Signed Over to Santino Read online

  The brazen possession of her sex with his mouth brought a scream that echoed through the hallway. The descent into lustful madness was instantaneous and comprehensive as pleasure imploded through her. The onslaught of her first orgasm was a stunningly unique experience that suspended time itself.

  The sensation of being thrown over one broad shoulder and carried to his vast, palatial bedroom remained a delicious haze, very soon after replaced by the vivid reality of Javier, gorgeous, powerful and intensely aroused, his face stamped with carnal intent as he loomed over her.

  Dark eyes locked onto hers. ‘I can’t wait to make you mine, tesoro mio.’

  ‘Sì...please.’

  ‘Wrap your legs around my waist. Tighter.’

  The broad head of his erection nudged her opening. Nerves pinched at her excitement. The lower lip she bit in agitation was kissed free, his tongue probing her mouth to fan the flames of desire engulfing her.

  Sweet languidness stole through her. Javier thrust swift and deep, then grimaced at her sharp scream.

  ‘Lo siento, querida. Forgive me, it couldn’t be helped.’ Sure hands caressed her cheeks and throat, kisses planted on her lips until the hurt subsided.

  Decadent fire soon replaced the ache, the residual discomfort trailing away to leave a sensation so unique and incredible, her mouth dropped open in wonder when he pulled back and slowly thrust again.

  ‘Javier,’ she breathed.

  ‘Sí, I know,’ he groaned, a deep shudder moving through him as he repeated the move. ‘I wondered whether this chemistry was only in my imagination,’ he confessed, the look in his eyes almost bashful. ‘You have no idea how much it pleases me that it is not.’

  Delight at her part in this indescribable union brought a sultry smile. ‘I think I have some idea.’

  His deep, low laugh, almost as captivating as what was happening to her, stopped her breath. The inkling that something totally out of her control was taking place in this bed, in this room, skittered over her skin.

  It evaporated a second later when he moved again. Then she was hanging on for dear life, every emotion she’d ever experienced paling into insignificance in the face of the raw, unadulterated pleasure spinning her into oblivion.

  The oblivion continued deep into the night, each experience unbelievably better than the last.

  And then morning arrived.

  A glance at the man she’d given her innocence to sent her emotions into freefall. She’d read somewhere that you never forgot your first. Javier Santino had attained unforgettable status even before they’d shared their first kiss.

  As she lay there, Carla let herself wonder what it would be like if her life were different...if Javier were a permanent fixture and not a painfully temporary one...if the quick Internet search she’d done in the bathroom last night hadn’t compared his affairs to high-octane roller-coaster rides—blood-pumping, exhilarating, but over in a blink of an eye.

  ‘Buenos dias, cariño.’

  Carla would never know whether it was the deep, sexy greeting or the firm tug of demanding hands she never wanted to let her go that had done it.

  But the fear that she was already addicted to this...to Javier...had been real and immediate and frightening, and yet another dimension to a complicated life she couldn’t afford.

  Pushing him away, she leapt out of bed, keeping her back to him so her bewildered feelings wouldn’t show. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘What’s the hurry? It’s Sunday. Let me feed you breakfast, then we can spend the day however you want. Personally, I’d prefer we stay in bed, but—’

  ‘No! What happened last night...it’s not going to happen again,’ she forced out.

  Tense silence finally made her glance over her shoulder. She glimpsed the stony, puzzled expression on his face. And fled.

  He caught up with her in the hallway where she was busy tugging on her dress. ‘What the hell’s going on, Carla?’

  Several avenues of explanation opened up before her, most of which revolved around newly emerging feelings. None of which she could voice.

  So she shrugged. ‘Draco will be wondering where I am. I need to get back to him.’

  Nostrils flared with displeasure. ‘Or you could use that incredible invention called the phone and let him know you’re with me,’ he rebutted.

  The temptation to do that lanced her, terrifying her with its brutal insistence. What on earth was wrong with her? ‘I’d much rather leave.’

  Urgent hands grabbed her. ‘Do you regret what we did last night?’

  She opened her mouth to deny his words. To tell him that last night had been the most extraordinary night of her life. But he was giving her the perfect out, a way to retreat with her new, terrifying feelings intact.

  ‘Yes, it was a mistake. I wish it hadn’t happened.’ Because now it had, she knew, bone-deep, that no other man, no other relationship would compare. And he wasn’t in it for the long run.

  Javier paled. ‘What?’

  She tried to move, but he held on. ‘Javier, let me go.’

  ‘Explain yourself first, Carla. Did I hurt you?’ he whispered raggedly.

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Then why?’

  At her stubborn silence, he cupped her chin and drew her face up. She watched myriad emotions transition over his face until a cold gleam slowly lit his eyes. ‘You used me to divest yourself of your virginity, is that it?’

  ‘I—what?’ she returned, stunned.

  ‘What’s the matter? Angelis doesn’t like virgins, so you thought you’d use me to take care of your little problem and now you’re running back to him?’

  Her mouth dropped open, shock rendering her speechless. Then, realising once again that he was handing her the perfect excuse, she raised her chin higher. ‘Yes. I want to go back to Draco, if you don’t mind.’

