A Hunger for the Forbidden Read online

  “How did I look at you?” she asked, her chest tightening, her stomach pulling in on itself.

  “When you were a girl? With curiosity. At the hotel? Like you were hungry.”

  “You looked at me the same way.”

  “And how do you think I look at you now?”

  “You don’t,” she whispered. “When you can help it, you don’t look at me at all.”

  He moved his other hand up to cup her cheek, his thumb still stroking her lower lip. “I’m looking at you now.”

  And there was heat in his eyes. Heat like there had been their night together, the night that had started all of this. The night that had changed the course of her life.

  “Because you have to,” she said. “For the guests.”

  “Oh, yes, the guests,” he said.

  Suddenly, a flash pierced the dim light, interrupting their moment. They both looked in the direction of the photographer, who was still snapping pictures in spite of the fact that the moment was completely broken.

  “Shall we go in?” he asked. Any evidence of frayed control was gone now, the rawness, the intensity, covered by a mask. And now her husband was replaced with a smooth, cool stranger.

  She’d love to say it wasn’t the man she’d married, but this was exactly the man she’d married. This guarded man with more layers of artifice than anyone she’d ever met. She had been so convinced she’d seen the man behind the fiction, that the night in the hotel she’d seen the real Matteo. That in those stolen glances they’d shared when they were young, she’d seen the truth.

  That in the moment of unrestrained violence, when he’d put himself in harm’s way to keep her from getting hurt, she’d seen the real man.

  Now she realized what small moments those were in the entirety of Matteo’s life. And for the first time, she wondered if she was simply wrong about him.

  A feeling that settled sickly in her stomach, a leaden weight, as they continued up the stairs and into the entrance to the hotel’s main ballroom.

  There were more photographers inside, capturing photographs of the well-dressed crème de la crème of Sicilian society. And Alessia did her best to keep a smile on her face. This was her strength, being happy no matter what was going on. Keeping a smile glued to her face at whatever event she was at on behalf of her father, making sure she showed her brothers and sisters she was okay even if she’d just taken a slap to the face from their father.

  But this wasn’t so simple. She was having a harder time finding a place to go to inside of herself. Having a harder time finding that false feeling of hope that she’d become so good at creating for herself to help preserve her sanity.

  No one could live in total hopelessness, so she’d spent her life creating hope inside of herself. She’d managed to do it through so many difficult scenarios. Why was it so hard now? So hard with Matteo?

  She knew she’d already answered that question. It was too hard to retreat to a much-loved fantasy when that much-loved fantasy was standing beside you, the source of most of your angst.

  Though she couldn’t blame it all on Matteo. The night of her bachelorette party was the first night she’d stopped trying to find solace in herself, had stopped just trying to be happy no matter what, and had gone for what she wanted, in spite of possible consequences.

  She spent the night with Matteo’s arm wrapped around her waist, his touch keeping her entire body strung tight, on a slow burn. She also turned down champagne more times than she could count. Was she normally offered alcohol so much at a party? She’d never been conscious of it when she was allowed to drink it. Right now it just seemed a cruelty, since she could use the haze, but couldn’t take the chance with her baby’s health.

  Anyway, for some reason it all smelled sour and spoiled to her now. The pregnancy was making her nose do weird things.

  Although Matteo smelled just as good as he ever had. The thought made her draw a little closer to him, breathe in the scent of him, some sort of spicy cologne mingling with the scent of his skin. She was especially tuned into the scent of his skin now, the scent of his sweat.

  Dio, even his sweat turned her on. Because it reminded her of his bare skin, slick from exertion, her hands roaming over his back as he thrust hard into her, his dark eyes intent on hers. And there were no walls. Not then.

  She blinked and came back to the present. She really had to stop with the sexual fantasies, they did her no good.

  A photographer approached them. “Smile for me?” he asked.

  Matteo drew her in close to his body, and she put her hand on his chest. She knew her smile looked perfect. She had perfected her picture smile for events such as these, to put on a good front for the Battaglia family. She was an expert.

  Matteo should have been, as well, but he looked like he was trying to smile around a rock in his mouth, his expression strained and unnatural.

  “A dance for the new bride and groom?” the photographer asked while taking their picture, and she was sure that in that moment her smile faltered a bit.

  “Of course,” Matteo said, his grin widening. Was she the only one who could see the totally feral light in his eyes, who could see that none of this was real?

  The photographer was smiling back, as were some of the guests standing in their immediate area, so they must not be able to tell. Must not be able to see how completely disingenuous the expression of warmth was.

  “Come. Dance with me.”

  And so she followed him out onto the glossy marble dance floor, where other couples were holding each other close, slow dancing to a piece of piano music.

  It was different from when they’d danced in New York. The ballroom was bright, crystal chandeliers hanging overhead, casting shimmering light onto caramel-colored walls and floors. The music was as bright as the lighting, nothing darkly sensual or seductive.

  And yet when Matteo drew her into his hold, his arms tight, strong around her, they might as well have been the only two people in the room. Back again, shrouded in darkness in the corner of a club, stealing whatever moments together they could have before fate would force them to part forever.

