“Beneath the hard, bitter exterior, you’ll find the inside is softer and not at all displeasing.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “We stood in the street, and you seduced me with confectionery. You came to my house and seduced me with rotten brandy and a fine lawn shirt that left little to the imagination. So you see, you’re as skilled in seduction as you are most things. Indeed, I was utterly seduced the moment we met.”
As if his words weren’t enough to arouse her, he rubbed his hand back and forth, cupping and lifting her buttocks. Her sex pulsed in response. Her breath came quick and hot, expelling in little pants.
Their gazes remained locked.
The power of his magnetic pull held her spellbound.
“Don’t go, Dante. Stay with me tonight.”
Take all of me. Leave no part untouched.
Their lips met. This time they kissed slowly, deeply, a lazy, languorous exploration that tightened the muscles in her abdomen, left her sex aching.
“Feel what you do to me,” he breathed, taking her hand and guiding it over the solid length bulging in his breeches. “That’s the power you wield. I’ve never been so hard.”
Fascinated, she couldn’t help but caress him. “You’re so large it’s impossible to think we might—”
“We’ll fit, love. But I’m not taking your virtue.”
Disappointment flared. She wanted to give everything of herself, wanted to fuse their bodies, crawl beneath his skin, ease her obsession.
“Then pleasure me as only you know how.”
His mischievous grin said he welcomed the challenge. “Would you like to see how hard I am, Beatrice? Would you like to touch the impudent devil desperate for the stroke of your hand?”
He was tugging off his boots before she found her voice. “Very much so.”
She watched him undress, gloried in the way the flickering firelight danced over the muscular contours of his chest. Her heart sank the second she noticed the scar. But he unbuttoned the waistband of his breeches, tugged them down over his hips, sending all morbid thoughts scattering like petals in the wind.
Dante D’Angelo might be damaged inside, but he was a perfect specimen of masculinity. Strong. Formidable. Confident in his own skin. So aroused, she couldn’t help but stare.
“You’re like a statue in a museum, though rather more endowed.” Inadequacy reared its head, for she was hardly Venus. Her calves were too thin, her belly too rounded, her left breast a little bigger than the right.
“Tell me what you like best,” he teased, palming his erection.
“All of you.”
She liked the arrogant seducer and the tortured hero, the bold warrior and the frightened child. She wanted to embrace them all. Never let go.
“Would you like to see my body, Dante?” she said, despite being choked with fear. The need to press her skin to his meant she had to overcome her insecurities. And Alice said men were blind to imperfections when faced with a confident woman.
“See it? Love, I wish to devour every inch.”
Heat pooled between her legs, but she set to work on the ugly brown dress she’d worn for protection. Braced herself because she knew his eyes would widen in surprise when her petticoat hit the floor.
He did jerk back in shock. His eyes did protrude.
“You strapped your breasts? Strapped them over your chemise? I knew they looked different and assumed it was that dreadful dress.”
She shrugged but experienced the aching throat that always preceded the onset of tears. “Not tightly, just enough so as not to draw my uncle’s eye. The bindings irritate my skin.”
His expression was unreadable, but he closed the gap between them and drew her into an embrace. “Forgive me. Forgive me for asking you to do something so distressing.”
“It was necessary. And I couldn’t run forever.”
“Let us pray this is all over soon.” He stroked her hair, unaware her anxiety amounted to more than dreadful memories.
The future was her primary concern. After the visit with her uncle, she’d come to realise she would always live in fear. But she would rather suffer these traumas, take comfort in this gentleman’s embrace, than solve the case and part ways.