“Can I have you?” he pants between kisses. “Please, Lucy. You’re the only woman I’ll ever want.”
“There’s a ring on my finger. I belong to another man.”
He cups the back of my head and kisses me insistently. “There are no other men. There’s only me. Don’t you fucking dare say that again.”
I let his kisses devour me, growing drunk on his intensity. “I’m still a virgin. I was saving myself all these years for you, Damiano.”
He buries his face in my breasts with a groan. “For me, my love?”
“Of course for you. I would have given myself to you years ago, after the kiss in the diner when I was sixteen and you were eighteen and covered with Sokoli blood.”
He caresses my cheeks with his knuckles and takes a ragged breath. “I wanted you too, but I had to protect us.”
“In public you did. In private, I could have been yours.”
He nods bleakly, holding me tight. “I know that now. We were going to be found out anyway, so I wish I had kissed you the moment we were alone, and then all night long in my bed. If I could do it all again, I would have made you mine that night, and every night after.”
My heart aches for the sweetness we might have had together. “But now it’s too late.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Are you wet for me, Lucy?” Damiano whispers in a darker voice. “Are you soaking through your bridal lingerie for the man you love?”
I put my lips against his ear. “Are you hard, even though you’re forbidden to touch me?”
Damiano sinks his teeth into my shoulder in a hungry love bite. He shifts beneath me, about to turn around and tumble me onto the mattress. He’ll pull my lace underwear aside and thrust into me, hard and deep, claiming me now and forever.
But the two of us are cursed to be interrupted before we can find any pleasure together.
Andreas Montoni pushes open my bedroom door with the confidence of a man who thinks he owns me. “Lucy, good news. I’ve confirmed with the venue, and the date has been set for three weeks from…” The smirk on his lips fades away as he sees me and Damiano locked tight around each other. “What the fuck?”
Damiano snatches my robe from where it’s laying over the back of my chair and wraps it around me, covering my body against my future husband’s gaze. He points at the door. “Get the fuck out.”
“Are you two kissing?” Andreas speaks loud enough for his words to echo through the whole house. “You’re brother and sister. That’sdisgusting.”
Damiano lifts me up and places me on the mattress, and then he strides toward Andreas. “I said, get the fuck out of Lucy’s room.”
There’s the sound of rapid high-heeled steps in the corridor, and my heart seizes in panic. We’re so screwed.
“What is going on in here?” Mom says as she enters my bedroom. “Damiano, stop shouting at our guest. Andreas came to tell Lucy the good news about her wedding date.”
Her eyes land on me, huddled in my robe on the bed, and then on the lingerie bag discarded on the floor, and finally at Damiano’s kiss-swollen mouth. She turns a furious shade of red. After a murderous glance at me, she turns to Andreas with a smile. “I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation for what you thought you saw. Damiano and Lucy can be…overly affectionate sometimes. We’re a very affectionate family.”
I nearly snort at that.
Andreas turns to me, revulsion filling his amber eyes. “Is that true? You and your brother were beingaffectionate?”
I don’t know what to say. It’s plain that nothing I can say will make any difference. Damiano’s whole body is tense like he wants to attack Andreas for coming into my room.
“You’re all fucking crazy.” Andreas shakes his head in disgust as he heads out of my room.
Is the wedding off? I think the wedding is off. Mom gives me a look that turns my blood to ice, and then she hurries to catch up with Andreas. “Andreas, wait! This is all just a misunderstanding. Andreas, please.”
Damiano scrubs a hand over his face. “Fuck. Are you okay, my love?”
I’m so not okay. Mom’s going to kill me, and it’s not a figure of speech. I start to cry, and Damiano holds me for several minutes.
“Just go,” I manage in a whisper. “Mom will be angrier than ever if you’re still here when she comes back.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll fix this. I’ll follow Andreas right now. I’ll find him.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head, and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
