“Because how I respond to it makesmedangerous,” he corrected. “I saw you laughing and smiling at that man and wanted to throw him out of a window. Jealousy lives in my veins, jealousy and violence. I am not a good man to get close to.”
“Then why are you getting so close to me now?”
“Because the level of jealousy and violence is controllable and we don’t have the time left together for it to grow stronger. The danger has passed.” Sensuality blazed from his black eyes. “We have four days left together and then this marriage will be nothing but an ugly memory…” He brought his mouth to within a feather-distance from hers. “But we don’t have to say goodbye with only ugly memories. We can end it all on a high... if that’s what you want, too.”
She wanted to say no out of spite and pride, but his hot breath soaked into her lips before his lips brushed against hers at the same moment his little finger stretched out and traced the rim of her lace knickers at the juncture of her thighs. She gasped into his mouth as a bolt of pure, unadulterated desire shot through her.
His nostrils flared. So too did the pupils of his eyes.
A waiter cleared their dessert plates. He didn’t try to come between them. The position of the table and the volume of material in the skirt of her dress meant it was impossible for him or anyone to see what was happening beneath it, but she was still shocked at her own wantonness. The spot between her legs was on fire and she was holding Gennaro’s hand so tightly in part to stop herself dragging it even higher.
Turning her head, she tried to catch a breath. Tried. It was impossible to breathe properly when Gennaro’s hand was stillon her thigh, his little finger only a swish away from where the spot between her legs burned the brightest.
Oh why had it all turned on its head like this? How was it possible to go from having fewer sexual stirrings than a nun to feeling like a tinder box only a Gennaro away from exploding in just three days?
Swallowing hard, she gazed through dazed eyes around the magnificent ballroom. They weren’t the only couple sitting so close, and she experienced a pang deep in her chest to know that none of this was real. The other couples around them were lovers in the true sense of the word, but even if she did give in to her desires, she would never be Gennaro’s true lover and he would never be hers. Not in a true, meaningful sense. He just wanted to have sex with her before their time together ran out.
Luisa had never justhad sexbefore. She’d had exactly one lover in her life. Sex with him had never been like that erotic scene from that film of her art school years, but she’d gone along with it because her lover had got so much out of it, and she’d loved him, not with the whistles and bells that came with steamy lust but with a quiet caring. Even though the relationship hadn’t worked out, while they’d been together she’d wanted to make him happy. His affection and thoughtfulness had made her feel loved and so she’d willingly shared his bed, always hoping the expression of their love would get better over time. She wasn’t someone who could just separate her mind from her body…
Except with Gennaro. With him, it was like her body had separated from her mind without her consent, but even as she thought this and released his hand to slide her fingers onto his thigh, a voice in the back of her mind laughed scornfully, a voice that was drowned by the sensations of the heat from his impossibly muscular thigh permeating through his trousers and onto her fingertips and the thrills ravaging her ashis fingers responded to her touch by biting a little deeper into her sensitive skin. The aching spot between her legs was on fire, and it was taking everything she had to stop all her thoughts from being drowned out by sensation.
There would be no affection or thoughtfulness in Gennaro’s lovemaking. That wasn’t what he was offering her. He was offering her hedonism, not love. Sex for sex’s sake, something she’d never considered herself capable of...
Fingers teased themselves beneath the band of her knickers.
The pulse of desire was so strong she reflexively sucked in a breath and dug her nails into his thigh.
Dear God…
Around them, the world continued to turn. Coffee was poured and dainty plates of pretty petit fours served, but she was barely aware of any of it, her senses incapable of focusing on anything but the pulse of fire burning between her legs.
“Look at me,” Gennaro commanded in a hoarse undertone.
Struggling desperately for breath, she obeyed, fixing onto the black eyes barely visible behind the mask.
His features had tightened but his eyes…
His eyes were liquid.
A chocolate petit fours was pinched lightly in the fingers of his right hand. “Open your mouth.”
Her mouth opened in obedience without any input from her brain.
He brought the petit fours to her mouth and as he placed it between her lips, he slid a finger inside the heat between her legs.
The pleasure was so unexpected and intense that all she could do was stare at him in complete astonishment that he would dare go so far... And complete astonishment at herself for letting him.
After a long beat, the corners of his firm lips twitched in the hint of a smile. “You need to eat it.”
Still acting on its own accord, her mouth closed around the chocolate delight. Gennaro slid his finger out of her mouth with the same sensuous fluidity that he drove his finger further inside her slick heat, and, God, thesensation...
“You like?” he murmured huskily when she’d finally opened her throat enough to swallow it.
Breathing hard, her head reeling, she nodded.
“Another?”
Unable to tear her gaze from his, incapable of speech, she nodded again.