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Because a kiss did not lie. A kiss was not a story told around the world, losing more and more truth each time it was sold to the highest bidder.
There was only truth here in the tangle of tongues. In the way her body shuddered beneath his hands. In the way she pressed herself against him, as if she would climb him if she could.
He could taste her fear and her longing, her need and her hope.
Benedetto tasted innocence and possibility, and beneath that, the sheer punch that was all Angelina.
He anchored her with an arm around her back, and bent her over, deepening the kiss. Taking more and more, until he couldn’t be sure any longer which one of them was more likely to break.
She was intoxicating.
Despite all the times he’d done this, there had never been a time that he had wanted a wife like this. Or at all. But then, in all the ways that mattered, she was his first.
That thought made a kind of bitterness well in him, and he pulled away. And then took his time looking at her. Her lips parted. Her eyes dark with passion.
This from the woman who claimed she didn’t want him at all. That she had been forced into this.
He rather thought not.
He liked to think he had been, though that wasn’t quite true either. He’d had his choices, too.
“Not yet,” he murmured, as much to himself as to her.
Because one choice he did have was to treat her the way he’d treated the others. He had already tasted her more than the rest of them, save Sylvia. He had already betrayed himself a thousand times over while in the thrall of her piano.
But she didn’t have to know that. And he didn’t have to succumb to it here.
And now that they were married, he could get this back on track.
Benedetto let go of her, pleased despite himself when she had to grip the bed beside her to stay on her feet. He picked up the hand she’d been pressing against the bed and could see the indentation of the coverlet’s stone on her palm.
He was savage enough to like it.
“What do you mean,not yet?” she demanded. “I thought that once we were married—”
“So impatient,” he taunted her. “Especially for one forced to the altar as you have been.”
If she dared, he could tell, she would have cursed him to his face.
Instead, she glared at him.
“Don’t you worry about consummating our marriage.” He laughed, though the lie of it caught a little in his chest. “I will take you in hand, never fear. But first, I wish to show you something.”
Benedetto turned and headed for the door without taking her hand to bring her with him. And he smiled when he heard her follow him.
He didn’t have to turn around and study her face to understand her reluctance. It was entirely possible she didn’t know why she was following him. That she was simply as compelled as he was. He hoped so.
It was a good match for this mad yearning he felt inside, when he knew better. A yearning that he was terribly afraid would be the end of him. This innocent, untrained girl could bring him to his knees.
But then, that was a power he had no intention of handing over to her. If she didn’t know, she couldn’t use it.
He led her out into the master suite, then through a door that led to a separate tower from one of the salons.
Angelina balked at the door, looking around a little bit wildly.
“This is your tower,” he told her, sounding almost formal. “You can enter whenever you wish.”
“That seems like a lot of towers to remember,” she said, a little solemnly, from behind him. “I wouldn’t want to make a mistake.”
