Court

Bartolino and I glared at each other across his desk.

“I told you, there is nothing you can offer me.”

“And I told you, I don’t believe you,” I stated. “Name your price.”

“This is not a negotiation.”

I leaned forward in my chair, my head tilting as I assessed him. “You like to acquire, to hold. It gives you power, status, and if you lose that, you lose face. Sound about right?”

His face reddened. “You know nothing about me. Americans—they’re all the same. You come here in your cheap suit with a stack of money and think you can have whatever you want. Well, you cannot have this. There is no price.”

My eyes narrowed. “Power. Sex. Money. Love. Those are the things that motivate men. What else will give you the power you want?”

The door to his office opened behind me, and I turned, annoyance flashing in my chest at the interruption, flaring into anger when I saw it was Rin. She and Bartolino’s assistant shared a subtle nod as Rin entered the room, the door closing behind her as she crossed the room, looking like Boudica prepared to face the Romans or the rack.

Bartolino rose when she entered, smoothing his tie, his eyes on her, looking her over in a way that made my nerves stand at attention. “Ah, at least now I will have decent company. I’m afraid your colleague and I have exhausted our conversation.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” she said, and I caught an air of condescension in her tone.

She knew something. Without her even meeting my eyes, I knew.

I schooled my face as she sat, wondering what she’d do.

“It is a shame,” Bartolino said as he took his seat after her. “Some people don’t know how to accept an answer they don’t want.”

Rin laughed, a light, happy sound. “If I know Dottore Lyons at all, I know that to be true.” She crossed her long legs and sat back in her seat with casual grace. “But I have to ask, are you sure you won’t give us the statue? Is there really nothing we could offer?” The words held a suggestion that she was offering herself, a suggestion that sent a roaring Never through me.

Bartolino wet his lips, his eyes hot coals. I allowed myself to imagine the pleasure of popping them from their sockets. “Ah, such a price is so high, I can’t fathom your pockets being so deep.”

I gripped the arms of my chair, fighting the urge to reach across his desk and wrap my hands around his neck. She stayed me with a glance.

Trust me, it said.

And to my surprise, I did.

“I’ve heard that you draw pleasure in some…unorthodox ways and places.”

Bartolino froze, the heat in his eyes and expression doused and hissing.

“I wonder…” she said, her eyes on her finger as it traced a circle on the leather pad of the armrest. I didn’t think he noticed she was shaking. “What would your board of directors say if they knew you had a taste for the occasional hot lunch?”

The curator began to sputter unintelligibly.

I blinked, my lips parting in surprise, curling in optimistic amusement as I watched her.

“I mean, I’m not one to judge. Whatever gets you off, whether it’s a foot thing or an Asian thing. Or a defecation thing. But not everyone is so understanding. Isn’t the president of the board a devout Catholic? Is it his cousin who’s a bishop?” she asked me as if we’d discussed it, then snapped. “No, his brother. That’s right. Personally, I think it’s kind of prudish to dictate what people find erotic. Don’t you?”

Bartolino’s face was the color of a steamed beet, shining and flat. “I can’t…you wouldn’t…I will fire Gianna this time, I swear it.”

“So, I wanted to ask you one more time.” Rin hardened, leaning toward him. “Are you absolutely, unequivocally certain that you’re not willing to give us David?”

His breath was a ragged, heaving draw and release of air, his eyes hard and blinking, his brows knitting together so tightly, they were nearly connected. And after a long moment, he finally answered.

“I’ll get the donation form.”

Bartolino turned to his desk for the form, and Rin and I shared a look of disbelief and absolute elation before his attention was on us again. I filled out that form with my heart chugging adrenaline and my hands slick while Rin texted our driver. The humming undercurrent in my mind was fixated on her, wondering over where the hell she’d gone, who the hell was sitting next to me, and how the hell I could keep her. Bartolino signed the contracts for the transfer, assuring us that the donation would be enough to convince the board to let us have David.

A half an hour later, Rin and I were walking out of the museum with silent smiles, tight with exertion from maintaining our decorum. Rin took my arm in a gesture that surprised me until I realized she was shaking, her heels unsteady and fingers clutching the hook of my elbow. And I took her weight as we exited the museum where the car waited. I opened her door, closing it when she was in, resisting the urge to jog around the car in my excitement. The second we were in together, we burst into laughter and noise and motion. She flew across the seat and into my arms.

