Modern Romance March 2017 Books 5 -8. Natalie Anderson

primal satisfaction claimed him. All of those nights since she’d left when no one else would do, when her memory had made a mockery of his libido, were vindicated as she lay begging beneath him, beautiful and oh, so vulnerable. Exactly as he’d wanted her. And yet, as he rocked forward again, her body clenching around him like a hot, silken glove, he would have been delusional to deny he was as affected as she was.

      He leaned forward, slicking his tongue across her bottom lip in an erotic caress that made her clench tighter around him. “There is no going back,” he rasped, “only forward. Tell me you understand that.”

      “Yes.” She arched her hips, eyes glazed. “More.”

      He buried himself inside her with a smooth, powerful stroke. Her gaze met his in an electric, soul-destroying connection. “You feel like heaven, cara. Perfection.”

      Her slick, aroused body absorbed him, stretched to accommodate his length and girth. He gritted his teeth, forced himself to hang on. Fine tremors snaked through her body, her inner muscles rippling around him. He moved inside her then with hard, powerful drives designed to drive her to orgasm. He lacked his usual finesse, but was beyond caring. Her fingers clutched his hips as his big body rode hers, claimed her, found that spot deep inside her that made her moan with pleasure.

      She arched into it, wanting everything he had to give. He braced himself on one arm, slipped the other hand between her legs and found the bundle of nerves at her center. “I can feel you clenching around me,” he murmured, stroking his thumb teasingly over her clitoris. “Like that,” he whispered when she jerked beneath his touch. “And that,” he said as another shiver raked through her. “Come for me, cara.”

      His next firm caress set her off. Her husky groan, the way she gloved him in a tight squeeze, pushed him into a violent, body-shaking release. Relinquishing control, he tightened his fingers around her hips, drove into her and made her come apart a second time.

      * * *

      Lorenzo was awake long after his wife fell asleep in his arms. Soft and warm, her body curved against his, their fit together was so perfect it was as if she’d been made to fill in his missing spaces. To complete the parts of him that had been empty so long he’d had no idea they still existed.

      A knot fisting his stomach, he disentangled himself from his wife and lay staring at the sky through the window overhead. He’d crossed a line tonight—allowing this thing between him and Angelina to become emotional when he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. It had been that kind of a night, to be sure, but he knew if he wasn’t careful, he’d start walking down a path he could never go and it would be Angelina who got hurt, not him.

      He’d been falling in love with his wife when she’d left, his instincts warning him if he let himself, he would have fallen harder for Angelina than he had ever fallen for Lucia. His love for Lucia had been a pure, untainted first love that lacked the passion and emotion he and Angelina had shared. The depth of his feelings for Angelina, the betrayal those feelings had seemed to Lucia, the youth and unhappiness Angelina had displayed that had made her an unsure bet, had made him cauterize his feelings, refuse to acknowledge them.

      And his instincts had been dead-on, he thought, staring up at the cloudy night sky. Angelina had walked out as soon as the going had gotten tough, had made a mockery of the vows they’d made. And that was why certain lines could never be crossed.

      If he was smart, he would follow his original plan. Burn out the attraction between him and his wife until it no longer held any power over him.

      Now that he had her back in his bed, he intended to do exactly that.

       CHAPTER NINE

      “HOW ABOUT YOU come to Mallorca in a couple of weeks? I have to be at our flagship property for a few days. You can meet with the management team and we can go through the last few points face-to-face.”

      Lorenzo blew out a breath. He’d spent two weeks anticipating Marc Bavaro’s return from South America and now he wanted him to gallivant off to Spain, Belmont’s global headquarters, to make this deal happen? He ran a global corporation, for God’s sake, three times the size of Bavaro’s. How the hell did he have time for that?

      “As much as I’d love to,” he said in an even tone, “my schedule is insane. We can’t do it before then?”

      “I’m headed to London as we speak. I’m not back to New York until mid-October.”

      Too late, with the board meeting looming. “I’ll see what I can do,” Lorenzo conceded. “How long are you thinking?”

      “Come for a couple of days. We can have dinner with my brother, Diego, the night you arrive, then we’ll do the management meeting the next morning. Oh—” the CEO’s voice dropped to an intimate purr “—and bring your beautiful wife...she can keep Penny company.”

      He wasn’t sure Bavaro lusting after Angelina was going to go over so well in his current mood. “Angie is in her busy period. I’ll have to check her schedule.”

      “Let me know.” The roar of a jet engine fired in the background. “I should go.”

      He cut off the call. Turned the air blue. Gillian popped her head in his office and asked if he needed help. He told her to clear his schedule for the time in Mallorca, then turned his thoughts to his wife. How to get her to agree to go to Spain was the challenge. She was so busy with commissions after Faggini’s show she’d even hired a couple of part-time designers to help with the rush. She would balk at a trip, no doubt about it.

      He sat back in his chair and contemplated a solution. Things had been better than good between them. They were learning to compromise, to manage their expectations of each other. They were communicating both in bed and out of it. His marriage was working. The last thing he needed was to rock the boat.

      But this, he thought, tapping his fingers on the desk, was necessary.

      A plan came to him. It was a good one. Satisfied, he picked up the phone.

      * * *

      “I have a proposal for you.”

      Angelina cradled her mobile against her ear as she put down her pliers, the intimate, seductive edge to her husband’s voice unleashing a wave of heat beneath her skin. The huskiness, she knew, came from the inhuman working hours he was keeping.

      “If it involves sleep for you, I’m all for it,” she said lightly. “What time were you up this morning?”

      “Five. And, yes, it involves sleep for both of us,” he replied in a throaty tone that sent goose bumps to her heated skin. “Well,” he amended, “it involves a bed and us. Sleep not so much.”

      Her heart beat a jagged rhythm. They hadn’t been able to get enough of each other since Alexander’s party, thus contributing to her sleeping deficit. Not that she was complaining. She was so happy she was afraid to blink, because history had taught her something would implode in her face if she did.

      But she wasn’t thinking that way, she reminded herself. “What are you proposing?”

      “The only way I can pin Marc Bavaro down is to hook up with him at his property in Mallorca in a couple of weeks’ time. Penny’s going. He wants you to come, too.”

      She pressed a palm to her temple. “Lorenzo... I have so much work to do before Christmas.”

      “That’s part of my proposal. You come with me to Spain and I will absolve you of any social obligations until the hotel opening in October.”

      “What are you going to do? Go to them alone?”

      “Sì.”

      She didn’t like the idea of her gorgeous husband attending all those events alone the way women fell all over him. Leaving the country for a week was also an unwise idea given the work in front of her.

      But