My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache.
"Nice place." Her voice carries that particular rasp of a woman who's had just enough champagne to lower her walls. Dark eyes sweep across the room—the round bed with its black silk sheets, the ambient lighting that turns everything gold and shadow. She doesn't notice the drawer built into the headboard. Doesn't know what's inside.
Restraints. A blindfold.
Things I want to use on her.
"It serves its purpose." I cross the space between us, holding out her glass. Our fingers brush during the exchange and her breath catches. Such a small sound. It goes straight to my cock.
She takes a sip, watching me over the rim. "And what purpose is that?"
"Privacy."
"From?"
"Everyone." I drink, never breaking eye contact. "No cameras in here. No interruptions. Just... whatever happens between the walls."
Her tongue darts out to catch a drop of champagne on her lower lip. The gesture is unconscious, unplanned, and it nearly breaks my control.
She wants to get fucked.
The knowledge sits heavy in my gut. She came out tonight hunting for pleasure. And she would have found it. Some other man would have taken her home, touched her, been inside her.
Over my dead body.
I set my glass down on the nearest surface. The click of crystal on wood sounds loud in the charged silence.
"You look at me like you want something, Vittoria." I step closer. "Tell me what it is."
Her pupils dilate. I watch it happen in real time, the black swallowing the brown until her eyes look almost feral. "I don't even know your name."
"Does it matter?"
She should say yes. She should demand answers, identification, proof that I'm not about to do terrible things to her. Instead, she tilts her chin up—defiant, hungry—and whispers, "No."
Fuck.
I know what I'm risking. The Sartoris are days away from signing an alliance with my family. If anyone discovers I touched their princess without permission, without proper courtship, without the dozens of negotiations that should precede even a handshake?—
War. Blood in the streets. Everything my father has built, burning.
But she's looking at me like she wants to be devoured, and I've never been good at denying myself what I want.
I take the glass from her hand and set it aside. She doesn't protest. Her chest rises and falls faster now, the swell of her breasts straining against that sinful dress.
"Last chance to leave," I tell her. My voice has dropped into something rough, barely controlled. "Walk out that door, go back to your friend, forget this room exists."
She doesn't move.
"I don't want to leave."
Four words. They seal her fate.
I cup her face in my hands and bring my mouth down on hers.
The moan that escapes her throat vibrates against my lips, and whatever restraint I had left shatters into dust. I deepen the kiss, my tongue sliding against hers, swallowing the smallsounds she makes. Her hands fist in my shirt like she needs an anchor.
Mine.