  She was still reeling from the wrong turn of events when he dragged her down the stairs, flinging her shoes and handbag at her on the way. ‘Get the hell out of my sight.’ He wrenched the front door open. ‘And, Carla?’

  He waited until she turned, her insides shaking at the fury in his face.

  ‘S-sì?’

  ‘Pray that we never meet again. Because every single nightmare you’ve ever had will pale in comparison to what I’ll do to you.’

  * * *

  ‘Was it worth it?’ a hard, cold voice demanded.

  Carla was yanked from the depths of vivid memories. She blinked hard and tightened her muscles when she realised her whole body was shaking with the force of her residual feelings.

  ‘Was what worth it?’ she asked obliquely, struggling to bring her mind back to the present.

  ‘Sacrificing yourself in my bed to get Angelis’s attention and make him jealous.’

  She clenched her jaw. ‘I don’t know how many times I need to say it before you believe me. Draco had nothing to do with what happened between us. You made assumptions...and I just took advantage of the excuse.’

  ‘And yet you were dating your excuse a month later,’ he snarled.

  ‘My mother died. He came to the funeral in England. He took me out a few times to try and distract me, that’s all. Afterwards, when his sister was hurt, I spent some time with both of them, helping her get through it. That was all that happened.’

  His lips curled. ‘I may have been an outsider with a vivid imagination conjuring scenarios out of thin air. But didn’t your own father try to forge a more permanent deal between you and Angelis only a few weeks ago?’

  She couldn’t hide from the truth. ‘That doesn’t mean it was what I wanted. And why does it upset you so much, anyway?’ she threw at him.

  Dark brown eyes turned to icy chips. ‘No one likes to be used and tossed away like rubbish.’

  She bit
her lip, knowing whatever she said would come out wrong. But she couldn’t stand the tension. ‘We need to get past this.’

  His eyes turned colder. ‘Do we? What about the sound bite you gave the reporter who interviewed you after your championship win three years ago? Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it along the lines of, “Javier is a playboy. I don’t date playboys”? Oh, and I believe someone from your camp followed that a few weeks later with another quote, calling me “an individual with low morals and a questionable pedigree”? Do we need to get past those too?’

  Ice drenched her soul. From her fingertips to her toes, she lost all feeling in her limbs as she stared at him.

  The events of the morning after their one-night stand had been bad enough, but this... Carla swallowed. Now she truly understood Javier’s cold fury.

  Understood that she appeared to have dealt a far deeper, much more personal injury to his pride.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JAVIER WATCHED HER grow paler by the second, her green eyes pools of deep shock as she stared at him.

  ‘What are you talking about? I-I didn’t say anything about your pedigree...or the low morals thing,’ she stammered.

  ‘But you admit the playboy thing?’ he drawled.

  ‘I was just...there were rumours about us after your party. I was just trying to—’

  ‘Distance yourself from the man who could ruin your “innocent princess” image?’

  He watched her jaw tighten. ‘No, I wanted to kill the rumours once and for all. Besides, I didn’t think you’d welcome the association with me.’

  ‘So you threw me under the bus to save me? How ingenuous—or should I say ingenious—of you.’

  She swiped a shaky hand across her forehead. ‘I’m sorry! The reporter caught me off-guard. As for the other thing, I know nothing about it. Even if I did, I’d never say anything like that,’ she implored.

  He’d investigated the source of those rumours, knew it was someone in her management team who’d made that damaging statement when questioned about Javier’s association with her. Watching her try to wriggle herself off the hook, he wondered how he could think straight with the fury pounding through his blood.

  ‘It’s easy to be remorseful after the event, isn’t it? And, sí, Principessa, my parentage is questionable. I’m the bastard son of an aristocrat. It’s a circumstance I accepted long ago. But that didn’t give you the right to go digging for it, then airing it in public for your own petty amusement.’

  Her mouth worked, no doubt searching for more lies to excuse her behaviour. He waited for it, detachedly interested to see how she extricated herself from this latest stain on her character. He’d meant the words he’d thrown at her when he’d kicked her out of his house in Miami. At the time, a part of him had reeled at how desperately he’d wanted their one-night stand to continue. She should’ve been forgettable, the decision to create an immediate distance between them the morning after his to make.

  Instead he’d kept up with any news on her career and personal life. And reeled even further at her heartless slurs on his reputation.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Javier...please—’

  He stopped her meaningless words with a dismissive wave. ‘Save it. What puzzles me is how can you be so exceptionally talented in one discipline of your life and yet fail so abysmally in every other aspect?’

  She flinched. But slowly her head rose, her eyes meeting his boldly. Hell, she even had the gall to raise one perfect eyebrow at him.

  ‘So...here we are, Javier. What happens next?’

  He took his time swallowing the last of his wine, wishing it were something stronger, more bracing with a numbing after-effect. ‘Don’t worry, querida. The lessons I intend to teach you will be delivered in good time.’

