Embarrassment flooded her. But she couldn’t do coy or smooth or flirty. She’d missed all the stages where she’d have liked simple, easy boys. Instead, life had made her skip them all and brought her here to this man.
This remote, ruthless, yet inherently kind man who was determined to keep her at arm’s length. Whose gray eyes betrayed his longing. Who said so much with his actions and nothing with his words.
“I do, yes.” She clasped her hands back in her lap. “Between Mom and your aunt, I’m struggling to keep the lies straight. But you know I’m just floating around, half-scared that I’ll be untethered any moment but desperately wanting to anyway.”
“You want to fly,cara?”
“Like you couldn’t imagine. Nothing worse than fear that keeps you still.”
He watched her for a long beat. Then, as if all her raw vulnerability meant nothing, he grabbed a cold washcloth and pressed it against her face.
His fingers were so refreshingly gentle as he wiped away the sticky remnants of the orange juice from her temples and her hair.
Sam closed her eyes and let the sensations take hold. In a delicious contrast, his warm breath coasted over her skin.
Her spine felt like it was made of those chocolate straws her mom used to buy for Sam to drink her milk with—melting and bendy at his fingers.
With an efficiency that made her smile, he wiped down her cheek and neck. Suddenly, his fingers were at the buttons of her shirt dress. Her eyes flying open, he gripped his wrist.
Jaw tight, he said, “There’s more on your neck.”
Sam did feel the stickiness between her breasts. “I’ll just shower—”
The first button on the shirt popped off. Two more buttons and he would see the scar that was a reminder of how she’d spent her teens. He’d already been avoiding her for the past week. Panic gripped her. “Stop unbuttoning my dress.”
He arched a brow, his fingers lingering over the third button. “Why am I not surprised that you’re a prude,bella?”
“Of course I’m not,” she said with a forced laugh. “Just because I don’t want to get half-naked in the kitchen.”
“Let me carry you to the bedroom, then.”
“I can walk—”
“I feel responsible for—”
Sam clasped his jaw. “Alessandro, I don’t need your fucking pity.”
His fingers lingered on the third button of her shirt. The patch of her bare skin where he touched her burned. “The last thing I feel when I look at you is pity,tesoro.”
“And yet I’m so easy to avoid, so forgettable,sì?”
His gaze met hers and held, his fury slowly cycling out and replaced with something else. Long fingers touched her jaw, his grip tender. “You’re the least forgettable woman I’ve ever met. Ever since you…” His exhale was long. The thrust of his fingers through his hair rough, his words gravelly. “What do you want of me, Sam?”
Sam leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his cheek. Her heart beat so rapidly in her chest that it should’ve scared her, but sitting in the warm cocoon of his body, she felt so vibrantly alive that there was no place for fear.
Hands gripping her shoulders, he went utterly rigid.
“One kiss,” she said, the stubble on his chin scraping her lips in an abrasive whisper. “So that I know how you taste. So that I know you want me. One kiss, Alessandro, so that I can live it a million times in my head.” Her breath left her in a shuddering exhale as she waited.
All her life, she’d waited for others to make life-changing, sometimes life-threatening decisions for her. From doctors to her parents to the universe, her will nothing but a swaying leaf in a storm. But this waiting…there was pleasure in this.
This was a battle. Her will against his, her need against his control. Ordinary, dull, unexciting Sam against remote, ruthless, strikingly beautiful Alessandro Ricci.
This was a waiting she’d plunge herself into again and again. A choice she would make a thousand times.
If all of her entire being weren’t tuned in to him, Sam wouldn’t have sensed it. But he moved, and his mouth shifted until it sat flush against hers. A dam of longing, never too far beneath surface, broke through her.
His mouth—oh, his mouth!—was soft and firm as she moved her lips. The man was full of contradictions, and she liked every bit of him. Up and down, messy and damp and a little rough, she rubbed her lips against his, every minuscule motion sending a shocking jolt of molten heat to her sex. Then she licked his lower lip and nipped it.
