She stretched her thighs wider so that she could scoot closer, so that she could feel of all him against her. And he let her. Not for a second was Sam unaware that he was granting her this. That his own control was hanging by a thread, that she desperately needed to snap it.
A long, shuddering sigh left her as her chest grazed his, as her belly pressed against his hard one and their hips flushed. She couldn’t help but thrust her hips, a soft gasp escaping her. Slowly, every cell in her came awake with a blistering heat as his arousal took shape and form against her core, as it lengthened. The very thought of that hard length inside her made her sex clench greedily.
His curse punctured the silence as loudly as if the bright chandelier overhead had crashed into a million pieces around them. But all Sam cared about was the warmth unspooling in her lower belly, untethering her.
She had done this to him—naïve, unsophisticated, unexciting Sam. Confidence and desire whipped through her, an explosive cocktail. Tightening her fingers at the nape of his neck, she kissed him again.
She traced the shape of those thin lips with the tip of her tongue, nipped at the lower lip with her teeth, licked at him like a lazy cat until he opened to her with a guttural groan that set off vibrations through her. Greedy for more, she licked into his mouth, stroking, tasting, teasing, taunting, stealing his breath for herself.
A rough growl escaped him as his hand wrapped around the nape of her neck. Sam groaned as he bent her back over his arm, and then his mouth devoured her. She finally understood what those flashes of consuming hunger in his eyes meant. There was no sweet exploration, no soft learning.
Alessandro ravished her. He took from her as if she were the last breath of air. Drank from her lips as if she were the last sip of water.
Pleasure flew through her in rivulets, pooling at her sex into damp readiness. The kiss was all him—the licking fire of hard nips, the cooling ice of soothing licks—a spectrum of pain and pleasure in between.
No safety, no soft whispers, only sheer hunger. Within moments, he taught her how to deepen the pleasure blooming between them, when to pull away and when to cling.
His hands moved all over her hips and back and spine and neck and butt, coasting, kneading, touching, learning. Provoking and soothing. Owning. His touch was full of a possessive intent that made her want to submit to everything he did. For every hurt he caused with those teeth, he gave back pleasure that resonated a thousand times more deeply.
Sam groaned into his mouth, the thrust of his hips making his erection hit her exactly where she needed. She locked her legs around his hips, brazenly thrusting against him. Hands fisted in his shirt, she was sobbing, begging for more, begging him for relief.
When he trailed a path over her jaw and neck, she buried her hands in his hair, her body a mass of sensations she couldn’t catalog fast enough. But it was her heart that felt full to bursting. Her heart’s unfathomable desire for more that terrified her.
“Is this enough to prove I want you,tesoro? That I lose control when anyone could walk in?”
If he’d mocked her, maybe Sam could have pulled her senses out of the miasma of longing. But there was no humor in his words. Nothing but a deep hunger for more that she recognized in herself.
She looked up at him, fighting the pull of reality. Fighting the embarrassed heat that was already flowing into her cheeks. “Haveyouhad enough?”
One corded arm swung around her lower back, and he pulled her forward.
A filthy curse and a string of Italian met her ears when she thrust up in answer. Then his mouth touched hers in a sweet kiss that stole the breath from her lungs. Wedged hard against him, the heat and hardness of his erection branded her. All she wanted was to move, to rub up against him until the restlessness under her skin found a destination. But his grip was firm on her legs, keeping her prisoner.
“From the moment I saw you, standing apart from the crowd…”
Sam wanted to ask what he was talking about. But he didn’t give her a chance.
His mouth and his whispers and his kisses stole rational thought. “Wanting something so much, only…” He drew a trail from the corner of her mouth to her chin to the pulse at her neck, punctuating his kisses with words, breathing them into her skin.
And then suddenly, he stopped.
She sensed the shift in his mood as easily as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over them. “Alessandro,” she whispered, pushing that one lock of unruly hair from his forehead like she’d wanted to so many times. “What is it?”
He didn’t budge. Didn’t look up.
Slowly, he pulled the flaps of the dress apart. And Sam knew what had stopped his lazy exploration. What had frozen him.
Alessandro stared blankly, his stomach so tight with lust that it took him a few minutes to circle back to what had made him stop.
He had ripped the rest of the buttons until her ridiculous dress had fallen open, baring her chest and belly to him. The clingy material cupped her small breasts, and his palms ached to do the same.
She wasn’t wearing a bra. The edges of the dress just barely covered the tight knots of her nipples. He could see the light brown aureoles, the tips pushing at the fabric.
He’d also pushed the dress up her thighs, which were stretched wide. Her skin was silky smooth. Lips swollen, hair half out of her braid, she was the most achingly lovely thing Alessandro had ever seen. So lovely that the image of her like this would haunt him for the rest of his life.
All he wanted to do was bend his head and lick her all over. Up and down, around the swells of her breasts and below, until he could play with her piercing.
It took him an eternity to focus on the scar he’d felt under his fingertips. For a second, he’d thought he’d imagined it and stepped back.
