Something kicks inside me then. Sharp and fizzing and dangerous. Like one of Marcel’s extra-strong cocktails hitting my bloodstream all at once.
I tell myself I’m not feeling what I’m feeling. That this lightness, this illicit flicker of excitement and elation, is just adrenaline. Just proximity. Just my body being stupid.
I will endure this nonsense until I find a way out. But since I’m here now…
What’s wrong with looking the part?
The dress I choose is black and unapologetic, cut low enough to make a statement and fitted enough to make it impossible to ignore.
When I step out of the changing area, Giovanni looks up.
Really looks.
His conversation cuts off mid-word and the room goes very still.
He lifts one hand, fingers snapping once. “Out.”
Everyone freezes.
“Now.” It’s low and lethal and spine-razing.
Stylists scatter to the four winds, the door clicking shut behind the last.
He crosses the room in three strides and catches me before I can even breathe, his hands firm on my waist as he lifts me effortlessly onto the nearest surface.
“Giovanni—”
“This,” he says quietly, his mouth near my ear, “is not helping my patience. And my fucking balls.”
The rest of the world falls away. I’m aware of his hands, his breath, the way the air thickens between us.
His fingers trace the edge of the dress’s neckline, deliberately slow, deliberately torturous.
“Eighteen months,” he murmurs against my neck, his lips brushing skin that suddenly feels too sensitive, too alive.“Eighteen months of restraint, amore. Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. His mouth finds mine instead, demanding, possessive, the kind of kiss that tastes like barely-leashed control.
When he pulls back, his dark eyes are molten.
“I’ve been patient. I’ve been good.” The word drips with irony. “But this dress, you in this dress, looking at me like you want me to break…”
He drops to his knees in front of me, and the sight of Giovanni Dragoni, the Don, the man who commands empires, on his knees before me steals my breath.
His hands slide up my thighs, pushing the fabric of the dress higher, and Irealisewith a jolt of electricity that he has no intention of stopping.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, but it’s not really a question. His mouth is already moving against my inner thigh, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. “I fucking dare you,” he challenges thickly.
But we both know I won’t. We both know I can’t.
He drags my panties down with strong, impatient fingers, and I hear them rip even before they reach my knees.
Between one heartbeat and the next, I’m scrambling to brace my hands on the flat surface of the dressing room’s island as he snags one knee and throws my leg over his broad shoulder.
Dark eyes bore into me, still daring me, as his tongue finds me with devastating precision, and I gasp, actually gasp, my hands flying to his shoulders, his hair, needing something else to anchor me as sensation floods through me like wildfire.
His groan is thick and guttural and primal, his brazen kiss all-consuming.
He’s methodical about it, almost reverent, his mouth working with the same focused intensity he brings to everything else.
