“Men like you?” I whisper, as the phone rings and rings.
“Men who have fought and bled and worked to do anything they want.”
He strides into the house.
I turn to my painting, shuddering.
What is this, what am I getting myself into. All I see are the surreal shades of color in the scene I’m working on. Like I’m creating a Salvador Dalí painting, and starting to live in one. I breath, sigh, close my eyes. Press my legs together and feel my clit ache hotly, a point of pure anticipation.
I almost shove my hands between my legs to relieve some of the pressure.
Outside,a storm crashes like fate sent it here. Like something knew that I didn’t want to leave Alex … and he didn’t want me to leave.
I cut into my steak. My knife makes atsk-tsknoise against the plate as my hand trembles.
He doesn’t take his eyes off me. Stares like he’d rather feast on me than the steak. My face is still warm from his touch. And now the warmth in other places has new significance, as if he’s touching me there too.
My underwear is holding on for dear desperate life. Soaked through, sticky and uncomfortable. I want him to tear it off. Shred it with his teeth. Kiss my clit and my lips and then …
“So, why a vineyard?” I ask. “How did you afford it? And why did you move to Italy?” A pause. “Sorry—this sounds like an interrogation.”
“I love how curious you are. Don’t apologize for being you, Bella. Don’teverapologize for that.”
A warm glow whelms in me. “So …”
“Back home, I was a businessman. And my business meant hurting people. Here, now, I get to grow things. I don’t have to be a slave to my darkness. I don’t have to be the man I was. The man that world made me.”
Panic should tear through me. Darkness.Hurtingpeople?
Somehow, it doesn’t.
“What sort of business are we talking about?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never hurt an innocent person. Never once in my life.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It’s better if you don’t know the specifics,” he says huskily.
I put my knife down. Look at him and try not to flinch. Outside, thunder grumbles as if mirroring the darkness he talked about.
“You don’t think I can take it?”
He reaches across the table. “I think you can take anything I give you.”
His hand finds mine. Warm, rough. I shift in my seat, my dress rubbing against my ass and my legs. My nipples are getting so hard. Can he see them through my bra and dress?
“Do you always hold hands with strangers?” I murmur.
“I don’t hold hands with anyone. I don’t want anyone. I closed off that part of me a long, long time ago. At least, I thought I had …”
My breath comes fast. I pull my hand away. Not because I don’t want him to touch me. But because I don’t want to give him thewrong idea. Make him think I’m somebody I’m not or that I’m capable of doing things I can’t. Or haven’t, not yet anyway.
“You’re a success,” I murmur.
“At forty, I can retire,” he agrees. “Though the idea of retiring makes me feel bleak. What the hell for? What about you, Bella?”
“What about me?”
