2. Seed of Obsession

"Thank you, Adriano, you mean."

A seductive husky voice tore the silent air of the kitchen and the bowl slipped from her fingers before her brain registered the fear. Strawberries scattered across the dark marble floor like drops of blood, crushing beneath her bare heel as she spun toward the doorway. 

Adriano filled it completely.

He leaned against the doorframe with the casual arrogance of a man who knew exactly how he looked and precisely what it did to people, a crystal tumbler dangling from his fingers. His hair was still wet from the shower, dark strands swept back from his forehead. The white shirt he'd thrown on was unbuttoned enough to reveal the hard planes of his chest, the fabric clinging translucent to his skin where water hadn't fully dried. 

His gaze swept over her, lingering on the thin fabric of her nightgown before rising to her face. The moonlight behind her must have turned it transparent because his gaze snagged on her breasts, on the peaked shadows of her nipples pressing against the flimsy material and stayed there long enough to make her skin prickle with heat.

"You made me drop the strawberries." She forced the words out with more defiance than she felt, already bending down to gather the scattered fruit, grateful for an excuse to look away from him. Her fingers trembled. She hoped he couldn't see.

"I can't help that you're jumpy." Adriano brought the glass to his lips and took a slow sip. His eyes never left her. "Or clumsy, I might add."

Anny's head snapped up. "I'm in a stranger's home. Almost. The lights were off and you decided to speak in that…" she gestured vaguely at his entire existence, "voice of yours. How else were you expecting me to react?"

She'd pointed out the obvious that he'd frightened her, that any normal person would understand. That he should understand. But he didn't.

"I'm your stepfather, Anny." The word felt both intimate and mocking all at once.

Her spine straightened. Stepfather. The word was a technicality, a legal designation that felt obscene when applied to the man currently blocking her exit with his body, the man whose gaze kept dropping to her mouth like he was already tasting her.

She'd only met him three times - once at a restaurant where he'd spent almost the entire dinner looking at her over the rim of his wine glass, once at the wedding where his hand had brushed the small of her back and lingered a few seconds too long and now she was living in his house. Sleeping in a bedroom two doors down from the master suite he shared with Rosie.

She rose to her feet and met his gaze with every ounce of bravado she could summon. "You'll never be my stepdad," she said, tossing a bruised strawberry back into the bowl with more force than necessary.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

"Look at me." The command came out as barely more than a whisper.

Adriano pushed off the doorframe and closed the distance between them. He stood directly in front of her, so close that she could smell the whiskey on his breath. When she finally lifted her chin, she found herself at eye level with the most dangerous thing she'd ever seen.

Adriano looked down at her. "Did you enjoy the show earlier?" His voice was threaded with dark amusement, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth that made her want to slap him and pull him closer in equal measure.

The blood drained from her face and rushed elsewhere simultaneously. "I wasn't…"

"You were." He pushed off the counter behind him. The proximity was devastating. His breath ghosted across her parted lips. "You stood there long enough to make me wonder if you needed an invitation inside. The glass is clear, Anny. You know that, right?”

Her back hit the kitchen island behind her. She hadn't realized she'd been retreating until the solid thunk of her spine against wood gave her nowhere left to go. The cold stone bit into her spine through the silk, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating off his body. He was close enough now that she could feel the warmth of his chest without it touching her. 

"It was an accident," she breathed. "I didn't mean to…"

"To look?" Adriano planted one hand on the counter beside her hip, caging her in. His other hand rose, knuckles brushing the curve of her jaw before his fingers curled around her chin, tilting her face up. "Or to like what you saw?"

She couldn't answer. Her throat had closed completely, every rational thought drowning in the thick, drugging awareness of his body so close to hers.

His eyes dropped again and this time he didn't bother hiding it. The nightgown was pale pink silk, so thin she might as well have been wearing nothing. 

"You shouldn't wear something like this around me." His fingers found the hem of her nightgown where it rested against her thigh and traced along it. "Unless, of course, you want me to notice."

"Please…" The word escaped before she could stop it. A plea. She didn't even know what she was pleading for.

Adriano's smile deepened. It was the smile of a man who had just been handed exactly what he wanted.

