“I don’t want to find out. Where you sleep is non-negotiable.” He raised my chin with his knuckle. Candlelight danced over his face, creating shadows around his eyes much like the dark circles he’d painted on as a sugar skull mask. “In my bed, you’ll be safe, Natalia—and in my bed, you’ll be mine.”
The crackling fire was no match for what sizzled between us. Alarmed, I took a step back, and he came with me. A dance with a complex man who had many faces. Earlier, he’d been cold and distant. Now, he was no less hard, but somehow equally warm. I couldn’t fathom him so attentive and serene outside this room. For a man as controlled as Cristiano, there was something alarmingly thrilling about getting a side to him others didn’t—and to unpeeling his layers. “Are you so insatiable that you need me to be within reach all the time?” I asked, embarrassed by the rasp in my voice.
“Oh, yes,” he said as if it were a threat.
“You can have any other woman,” I said. “Those you can’t charm, you can take. Why me?”
He circled me as he had in the church, and my breathing sped. But unlike then, when I’d been too stunned to keep up, I turned my head and watched him until he disappeared behind me.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I felt his eyes on me. He would touch me any moment. My body would respond. It already was, my legs unsteady, my heart racing as my mind wandered to a thought I’d had before—what it might feel like to be trapped beneath such a strong body with broad shoulders that shielded us from the world as I took all he had to give.
And he had much to give, I was sure—even before it suddenly pressed into my backside.
He wrapped his arms around my middle, enclosing me in a strong, warm embrace. We faced a floor-length mirror framed by hand-painted talavera tiles that I hadn’t noticed before. Cristiano towered behind me in the reflection, hugging my back to his front. His massive hands slid up my stomach and cupped my breasts through the black lace.
“Why you? See how perfectly they fit in my hands?” he asked, watching my face. “They were made for me.”
Cristiano was hot and cold, ignoring me one second—and the next, so hopped up and hungry that I felt like a drug he needed in order to stay upright. The only other thing that seemed to take him from zero to sixty was a certain trigger word from my mouth. Cristiano held all the control in our relationship, but I had to grasp it where I could. “They fit that way in Diego’s hands, too.”
He snarled near my ear, squeezing my breasts until the place between my legs shamelessly throbbed. “I know you only say that to anger me, and it works. It makes me jealous as a dog. Before you were mine, I hated the thought that you were his. Now that you belong to me, it’s enough to drive me insane that he had your heart and your pussy first.”
The room threatened to spin as my emotions ping-ponged between anticipation and trepidation at being at the mercy of such a powerful and hungry man. To know I’d soon submit, and to have him grow harder against my backside. This was it—what it had all been leading up to. He moved one hand up my neck, jerking my face to the side and my mouth up to his.
“Kiss me,” he said.
With our mouths centimeters apart, I fought the infuriating urge to close that small space between us. “No,” I said.
“No?”
“You’ll have to take it from me.”
“There are many women who’d like to be standing where you are.”
“I know,” I said.
He flinched as surprise crossed his features. “Do you?”
“You’re handsome, rich, and powerful. I’m sure many have spread their legs for you. And I’ll spread mine, too. But I’ll be wishing someone else was between them.”
He tightened his grip on my face, holding me still as he lowered his mouth to mine. “I’ve endured many years of disappointment and suffering, Natalia. I can take a lot. But if you’re going to provoke me in this way, you should know—I’m not sure I can control my response.”
His warm breath caressed my lips as I swallowed his harsh words. As soon as he’d spoken them, I understood that was what I’d been trying to do—test his control. And if he’d meant to scare me, it was working.
Or maybe it was something other than fear that made my heart pound.
He grazed the bridge of my nose with the tip of his. “The thought that he has had you before me means I will work twice as hard to erase him. To claim you. Now, don’t keep me from that another moment.” He nearly bared his teeth. “Kiss . . . me.”