“We did it! Oh my God, we did it,” she said, her lips next to my ear and her arms flung around my neck.

My hands wound around her waist and up her back, pulling her close, as I breathed her in. “You did it.”

She stiffened in my arms and leaned away, but I didn’t let her go, only loosened my grip. “I…I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hands on my chest, her eyes on mine. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t apologize, Rin. You’ve done nothing wrong.” I hung on to her, and she opened her mouth as if to speak but said nothing. “It’s me who’s wrong. It’s me who’s sorry.”

Her face softened, but a glimmer of pain passed across her brow, shifted behind her eyes. “Court—”

“Just let me…let me say this,” I said, brushing her cheek with my knuckles, tucking her hair behind her ear, my fingertips tingling at the contact I’d been wishing for.

She nodded once.

“You were right. You’ve done nothing to deserve the way I’ve treated you. You’ve done nothing to betray my trust, and I’ve done everything to betray yours. And I’m sorry, Rin. I couldn’t stay away from you when I should have. I broke a vow to myself and punished you for it. But every rule, every line, everything I know to be right or wrong is blurred when it comes to you.”

She took a breath to speak, but I headed her off, continuing, “I want you in ways I don’t understand and can’t control, and trust me, I’ve tried.” I searched the depths of her eyes. “I know I shouldn’t, but I do. And I’ve tried to ignore it, but I can’t.”

Her hands still rested on my chest—I felt their weight like an anchor. “Am I…” She took a breath to steady herself. “Am I just sex to you?”

“I don’t know what this is,” I said, my voice lowering, rumbling, my fingers curling into the nape of her neck, “but for weeks, I’ve been doing everything I can just to get you in the same room as me. To talk to you. To listen to you. It’s your mind I’m addicted to just as equally as your body.”

“Then what do you mean when you say you want me?”

My chest ached, the answer far beyond my reach. “I don’t know. I just know that I don’t want to stay away from you. But I’ve never…I don’t do this, Rin. I should be telling you to run, and you shouldn’t give me anything I want. I can’t guarantee you won’t regret it.”

Her lips quirked in a smile. “Would my refusal really stop you?”

“Eventually. Probably.”

For a moment, she said nothing, just searched my face, my eyes. “Well then…let’s figure it out.”

I started to protest, but she cut me off, “Let’s see what happens here, in Florence, and at the end of the trip, we’ll decide where we’re at. Because, for some reason, I’m stupid enough to want you too, even after how you’ve treated me. Make it up to me.”

Could I do it? Could I let myself have a taste? Would a taste be enough?

It’s just for Florence.

I could hold up the wall. I could keep myself safe. I could let myself go for a few days—a few days wouldn’t matter. A few days wouldn’t change me. And I repeated that mantra on a loop in the vain attempt to will it into truth.

A slow smile crept onto my lips. “Tell me to touch you, and I will.”

And she smiled, the expression curling with wisps of relief and desire and joy. “Touch me,” she commanded with a whisper from crimson lips.

And so, I did.

My hands were everywhere. I kissed her like I’d been starved for her all my life, and I touched her like she’d ordered with hungry hands tilting her head to give me access to her mouth. My fingers in her hair, buried in the heavy locks. In the space between her blazer and blouse, in the bend of her waist, palming the curve of her breast, savoring the weight in my hand.

We couldn’t get close enough, our torsos twisted and knees bumping. She mewled into my mouth, the sound triggering a succession of firing nerves from my lips to my cock. I hooked my hands in the bend of her knees to sling them across my lap, pulling her closer with a satisfied hum. But I never stopped kissing her, touching her, my fingertips roaming her body, committing every curve and line to my memory as I would a map to a cache of solid gold.

Mine.

She was mine, and the relief I felt at that procurement was beyond measure. And now, I would claim her, write my name on her body in ink she could never erase.

The driver cleared his throat, and I let her go with a pop of our lips to glance in the rearview at the amused eyes of the man behind the wheel. I had no idea how long the car had been stopped, but I found myself smiling as I looked back to Rin, the wide, beaming expression foreign and familiar on my face.

She was so beautiful, the fullness of her own smiling lips, the sweetness of her on my tongue, at my fingertips. When she thumbed my bottom lip, I felt the gesture deep in my chest.

I leaned in and kissed her swiftly before opening the door and climbing out. God, how I loved the look of her long fingers in mine, the vision of her legs scissoring out to touch the ground in those heels. And I pulled her into me to tell her so without words, brought her hand, still in mine, to my lips to press a kiss to the delicate bones. And I didn’t let her go.