  Her swift inhalation allayed a little of his fury. She would never know how damaging the revelation about his parentage had been. It’d handed his father the perfect excuse to deny him the only thing he’d ever asked of him. The one thing he’d promised his mother on her deathbed—a proper burial with the family who’d rejected her because of her affair with his father, who had been a married man.

  Bitterness stained the fury, charging through him with renewed vigour.

  Unable to sit still, he surged to his feet. Her head snapped up to meet his gaze, an imploration he had no intention of succumbing to gleaming from the green depths.

  When she struggled to her feet and faced him head-on, he almost felt sorry for her. ‘I didn’t say those things about your parentage, Javier.’

  ‘But the anonymous tip came from your management. Therefore the responsibility and the fault is yours. I have every intention of making sure you own up to it.’

  She stumbled back a step. He was reaching out for her protectively with his free hand before he’d fully grasped his own instinctive action. Clenching his traitorous fist, he slammed his glass down, and shoved both hands in his pockets.

  Her frailty was an illusion. She didn’t need or want his help. She had a backbone of steel when it came to going after what she wanted.

  ‘It’s obvious something else is going on here other than you’re letting on. Tell me the consequences so I can try and make it right,’ she pleaded.

  He froze. Part of him reeled that she would finally acknowledge her actions so openly. But then he remembered it was part of her usual machinations, her ability to disarm him with her words.

  ‘It’s too late to right the wrongs. All that’s left to do is make the reparations.’

  ‘And let me guess, I’ll find out what those reparations are when you’re ready?’

  He smiled a mirthless smile. ‘See, chiquita, you’re already learning.’

  And because he couldn’t stand to watch her treacherous, offensively delectable mouth tremble for another second, he walked out of the living room, out of the suite, and out into the brisk Rome night.

  * * *

  Carla didn’t see Javier again until the limo ferrying her to the airport the next morning came to a stop next to a stunning private jet. She’d flown in her share of chartered planes—a perk her father had deemed necessary for her image—but the Santino jet screamed a different class, even from the outside. Tequila-gold, with thin platinum lines running from nose to fin, the aircraft was as visually masterful as its owner, who currently stood framed in the doorway at the top of the short flight of steps, arms folded and his bespoke-suited body projecting an aura of banked impatience.

  She alighted, conscious of the brooding gaze on her, and smiled at the doctor who’d turned up at the hotel suite this morning with instructions to check her over. He’d pronounced her fit to travel, then accompanied her to the airport, his reassurance that her further health needs had been taken care of by Signor Santino, in the form of private medical personnel on board the plane, barely registering with Carla.

  After Javier had walked out last night, she’d staggered back to her suite in a state of shock. It didn’t take a genius to work out who had made those disparaging comments to the press about Javier’s parentage.

  Her father had been livid when the rumours of her association with Javier had surfaced in the months after her mother’s death. Steeped in grief, she’d barely paid attention to the tabloids, had stuck to saying no comment after the initial disastrous interview with the journalist the day of her championship win.

  She’d made sure after that never to be drawn on a personal subject, not knowing the damage that was being done behind her back. That Javier had been dealt a much heavier blow than to be called a playboy.

  She looked up at him now as she mounted the steps, and her stomach fell. Every accusation he’d hurled at her last night was still etched on his face. The light of day hadn’t brought an iota of mercy.

  Whatever her father’s actions had wrought had to be monumental—
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  ‘If you dawdle any longer, we’ll miss our take-off slot,’ he ground out.

  She hoisted her handbag onto her shoulder with her unhurt hand and mounted the last step. It brought her within touching distance of his sleek, silently seething perfection. She brought up her immobilised hand and tried to squeeze past him when he made no attempt to move out of her way.

  He stopped her with a hand on her waist, his gaze burning into her. ‘You’re favouring your wrist. Did you aggravate it?’

  ‘No. But I slept badly last night. I’m certain that didn’t help,’ she murmured.

  He looked from her face to her wrist as if examining the cast would determine the truth of her statement. ‘Did the doctor give you anything for it?’ he snapped.

  ‘I didn’t ask.’ Her mind had been on something else. Him.

  Exasperation piled onto the myriad volatile emotions swirling over his face. Firming his hold, he guided her inside the aircraft, bypassing grouped armchairs and a conference setting to a sitting area complete with a plush double sofa and recliner. Relieving her of her handbag, he placed it on a nearby table and motioned her onto the recliner. He murmured in Spanish to a middle-aged woman in a neat skirt suit before turning back to her. He leaned forward to secure her seat belt and Carla’s breath fractured.

  He straightened as the woman approached. ‘This is Selma. She’s part of my company’s medical team. She’ll give you something for the pain.’

  He waited until she’d taken the painkillers and the plane was moving before he started to walk away.

  ‘Javier?’ His revelations last night would continue to haunt her unless she did something about it. She cleared her throat when he paused. ‘Can we talk, please?’

  ‘There will be enough time for that, if you insist. Right now, I have work to do. And you need to rest.’

  She gritted her teeth as he walked away, silently cursing the guilt raking through her. If she’d been as duplicitous and unfeeling as Javier believed she was, she could’ve shut her eyes and pretended all this didn’t affect her. Instead she fidgeted in her seat as the plane took off and they raced east.