  Except fate had had other ideas.

  She’d spent a lot of her life believing in fate, believing that the right thing would happen in the end. She questioned that now. Now she just wondered if she’d let her body lead her into an impossible situation all for the sake of assuaging rioting hormones.

  “This will make a nice headline, don’t you think?”

  he asked, swirling her around before drawing her back in tight against him.

  “I imagine it will. You’re a great dancer, by the way. I don’t know if I mentioned that … last time.”

  “You didn’t, but your mouth was otherwise occupied.”

  Her cheeks heated. “Yes, I suppose it was.”

  “My mother made sure I had dance lessons starting at an early age. All a part of grooming me to take my place at the helm of Benito’s empire.”

  “But you haven’t really. Taken the helm of your father’s empire, I mean.”

  “Not as such. We’ve all taken a piece of it, but in the meantime we’ve been working to root out the shadier elements of the business. It’s one thing my brothers and I do not suffer. We’re not criminals.”

  “A fact I appreciate. And for the record, neither is Alessandro. I would never have agreed to marry him otherwise.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I’ve had enough shady dealings to last me a lifetime. My father, for all that he puts on the front of being an honorable citizen, is not. At least your fathers and your grandfather had the decency to be somewhat open about the fact that they weren’t playing by the rules.”

  “Gentleman thugs,” he said, his voice hard. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret—no matter how good you are at dancing, no matter how nicely tailored your suit is, it doesn’t change the fact that when you hit a man in the legs with a metal cane, his knees shatter. And he doesn’t care what you’re wearing. Nei
ther do the widows of the men you kill.”

  Alessia was stunned by his words, not by the content of them, not as shocked as she wished she were. People often assumed that she was some naive, cosseted flower. Her smile had that effect. They assumed she must not know how organized crime worked. But she did. She knew the reality of it. She knew her father was bound up so tightly in all of it he could hardly escape it even if he wanted to.

  He was addicted to the power, and being friendly with the mob bosses was what kept him in power. He couldn’t walk away easily. Not with his power, possibly not even with his life.

  And yet, the Correttis had disentangled themselves from it. The Corretti men and women had walked away from it.

  No, it wasn’t the content of his words that had surprised her. It was the fact that he’d said them at all. Because Matteo played his cards close to his chest. Because Matteo preferred not to address the subject of his family, of that part of his past.

  “You aren’t like that, though.”

  “No?” he asked. “I’m in a suit.”

  “And you wouldn’t do that to someone.”

  “Darling Alessia, you are an eternal optimist,” he said, and there was something in his words she didn’t like. A hard edge that made her stomach tighten. “I don’t know how you manage it.”

  “Survival. I have to protect myself.”

  “I thought that was where cynics came from?”

  “Perhaps a good number of them. But no matter how I feel about a situation, I’ve never had any control over the outcome. My mother died in childbirth, and no amount of feeling good or bad about it would have changed that. My father is a criminal, no matter the public mask he wears, who has no qualms about slapping my face to keep me in line.” They swirled in a fast circle, Matteo’s hold tightening on her, something dangerous flickering in his eyes. “No matter how I feel about the situation, that is the situation. If I didn’t choose to be happy no matter what, I’m not sure I would have ever stopped crying, and I didn’t want to live like that, either.”

  “And why didn’t you leave?” he asked.

  “Without Marco, Giana, Eva and Pietro? Never. I couldn’t do it.”

  “With them, then.”

  “With no money? With my father and his men bearing down on us? If it were only myself, then I would have left. But it was never only me. I think we were why my mother stayed, too.” She swallowed hard. “And if she could do it for us, how could I do any less?”

  “Your mother was good to you?”

  “So good,” Alessia said, remembering her beautiful, dark-haired mother, the gentle smile that had always put her at ease when her father was in the other room shouting. The sweet, soothing touch, a hand on her forehead to help her fall asleep. “I wanted to give them all what she gave to me. I was the oldest, the only one who remembered her very well. It seemed important I try to help them remember. That I give them the love I received, because I knew they would never get it from my father.”

  “And in New York? With me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You toed the line all of your life, Alessia. You were prepared to marry to keep your brothers and sisters safe and cared for. Why did you even chance ruining it by sleeping with me?” His hold tightened on her, his voice getting back that rough edge. That genuine quality it had been missing since they’d stepped inside the hotel.

  It was a good question. It was the question, really.

  “Tell me, cara,” he said, and she glimpsed something in his eyes as he spoke. A desperation.

  And she couldn’t goad him. Couldn’t lie to him. Not now.

  “Did you ever want something, Matteo, with all of yourself? So much that it seemed like it was in your blood? I did. For so many years. When we were children, I wanted to cross that wall between our families’ estates and take your hand, make you run with me in the grass, make you smile. And when I got older … well, I wanted something different from you, starting about the time you rescued me, and I don’t want to hear about how much you regret that. It mattered to me. I dreamed of what it would be like to kiss you, and then, I dreamed of what it would be like to make love with you. So much so that by the time I saw you in New York, when you finally did kiss me, I felt like I knew the steps to the dance. And following your lead seemed the easiest thing. How could I not follow?”

