Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“Isn’t it? You’re so young. So sweet. So innocent.”
“Old enough,” I whisper, turning my face into his palm and kissing the center. His tightly held control surrounds me like a blanket of safety. It’s okay for me to be soft because he is so hard. It’s a truth I never faced, a need I didn’t know I had.
“We shouldn’t have kept you.”
It’s too nice a way to describe holding me hostage, but there is more for me to say.
“You rescued me from the auction… paid a high price and didn’t take what you paid for.”
His eyes search my face as though he can’t believe what I’m saying. “That’s a kind way of putting it.”
“Maybe, but it’s the truth. Those other men—”
I don’t get the opportunity to finish because he interrupts me with a growl. “Those other men would have lost their hands and more if they touched you.”
A shiver inexplicably runs up my spine. I shouldn’t like the idea of Antonio’s violence against those who would hurt me, but I do. I never had a man to step in and protect me. I’ve been the strongest in my family since I reached double digits.
“I shouldn’t have…” His eyes drop lower like he's thinking about what he did to me in the shower.
“I wanted you to,” I whisper. “I could have told you no.”
“You think I’d have listened?”
“Yes,” I say simply. It’s true. He said, ‘Tell me to stop.’ He gave me a way out.
His eye lids drop, and I reach out to touch his face; the rough place where his beard is trying to form, the soft skin of his cheek. This close, I notice the slight bump to his nose, the denseness of his dark brows, and the way his dark lashes frame his pale eyes.
“When you touch me…” His voice is lost to a whisper.
“When you touch me…”
His mouth finds mine like our lips possess a force that will always bring them together. His hands slide to my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I melt into his touch, any resistance leaving my body entirely.
We are heat and desperation tempered with tenderness and longing. His body arcs over mine like the sail of a ship, billowing in resistance to the wind, sheltering me against the dangers in life.
He’s dangerous, my mind whispers. Antonio Venturi is one of the most dangerous men in this city, but he’s like a highly trained security dog, only a danger to his enemies, not me.
He pulls back, panting. “I shouldn’t—”
I cut him off, pressing my finger to his kiss-swollen lips. “I want this. I want you. Please, Antonio.”
His expression softens, like he’d give me the world if I asked, and my hands become needy and greedy, grabbing his muscled shoulders and back, the power in him thrilling me to my core. He eases me onto my back, the springs in the old mattress creaking under the weight of him pressed into me. His hands find my wrists and grip them next to my ears as he stares down at me.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done to me, Aemelia. You found your way inside my head. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t breathe without thinking about you, without remembering your sweetness on my tongue, hearing the moans you made echoing around my skull. I shouldn’t want you this way…”
“I want you,” I tell him again, tugging at his sweater, desperate to get to the heat of him, the thickness of his muscles, the smoothness of his skin. Beneath all the black clothes, his body has a soft warmth to it, like the sun couldn’t resist kissing him. Dark hair dusts his rounded pecs and trails between the tight muscles of his abs, disappearing into the waistband of his pants. I press my hand to the place where his heart is beating erratically, and he remains still except for his ragged breathing.
“Aemelia.” My name has never sounded so treasured on anyone’s lips.
“Touch me,” I tell him, and he groans like a wounded animal.
His ruthless hands push up my shirt, baring my breasts and cupping them gently, pushing them together while his thumbs brush over my nipples. I arch into his touch as it brings me to life between my legs. His mouth is an inferno that engulfs my nipple as his rough palm cups my soft flesh, kneading it over and over in a desperate rhythm.
I’m lost and, at the same time, found. Adrift, yet anchored. He switches to the other side as my exposed nipple cools and hardens, and my body squirms beneath him.
This is what it’s supposed to be like. No fumbling. No questions, just desire, longing, desperation, and craving.
He mouths down between my breasts, breathing me in as he goes, his tongue circling my navel, kisses pressed deep into my warm, soft flesh. “Aemelia,” he groans, his fingers hooking into the sides of my panties. I bring my legs together to assist their removal, then wait for him to part me, the anticipation as good as physical touch. Gripping my knees, he opens my legs like a book, staring at my most private place, enraptured.