I wanted him.
His face was heartbreaking, but not in the drop-dead gorgeous sense. He wasn’t modern-day fine, but a throwback to a time when men came alive in black and white movies. Bold features, manly features, that fit a classically handsome face. He even moved like those old-time gangsters—with or without clothes on. What did they call it? Swagger? Something that was as natural as the color of his hair or eyes.
I turned, and my eyes followed him as he headed toward the shower. He had an ass I could sink my nails into.
He said two words in Italian before the smoke swallowed him up.“Non muoverti.”
Don’t move.
I wasn’t going to just stand there while he washed himself clean. I removed his jacket from my shoulders, draping it over the chair in the closet. He had a few suits hanging up, all new by the looks of them, and shoes underneath. All so neat and tidy. Drawers were filled with rows of crisp undershirts, boxer shorts, and socks. I tried another cabinet, but it was locked.
“Rosalia.”
It was the third time he’d said my name in this place in one night, and it took a minute for me to turn and face him. When I did, he told me to “come” in Italian.
Don’t move.
Come.
What was I? A fucking dog? I didn’t even treat Bambina that way, and shewasa dog.
“Ask me nicely and I will,” I said, surprised at how brazen I was being.
“Thatwasnice,” he said.
In that case. I did as he said but stopped before I got too close. A breathless noise left my mouth when he grabbed me by the sheer material of the dress, making it almost too tight to breathe, and yanked my body toward his. I was helpless to stop it. If I fought any, the dress was going to rip.
He looked down at me as I looked up at him. The humid air was caught in between us, but I could feel his cool breath wash over my face. I licked my lips, tasting the salt from my skin, but wishing I could taste him—hoping he would make his move already, and hoping he wouldn’t.
If he did, I wasn’t sure what that meant, other than we were both dead.
Without him, though, as insane as it made me, I already was.
“You want me,” he said.
“Was that a question?” It was hard to tell with him.
“It’s whatever you fucking want it to be.”
“A question,” I said, feeling like when he’d grabbed my dress, he’d come close to ripping my heart out. It felt like it beat in his hands and only for him this way—erratic. “Because I have an answer. Yes. I—”
Before I could finish my sentence, he pulled even harder on the dress, his mouth crashing down on mine. Our lips moved like they were dancing a familiar dance, and when his tongue invaded my mouth, a sound that came from deep down in my chest matched his.
My hands started to move over his slick skin, over his chest, his shoulders, his wound, until my hands fisted in his hair.
It was manic the way we moved.
We were trapped by desire. Consumed by want. All in the space of however big this place was.
“Ah!” I hissed but was silenced in the next second when his mouth claimed mine again. With his hand still fisted in the dress, which had ripped some, he had slammed me against the wall. The peg dug into the flesh on my neck, and when he moved me, a strip of my hair was ripped out.
It was nothing but a dull ache in the background, but the act itself made my heart beat even faster, my skin feel even more sensitive. My entire body ached from wanting this so much it was hard to breathe.
His free hand slid underneath my hair, yanking my head back at the same time I went to kiss him again.
Our eyes stilled, connected, and when he came in again for another kiss, I snapped my teeth at him, coming close to biting his lip. His reflexes were fast; he’d moved my head back just in time. The transformation of his face was almost shocking. That statue had come alive right before my eyes.
His hair was soaked and disheveled, his eyes roving over my skin with burning intensity, and his heart—it seemed like it was pounding just as hard as mine behind the inhuman facade. His uncontrolled breathing seemed to be the only reason the room was full of steam, still cloak and daggering him.
