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I slide my hand into his silver-shot hair.
I kiss him first.
CHAPTER 3
STEVIE
He kisses me back like a man who has decided something.
One hand slides into my hair and closes, firm, tipping my head exactly where he wants it. The other spreads across my lower back and pulls me flush against him, and I feel how hard he is, pressed against my belly. Heat floods straight between my thighs.
He takes his time with my mouth. Slow. Thorough. Like he has all night and intends to spend every minute of it on me.
When he finally lifts his head, I’m the one breathing hard.
“Be sure, Bella.” He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t have to. “Once I start, I won’t be able to stop.”
It should scare me. It’s the most honest thing a man has ever said to me.
“Then don’t,” I tell him.
Something in him goes still and dark and certain.
He steps back. One step, just enough to see all of me. “Take off the dress.”
Holy shit.
It isn’t a request. It’s said in that low, unhurried voice, and it goes straight through me and lands between my thighs. I’m wet before I’ve touched the zipper.
My hands shake as I reach behind me. I hate that, until I see his eyes follow every inch of the zipper going down, his jaw tight under the edge of the mask, his hands curled into fists at his sides like it’s taking everything he has not to do it himself.
I take my time. One strap slides off my shoulder. Then the other. The silk catches on my hips, and I let it hang there, because the sound that comes out of his chest when I finally push it down is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.
The dress pools at my feet.
I’m standing in front of a stranger in nothing but black lace and heels. Every curve I’ve spent my life apologizing for is lit gold under the lamps. My nipples are tight and aching against the lace. My skin feels too small for my body.
And he isn’t looking at me like I’m too much.
He’s looking at me like he’s starving.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
“The rest,” he says, and his voice has gone rough.
I unhook the bra and let it fall. Cool air hits my breasts, and then his eyes do, and I swear I feel that look like a mouth. I hook my thumbs into the lace at my hips and slide it down my legs, slow, bending, giving him all of it.
When I straighten, I’m bare and burning, slick and throbbing, my pulse beating hard between my legs. I have never felt this exposed. I have never felt this powerful.
“Dio,” he breathes. “Look at you. I’ve been looking at women a long time, Bella, and not one of them prepared me for this.”
Something in me goes molten. He’s not being kind. He’s being accurate, and that’s so much worse for my knees.
I’m looking at him. That’s the problem. I’m looking at the thick ridge straining against his trousers and thinking very specific, very filthy thoughts.
“Your turn.” I close the distance before my nerve can run. “Hold still.”
He does. And that undoes me more than anything: this dangerous, enormous man standing perfectly still because I told him to, his chest rising faster with every breath.
