‘Why?’ he asked, cocking his head to one side. ‘What are you going to do? Fire me?’ he taunted.
He pressed closer to her, knowing that he was invading her space, obsessively hunting the flush that started from the sliver of skin he could see in the V of her shirt and crept up her throat. The pulse that flickered at the base of her jaw. The tremble to her lips she tried to stop by pinning one beneath her teeth.
‘Maria,’ he warned.
‘Yes?’
‘That is not helping.’ His voice was a growl.
She clenched her teeth together.
‘You can’t do this,’ she said, putting her hands on him. His heart thundered at the press of her palm over it, and he finally gave in to the need that was coursing through his veins. The one he had spent years hiding, denying, destroying.
He’d been fooled into thinking he had it under control. But he was wrong. So wrong.
Maria looked up at him with huge dark brown eyes, her hair cascading in tumbled curls down her back, her lips parted as if on a gasp.
‘Then stop me,’ he commanded.
He waited.
He waited for the hands on his chest to push him away in disgust, the way he’d imagined her doing time and time and time again in the deepest, darkest dreams of half-formed memories and damaged desires.
He waited for her to turn her head to the side, to snub him as she so often did in public, their hostilities as much a spectator sport for the families as not.
He waited for her to hiss and spit and curse his name, to damn him to hell and back.
But she didn’t. She did none of those things. Instead, she seemed as enthralled to this madness as he was. Her gaze, licking at him like flames that would devour. Hot, harsh,demanding.
‘Stop me,’ he half begged, himself no longer sure whether this was madness or mistake.
Her lush lips parted, but nothing came out.
He’d given her warning. She was certainly bold enough to refuse him if she wanted.
He claimed her mouth, already half open beneath his, no timid greeting of soft gentle touches. This was a clash, powerful, brash, possessive and demanding, consuming to the point of insanity. It was like coming home and leaving home all at once. Something earthily familiar and completely unknowable. Déjà vu andjamais vu, together at the same time.
They both pulled back, shocked, confused, glaring accusations at each other, breaths heaving, lips tingling.
‘You—’
Micha cut her off before she could ruin it and claimed her once more. His hands thrust into her hair, shaping her head with his fingers, and she groaned her pleasure into his mouth and sank against his chest in wanton abandonment.
Dio mio.
CHAPTER TWO
Maria was utterly lost. Completely and without question. She felt as if she was made up of pure sensual delight, every place she could feel, delicious, every pulse a throb so perfectly pleasurable, it was near inconceivable.
From just a kiss.
Per dio!
She indulged the moan of sheer want creeping up the back of her throat, her mouth opening just a little wider, which Micha took full advantage of. The thrust of his tongue carnal, sending thousands of little shivers across her skin until she trembled from the weight of them.
Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling it taut across his chest. She wanted it gone. She wanted the barrier between their skin incinerated. With shaking fingers, she slipped the buttons of his waistcoat free, her hands stretching out beneath the silk lining, and not so gently scratching the sides of his torso through the cotton of his shirt.
The growl of pleasure against her lips only spurred her on.