  “I am a man, Alessia, so I fear there is very little romance to my version of your story. From the time you started to become a woman, I dreamed of your skin against mine. Of kissing you. Of being inside you. I could not have stopped myself that night any more than you could have.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said, heat rushing through her, settling over her skin. It made her dress, so lovely and formfitting a few moments ago, feel tight. Far too tight.

  “I don’t understand what it is you do to me.”

  “I thought … I was certain that I must not be so different from all your other women.”

  “There weren’t that many,” he said. “And you are different.”

  It was a balm to her soul that he felt that way. That she truly hadn’t been simply one in a lineup. It was easy for her, she realized, to minimize the experience on his end. It had been easy for her to justify being with him, not being honest with him, giving him a one-night stand, because she’d assumed he’d had them before. It had been easy to believe she was the only one who’d stood to be hurt or affected, because she was the virgin.

  That had been unfair. And she could see now, looking into his eyes, that it wasn’t true, either.

  “Kiss me,” he said, all of the civility gone now.

  She complied, closing the short distance between them, kissing him, really kissing him, for the first time in three months. Their wedding kiss had been nothing. A pale shadow of the passion they’d shared before. A mockery of the desire that was like a living beast inside of them both.

  She parted her lips for him, sucked his tongue deep inside of her mouth, not caring that it would be obvious to the people around them. Matteo was hers now, her husband. She wouldn’t hide it, not from anyone. Wouldn’t hide her desire.

  He growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating through his body. “Careful, Alessia, or I will not be responsible for what happens.”

  “I don’t want you to be responsible,” she said, kissing his neck. Biting him lightly. There was something happening to her, something that had happened once before. A total loss of control. At the hands of Matteo Corretti.

  It was like she was possessed, possessed by the desire to have him, to take him, make him hers. Make him understand what she felt. Make herself understand what she felt.

  “We can’t do this here,” he said.

  “This sounds familiar.”

  “It does,” he said. He shifted, pulled her away from his body, twining his fingers with hers. “Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere,” he said.

  He led her out of the ballroom, ignoring everyone who tried to talk to them. A photographer followed them and Matteo cursed, leading them a different way, down a corridor and to the elevators.

  He pushed the up button and they both waited. It only took a moment for the elevator doors to slide open, and the moment they did, she was being tugged inside, tugged up against the hard wall of his chest and kissed so hard, so deep, she was afraid she would drown in it.

  She heard the doors slide closed behind them, was dimly aware of the elevator starting to move. Matteo shifted their positions, put her back up against the wall, his lips hungry on hers.

  “I need you,” he said, his voice shaking.

  “I need you,” she said.

  Her entire body had gone liquid with desire, her need for him overshadowing everything. Common sense, self-protection, everything. There was no time for thought. This was Matteo. The man she wanted with everything she had in her, the man who haunted her dreams. This was her white knight, but he was different than she’d imagined.

  There wa
s a darkness to him. An edge she’d never been able to imagine. And she found she liked it. Found she wanted a taste of it. She didn’t know what that said about her, didn’t know what it meant, but at the moment, she didn’t care, either.

  “This is a beautiful dress,” he said, tracing the deep V of the neckline with his fingertip, skimming silk and skin with the movement. Her breath hitched, her entire body on edge, waiting for what he would do next. Needing it more than she needed air. “But it is not as beautiful as you. And right now, I need to see you.”

  He reached around, tugging on the zipper, jerking it down.

  “Careful,” she said, choking on the word. “You’ll snag the fabric.”

  “I’ll tear it if I have to,” he said.

  The top fell around her waist, revealing her breasts, covered only by a whisper-thin bra that showed the outline of her nipples beneath the insubstantial fabric.

  He lifted his hand and cupped her, slid his thumb over the tightened bud. “Hot for me?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Wet for me?” He put his other hand on her hip, flexed his fingers.

  She couldn’t speak, she just nodded. And he closed his eyes, his expression one of pained relief like she’d never seen before.

  She put her hand between her breasts, flicked the front clasp on her bra, letting it fall to the elevator floor. He looked at her, lowering his head, sucking her deep into his mouth. An arrow of pleasure shot from there down to her core. She tightened her fingers in his hair, then suddenly became conscious of the continued movement of the elevator.

  “Hit the stop button,” she said, her voice breathless.

  “What?” he asked, lifting his head, his cheeks flushed, his hair in disarray. Her heart nearly stopped. Matteo Corretti undone was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

  “The elevator,” she said.

  He cursed and turned around, hitting the red button on the wall, the elevator coming to a halt. He cursed again and reached into his pocket, taking out his cell phone. “Just a second.”

  “You better not be texting,” she said.

  He pushed a few buttons, his eyes not straying to her. “Not exactly.” He turned the screen toward her and she saw him. And her. And her breasts.