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“So the sex party rumours were true?”

“Every rumour you ever heard about him was true or at least based on truth.”

“Didn’t your mother care?”

“She cared about power and the family unit. They were teenagers when they got together, and everything they had, they’d built together. I don’t know the ins and outs of what went on in the marital bedroom, but as soon as Siena was born, she moved into a bedroom of her own and refused to share a bed with him again. She turned a blind eye to his affairs and sex parties, and a deaf ear to all the rumours about them.” He laughed bitterly. “I wish I’d been able to do the same, but he wouldn’t let me. It was like a game with him, always trying to get a rise out of me over the shit he got up to in bed.”

Without any warning, he’d twisted her onto her back and climbed on top of her.

As he pinned her wrist to the side of her head and lifted himself onto his elbow to gaze down at her, Elvira realised with a jolt that she could see his features more clearly.

The sun was starting to rise. The new day was dawning.

Their time together, and maybe their lives, was coming to an end.

His eyes were blazing, but he spoke quietly. “That man made me despise sex. Every time I took a woman, all I could see was his fat naked belly. I went through the motions, and only the bare minimum of them. I have never given a woman oral sex or any of the other things men do with their lovers, and all because I wanted it over with, and now here I am with you, Elvira Ranieri, my mortal enemy, the bitch who would have put a bullet in my mother’s head, knowing that in a few hours you or your brother might put a bullet in my head, and all I want is to lose myself in you.”

Releasing her wrist, he lowered his face to his. The flat of his hand slid down her arm and shoulder to palm a breast before sliding down her stomach, trailing fire through her skin. His voice dropped to a husk. “You’re the only woman who’s ever made me feel anything. Those days I spent in the shitty apartment I bought when I was still stupid enough not to realise my father knew everything, I knew you were watching me.” He cupped her pubis and grazed his lips to hers. “I could feel you watching me,” he breathed. “I felt it in my veins and on my skin, and now I feel you inside me everywhere.”

“I feel the same,” she whispered, helpless to do anything but speak the truth. “I would watch you sleep, and my whole body would tingle, and I never knew why. I think a part of me wanted you to run or do something stupid just so I could catch you...” She stroked his tickly stubbled cheek. “…or maybe so you could catch me. I don’t know. All I know is that something has drawn me to you since the day my brother married your sister, and now it feels like you’ve infected my blood.”

His features were becoming clearer with each passing moment, the light slowly filtering into the room now enough for her to see the dark hollows beneath Mattia’s sleep-deprived eyes.

She didn’t know what he was seeing on her own face, but his lips twisted a beat before they fused to hers in a kiss that travelled like electricity through her Mattia-infected blood.

What was it about this woman, Mattia wondered, a hint of desperation lacing his thoughts as their mouths and tongues clung together. How could it be that he was entering what could be his final hours on this earth and all he could think and all he could feel was her? This was more than a craving; it was a need, and all for her, his avenging angel.

Wrenching his mouth from hers, he stared again into Elvira’s silver eyes, pulsing with her own desperation and need for him.

His brother Rico had fallen in love with a true angel, while he, Mattia, had fallen in lust for an avenging angel. A beautiful, deadly, avenging angel whose skin could be dusted in poison and he’d still need to taste it.

If he was destined to die that day, he wanted to go with the taste of her on his tongue.

Bringing his mouth back to hers, he closed his eyes and submitted to his senses.

He kissed her everywhere. Tasted her everywhere. Trailed his tongue over her breasts and down the calves of her legs with equal reverence.

Not a word was spoken, not until he gently kissed his way up her delectable inner thigh to her pubic mound and deeply inhaled the musk of her sex.

His mouth suddenly watering for a taste, he flicked his stare to hers.

Her eyes were closed, her neck arched. Her breathing was shallow.

“I might need a little guidance here,” he said huskily.

She lifted her head off the pillow. Her cheeks were suffused with colour.

Their eyes met in a single glance before her head flopped back and she reached down to gently scratch her nails through his hair.

Cupping her bottom, he raised her hips carefully. The room was filled with enough dusky light for him to see her most feminine parts clearly. He spent an age just soaking it all in before sliding his tongue up the folds.

He heard the hitch of her breath, and when he slid his tongue inside her, heard her soft exhale.

God, she tasted like heaven.

He moved his tongue higher, seeking the hidden nub of her pleasure, a mysterious place he remembered his brothers once speaking of in awed tones, as if by discovering it, they’d discovered all of life’s mysteries.

For Mattia, there was no mystery, only delight to feel the swollen button beneath his tongue and feel her deep moan of pleasure. He licked it again.