His nostrils flared as he stared down at her. “If you had any idea of what I want to do to you right now, you might not say that.”
Her lips fell open, the vision of the wet, red depths of her mouth like a lancing spear to his restraint.
“Just the missionary position, remember?” she gasped softly.
He stilled, his skin roughening. “Are you teasing me?” he asked disbelievingly.
“No. Tempting you.”
“You fresh little witch,” he bit out before he drew his cock out of her and plunged it back in to the hilt. Air popped out of her throat at the hard thrust. Her legs jolted slightly. “Spread your legs again,” he ordered tensely. She widened her thighs, raising her bent knees higher. “That’s right,” he muttered before he began to fuck her.
He stared at her face as he took her, enraptured by the wild, helpless expression on her face. He thrust harder, smacking into her taut body. God, he was hungry, and she was feast unlike any other.
She gripped at his shoulders, her expression growing frantic. Her nails sunk into muscle. His cock swelled and pounded.
“Put your hands above your head,” he grated out, never ceasing in his thrusts. “Do it, Emma,” he said sharply when she just stared at him with dazed, doelike eyes. He drove into her, their skin slapping together.
Her eyes would be the death of him.
She finally seemed to understand him. Her hands fell over her head, her elbows bent, the pale, tender underside of her arms exposed. Her hands were open on the pillows, the palms upward, her fingers curling slightly inward. It was a striking image of beauty. Of submission. She’d done it so naturally, never realizing the effect it had on him.
He cursed, arousal biting at him, goading him onward. He fucked her harder. Her pink-tipped breasts strained upward, bouncing slightly every time he plunged into her. She bit her lip as his cock drove faster. Her pussy was warm and liquid, her nipples erect. Her expression was rigid, her eyes glazed with desire.
“Why don’t you scream for me?” he bit out, angry at the blatant evidence of her arousal and subsequent silence, for some reason. He despised porn-star theatrics in bed. He was disgustingly used to porn-star theatrics in bed, so it was a strange thing for him to demand Emma to scream her need.
She blinked. “Do you want me to?”
“Fuck yes,” he snarled. He sunk his cock and ground his pelvis against her outer sex. He circled his hips, stimulating her clit.
Her perspiration-glazed face rippled with tension. A cry popped out of her throat. She clamped her eyes shut and stifled a moan. He felt the walls of her pussy convulse. Her whimpers broke free. They fell on his ears like the sweetest of blessings.
“That’s right,” he muttered viciously. He pushed her knees back onto the mattress, opening her body to him further. He came up on his toes, his feet digging into the bed and finding traction. He fucked her climaxing pussy with wild abandon. The sound of the bed creaking at his forceful thrusts melded with that of her frantic cries and his own pounding heart.
God it was good.
He hadn’t meant to take her so ruthlessly, but something had snapped in him when she’d climaxed. He’d been scorched and snagged by the fiery whip of pure lust.
His roar as he came was triumphant. Savage. His sinews seized as pleasure crashed into him.
He fell over her a moment later, his lips instinctively finding the sweetness of her neck. He panted wildly for breath, swallowing the fragrance of her skin and her arousal, filling his lungs with it. His nerves buzzed and crackled in the electrical aftershock.
The stupid, yet compelling thought hit him that Emma had reanimated him, somehow.
Cristina had died more than a week ago while he stood looking on with Emma. He’d initiated Emma into the world of challenge and passion.
But Emma, that innocent, unlikely fey creature that stood at the gateway between life and death, had tempted him.
She’d done the unexpected, Vanni realized. She’d jerked him, raw and exposed, into the bright, blinding light of the light of the living.
* * *
Emma stared up at the ceiling, trying desperately to calm her body and then her mind. She understood now, or at least she understood better, what she’d seen that night in the armoire. When she was restrained to that bedpost, and just now in this bed, she’d been the single, focused point of Vanni’s desire. She hadn’t comprehended him earlier entirely when he’d said that he deserved her judgment for making love to Astrid so callously, but she did now. If such methods were to be used, it should only be used in situations of caring and trust.
But this—what she’d glimpsed of herself beneath Vanni’s hands and cock and focused desire—had amazed her.
He had.
She lowered her hands and caressed his shoulders and back, wondrous anew at the sensation of thick, smooth skin gloving lean, rippling muscle. Warmth swept through her when she felt him nuzzle her neck and then press his lips to her still-leaping pulse.