Page 49 of His UnBearable Touch

He seized her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh as he lifted her against the wall as he stepped between her thighs. Valerio watched her smile as she used a hand to guide him into her body and when she wrapped her arms around his neck he thrust into her in one hard lunge.

Valerio held still for a moment, just in case she had second thoughts. Instead, she wiggled her hips against him and smiled. “I want all of you,” she told him, “now.”

He smiled, happy that she wanted him, even after everything she’d been through, and then he did exactly what she wanted.

Chapter Twelve

Valerio woke with a start and let his senses work around the room, searching for anything that would be a danger. Beside him in bed, Allegra was in a deep sleep. Ever since the event at the zoo, the ‘gift’ filled with glass designed to hurt her, she had been anxious, nervously turning at sounds that weren’t there.

He knew that she was worried and that didn’t sit well with him. Less than two days after she had performed at the event, Valerio had taken a visit to the Singletons.

Erik and Lana Singleton had three houses in the state of New York, but it had been all too easy to track them down to their home in the Hamptons. Perched on the beach with a prime view of the water, their home had all the trapping of a family estate, except that everything also looked like it was untouched, as if they lived in the house, but didn’t move beyond a prescribed pathway in and through the home.

He’d found Lana Singleton cold from the moment her maid had walked him into the sunroom. Her husband was the one who seemed to make an effort to be hospitable, at least until he learned why Valerio was there.

“No,” the older man’s voice had trembled when he turned away from the pictures that Valerio had tried to hand him, “I don’t believe it.”

Lana continued to arrange her flowers on the table, but each successive snip of her garden shears grew louder, harder.

“Mr. Singleton, I would like to speak to your son.”

“He’s not here.” Erik paced across the room and pulled open a cabinet. He reached in and removed a bottle, twisting and yanking the cap off it before he poured it into a cut crystal glass on the sideboard. “And you’re not getting anywhere near him.” He downed the glass with one gulp and then hissed before he slapped it back down on the counter. “You can’t anyway. He’s in Geneva.” The man laughed. “It’s costing us a fortune to keep them there, but at least he’s safe from people like you.”

“Like me, sir?” His bear wanted to see what they’d think of ‘all of him.’ “I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”

The garden shears clattered on the table top and Mrs. Singleton leveled a look at him that gave him pause. “People who are trying to ruin his life.” She gasped in a breath and moved around the table, her stride as sure as that of a lioness zeroing in on a kill. “People who want to ruin any chance he has to move on from that horrible accident with… with… that girl.”

Accident.

Accident.

This time it was the bear holding Valerio back. He had been a heartbeat away from changing, backing the woman up against the wall… he stopped short, realizing how right his bear had been. The thought alone was staggering. He’d always been the one to use his head rather than instinct when working, but this was different. This was personal.

And his bear had been the noble one. What an interesting turn of events and it had everything to do with Allegra.

He knew they were waiting for him to speak, and a strange calm fell over him at the thought.

“It was no accident, Mrs. Singleton.” He folded his arms across his chest and watched her eyes widen as she saw how his coat stretched over his arms. “I have seen the police report. The medical records. I have seen the photographs.”

It was his bear again, claws dug deep into his back, holding him steady, keeping him human.

“What your son did to Allegra was an abomination!”

“Allegra?” Mrs. Singleton fairly sneered at him, baring her teeth in a gesture that made her look more feral than the elegant woman she pretended to be. “I see.”

Mr. Singleton poured himself another glass of alcohol, the dark liquor slopping over the edge of the glass. “What now, Lana?”

“She sank her teeth into another one.” She turned her pale blue gaze on Valerio and shook her head. “I should tell you to be careful, but you won’t listen. Lance told us about her. Told us how she used him to get ahead. She’ll do the same thing to you. And then when she’s ready to walk away, leave you behind like trash… like what she did to our baby… just you wait and see.”

“Let the boy go, Lana.” He reached for the bottle again, nearly dropping it from his hand. “Let him spend his money on her when she’s done with him.”

Mr. Singleton scoffed and leaned back against the sideboard with a sigh. “Good. I’m tired of writing those checks for her care.”

Valerio’s bear was nearly ready to let him rip them to shreds.

“I want the address and any other contact information for your son.”

That tipped the scales for Mr. Singleton. Pushing away from the sideboard, the bottle fell from the edge and shattered into pieces, the liquor coating the man’s designer footwear. “If you want anything to do with my boy. You can call my lawyer! It’ll take a court order to get one more thing out of us.” Turning, he stalked toward the French doors and pushed through them, walking outside in the pristine yard and disappearing around the corner.

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