Undone
She suspected that the emotional wallop of what had happened, and so spectacularly, would land sooner or later.
But Maya had always been a woman of action, not feelings. She couldn’t do anything about the embarrassment she’d suffered or what waited for her when she got back to Toronto after New Year’s. She couldn’t fix what Ethan and Lorraine had broken.
What she could do, however, was address the boring-sex allegation to her own satisfaction. She’d always thought the sex they’d had together was fun, if not as frequent as they both claimed to want—yet did nothing to change. Before Ethan, she’d always liked sex, like anyone else. It was never as ruin-your-life, scream-for-mercy crazy as movies and books and Lorraine always claimed it ought to have been, but that was life, wasn’t it? Always a bit duller in practice than in imagination.
But she had no intention of Miss Havisham-ing herself. That was letting Ethan win, and she refused to allow that to happen. She was going to prove to herself that if there had been someone boring in their bed, it hadn’t been her.
Maya decided then and there that she was going to go out and have all kinds of sex that the fastidious Ethan she’d thought she’d known would have found revolting.
Her life was already ruined, but who knew? Maybe she’d learn that screaming for mercy was a lot more fun than it sounded.
It certainly wouldn’t be boring.
There was an extra little swing in her step when she headed back up the cliffside, following one long, medieval staircase after another. She was out of breath when she got to the top again but exhilarated as she made her way back onto the grounds of her hotel. It loomed up before her, a deep magenta color, graceful and pretty. She admired the tiered gardens, bursting with bougainvillea and other flowers she couldn’t identify at a glance.
Just as she admired the man working on a fence on the tier closest to her.
He wasn’t the kind of man Maya usually found attractive—but then, it was possible she’d spent a lot of time liking things because she thought she should, not because she truly, deeply liked them. The worker before her was beautiful in the way the rocky shore here was beautiful, hard and rough and more than a little disreputable. He was stripped to the waist, though the day wasn’t overly warm, showing off a hard, muscled torso that could have been sculpted from marble. Maya’s mouth went dry as her gaze traced over the tattoos that wrapped around one bicep, trailed over one shoulder and made his wide, tough back into a work of art.
His jeans hung low on his hips, and she spent a little longer than necessary admiring the taut curve of his ass, his powerful thighs and even the scuffed boots on his feet.
Heat flashed through her, the first thing that had penetrated the shield of ice and temper she’d wrapped around her since Ethan had told her he was in love with Lorraine.
Maya grabbed on to it. Hard.
The man was sweating in the hot Italian sun, which only seemed to make his shaggy, close-cropped blond hair gleam like gold. He wore a tawny sort of beard and a pair of battered work gloves, and when he swung around to look at her as if he’d felt her standing there, she felt herself shiver into goose bumps.
Because his eyes were as blue as the Italian sky and the sea all around them.
But far more dangerous.
Maya had always maintained certain standards. Her family’s expectations had always been clear and she had always aimed to exceed them. Martins were the best, attracted the best and did the best. Even Ethan had been a part of her same pursuit of excellence. He had been as driven as she was, as successful. He was everything Maya had wanted in a man, from his career to his trim, smooth runner’s body.
The man before her did not look like he was a runner. He looked like the words rough and tumble had been created specifically for him.
“Take a picture, babe,” the man said in the kind of American accent that did things to Maya’s insides.
She felt...syrupy. Melting hot, like butter. She couldn’t think of anything she liked less than being called babe, especially by a stranger, but this man somehow made it feel delicious, not derogatory.
That was the old Maya, she reminded herself. The Maya who had been left so publicly was gone. She’d died right around the time she’d had to cancel her own wedding.
This new Maya didn’t have to worry about what was good for her. She didn’t have to concern herself with her reputation or what her parents would think. She didn’t have to care if anyone would judge her or what they might say or what her choice of man showed about her to the people who were always watching, always commenting, always looking for chinks in Maya’s armor or ways to sandbag her success.
She had no armor here. And better still, she was the only person in Italy who knew who she was, what she’d left behind or even that she was supposed to be sad and broken in the first place.
Fuck that.
And fuck Ethan and Lorraine, too.
“All right,” she heard herself say, like a random person with no baggage. She fished her mobile out of her pocket and held it up before her, smiled at him and snapped his picture. “There. Picture taken. Now what?”
She had never sounded like that before in her life. Flirty. Suggestive.
Slutty, a voice whispered inside her that could as easily have been Ethan as her mother.
Another thing Maya had never been was a slut. Staring into the bright blue gaze of the gorgeously inappropriate man in front of her who didn’t know that or anything else about her, she thought that was a crying shame.
Not that she planned to cry. About anything.
“That depends,” the man said, and his voice was almost too much to handle. He sounded like the American South, mixed through with what she could only call bad boy, and his amused drawl made her shiver in all kinds of impossible places. “What do you want?”