I towed her into the lobby, into the crowded elevator, the silence deafening, our fingers shifting against each other’s in anticipation. I squeezed her middle finger between mine and stroked, pleased when her bottom lip slipped between her teeth.

As soon as the elevator door opened, I pulled her into the hallway, into my room. It was dark, though it was late afternoon, the wedge of light from the hall disappearing when the door closed. And I stepped into her, dropping my bag, taking hers. Her eyes caught the only light in the room from a crack in the blackout curtains, her face underexposed, just the specter of her nose, her cheekbones, her chin.

I cupped her face, lifted it, touched her crimson lip again. “Take this off,” I whispered.

Confusion flickered through her, her body trembling under my touch. “Now?” she breathed.

“Now,” I answered, bringing my mouth to hers, closing my lips over the ample swell of her bottom lip, sucking it into mine. “I want you naked. All of you.” I kissed her again, my control faltering at even the word, my tongue dipping past her lips for too brief a moment.

I let her go, reaching into the bathroom to turn on the light and lower the dimmers, and she stepped into the room at my command.

She stood in front of the mirror, her bag on the counter, her shaking hands digging through it for something, and I stepped in behind her, my hands moving on their own, driven by something far beyond my control. They caged her upper arms in a gentle stroke to her shoulders as she stepped out of her heels, bringing the top of her head to my nose, and I pressed a kiss into her hair in homage. Up her long neck my fingers roamed, sweeping her hair out of the way so I could lay my eyes on the soft, milky skin.

I realized she’d stopped moving without needing to look. “Take it off, Rin,” I commanded again, lowering my lips to the curve where her shoulders met the column of her neck, my tongue brushing the skin, eliciting an intake of breath and a shift of motion as she obeyed.

I laid a trail of kisses up the length of her neck until I reached the hollow behind her ear, and she leaned into me all the while. When she turned to face me, her lipstick was gone, and I stepped into her, pressing her into the counter with my hips, my eyes on the seam where her plump lips met.

She brought the cool cloth in her hand to my lips, wiping the faded trace of her from my mouth.

“You have the most perfect lips,” I whispered when she was finished, my hands cupping her waist in the space between her jacket and blouse. I lowered my mouth to hover above hers. “I like them red as sin, but I love them pink and soft. I love them bare. Naked.” My lips skimmed hers, triggering a spark of heat. “What else is this pink?” My hand slid to the curve of her breast, my thumb grazing her nipple. “This?” My other hand moved to the curve of her ass, my fingertips brushing the center of her. “This?” They flexed, curling into the dip—she gasped. “I haven’t seen enough of this, Rin.”

She closed her fists in my lapels and pulled, lifting up to kiss me, but I backed away.

“Naked,” I growled. “I want you naked. Now.”

She almost fell into me when I took a step back and jerked my chin toward the door, shrugging out of my coat with a sharp flash of my hands. And she did my bidding, walking out before me, pulling off her blazer and tossing it over a chair as I impatiently loosened my tie and unfastened the top button of my shirt. I paused at my suitcase, grabbing a condom from my shaving kit, flinging it on the bed as I followed her. She didn’t stop until she reached the windows, drawing back the dark curtains, leaving the sheers, bathing the room in diffused sunlight. The shape of her body was a blurred silhouette against the delicate white fabric of her blouse, the curves beneath beckoning me.

My hands bracketed her hips, pulling her back into me, my cock straining in my pants, and I used the cleft of her ass to adjust its aching length, nestling in the valley of her, shifting when she rocked her body. My fingers flexing with desire before moving to her waistband.

I tugged her blouse loose, ran the flat of my hand against the flat of her stomach, to the button and zipper of her pants, unfastening them. My breath rasped, thin and hot, my hips shifting in time with her back as it arched and relaxed and arched again.

Naked. My fingers slid up her ribs, down her hips, taking her pants, then panties with me. Naked. Over the swell of her ass. Naked. I knelt as I dragged them down the length of her fucking thighs, her calves, all the way to the floor.

“This I’ve seen,” I said, trailing my hand up the inside of her leg as I rose, sliding it between them when I reached the top, grazing her heat with a teasing stroke of my fingertip. “This I’ve played a thousand times in my mind, every second we were apart. Turn around.”

