Page 211 of Modern Romance Collection May 2024 Books 1-4

Domenico couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Sex with Rae had always been incredible, the best of his life, but he’d never been overpowered by those feelings. But as her hand slid slowly down his length, her touch consumed him in a way it never had before, blasting open everything inside him.

Lust. Desire. They were not powerful enough to describe the feelings unfolding within him and all he knew, all he could think, was that if he didn’t have Rae back in his arms, back against his body in the next five seconds, he would implode.

Before she could act out her next intention, which Domenico read easily in her small, catlike smile, he clasped his hands to her hips and dragged her against him, seizing her mouth with a bruising, fevered kiss. Kicking his feet free from his trousers, he walked back towards the bed, bringing Rae tumbling down on top of him and keeping possession of her mouth, desperate to ease the hunger clamouring inside him, a hunger that seemed to emanate from the very centre of his being.

With her hair, her scent, her body, Rae surrounded him and that was driving him even crazier. No matter where he touched, how much sweetness he drank from her lips, it was not enough. Nothing satisfied the rushing of his blood, nothing helped him find that control that had always been present in his previous sexual encounters. That piece of himself that had always remained separate and safe. Untouched.

Reaching behind her, he tried to unclip her bra, but the force of his need was making his fingers unsteady and Rae had to help. Together they tossed the scrap of pretty lace aside and Domenico didn’t waste a moment, taking the weight of her breasts in his hands and lifting his mouth to lick one and then the other, a worship that he had engaged in many times before, but that now felt different, more profound, for it was not just her body that he was adoring, but all of her. Her heart, her bravery, her passion. Everything that she had been generous enough to share with him and that he’d failed to appreciate for far too long, and her actions that night had clarified it even further.

His ministrations continuing with unrelenting expertise and feeding off the satisfied moans breaking from her lips, Domenico kissed the soft skin and sucked at her rosy nipples until she was writhing. That sight of her astride him, above him, her head thrown back as she fought the torrent of pleasure pulled a smile from his lips, but still, it wasn’t enough.

An even darker, more urgent surge of passion rose up in him and with a single smooth movement Domenico flipped her over, trapping her under him. As he parted her legs, elation spread throughout his body and it startled him, as if he had finally found the place he recognised as home.

Rae was wet, as aroused as him, and for the first time in memory he couldn’t hold back. He didn’t even try, his actions being driven by a greater force than he could understand. He drove into her with ease, welcomed by her velvet heat, and the moment they joined together he felt something within him unlock. As if she was the solution to a problem, the answer to a code. It felt like the moment he had been waiting for, only he hadn’t known it.

Trying to dislodge that unsettling poignancy, to focus only on the physical, Domenico started to move, following the urges of his body. Slowly he withdrew from her and then powered back inside, and Rae moved with those motions, her body sinuous and sensual against him. As they moved, she watched him from her bright eyes and, as their gazes held, he found he was incapable of looking away. Some new power within her gaze compelled him to maintain that connection and with each thrust of his body, with every answering lift of her hips, their eyes held, emotion starting to swirl amongst that physical tempest. Such fierce, unexpected emotion that Domenico could feel the last of his walls crumbling beneath its power, exposing everything that he was and leaving all of him open to her, to see and to take.

Beneath him, Rae began to shudder and as the tremors rocking her body spread into his own, the ripples of pleasure grew more powerful. They rushed through him so fast that they rammed into one another, becoming a single shattering orgasm that, for the first time in Domenico’s life, left no single piece of him untouched.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘YOUAREGOINGto tell me where we’re going at some point, aren’t you?’ Rae asked, smiling at the mysteriousness with which Domenico was acting.

‘In about ninety seconds, you’ll see for yourself,’ he answered, at the exact moment the car drew to a stop.

They had arrived at a marina and as she saw what sat at the end of the dock Rae’s eyes widened. The yacht had to be at least fifty feet long, with four levels, dazzlingly bright white against the darkening sky. The captain welcomed them as they stepped aboard, explaining that they would circle the island before introducing them to the crew, who were waiting to greet them with warm smiles and a glass of champagne.

As they pulled away from the dock, Domenico led Rae up to the third deck, where a tapas feast and a candlelit table for two was awaiting them.

‘I cannot believe you did this,’ Rae exclaimed when they were sitting at the table.

‘We had to do something special to celebrate. With your help I finalised a very significant deal for The Ricci Group today.’ Domenico had met with Lorca for two hours that morning and had returned to the villa with a completed contract and a triumphant mood. ‘I only wish that Elena and Raphael could have been here to see it.’

‘I have no doubt that wherever they are, Elena and Raphael are incredibly proud of you tonight.’

‘I hope so,’ he said quietly, a shadow scudding across his expression.

Rae’s heart rippled with pain for him. ‘You’re still doubting yourself. Even after everything you’ve achieved today. You still think you have something to prove?’

‘I’ve always felt it,’ he admitted with a press of resignation to his lips. ‘And I always think maybe if I do this, or if I achieve that...but nothing is ever enough to erase the feeling. I’m starting to think nothing will ever be the cure.’

‘The cure is you, Domenico,’ Rae beseeched him. ‘You have to believe that you’re deserving, that you’re good enough. You have to ignore that voice that tells you you’re lacking or worthless and trust that Elena would never have left you in charge of The Ricci Group if she didn’t believe in you and trust you enormously. You have to believe that she loved you with all of her heart. I believe that. I saw it every time she looked at you. And you have to know that it doesn’t matter one bit whether there is a piece of paper stuffed in some drawer that names you as her child or not.’

His eyebrows lifted, the slant of his gaze disbelieving, and Rae wished so badly that she could make him see that his belonging and his worth were defined by so much more than a completed form.

‘In every way that mattered, you were Elena’s son. It was you who had dinner with her every Sunday night. It was you who went with her to her hospital appointments. It was you she turned to when she had a problem. That is what belonging to someone is about. All those small, everyday acts. Not a name on your birth certificate.’

Domenico nodded, but he could hide little from her now and the flatness of his mouth, the way he cast his eyes down was telling.

‘But it’s not just that, is it?’ Rae deduced. ‘It’s not just your mother leaving you and Elena not adopting you... What else happened?’

Pain flashed like lightning across his handsome face and for a split second Raw saw, to her shock, all the anguish that he had so adeptly hidden from her. It was right there on the surface.

‘She had other children. My mother,’ he stated in a voice breaking with repressed emotion. ‘The reason she moved to Venice was because she got married and they had children—children whose births she announced and celebrated, welcoming them into her life in the way she never did with me. She even had stepchildren whom she happily accepted. And I was...ignored. I watched it all...watched her embrace those babies, giving them the security of family and parents...and each time I saw them I found myself asking what was so wrong with me that she hadn’t kept me. Why I was sounlovable.’ He shook his head, emitting a low curse in his native tongue. ‘I shouldn’t have cared. I had Elena and she gave me her name and a home, protection I would never have had. It shouldn’t have hurt me.’

‘Of course it should,’ Rae reassured him, reaching out to curl her hand around his tense arm. ‘You’re not wrong to be hurt by what happened. Anyone would be.’

Rae’s throat was clogged as she considered what those circumstances must have been like for him. Watching from afar, having that same bruise pressed upon day after day.

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