And Maya had never done an impetuous thing in her life. It was high time she started, she thought. Right here and now, with the kind of reckless behavior she would have shuddered at a few days ago.
Because the man before her, looking at her with all those muscles and a kind of too-hot awareness in his blue eyes, might not be a corporate lawyer. But she had absolutely no doubt that he had reckless down pat.
And Maya wanted to taste it.
Now.
CHAPTER TWO
CHARLIE TELLER WAS no stranger to beautiful women.
He liked to consider himself something of an expert, in fact.
And the one standing before him hit pretty much every single one of his buttons. Hot? Check. A killer body, all generous curves packed onto a lean frame? Check. Soft, dark brown skin he itched to get his hands on? Check.
And better still, a wicked, inviting smile he could feel in his cock?
Hell yeah.
Charlie wasn’t a complicated man. His life had gotten a little complicated over the past year, true—but he was doing his best to combat that.
He was here in Italy, a million miles away from everything he’d ever known. Not back in Texas, answering questions that were designed to incriminate him. One way or another.
A year ago he had learned that the unidentified man his mother had slept with all those years ago, resulting in the pregnancy that had forced her—her words, usually screamed at Charlie while she was wasted—to marry his stepfather, introducing Charlie to a life of outlaw bikers and other rough, often desperate men, wasn’t some random drunk in a bar as Charlie had always assumed.
Or if he was, he’d been a very, very rich one.
Daniel St. George had been one of the world’s wealthiest men when he’d died. He’d collected beautiful women, fancy hotels and fast cars, and houses in places Charlie had never heard of before. He’d also collected bastard children wherever he went, like some kind of rich man’s we-are-the-world power trip. Charlie had found out he had half brothers in Iceland and the Pacific Islands. A half sister living in New York. All as wary of their sudden family connection as he was.
And better by far—or less complicated, anyway—his father had left him a fancy-ass hotel in Italy and a chunk of money to go with it so he could run it.
Given the way things were headed back home in Texas, with federal agents infiltrating his stepfather’s biker club and a lot of Charlie’s own biker-club-adjacent activities under a little too much surveillance, he’d jumped at the chance to get the hell away from a sinking ship.
And who knew? Maybe this was his opportunity to go straight.
It was high time for a little change in his life, he could admit that. He’d lasted a long time hurtling down a dead-end road, but he was a realist. His stepfather had been in and out of jail for most of Charlie’s life before he’d met an ugly end in a bar fight gone bad. His mother was too drunk and bitter these days to do much more than exist the same way she always had, moving from man to man in the same small, grim pool of outlaws and grifters. Last he’d heard she was in yet another biker town in the Louisiana swamp.
Charlie had known he’d needed to get out since he was a kid. He’d been plotting out the best way to do that when Daniel St. George’s lawyers had found him. And the rich father he’d never known—and couldn’t really believe his mother had ever known, if he was honest—turned out to be an excellent exit strategy.
Now he was a boutique hotel owner in a high-class, undeniably beautiful part of the world he never would have seen if he’d stayed in Texas. He had a new life, the new start he’d always wanted and an aversion bordering on phobia for any further complications to his newly simple and easy life.
But he was still him.
And the gorgeous woman smiling at him with all that appreciation in her smile and the November sun playing over her face wasn’t complicated at all.
She made him feel simple all the way through.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked her, letting his drawl get lazy. He stripped off his work gloves and tossed them down near the base of the fence post, then rested his hands on his hips.
“What’s on offer?” she asked, more of that wickedness in her voice.
And in the way she shifted so he couldn’t help but look at that swing in her hips. His mouth went dry.
“The hotel is full-service,” he assured her. “Whatever you want, you get.”
“I’m delighted to hear that. I have a lot of...wants.”
She laughed when she said that, which somehow transformed it from a silly little line anyone might say into something...extraordinary.
Charlie had the distinct impression that if he didn’t get a taste of her, it might kill him.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, grinning when she did, like they were both caught up in the bright grip of her laughter. “I’ll make sure you get it.”
She moved closer, and he had to lecture himself not to reach out and sink his hands into the massive cloud of curls around her head. He had to order himself not to wrap his hands around her curvy hips or pull them flush to his, right here, out in the open.
The steep incline of the village fell away behind her, and the ocean was spread out everywhere like a deep blue witness, but all he could see was the flirty skirt she wore that showed off her lean, muscled legs and her long-sleeved shirt with a neckline that drew attention to her delicate collarbones, her firm upper arms and her plump, mouthwatering breasts.
He took his time dragging his gaze back up to her full, lush mouth. She swept her sunglasses off her face, and then he was lost for a moment in the dark brown of her eyes, hot and direct.
