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Soft. Hard. Each, unfortunately, as enticing as the other.
Clearing my throat in an attempt to regain some sort of control, I slip my thumb and forefinger around his wrist, between his watch strap and cuff. I slide his sleeve up an inch and reveal what I already knew would be there.
Ink, and lots of it.
Just like his charm and his aftershave and Sunday morning smiles, his bespoke suits are yet another veil, disguising the darkness that leaks from the inside out. The private security. The yachts. The autonomy over a whole fucking coastline. It’s so blatant that Raphael is a bad man, and I wonder if all the women who look at him with hearts in their eyes just choose not to see it.
How am I meant to be good when I’m obsessed with something so bad?
Heart beating in my throat, I graze my thumb over Italian script. Stroke the corner of a Joker playing card. A cocktail of curiosity and lust blooms hot between my thighs, partly because he doesn’t stop me from pushing up his sleeve a little farther, and partly because I ache to know how far up his tattoos go. Half sleeve? Full sleeve? Or do they cover every inch of his sculpted, tan skin, like sinful secrets under a blanket of Brioni?
I look up to find him watching me, his own curiosity softening the planes of his face.
“You don’t fool me,” I murmur.
My smugness is short-lived, swept away by a flash of green and two strong hands hauling off the shuttle. They slip under my arms and carry me like a rag doll across the swim platform and into the jet ski garage. My back slams against something hard and I brace myself for the moment my head meets the same fate.
But the crack doesn’t come, because Raphael’s hand slips behind my crown and cushions the blow, while the other hand claps down on my mouth and absorbs my scream.
Oh shit. I’m pressed up against the darkest, quietest corner of the yacht, and despite its sophisticated silhouette, I’m not entirely sure the animal trapping me in is domesticated.
My pulse whooshesin my ears, the sound almost lost to the roar of adrenaline licking my body wildfire. I’m panting, and the wry amusement swirling through Raphael’s gaze suggests he’s enjoying how each of my ragged breaths dampen his palm.
“Let me—”
Uncertainty flares up behind his ice-cool demeanor and his grip tightens around my jaw, ending my protest with a full stop. It’s barely the twitch of a muscle, but just like the squeeze of my breasts and the flex of his thigh against my pussy, the insinuation feels so much heavier.
He takes a leisurely step closer, obstructing my view of the only exit.
“Haven’t you heard, Penelope?” he muses. “Red heads should neverspeak first when they step onto a boat. It’s—” He stops himself. Rolls his shoulders back and corrects his smile. “Inappropriate.”
My pussy clenches around the word inappropriate. He must have noticed, because he punctuates my moan against his palm with a sharp tug of my hair. Christ.
With a lazy smirk, he searches my half-lidded gaze, as if admiring the frenzy he’s sent me into. His eyes travel further south, grazing over my neckline, before coming back to meet mine with an edge of approval.
“As much as it pains me to admit it, you’re rather hot when you’re gagged.”
Sweet, holy hell. My clit beats to the tune of his flippant taunt; my nipples ache for the friction of his chest against mine.
A hot palm against my mouth, thick fingers in my hair, and the smell of chlorine mixed with his signature scent assaulting my nostrils: I’m falling into the black abyss of sensory purgatory, and Raphael Visconti is peering over the edge, waiting patiently for me to hit the bottom. It feels like if I don’t claw my way out immediately, I’ll die at the mercy of his large hands and smug smirk.
I push back against his hand behind my head, creating a millimeter of space between my mouth and his palm. I stick my tongue out flat and I lick.
Slowly. Sloppily. Steam rises from my blood with every inch of his palm I cover.
Realization crawls over the hard planes of Raphael’s face, and then the humor in his gaze flicks off like a light switch, plunging us into the ice age.
My breathing slows. My triumph sparks.
A smile curves his lips again but this time, it’s cold and calculated. Loaded with ill intentions, each of them meant for me. Before I can twist my head out of his grip, he removes his hand from my mouth and drags it down the side of my cheek, hard, coating my clammy skin with my own saliva.
What the fuck? It’s a childish retaliation, but the wet weight of his palm gliding frictionlessly over the angle of my cheekbone sends a violent shiver to the nerve endings in my clit. Christ, it feels so sordid, so obscene—a dirty kink I didn’t know I was into. Before his palm slides off my chin, he hooks his thumb over the curve of my bottom lip to keep it there.
I forget to breathe. Forget to feel. I’m too focused on the dark fascination clouding his eyes as he glides his thumb from one side of my lip to the other. I might have my own fucking saliva dripping down the side of my face, but a nasty flare of satisfaction spreads behind my aching breast. I’ve stood in front of enough hungry men to recognize that look. Sinful ink, yachts, and fat wallet aside, I’m the one with the upper hand here.
I’m winning this game.
I prove it to myself by clamping my teeth down on his thumb as it comes back to the middle of my lip. A blaze of annoyance, a hot hiss of breath, and then Raphael’s gaze snaps up to mine.