She did. Her blouse barely covered the juncture of her thighs. Her body was cast in shadow, the light pouring in behind her, illuminating her in a burst of light so brilliant, I thought I might be blinded by the sight.

If this were to be my last vision, I would give the sense gladly.

Her hands moved to the hem as I watched her, my hands tingling, my eyes climbing the length of her body as it came into view—the point where her thighs met, the rolling curve of hips to waist, of the sensual line of her stomach, which wasn’t flat or defined, the swell and shape so natural and so wholly female. The bottom of her ribs as she stretched her arms over her head, her breasts cradled in the cups of her bra, her shoulders, her chin, her lips—God, those lips—and then her shirt was gone, abandoned in a silky whisper at her feet. She reached back to unlatch her bra, to let it fall from her arms. And she stood before me, her body long and curving, her snowy breasts round and full, her nipples pale pink as I’d imagined, tight and peaked.

I drew in a ragged breath, the question on my mind, in my heart, the meaning double, a test and a desperate desire. “What do you want, Rin?”

Her eyes were wiped clean of fear or scrutiny, her face purged of uncertainty. Instead, it held the pure honesty of a woman with nothing to hide, and my heart lurched in my chest when she answered, “You. I only want you.”

A step.

A breath.

A moment.

And she was mine.

I pulled her into me, felt her supple body beneath my palms as I lowered my lips to hers with desire in every shift of my tongue and lips and fingertips. I wanted to consume her, breathe her into my lungs, and for a long moment, that was my only purpose, one I fulfilled with my mouth. I bent, snaking an arm around her back, hitching her thigh to my hip when I stood. Her legs locked around my waist, her ass in my hands as I moved for the bed, sitting on the edge with the weight of her in my lap.

The kiss went unbroken as her hands fluttered over the buttons of my shirt, tugged it out of my pants, her hot palms on my hard chest, down my abs that flexed and released as I met her grinding hips with my own. Weeks of wanting her. Weeks of imagining this—her body at my disposal.

When she reached for my belt, I hissed, grabbing her wrists to stay her, wrenching them to the small of her back, clamping them in the circle of my hand, pulling to arch her. Her breasts rose in offering, and I buried myself in the sweetness of her flesh, holding her still while I took my pleasure. Her straining nipple against my tongue, the submission of her breast in my palm, the gasp when my teeth grazed the peak as I released her.

Her hips bucked, a low moan tumbling out of her as I licked a wet trail up her sternum with the flat of my tongue, tasting her on my way up her neck, to her earlobe. The softest whimper from her lips sent a spiraling tremor down my spine, a deep throb shuddering against the place where her legs were split and grinding.

“Please,” she moaned.

I nipped her neck with a growl, hooking my arm around her before twisting, tossing her onto the bed on her back. Her breasts jostled from the force, and I looked up the line of her naked body as I whipped off my shirt in a blur, dropping my pants with another. My cock ached, pinned in my briefs; I stroked it once with my eyes locked between her legs.

I wanted to feast on her flesh, devour her whole. To take my pleasure by giving pleasure.

Mine. I was savage, hungry, my tongue slipping out to wet my lips and draw them into my mouth in a mimicry of what they wanted to do to the soft, wet skin I couldn’t look away from. Tasting her was my only intention as I grabbed her ankles, pulling her hard and fast, leaving her hair a midnight streak on the crisp white linens.

Deliberately and not gently, I parted her thighs, knelt at the foot of the bed. Slipped my hands under her legs to grasp her hips and pulled until her ass hung off the bed, hooking those legs I’d dreamed about over my shoulders.

With my palm low on her stomach, I held her still, my other hand unthreaded, my fingertips on a track for the heat where her legs met. Every sense was centered on those fingertips, the slick, soft line of flesh that spread at my bidding, the warmth that sang its welcome. And I leaned in, opened wide. Dragged the width of my tongue up the valley of her body, latching over her hood, sucking it into my mouth. A hiss of pleasure. A trembling of her thighs. The tang of her body, of her sex on my tongue. A moan rumbling up my throat, my lips locking me to her and tongue taking advantage.

Her hips rolled against me, but I didn’t relent. I met her pace, held her to me, fucked her with my mouth, with my fingers in the heat of her as her legs locked around my ears and her body twisted, rising off the bed. Her hands sought the depths of my hair, clutching it like reins, and my grip tightened on her hip as I rose with her, keeping her on my shoulders. I wouldn’t let her go. Wouldn’t let her slow. Deeper I sank, harder I sucked, drawing the orgasm out of her with every flick of my tongue, with every shift of my lips, every flex of my fingers.

