My hands hover over her bare back, frozen in shock.
What thehell?
She’s shaking so violently I can feel it through my shirt. Her skin is ice against mine, and her breath comes in hitching sobs. Out of everyone in this godforsaken city, this blood-soaked Montoni princess is seeking comfort fromme.
The absurdity of it almost makes me laugh.
But nothing about this is funny.
My hands slowly touch her back. She needs warmth or she’s going to die, and I need her to tell me where her father is. That’s the only reason I pull her closer instead of pushing her away.
“I’ve got you, doe,” I hear myself murmur into her wet hair. “You’re safe.”
I cradle her frozen body against my chest. Adora gasps at the heat from my body, caught between pain and relief. She’s small enough that I can envelop her completely, her naked body flush against mine from chest to thighs. A full-body shudder runs through her, and she nestles her face into the hollow ofmy throat. Her lips brush my skin. Heat floods through me as I remember her mouth beneath mine last night.
I grit my teeth and focus on the practical. She’s cold. I’m warm. That’s all there is to this.
“Where’s your father?” I whisper into her wet hair.
But she just trembles and clings to me, lost in enjoying my warmth. Gradually, her violent shaking begins to ease. The desperate shivers become smaller tremors.
An idea takes shape. If she sees me as her protector, as the man she’s supposed to marry, I can use that. I can make her tell me everything I need to know to kill her father. All I have to do is make her believe I’m on her side.
And if I happen to take what I was promised in the process? Well, I was owed a bride.
Her breathing, which comes in short, panicked gasps, starts to slow and deepen. Her muscles, rigid with cold and shock, begin to soften. She melts into me. Her hands, which were fisted in my shirt in a death grip, slowly relax and spread across my chest. I feel the flutter of her eyelashes against my jaw as she blinks slowly, coming back to herself.
Heat pools low in my belly. My hands begin to move, one sliding up to tangle in her damp hair, the other drifting lower to the small of her back, pulling her closer.
She fits against me perfectly. Every curve pressed to the hard planes of my muscles. She sighs, and the sound is contented, almost peaceful.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask.
Against my throat, she nods cautiously.
“Who am I?”
“I’m afraid to say it out loud,” she whispers.
“Say my name,” I demand, raising my voice.
Adora opens her mouth, and then closes it again. There’s a war going on behind her eyes. Finally, she raises her head, and her eyes meet mine, clear now, and aware of who’s holding her.
She parts those beautiful lips and says in a steady voice, “I recognize you now. Vincenzo Vici. The man I was meant to marry.”
My hands tighten on her involuntarily. I wasn’t prepared for the way my body reacts to her saying my name. Heat floods my extremities, and I remember in vivid detail what it feels like to kiss her.
I’ve wanted her since I had her beneath me on that blood-soaked laundromat floor. Wanted her mouth, her body, her desperate little gasps of fear and desire all tangled together. She owes me for insulting me, hitting me, and most of all, she owes me for six weeks of grief and rage.
“Yes,” I say, my voice rough. “The man you were meant to marry.”
Then I twist the knife.
“Before you and your father murdered my family.”
Her face crumples. The amber eyes that were looking at me with something almost like trust fill with tears, and she breaks into sobs.
Well, at least she fucking feels bad about it.
