He’d totally forgotten about that until now.
At that second she looked up at him, catching him in a moment between past and present. Between who this woman was and who she wasn’t.
Ciro felt as if there was a spotlight on his head, exposing every flaw—and not just the very physical ones. His scar felt itchy now, compounding his sense of dislocation and exposure. The scar that didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Lara looked as frozen as he felt. ‘Cooking.’
‘For who? Your imaginary friends?’
Ciro didn’t have to see the rush of colour into Lara’s cheeks to know he was being a bastard, but this whole scenario was unacceptable to him on a level that he really didn’t want to investigate too closely.
Lara cursed herself for having given in to this urge to do something so domestic, but she refused to let Ciro’s palpable disapproval intimidate her. She wouldn’t let another man tell her she couldn’t cook.
‘It’s lasagne, Ciro, not some subversive act.’
A suspicious look came over his face as he advanced into the kitchen. ‘Why are you doing it, then? Angling to forge a more permanent position in my life by showcasing your domestic skills? As if they might hide your true nature?’
Lara pushed the dish away from the edge of the island, curbing the urge to lift it up and throw it at Ciro’s cynical head. She said through gritted teeth, ‘I really hadn’t thought about it too much. I merely wanted to cook. It’s Dominique’s night off—how else am I going to feed myself?’
Ciro was so close now that Lara could see his long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks. They should have diminished his extreme masculinity. They didn’t.
Feeling exasperated now, as well as jittery that Ciro was so close, Lara said, ‘You’ve been out for dinner every night, Ciro. Did you really expect that I’d be sitting here pining away for your company?’
He flushed as if she’d hit a nerve. ‘Clearly I made a mistake in not taking you along to those dinners with me.’
Lara started backing away around the kitchen island, her jitteriness increasing as Ciro advanced. ‘No, it’s fine—honestly. I know those things are work-related...not interesting. I’d only cramp your style.’
Then, as if she hadn’t spoken, Ciro said almost musingly, ‘I had no idea you liked going to bed so early. I seem to remember you telling me that you loved the night-time—after midnight, when everyone else is asleep and the world is finally quiet and at peace.’
Now Lara flushed. He’d remembered that romantic stroll when he’d taken her through deserted Florentine squares under the moonlight? She’d been such a sap, believing he wanted to hear all her silly chattering about everything and anything.
He waved a hand. ‘None of that’s important. There’s only one thing I’m interested in right now, and that’s repairing an area of our marriage that seems to have become neglected, thanks to my workload and your proclivity for early nights.’
Lara could see the explicit gleam in his eye and felt herself responding as if she literally had no agency over her own body.
‘Actually, I think this week is a good example of how this marriage will succeed,’ she blurted out with a sense of desperation. ‘You know, if you want to take a mistress then please go right ahead. It might be better, actually, if we’re to keep things clear and separate. After all, my worth is only really in helping you to network.’
Ciro barked out a laugh and shook his head. ‘Take a mistress and give you grounds for divorce? I don’t think so, cara mia. And you do yourself down. Your worth isn’t only for your social standing and connections—it’s also in the place where I want you right now.’
Lara stopped moving, feeling a sense of inevitability washing over her that, treacherously, she didn’t fight. ‘Where’s that?’
Ciro came and stood in front of her. ‘My bed...under me.’
The lasagne growing cool on the island was forgotten. Everything was distilled down to this moment and the way Ciro was looking at her.
He reached out and she felt air caress her skin. He was undoing her shirt and she slapped at his hands. ‘Stop! What if someone comes in?’
Ciro was spreading her shirt apart now, his hands spanning her waist. She was finding it hard to focus as he tugged her forward.
‘Dominique isn’t here and Nigel has gone home. I passed him on my way in.’
Lara knew all that. They were entirely alone in this vast townhouse. She was so close to his body now that she could smell his scent. It reminded her of Sicily, of the sun baking the ground and something far more sensual and musky. Him.
She knew he was distracting her, and also punishing her on some level for having had the temerity to bring domesticity into this situation, but all she could think about was how she had denied herself his touch all week.
His head was coming closer, and Lara fought a tiny pathetic internal battle before she gave up and allowed Ciro’s mouth to capture hers. He pressed her back against the island but Lara didn’t even notice. Nor did she notice when Ciro pulled off her shirt and undid her bra, freeing her breasts into his hands, bringing her nipples to stinging life.
She squirmed against him, instinctively seeking flesh-on-flesh contact. He smiled against her mouth and Lara felt it, just as he broke the kiss and trailed his mouth down over her jaw and her chest to her breasts, tipping up first one and then the other, so that he could feast on them, sucking and licking and biting gently, causing a rush of hot blood to flow between Lara’s legs, damp and hot.
Suddenly she was being lifted into Ciro’s arms and he was carrying her out of the kitchen and up through the house. Lara’s breathing was uneven. She realised she was bare from the waist up, but she could feel no shame, only a sense of rising desperation.
When they got to Ciro’s bedroom he shed his clothes with indecent haste. Lara was equally ready, pulling off her jeans and panties, her skin prickling with need as she lay back and took in the sight of Ciro standing proudly by the bed, every muscle bulging and taut as he rolled protection on.
She wanted to weep because she was so ready. It made a mockery of the nights when she’d feigned sleep and believed herself to have scored some kind of victory. It had been a pyrrhic victory. Empty.
Ciro came down on the bed by Lara and she bit her lip. He put a thumb there, tugging her lip free, before claiming her mouth in a drugging, time-altering kiss. Ciro’s hands explored every inch of her body until she was incoherent with need, past the point of begging.
But he knew. Of course he knew. Because he was the devil.
He settled his body between her spread legs, and in the same moment that he thrust deep, to the very core of where she ached most, he took her mouth and absorbed her hoarse cry of relief.
It was fast and furious. Lara reached her peak in a blinding rush of pleasure so intense she blacked out for a moment. Ciro’s body locked tight a moment after, his huge powerful frame struggling to contain his own climax. It gave Lara some small measure of satisfaction to see his features twisted in an agony of pleasure as deep shudders racked his frame.
One thing was clear in her mind before a satisfaction-induced coma took her over. Ciro had just demonstrated very clearly where the parameters of this marriage lay: in the bedroom and on the social circuit. Not in the kitchen.
* * *
When Lara woke the next morning she was back in her own bed. She really hated it that Ciro did that. What was he afraid of? she grumbled to herself. Was he afraid he’d wake up and she’d have spun a web around his body, turning him into a prisoner?
The image gave her more than a