"Adriano, please…"

"Please what?" His palm slid higher, pressing against the impossibly soft skin of her inner thigh. The contrast made her gasp. "Please stop?" His fingers traced a lazy circle that made her hips jerk forward involuntarily. "Or please continue?"

Anny's nails scraped against the marble counter. Her body had become a stranger to her, pulse hammering in her throat, heat pooling low in her belly, the aching, empty throb between her legs that she'd been trying to ignore ever since she'd walked into this house.

His free hand cupped her face, thumb stroking the edge of her jaw, tilting her head back until she had nowhere to look but directly into his eyes. He leaned closer. His mouth brushed the shell of her ear. That made her tremble.

"Tell me, Anny. Should I stop?" His teeth grazed her earlobe.

Her lips parted. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, desperate waves. The word stop hovered on her tongue and she couldn't force it out. 

His thumb found her lower lip, tugging it down slightly. At the same moment, his other hand slid higher still, fingers skimming along the sensitive crease where her thigh met her hip, brushing against the edge of her nightgown.

She wasn't wearing anything underneath. Nothing at all.

She squeezed her eyes shut, biting down hard on her lower lip, fighting to contain the sounds that threatened to betray her completely. Adriano's hand pushed higher beneath the silk.

Anny's knees buckled. She clutched at the counter behind her, fingers scrambling against smooth marble, her head falling forward until her forehead nearly rested against his shoulder. His palm pressed firmly against her inner thigh now. 

Then his fingers found her. Soft folds already swollen with arousal. 

The sound she made was obscene, a broken, breathless cry that echoed off the kitchen walls. Her hips bucked forward into his hand without any conscious command, grinding against his palm like she'd been starving for this touch her entire life. She was soaked, her slick heat coating his fingers the instant they made contact. 

"So wet already." His voice was pure sin against her ear, dark and satisfied. Her hips bucked against his hand, completely beyond her control. "When I've barely touched you and you haven't even admitted what you want yet."

"I don't…" 

The protest died in her throat, dissolving into a helpless moan as his fingers slid through her slick folds and found her entrance. He didn't push inside. He simply lingered there, gathering the evidence of her arousal, spreading it across her most sensitive skin, two fingers pressed against her opening, circling there, feeling the way her body clenched and fluttered around nothing, desperate to be filled.

"Liar." He pushed just the tip of his finger inside her, barely breaching her entrance and she made a sound she had never made before. "You've wanted this since the first night your mother brought me home. You think I haven't noticed?" His thumb continued its lazy assault on her clit. "I've seen the way you look at me when you think I'm not watching. The way you press your thighs together when I walk into a room. The way you bite your lip when I speak to you."

It was too much. Still it wasn't enough. His fingers were touching her, stroking her, spreading her wetness everywhere and still she felt an emptiness inside her that bordered on a painful hunger, so deep it was driving her insane. Her hips were moving of their own accord, grinding down onto his hand, chasing the building pressure that was coiling tighter and tighter in her lower belly.

Her thighs were trembling. She was close and he'd barely been touching her for more than a minute. His fingers worked inside her with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. Her fingers found his biceps and dug in. She was right there. And then he stopped.

He removed his hands. Anny's eyes flew open, a low growl of frustration tearing from her throat before she could stop it. She lifted her head from his shoulder, blinking in confusion, her body still humming with unfulfilled need.

"Why did you stop?" Her voice came out wrecked, hoarse and breathless. 

Adriano smirked. It was the most infuriating expression she had ever seen on a human face, smug and deeply, darkly amused. He withdrew his hand from beneath her nightgown with deliberate slowness and her eyes dropped to his glistening fingers. She watched as he lifted them to his mouth and licked them clean, his eyes never leaving hers.

"It's time for bed, darling." He leaned in close, his lips brushing the curve of her ear and whispered the words like a dark promise. His breath was hot against her skin. "Sweet dreams."

He pulled back and looked at her where she still stood the same way, trembling and utterly undone with an expression that mixed satisfaction with anticipation, a man who had planted a seed and was content to wait for it to bloom. That damned smile curved his lips again.

"Welcome home, Anny." 

Then he turned and brushed past her out of the kitchen, his footsteps steady and unhurried, his composure completely intact, as if he hadn't just shattered her into a thousand trembling pieces on the cold kitchen floor. Anny closed her eyes.

Welcome home, indeed.