Not entirely within his control, though that should have been impossible.
He felt seized with some kind of fever. Or possibly that damned wine he’d had with dinner had gone to his head, suddenly and irrevocably. He felt as if he was spinning, and yet somehow there was nothing sickening about it.
There was only her.
Only Ivy, her mouth a bright, hot counterpoint to his as if she was as swept away in this moment as he was. As he shouldn’t have been.
His other hand found its way to her face, and wrapped around the nape of her neck, which he had spent too long now feeling like another brand in the palm of his hand.
This didn’t exactly help. He cradled her head and he moved her where he wanted her to go. Because where he wanted to go was even deeper. Even wilder.
Even hotter, if that was possible.
And he could feel his whole body shudder into that blast of heat. He couldfeelher, everywhere.
He could smell a hint of the scent in the crook of her neck. It was something complicated, like citrus and cloves. Because, of course, Ivy Amis would never wear bog standard vanilla or anything else that smelled like sugar.
Giaco wanted to eat her alive. He thought maybe that was what he was doing.
He dropped his other arm from its lazy position propped up over her head and then he had both hands on her face, kissing her and kissing her. Her body was pressed to his and he could feel all of her, at last. Those plump breasts, pressed into him. The sweet, searing heat of her body, warming him.
His fingers were moving into her hair, threatening the pins that held it all in place, and the only thing he could think about was how best he could get inside her—right here in this alley—because he thought that if he didn’t he might die.
She pulled away then, though that made no sense. Then she looked up at him, her chest moving too fast. Her blue eyes wide, and much darker now.
“Giaco…” she whispered. “We can’t.”
For a moment he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. He couldn’t understand why she would end something so perfect. So wildlynecessary.
Then, like a key in a lock, it clicked. And he remembered himself.
Which is how he knew, in a rush of horror, that he’d forgotten himself in the first place.
He, Giaco Tavian, who had a preternatural ability to spot any possible hint of a camera from a mile away. He, who had set up this whole night and had literally written the script.
Giaco couldn’t think of a single other time he had ever lost his head like that. He had never forgotten himself so completely. If she hadn’t stopped him, he would have been deep inside her already—when he’d known going in that there was a paparazzo in this alley with them.
Because he’d called the man himself.
He pulled back and ran a hand down the side of her face, because he couldn’t resist. Or he couldn’t help himself. They were beginning to feel like the same thing.
There were no words, or possibly he couldn’t speak. Instead, he took her hand again, led her out of the alley, and spent the rest of their walk home unsettled and something very much like thrown.
Because if he couldn’t play this role of his in every possible circumstance, then the real truth was that Giaco didn’t know who the hell he was.
And that had the power to ruin everything.
Chapter Six
IVY WAS HAUNTEDby that kiss.
However overwhelming she had found those pictures he’d taken of them and the scenes she’d imagined around them even though she knew none of that had occurred—well.
That was nothing next to the reality of the way he’d kissed her in that alleyway.
She’d been teasing him a little when she’d talked about hisromance writing, because the truth was, she found the itinerary depressing. It wasn’t that she didn’t realize that a campaign like theirs had to be planned, it was theextentof the planning. It was dispiriting to have a script and to know at all times that they were following it. That those little glimpses that she got of him were probably not real. They were likely all part and parcel of theintimacy codethat was on every entry in that itinerary on a scale from one to ten. The itinerary mapped out an emotional, intimate progression. Every time they were seen by the public, they should seem more connected, more into each other, more real.
And the morerealthey appeared, the more fake it all felt to Ivy.
