Page 30 of Ruthless Claim

She is simultaneously kissing me and calling me something vicious in Italian that I don’t understand, but I am intelligent enough to guess what it is. I find the curve of her neck with my mouth and she makes a sound that I feel more than hear, her head tipping back, her fingers curling into my hair.

“Asshole,” she breathes, but there’s none of her normal venom behind the words.

I find the curve of her neck with my mouth and she tips her head back to expose her long olive-skinned throat, the pearl earrings she’s still wearing catching the light.

Her fingers tighten in my hair and she says something else but I’m not listening to the words anymore.

She is—I don’t have a word for it that isn’t embarrassing.

Every composed, untouchable, carefully armored inch of her is completely dismantled.

Her skin is warm under my hands.

Her pulse is fast at her throat.

She gets my shirt open and I’m not sure when that happened.

Her palms slide flat against my chest, and she looks at what she’s doing for a moment with a look that’s trying to remain contemptuous and failing, then those dark eyes come back up to mine.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says, and her voice has gone low and rough in a way I’ve never heard from her before and I want to hear it again immediately.

“Like what,” I respond, my brain fuzzy and my cock throbbing painfully against my pants.

“Like you’ve won something,” she shoots back, her eyes narrowing.

“I haven’t won anything,” I tell her, which is true. Whatever this is, it’s not a win, but it’s not a loss either. It’s something that doesn’t have a category yet, and I’m not going to stand here on a dining table trying to find one.

She pulls me back down to her by the back of my neck and I stop thinking about categories entirely.

Her hands are everywhere—in my hair, across my shoulders, her nails tracing lines I’ll find in the morning and know exactly where they came from.

I push her hair back from her face because I want to see her, need to see her, and she lets me look for half a second before she drags me back to her mouth like being looked at is something she can only tolerate in small doses.

I find the zipper at the side of her dress by feel and she shifts to let me.

I pull back just far enough to look at her again.

Her hair is spread across the table and her dress is half undone.

Her lips are swollen and parted, and she looks at me with equal parts fury and want.

“Still hate me?” I ask, and I don’t fully know why I ask it.

She looks at me for a moment.

“More than anything.” She pulls me back down.

I stop thinking entirely.

I slide my hand between her legs, marveling at how smooth and soft her skin is as I run my nose against the length of her neck, coming to rest beside her ear. “I can’t wait to feel you come on my cock, begging for more,” I tell her harshly, enjoying how her breathing picks up. “I’m going to find out all the filthy things that come out of your mouth when I’m fucking you.”

Valentina inhales sharply but doesn’t pull away.

Instead, she yanks me back down so our lips crash together so hard our teeth clank.

My hand shifts slightly up to grip her jaw as I feel her tongue slip inside my mouth and her nails dig into the flesh of my arms.

Our lips fight in an intense battle as we both struggle for control.