He felt it like hands all over him. He wished hers were, and who cared if they were in public.
“I would say I want you,” she said, and there was a certain awkwardness in her words, or maybe it was in the way she stood, as if this was out of character for her. But Charlie didn’t care. “But I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble on the job.”
She didn’t know who he was. No one had pointed him out to her yet, calling him the American boss or whatever more colorful terms they used in Italian. Capo americano, whatever.
It had taken him and the hotel’s longtime manager, Benicio, a solid three months to figure each other out. These days, Charlie left the running of the hotel to Benicio and amused himself with the kinds of things he was good at. He’d always worked with his hands. And there was a deep, unexpected satisfaction in working on something that was his. Something no one could take from him. It felt like an indulgence to spend an afternoon thinking about nothing more than repairing a fence.
Instead of federal wiretaps on the people he’d always considered his family, for example. Or which friends might turn state’s evidence and throw him into the middle of it because of things his stepfather had done or boasts his drunken mother had made to the wrong people. It was a relief to be able to simply do a thing without running it through the proper channels so as not to offend anyone, making sure to use a shitty burner phone instead of the technology everyone else enjoyed these days or any of the other things he’d done over the years while he’d danced up and down that gray moral and legal line that all the lawyers he’d known had called, at best, arguable.
There was nothing gray or arguable about a fence. Either it was fixed or it wasn’t.
And this woman didn’t know he was the owner of this hotel. Charlie could tell from the way she held herself and the clothes she wore that she was high-class. Much higher class than a dirtbag from the Texas dust. She had diamonds in her ears, another one on a delicate chain around her neck, and everything on her curvy body was sleek and quietly expensive. She wasn’t dripping with over-the-top, conspicuous wealth the way so many people were around these world-renowned cliffside beach towns—film stars and European royalty and all the rest who flocked to the Amalfi coast because some Kennedy had done the same way back when.
This woman was fancy.
And she thought he was a handyman.
That delighted Charlie all the way through.
“What the owner doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” he drawled. Then he held out his hand, daring her. “Want me to give you a tour?”
He watched her swallow, hard. He watched the way her smile froze, and then the way she forced it wide again.
But what he really cared about was the way she held out her hand after a moment, sliding it into his and holding his gaze while she did.
“I would love a tour,” she said, low and a little rough.
Charlie laced his fingers with hers, enjoying the kick of heat that hummed through him at the contact. The way she sucked in a breath. Then he tugged her along behind him, skirting the bottom of the tiered gardens and terraces to duck into the little shed tucked away at the corner of the property.
“This is the best part of the hotel,” he told her as he pulled her inside. There was no light, but the ancient windows let the afternoon in through the brightly painted shutters, and it took only a moment or two for his eyes to adjust. And he liked the way the sunshine poured over her pretty face, tipped up to his. “It’s nice and private, for one thing.”
“Private is my favorite.”
And again, there was that hesitation. But it was like she heard it, too, and didn’t like it. Because she threw herself forward.
She braced herself on his chest, exhaling in a rush when her palms met his pectoral muscles. Her gaze met his, bright and intense. Then she surged up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
Charlie liked that.
And he liked it a lot more when he angled his mouth and took it deeper.
Hotter. Wetter.
And maybe a little bit insane.
One thing he’d learned in Italy was never to deny himself a treat, and this was no different. He found her face with his palms and then guided her head where he wanted. He took the kiss harder. Wilder.
She tasted almost too good. Sweet like honey, with a kick of something that went straight to his head like too much Jack on a long, rough night.
He growled a little bit at that. She made a humming noise in response, and then she was pushing even closer to him, pressing those lush breasts of hers into his chest.
Charlie swung her around, getting her back up against the old stone wall and levering himself against her. He ate at her mouth, demanding and dirty, loving the way she shuddered against him as she met every stroke.
But it wasn’t enough.
He picked her up, liking that she was a good, tight handful when he wrapped his arms around her ass and pulled her thighs wide. He pinned her to the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist like they’d done this dance a thousand times, and he wedged himself there where she was softest and hottest.
And the way he kissed her went savage.
Then she made it worse, because she started to move. She rocked those hips of hers in a sweet circle, dragging her soft heat all over him, and he thought that he might actually lose it.
He reached back and pulled a condom from his back pocket, and broke the kiss.
She was panting, her mouth faintly swollen and her eyes wild, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything hotter. He fumbled between them to unbutton his jeans, pulling himself free. He dealt with the condom, then shoved her skirt out of his way, reaching between them to get a few fingers in all that melting heat.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, and he laughed at that, because it was hot. And she was hot. “You just...walk around prepared?”
He thought he might lose it at any second, that was how slick her pussy was, splayed open between him and the wall. Charlie shoved her panties to one side, then put his cock where his fingers had been, moving the tip through her folds, just to play with her.