My scalp burned as she twisted, gasping, a tightening of her body around my fingers, a swelling of the slick skin in my mouth. Only then did I release.

“Please,” she begged, her breasts heaving, head turned, eyes hooded.

I grabbed her thighs and flipped her, dropping my briefs, reaching for the condom with one hand, grabbing her ass and spreading it with the other, my cock throbbing at the sight of her swollen lips and the rippling skin resting between them.

“You’re not going to come until I’m inside of you,” I growled, letting her go to rip open the condom and roll it on in a series of strokes that brought the blood rushing to my crown.

I spread her legs with my knee, and she spread them further, scooting up the bed, raising her ass in offering. I thumbed the slick line with one hand, my cock in the other, brought the tip of me to the hollow of her and pressed until my crown disappeared.

My body shook from restraint, my hands roaming her ass, her hips, gripping tight and holding fast.

“God, fuck me,” she whimpered.

My jaw clamped, a hot, panting breath in and out of my chest, and I did just fucking that, my body thrumming with anticipation of this moment, the fulfillment of my fantasy, the surrender to my desire. My eyes locked on the point where our bodies met as I flexed my hips, pulled hers, felt the heat of her swallow me as I disappeared.

Yes.

The word hissed in my mind, sizzled across my skin, echoed from her lips, the sound a million miles away and at my fingertips. My body hummed, my nerves firing at the sound, all reaching for the depths of her body.

“Fuck,” I groaned, pulling out, slamming into her, her ass rippling from the force.

Her shoulders pressed into the bed, and when I thrust again, I leaned into the motion, reaching down, clamping my hand on her neck to pin her down, hold her still.

Mine.

Again, I pulled out, hammering into her with enough power, the smack of our skin rang in the room, the deepest part of her touched.

It was too soon for my shaft to throb and swell, too soon to come, too soon to lose control. Slower I pumped, achingly slow, shifting to place my knees outside hers and nudge them back together, the flesh around my cock tightening. And I rolled my hips, pulling out, sliding back in, a steady wave meant to buy me time.

But control was an illusion. Her core flexed around me, and my cock pulsed in answer. Her hands untwisted from the sheets, slipped under her body, and my imagination exploded with visions of her fingers brushing her clit.

And then I felt her satisfy my vision. Her hood shifted against my shaft, then her fingers, slicked with her own sex, spread in a V around my cock as it slid in and out of her.

Bursts of details flashed in my mind with every sensation. Her head buried in the sheets. Her hair, a backdrop of ink against the porcelain line of her profile. The draw of her brows. Her feathering lashes against her cheeks. Her pink lips parted, panting in an O.

I lowered my chest to her back, my hips hammering as I pressed my lips to her jaw, bit the tender skin of her neck, licked the curve of her ear.

“Come,” I whispered, needing her release so I could take my own.

She gasped, her fingers circling faster.

“Come,” I commanded, slamming into her with a deep throb of my cock, drawn from low, so low. “I want to feel you. I want you to come.”

And she did with a gasp, her lips stretched, her body flexing, squeezing from the sheath around me to her thighs, her lungs, her shoulders, the fevered pulse between her legs pulling me deeper. And I took the invitation, thrusting in the rhythm my own body wanted, a deep, determined rocking, once—a hot surge—twice—a thick throb—three times, and I came buried to the hilt, my hips frozen for one long moment of uncontrollable pleasure before they rolled, pumping in and out of her, my body holding her down, taking what it wanted, giving her all of me.

I slowed, collapsing on her, my lips grazing her shoulder, her neck, her jaw, and she turned, her lips seeking mine. And I gave those to her too.

The kiss was too sweet, too deep, too good for the angle she was forced in, so I pulled out of her, rolled to her side, held her to me. Her body fit perfectly in the curve of mine, one of her legs shifting to rest between my thighs, her breasts against my chest, her lovely mouth, her delicate jaw. Her. It was her, every part of her that made me feel like a king.

She tucked into my chest, kissed my throat, sighed her contentment, and my arms wound around her, tangled in her hair.

Mine.

And holding Rin, looking into her eyes that spoke only devotion, I felt a flickering flame ignite in my heart, sparked by the fire in hers.