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I clasped my hand over her wrists, keeping them pinned against the wall as I leaned in to claim her lips.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Her whole body jolted, and her eyes widened. She yanked her hands out of my grip as the pink blush across her cheeks traveled all the way down to the upper swells of her breasts.
“Raven, I forgot my stupid card thingy,” a woman’s voice called from the other side of the door while Raven covered up and secured the sash around her waist with short, jerky movements.
“Crap, you shouldn’t be here,” she whispered as her eyes glanced wildly around the room, then settled on the window for just a little too long.
“I’m not going out the window if that’s what you’re thinking.” I laughed.
She eyed the window longingly for one more second, then nodded. “Okay, I guess you should probably go.”
Not a good time for jokes then.
“Raven?” the voice called through the door.
“I’ll go for now,” I said, leaning back in to leave a trail of featherlight kisses along her jaw. “But I’ll be back. Be ready at seven-thirty.”
I opened the door without waiting for a reply. A pretty blonde stood there with her hand raised, ready to knock.
“Whoa,” she said, dropping her hand as her eyes grazed over me from head to toe. This woman was certainly bolder than Raven. Surprisingly, even with a raging hard-on, that didn’t impress me.
I smiled at her, nonetheless.
She laughed. “You shouldn’t flash that thing in public. You’ll end up getting arrested for causing a riot.”
Me, arrested? I almost barked out a chuckle.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,signorina, but I appreciate your concern.” I flashed her another grin.
I turned back to Raven, leaning in close enough to whisper against her ear. “I’ll see you this evening,” I said, then left the room without a backward glance.
Chapter Sixteen
Raven
Greta stood in front of the door with her hands crossed over her chest. She was trying to give me the evil eye but couldn’t quite get her lips to cooperate. They kept tugging up at the corners.
I waited patiently. At least, I hoped it looked like I was waiting patiently for the tongue-lashing she was trying to muster up. In truth, I needed a minute to collect myself. To get my heartbeat to resemble something normal and to stop breathing like I’d just jogged a mile.
I’d never dreamt Nico freaking Costa would show up at my hotel room door. Maybe if it hadn’t been for his darn lips and his hands and the heat in his eyes, I would have been able to figure out some way to use it to my advantage. But my brain took a back seat to my body when the guy came around. That was going to have to change.
Fast.
I had until seven-thirty to figure out how to make Nico Costa the perfect conduit for my plan. It was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. The fact that I’d rather have been thinking about all the things he could do with his lips and hands than what he could do to help me prove myself to my family meant nothing at all.
Absolutely nothing.
“Are you still going to tell me last night was no big deal?” Greta piped up when she’d managed to get control of her lips. “Nothing was going to come of it?” She might have been able to keep the smile off her face, but it was there in her eyes. She was good at getting me to “spill,” but she was lousy at serious lectures.
“I didn’t think anything was going to come of it. Now, I just need to figure out what to do with it,” I said, silently rubbing my hands together now that the tidal wave of hormones he’d drenched me in had begun to ebb.
That’s all it was.Hormones. Just chemicals in my brain, thanks to the stimulus he provided. It wasn’t like I’d never been attracted to a man before, though admittedly, this kind of felt like attraction on steroids.
“What do you mean, you just need to figure out what to do with it?” Greta’s voice rose higher with every word. “Nothing—that’s what you do with Nico Costa. Nothing, Raven. You go to bed tonight, close your eyes, and get off on the wildest fantasies of him your sweet little mind can conjure. And that’s it.”
I shook my head. “I’ve got a Costa right in front of me. I can’t just walk away.”