“I’m always prepared,” he told her. “You’re welcome.”
Sure enough, she rocked her head back and arched against him, like that could make him do what she wanted.
“I should have mentioned this,” he said in a low voice, gazing down at the picture she made for him, her legs wide-open and wrapped around him. And his cock rubbing this way and that over her proud little clit. “But I like to be in charge. Does that work for you?”
She was panting. Her eyes were unfocused, but still, she laughed at that.
“Go right ahead,” she told him. “I can handle it.”
“If you say so.”
Charlie slammed himself into her, deep.
And felt her come, hot and wet and greedy, like a dream.
Maya couldn’t believe any of this was happening.
She couldn’t believe the things that had come out of her mouth. She couldn’t believe that she’d let a total stranger lead her off into a dark little shack.
But that paled in comparison to the fact that he was inside her.
Thick, huge and impossibly hard.
And more, that an orgasm clenched her tight and hard in its greedy fist, instantly.
She didn’t believe in things like this. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
Men this beautiful didn’t exist, and if they did, they certainly didn’t dole out instant orgasms like candy—
But still, she shook around him, one wave crashing into another like they might go on forever. She heard the strangest, most insane noises...that it took her much too long to realize were coming from her.
A lot like a scream, but that was impossible.
This was all impossible.
She choked herself off from any further crazy noises and forced her eyes open. Then she looked down at this beautiful, dangerous stranger who was lodged so deep inside her that she thought she could feel him down into her toes.
His grin was slow and cocky.
And it made her shiver all over again.
She wrapped her arms around his shockingly hard shoulders and held on.
His rough edges were evident everywhere, and it amazed her how much she wanted to lick each and every one of them. His tattoos. His calloused hands. That physical power—when she’d only ever known financial power. She wanted to revel in it.
But she assumed that he would just go for it now, as fast as he could, because she was already taken care of. And it was only fair.
He pulled out, slow and easy, then thrust back in the same way. Like he had all the time in the world.
He did it again, slow and deep. Then that drag out again that made her head spin.
He slid a hand down to her ass, lifting her against him, which made the angle...more. More of everything. Intense and deep and too much, all...more.
He didn’t change his pace.
Maya could feel the remnants of that wallop of an orgasm dancing all along her skin, sinking into her bones, making her feel bright and wild. Time seemed to flatten out on either side of them, and the world narrowed down until there was nothing but that deep, dirty rhythm.
She was aware of everything. How strong he was, that he could hold her so easily and never break that slow, drugging rhythm of his. He smelled like salt and man, something like the sea, and she wanted nothing more than to dip her head and taste him.
But she didn’t, because that felt like intimacy, and whatever strange magic this was, it wasn’t that.
On some level, she thought that was ridiculous because he was inside her—but she couldn’t seem to hold on to the things that danced into her head and then out.
There was only that long, smooth thrust. Then the retreat. Over and over and over again.
He braced his other hand on the wall beside her face. She found herself entranced by the corded beauty of his forearm and the particular glory of all those lean muscles.
She could feel the ache in her thighs, but she didn’t care. She could feel his chest against hers as she arched into him, then away. Each brush made her nipples ache, and she wanted more. Harder. Deeper. More.
Everything—but she didn’t say that, either.
This is sex, she told herself. This is pure fucking.
And it was more than that, she knew with each thick, deep, thrilling surge inside her.
It was an exorcism.
With every thrust, she was made new.
It was her baptism, and every sacrament thereafter, as he slowly, deliberately, pounded her into madness.
But what a sweet madness it was.
“You going to come again?” It took her a moment to realize that was him, talking to her in that growly, dangerous voice that seemed to scour her body the same way he did. Rough and right. “Are you just going to hang out?”
And Maya didn’t know who she was. She never did things like this. She’d never kissed a stranger, much less fucked one up against the wall not even five minutes after laying eyes on him for the first time.
She wasn’t this person.
But maybe that was why it was easy to become as much a stranger to herself as the stranger inside her and smile at him. Wicked and flirtatious and nothing like her at all.
“You can either make me come or you can’t,” she told him, astonished at the words that came out of her own mouth. But she ran with them anyway. “How is that on me?”
“Good point,” he replied, and then everything changed.
He gripped her ass harder and lifted her away from the wall. She flowed against him, then bit her own bottom lip as he took that hand of his from the wall and brought it between them.
“Try this,” he said, his mouth against her neck, and then he did something to her clit with those big, rough fingers of his—
Maya felt like she’d been electrocuted. It was a jolt, a wild burst of light, and then everything exploded.
She was lost in the white light of it, the wild, impossible commotion, but she held on tight until he finally broke that rhythm of his and went a little wild himself.
And when he groaned out his release into the crook of her shoulder, he tipped her right back over that edge for the third time.