manipulate, or you don’t. Until I met you, I’d never used my body. Not even for a con.”

“I am curious,” he said, and he found he was, “when did you stop helping your father? And why did you go back?”

She let out a heavy sigh and walked over to the chair that had a white towel folded and placed in the center. She picked it up and started to dry herself, wrapping it tightly around her hips. “When I was about seventeen I told him I didn’t want to play the game anymore. He wasn’t happy, but I was basically taking care of myself anyway. A lot of what I did was facilitating corporate scams and charity frauds.” She lowered her eyes. “It was bad. But I’d always done it and...I just didn’t think much about it. He used to say that there was no amount of hard work that could ever get regular people like us to the top. He said if people weren’t smart enough they didn’t deserve to keep their cash. ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’ was always one of his favorite phrases. Of course, it never applied to him and how fast he went through whatever he got.”

“Naturally not,” Rocco said, keeping his voice neutral.

“But there was a point when I realized it was...not something I wanted to do. So I stopped. And he left town about six months later. I got a job waitressing. I’d been doing that for about three years when he came back. I hadn’t heard from him at all for the last year. And I was struggling and it sounded so easy. More than that...my dad was back. I’ve never been able to say no to him because I just want to be...I want us to be a family. He’s all I have. And it was just one more job—hit AmariCorp, get them to invest in us, roll out with the money. I swear I didn’t know it would be so much. And...look, it was wrong,” she said, dark eyes blazing, “I know it was. Old habits and stuff. I got tempted to cut corners and I didn’t hold up to the temptation. I did it because I knew that I wouldn’t make that much in a year of work and I was tired of struggling. And then he took off, and I felt like crap and I just...well, I never saw any of the money we took from you. It took us a couple months to organize the scam, another one for me to realize my dad left me in the lurch and another three for you to find me. And you made me pay, Rocco. You made me pay enough that I know I’ll remember the cost if I’m ever tempted again. Nothing is free.”

Her words sat uncomfortably in his gut. “I made you pay. With sex?”

“Among other things. I don’t know if I ever truly understood how wrong it all was until I met you and it...it hurts.”

“I feel I have asked too much of you,” he said, moving to close the distance between them. “I am...I regret the way things passed between us.”

“You’re sorry?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

He frowned. “I would not go that far.”

“I feel all warm inside, Rocco. I really do.”

He moved to her, wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her up against his body. His heart was raging, his hands shaking and he didn’t have any idea why.

“I am not sorry,” he said, his voice rough, “because I cannot regret wanting you. I cannot regret having you. Even though I should.”

He raised his hand to her cheek and slid his thumb over her lip, slicking up a drop of water that remained there. She was the epitome of beauty, a living embodiment of all the things he surrounded himself with. All the things he tried to collect. All of the things he wanted to own. And she didn’t want him.

It enraged him, that she was so close to him, and yet so far from him in so many ways.

No, it was unacceptable. He would not endure it.

“I’m cold,” she said, shivering.

“I could make you warm,” he said, his voice rough.

“Why?” she asked, her eyes searching his.

“Because I want you,” he said, tracing the perfectly shaped line of her upper lip before sliding his fingertips over her sculpted cheekbones. Learning her face. Taking possession of it.

“But I don’t understand why you want me. You’ve given me every indication that you hate me. You humiliated me in New York. You used me. And whether you want to talk about it or not, you paid for my body. It doesn’t make sense.”

“None of this makes sense. When you walked into that hotel in New York I had every intention of humiliating you. I wanted to leave you in that hotel room aching and begging for me. I didn’t think I would want you. How could I want a thief?” He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t think you understand, Charity. Nobody steals from me. What I have earned is precious to me in ways very few people comprehend. I despised you before I laid eyes on you. I was not supposed to want you.”

“So why do you?”

“There is no reason. Except for chemistry. This is truly potent chemistry, cara, and I certainly don’t know how to fight it. The fact is, I don’t want to. I spent many years deprived of human contact, living with families who showed me no affection. I spent a great many years without the things that I truly craved. And I do not believe in denying myself, not now. Now I have the power to deliver to myself everything I desire. I have no practice at it and restraint. And no need for it. And so I underestimate you, and where the attraction to you would lead. And now I find that I’m aware of how powerful it is, I want to explore it.”

“I don’t see why I should sleep with a man who despises me.”

“You did it once.”

She looked down, her expression stricken. “I’m not proud of it.”

“Why?” He tightened his grip on her chin, forcing her to look back at him. “Why aren’t you proud? You nearly brought me to my knees. You made me weak with wanting. You forced me to deviate from my plan, and no one does that, Charity, no one. You could bring me to my knees now if you would promise to let me taste the beauty between your thighs. How can you not feel some pride in that?”

“I suppose,” she said, her voice trembling, her cheeks flooded with dark color, “I suppose it’s because I have never put much stock in sexual attraction. I’ve never really felt that before you, not in a specific sense.”

“Sex drives the world. There is very little that is more powerful.” He laughed, though he didn’t feel anything was particularly funny. “Perhaps money. And our interactions have been fueled by both. Is it any wonder we are so potent together?”

“I don’t want this,” she said, her voice a whisper.

“You don’t want my attentions? Or you don’t want to feel this attraction?”

“I don’t want to feel this,” she said, not looking at him.

“But you do,” he said, his voice fierce. “You do.”

“Yes.”

“I do not despise you,” he said, the words a rough whisper. “I recognize something in you.”

“What?” she asked.

“Hunger. You are so empty. So hungry. Like me.” She nodded, emotion flashing bright in her dark eyes. “Let me fill you.”

She nodded and it was all the consent he needed.

He dipped his head and captured her lips, a raw sound rumbling in his chest as he did, the relief that flooded him unlike anything he had ever known. He was so hungry for this, so hungry for her, and he had not realized until the taste of her dropped onto his tongue. Only then did he realize just how intense the craving was.

He coaxed her mouth open, sliding his tongue against hers, tasting her deeply, drinking her in as he would do a fine brandy, savoring her, letting the heat flood every part of him, warming the deep places that were always cold.

But she went deeper than any alcohol could ever burn, touching a part of his soul he had not realized still lived.

Wanting her became the physical ache, a drive that he could not fight, a drive he did not want to fight.

She was far too stiff in his arms for his liking. He slid his hand down to the curve of her bottom, pulling her tightly against him, against his growing arousal, showing her exactly how she affected him, exactly how much he wanted her. And she began to soften in his arms, a sound of capitulation on her lips, as she tasted him as deeply as he had been tasting her. As she allowed herself to get drunk on him, as he had been doing on her. And he felt her grow languid, felt her melt against him, her breasts pressed against his chest, an eroticism he didn’t think he had ever fully paused to appreciate before.

He was a jaded man, a man with too much experience. Kisses had long since ceased to thrill him. But this kiss was everything. It was more than any kiss. More than he had ever imagined a kiss could be.

“I must have you,” he said, wrenching his mouth from hers so that he could speak the words that were burning in his chest. “I need you, Charity, I need you.”

It vexed him, even now, that she could make him want so deeply. With all of himself. This little thief who had reached inside of him and stolen the very thing he prized the most: his control.

Right now, he was not even certain if he wanted it back. The only thing he was certain of wanting was her.