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“How did you know who I was?” I ask quietly. I absentmindedly fiddle with the white skin where my wedding band used to lie. It’s still marked.
“Sweetheart,” Ricco says, leaning in so close I can smell his cologne and the strong, masculine scent of him. “I’d know those eyes if you stared at me across a solar system.”
Oh. Oh, my God.
“How would you?” I ask curiously. “When we’re together you’re face down on the table.”
“Because they’re unforgettable. Come here,” he says, leaning on his forearms. “The singles are here tonight and no one else gets to claim you.”
My heart thunders.
Come here?
I lean in closer to him. “I… think we’re… crossing therapist-client boundaries.”
He reaches for my hair and weaves his fingers through it at the nape of my neck. “You crossed them first by coming in here,” he says, his voice low and seductive. “Now, you’re mine.”
CHAPTER SIX
“IT’S COMPLICATED”
Ricco
I’m hard at the first touch of her silky hair entwined around my fist.
My pulse races watching her swallow and blink, and when she sinks her teeth into her lower lip, I want to lick that place she bites so badly I salivate.
“Perfection, Mr. Montavio,” purrs a female voice behind me. “Perhaps you’d do us the honor of a demonstration with your partner?”
I release Dani as if she were on fire and whip my head around.
Madame Beau, our guest speaker and educator for all things sex-related and most notably BDSM-themed at Bella Notte, stands behind me.
“Oh, no,” Dani says with a nervous laugh as she pushes to her feet. “I… I don’t know about that. I have to go home.”
But I can tell by the way she squirms and the way she looks at me that she wants this. She’s in complete denial about how much she wants it.
“What kind of demonstration did you have in mind?”
Dani’s jaw drops and she shakes her head.
“Your technique at holding her attention rapt while you pull her hair. Measured pain and attention, her eyes on you,” Madame Beau says with a twisted smile. “It’s…” She kisses her fingertips. “Chef’s kiss.”
“You want him to dominate me?” Dani says, her eyes wide and expressive as her mouth parts in shock. “Seriously?”
But she wants it. I’m no fool. She wouldn’t have come in here if she didn’t. No one walks into Bella Notte for the hell of it.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. She isn’t ready yet. It’s her first night here.” Dani narrows her eyes at me when I bait her.
Madame Beau’s eyes light up with excitement.
Dani is the last person I should want anywhere near Bella Notte. I have secrets here, secrets that I don't want her of all people to find out. And yet here she stands, in all her innocent, stunning beauty, taking my breath away. Fact is, there's nobody in the world I'd rather have here than Dani. I want to call her bluff.
"She needs more time. She's too uncomfortable with a public display," I say, fully aware of what an asshole I sound like.
Dani’s eyes predictably flash at me. "Says who?"
Atta girl. That's what I want to see.
I shove my hands in my pockets, trying to appear casual when the situation is anything but. The tension between us crackles like a live wire, and Madame Beau smiles benevolently at both of us, as if she knows we're playing a game of cat and mouse, and she is all the happier to be a spectator.
"When's the demo?" Dani asks, lifting her chin defiantly. Madame Beau smiles at her. "Tomorrow evening. Seven p.m. The dance hall."
A momentary look of panic flashes in Dani’s eyes before she swallows. "I can do it," she says, giving me a challenging look now. "If you can."
If I can. Funny.
"I would love that. Sign me up.”
Madame Beau claps her hands in delight and walks away.
Dani and I stare at each other across the short distance.
"I’ll need to get a babysitter," she says in a little voice, and I wonder if she regrets what she's just agreed to do.
"So will I. In fact, that's why my sister Vivia was here. She's been babysitting for me so I could get back here and help Sergio out.”
"Since you came back to work?"
“Yeah.”
Fuck. What am I doing? I can't let myself lie to this woman but telling her the truth would push her away for sure.
“It's complicated, the two of us coming here, isn't it?"
So much more than you know.
I grit my teeth. “I wish the demonstration was tonight.”
"What is that supposed to mean?" she says, her hand at her throat absentmindedly, a sure sign of nerves if I’ve ever seen one. “Do you mean you want to dominate me?"
Fucking hell yes, I want to dominate her.
I shake my head. "Nah, it’s just that they serve really good pizza here."
She laughs out loud, shaking her head at me.
