But her pain had nothing on his. That she could ask that question. That he didn’t have an answer for it. “How the hell am I supposed to know?” And this time when he kissed her, he held nothing back. He let the whole war inside of him explode between them. He tasted her, deeply and selfishly. Just for him.
He half expected her to be cowed. Scared into pushing him away, into demanding he stop. Instead she met every kiss, every nip, every tightened grasp with one of her own. Dragging them both deeper into an inferno that would no doubt destroy them.
Luckily, he’d always been a fan of destruction.
He molded his hands over her shoulders, her arms, then anchored them at her waist to draw her closer. As close as she could get. A wild, desperate pressing of body against body. And her arms came around his neck, so she arched into him.
A jolt of pleasure so deep it almost mixed with pain shot through him. His body was iron hard, and she was a warm softness, begging for more.
Something incomprehensible was unfurling inside of him. None of his usual walls. There was too much emotion infiltrating that which should only be physical, light, easy.
There was nothing easy about this woman. About this kiss. He was being sucked in. Drowned. Which made no sense.Shewas the virgin. Not him.
There would come a moment where he would push her too far. Where she would want to stop. To pretend this wild loss of control had never happened. So he rushed forward to greet it. Or thought he did.
When he unzipped the back of her dress, she shrugged her shoulders to let the dress fall. She didn’t even hesitate. His heart seemed to stutter in his chest, and this was what had him pulling her back, away, but whatever denials had been on the tip of his tongue died.
Her underwear was a serviceable, virginal white. It made her look like a confection. One he desperately needed a taste of. She was a goddess. Soft and enticing. No doubt luring him to his doom.
What a way to go.
They both were gasping for air. Her pupils were large and dark and a flush had crept down from her face to her chest. For a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of doubt, but before he could use it…or refute it, she stepped forward and lifted her mouth to his once more. She kissed him and her hands slid up his chest, to the buttons of his shirt. She fumbled, but she didn’t give up, kissing him and unbuttoning his shirt one by one until he thought there was no sound in the world expect the sound of his own heart beating like a booming drum chorus in his ears.
His hands, without any permission from what little part of his brain he thought he still might have control over, slid down her back, over the curve of her backside. Every inch of her was soft, supple, warm.
The kiss could have gone on forever, but there was a warning bell somewhere deep down. A sense of self-preservation just barely nagging at him. Tiny, but abrasive. He wrenched his mouth from hers, alarmed at how winded he felt. This couldn’t continue. This couldn’tbe.
He stared down at her, this unexpected temptress, still feeling an incomprehensible need. What would he do if she walked away?
What would he do if she did not?
Devour.
Which was wrong. It had been one thing to think of seducing her in vague terms, but the reality of wanting her was something far different. Far more alarming. Far more complex.
He was not a man who allowed for complex. He was not suited to it. He could not stand for it or dive into it like this.
“Tell me to stop,” he demanded. It was the only thing that could save him. Her good sense was all that stood between them and the ruin of giving in to this. Because it wasn’t seduction games.
It was something more. Something he wasn’t sure either of them would survive.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” he demanded of her. She didn’t say a thing and he wanted to yell it again until shereacted. Instead, he issued the order again, quietly and sternly with all the strength and control left in him. “Tell me.”
She inhaled sharply, then shook her head, chin lifted. “No,” she said firmly. Then she jerked his head down by the hair and crushed her mouth to his.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SERENA HAD NEVERbeen reckless. Never thought she would be compelled to behave in such a way. Danger was for people like Luciano, who would suffer no consequences, no qualms. People who could afford to make mistakes.
Or so she’d believed.
But everything changed tonight. She did not know how, and perhaps at some later date, when her body wasn’t throbbing with a need she did not fully recognize even if she knew what it meant, she would dissect it all. Understand it all.
Despair of herself.
But for this moment, the only thing she could possibly think to do was dive down the reckless, fiery disaster of it all. Disaster felt like a revelation. Giving in felt like something sheowedherself for once.
And what would it matter if she crashed and burned on the glorious mountainof him? Tomorrow she would wake up, still Serena Valli. Still in charge of Valli and marching her way toward a merger—marital and business—with this man. And her mistake might be there, but what would it change?
