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My heart thundered in my ears, and my ribs cinched tight around my lungs. The awareness in his eyes was so vivid now, I was breathless. And the hot stone had turned to a wave of lava again flowing down to my core.
But then I remembered the devastating kiss he’d given another woman only a few hours ago, which had left me feeling empty and embarrassed—and I got a grip. This man was a practiced seducer, who thought he could click his fingers and any woman he wanted would come running. And even if I couldn’t control the lava, I did have some pride.
‘Would that include while you were sucking the face off Edina Grant?’ I shot back, with a saccharine sweet smile.
‘Touché!’ he murmured, the husky chuckle returning. Apparently I hadn’t offended him with my bitchy comment.
Well, damn.
‘You noticed that?’ he asked, as if he was pleased by my reaction, not embarrassed by his shameless behaviour.
‘Didn’t everyone?’ I replied, trying for indifference and getting disgruntled instead.
‘I like that you are jealous,Principessa,’ he countered with a total lack of remorse which should have infuriated me, but didn’t,quite. ‘This is good, because that is precisely why I went to the trouble of kissing Edina in the first place.’
‘If that’s supposed to be flattering, it’s not,’ I replied, trying really hard to ignore the idiotic dart of excitement in my chest.
Who cared if he had noticed me earlier? And why would I want him to make me jealous? When that kiss just confirmed what an arrogant, immature jackass he was?
A supremely hot arrogant immature jackass, the traitorous voice in my head whispered, turning the dart into an arrow—which threatened to deflate the last of my outrage.
‘I’m sure Edina appreciates you stunt kissing her,’ I managed, trying to hold on to my indignation.
‘Edina will get over it. She certainly had no complaints about the quality of my stunt kiss...’ he said, his confidence as annoyingly intoxicating as his arrogance.
The music changed again, to something deep and rhythmic, the bass beat throbbing, and so loud I was forced to tilt my head up to hear his reply. He took the gesture as an invitation—because, of course he did—and cradled my cheek in his callused palm.
I shivered, his touch like a lightning rod. I could hear his supreme faith in his own abilities when he whispered against my ear, ‘Would you like me to demonstrate,Principessa?’
His hot breath turned the ripples of sensation into an earthquake of temptation, the lava into an inferno. I stared up at him, my eyes probably full of the yearning I had tried so hard to ignore all evening. I licked my bottom lip involuntarily and he swore softly.
Suddenly, I was pressed against him, his lips covering mine—firm and seeking and devastatingly demanding. I opened for him instinctively and his tongue plundered, his possession complete.
The music pounded in my heart and throbbed in every part of my body as he grasped my head to angle my mouth and take more. The partygoers around us faded away. I couldn’t seem to pull away from him, couldn’t seem to stop the yearning, the need which had turned the ache at my core into a dark desperate longing to be filled. To be taken.
He ripped his mouth away abruptly and swore again. His gaze was unfocused and almost as stunned as mine. Gone was the arrogance, the confidence, replaced with something that looked like the same frantic yearning I felt.
Why did that make it so much more terrifying?
He dropped his hands from my cheeks, which were burning now as I took in the crowd surrounding us, who had all stopped dancing. Some were grinning, some staring—a few were looking almost as shocked as I felt.
He grasped my hand, taking charge. ‘Let us take this demonstration somewhere private,’ he announced, then marched through the crowd, which parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses.
I tried to calm my racing heartbeat as I struggled to keep pace with his long strides. We left the dance floor and entered the adjacent ballroom, where I had first spotted him what felt like several lifetimes ago.
I didn’t feel like that girl anymore—foolish, mortified, confused. Instead I felt energized, aroused and bolder than I had ever felt before.
Renzo Camaro hadn’t just noticed me, he wanted me. And while a part of me knew this was dangerous, another part of me was eager to ride the whirlwind, to fulfil the yearning which I had struggled with earlier and which he had ignited with a simple kiss.
I chewed on my stinging lips.
Okay, notthatsimple a kiss, to be fair. More a statement of ownership. A tantalizing preview of what was to come.
We raced up one sweeping staircase and reached the balcony. He led me to a side door where a bulky man in a dark suit stood guard.
The security guard said something in rapid Italian and Renzo replied in English.
‘Tell my staff not to disturb us until morning, Francesco.’
