If everything outside the room is historic, everything inside it is modern. Elements of the historic mansion are evident in the high ceilings and huge windows, but the room itself is carpeted with a deep, thick dark charcoal carpet that muffles all sound. The bed is a thick mattress set on a stepped platform, with a sleek dark wooden headboard behind and lots of shelving. Lush pillows, soft-looking sheets, and quilts make the bed plush and inviting.
It’s a quiet, cosy room, with no distractions.
None except for him.
He comes back over to me, lifting his hands and cupping my face between them. His palms are warm against my skin, his dark eyes focused only on me. It’s addicting when he looks at me this way. It’s like the night we met, when we locked gazes and the rest of the world seemed to fall away.
That’s part of why he’s so dangerous, and why I chose his father over him, why I couldn’t afford to get lost in any kind of affair with such an overwhelming man that I knew nothing about. But that seems a worry from a lifetime ago. Now all I want is that danger, that hunger, that pleasure. I want to be overwhelmed by him, by the way he looks at me, by the way he wants me.
No one else has ever wanted me the way he does, and I love it.
‘You’re the most passionate woman I have ever met,’ he murmurs, obsidian eyes glittering with heat. ‘Did you know that?’
My mouth is so dry I can barely speak, so all I do is shake my head.
‘You should,’ he goes on. ‘You’re beautiful, yes, but your passion is singular.’
I know I’m conventionally beautiful—after all, I’ve used it to survive. But no one has ever said that my passion was singular, as if it was an attribute instead of a flaw. No one has ever said anything about my passion at all.
I’m shivering with anticipation as I look up at him. ‘You were always so furious with me,’ I whisper, unable to stop myself from telling him this. ‘I thought you hated me.’
He frowns, his thumbs stroking over my skin. ‘I never hated you, Beatrix,’ he says. ‘Never. I told myself I did, but it seems as if I’m not as honest as I thought I was. Not with myself, at least. I was furious because I wanted you. Because from the moment I saw you, I wanted you to be mine.’
There’s a pressure in my chest, a lump in my throat. Part of me understands this already, since it was the only possible reason for his fury when I chose Antonio, not him. Yet I like that he admitted it, spoke the words out loud for me to hear.
‘I can be yours,’ I say. ‘I can be yours for as long as you want me to be.’ And in this moment I’m being completely honest with myself, and with him. And it feels good to say it. To give him what I know he still wants and what I want too.
The heat in his eyes glitters, black flames that threaten to burn me alive. Then he gives me the answer I’m dying for by lowering his head and covering my mouth with his, and I’m lost.
He’s all heat, all demand, and as the kiss deepens it gets feverish, frantic. I’m leaning in to him, opening my mouth to him, letting him in to consume me, ravage me. My hands are on his chest, my fingers curling into the cotton of his shirt, trying to hold on to something to keep from being swept away.
But I should know better than that by now. There’s no way to stop myself from drowning, nothing to cling to, and the only thing I can do is surrender to him, so that’s what I do. I press myself against the hard length of his powerful body, pulling at his shirt, so I can get to the hot velvet of his skin. To touch him, put my mouth on him, feed the hunger inside me.
Except he’s yanking down the zip of my dress and pulling the fabric away even as I reach for his belt to unbuckle it.
‘Stop,’ he growls in warning. ‘You’ve already had a taste. Now it’s my fucking turn.’ He tugs my hands away from him, releasing me only to turn me around so he can undo the zip of my dress all the way and pull the material down. I’m panting, every part of me burning, and I can barely stand still as he gets rid of my bra and knickers. Then I’m naked and suddenly I’m swept up in his arms as he carries me over to the platform bed, dumping me onto it on my back. Then he grips my hips, pulling me to the edge of the mattress as he goes down on his knees on the lowest step, and spreads my legs, holding them wide with his hands. He lowers his head and his mouth settles between my thighs, his tongue licking me like I’m an ice-cream cone melting on a hot summer day.
The pleasure is so sharp I cry out, arching up on the mattress. He grips me tighter, holding me in place as he licks and explores, nipping at my inner thighs, pushing his tongue inside me. He’s feasting on me as if he hasn’t had a decent meal in years, and I can’t keep still. I writhe beneath the press of his wicked tongue, unable to keep the hoarse sounds he draws from me inside.
He’s relentless, and before I can stop it the pleasure explodes without warning, drawing another harsh cry from my throat. His hands on me are firm as I shake and shake, but he doesn’t move away. He keeps his mouth on me, continuing to work me with his tongue, until I’m shaking even harder, already building to another climax.
Then I cry out a third time, because he’s stopping and I can’t bear for him to. But he’s only getting to his feet and ripping at his clothes, never taking his black gaze from mine.
I lie there trembling, amazed at myself and how much I want him mere minutes after the first orgasm. But as his clothes come off, all I can think of is how beautiful he is. Powerful shoulders and broad chest. Hard, muscled stomach. Lean waist. His skin a smooth, velvety olive.
He moves with a slow, athletic grace up the stairs to the bed, predatory and sleek as a panther as he stands there, looking down at me. I’m wrecked and ravaged by him, and there’s no way to hide it, so I don’t. I want him to see what he did to me and how much I still want him even after that.
‘Yes, that’s the way you should always be,’ he murmurs, low and rough. ‘Naked, with your legs spread, ready for me. Wanting me and only me.’
I love the way he says the words and the possessiveness note in them. They’re erotic, making me feel claimed. No one has ever wanted me this way, to be theirs and only theirs. I’ve never been anyone’s before and it’s what I want. To be his. To be naked and ready for him, wanting him and only him.
He comes down over me, settling between my thighs, and I gasp as his body presses the length of mine. He’s hot and heavy, and I’m pinned beneath him. Yet I don’t feel trapped. I feel grounded, his weight another way he’s claiming me for himself.
‘Look at me,’ he orders as he shifts, his hands sliding beneath my hips and lifting them slightly, angling me. ‘Keep looking at me.’
And I do. I keep looking into his midnight eyes as I feel him push into me, so achingly slowly. It’s as if he wants to feel every inch of me and is making me feel every inch of him, too. I shudder and gasp, even as I keep my gaze pinned to his, black velvet and glittering jet, and a hot, dark fire.
‘Santiago,’ I whisper helplessly as he slides deeper. ‘Oh…my…God.’
