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

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СКАЧАТЬ to seem very important, as he doubted he would find another means to get his interactions with her on track. Not as long as he was distracted by his desire for her body.

      He could nearly taste her again. Those sweet, dusky-rose lips and the honey between her thighs. He was hard just thinking about it. How long had it been since he’d wanted one woman specifically? Had he ever?

      He wanted sex, women in a general sense, but never specifically. Art, cars, things, he craved with a ferocious specificity, but never women. He craved beauty so that he could collect it, keep it.

      He craved things because the more he owned, the more there was of him. The more evidence there was of his power. Never had he felt more helpless than as a boy with nothing. And so, he had become a man with everything.

      It was why he had built a house into a carved mountainside that gazed out at the sea, owning a piece of what was wild. Taming it.

      He wanted to tame her. Keep her. Make her his.

      The epiphany was utterly disturbing, and yet he realized, standing there scanning all that he owned, it was her he was searching for. And no amount of awareness about the nature of his attraction would stop him searching for her.

      She had him. And he had to reverse that ownership.

      He saw a faint splash coming from the courtyard, from the large infinity pool that overlooked the sea. His gut tightened. It was her. He knew it was her.

      He moved away from the terrace and back into the living room, striding out the double doors that led to the walled-in garden. There was an outdoor living area, with a bed and gauzy curtains, perfect for those times when he simply couldn’t wait to get a lover indoors. The pool and its glass wall faced the sea and a completely private beach, if he enjoyed the feeling of putting on a show without actually having an audience.

      And Rocco had to confess, without any shame, that he did.

      He looked at the pool and saw barely a ripple. Then, her sleek, dark head resurfaced. She had her back to him, her black curls tamed by the water. She pushed her hands back over her hair, droplets sluicing down over her hair, her arms.

      “The view from here is very nice,” he said.

      She whirled around quickly, her eyes wide, her mouth open. His eyes fell to the low cut of the bathing suit she was wearing—one that must have been provided by his staff, as he had requested sometime last night that they see to it that his guest had clothes. It was a one-piece suit. Out of deference to her pregnancy, he imagined. And yet it was still incredibly sexy.

      He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her breasts. They were average size, he supposed, but incredible. Perfectly round with lovely, caramel nipples that had set his body on fire. He was obsessed with tasting her again. Everywhere.

      “I thought so,” she said, offering him a strained smile. “You picked a great location for the pool.”

      “I wasn’t talking about the ocean.”

      Her cheeks darkened. “Oh.”

      He moved closer to the pool, closer to her. He couldn’t help himself.

      With her, he could never seem to help himself. “You are beautiful, cara mia, surely you know that.”

      She lifted a shoulder, a water droplet rolling down her skin. “I don’t think about it often.”

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