Her green eyes blaze with a combination of anger and frustration, and fuck, if I don’t want to subsume that fire inside of me, to have her spirit consume me, even as I draw on the darkness inside of her. But first, I need to find out if she can actually deliver on her word.
"Take off your clothes."
She tosses her head, then grips the bottom of her T-shirt. She tugs it up and over her head, drops it to the floor.
Her breasts, enclosed in her lacy black bra, spill out over the top. Her nipples are outlined against the sheer fabric of her lingerie…that I had bought for her. She’s wearing clothes that I had picked out for her, personally. Call it a moment of weakness, but I hadn’t been able to resist shutting down yet another shop in Palermo while I had searched through the lingerie on offer and chosen exactly what I wanted her to wear.
Maybe it’s the blow to the head that changed my view of the world… Maybe it’s that I had known that she would come back to me… Either way, my brothers had thought I was crazy to drag myself out of bed, when I had barely begun to heal, to pick out the clothes for her. But then I had been vindicated, hadn’t I? She had turned up at my fake funeral and she had been shocked to see me come to life. The amazement and then the relief in her eyes when she had realized that I was alive... She couldn't hide that.
Her waist is so tiny I can span it with the width of my hands. She seems so strong, this woman, so full of spunk, so always ready to stand up to me, that I forget how fragile she really is.
And she tried to kill you.
But had she meant it? Had she been acting out of instinct…because she was as afraid of what was between us as I am? And now what? I am making excuses for her?
Che cazzo!I am making excuses for her behavior! What the hell is wrong with me? Why is it that every time I am with her, I lose all sense of myself? That I can’t stop myself from wanting to wrap my fingers around her throat and pulling her close, and kissing those gorgeous lips as I play with her breasts while I thrust my hips forward so my cock nestles in its real home…between her fleshy thighs? Thighs I can’t stop myself from squeezing, and leaving my mark over her creamy skin.
She licks her lips and all thought empties from my head.
"Take off the rest of your clothes." My voice cracks, goddamn it, and I clear my throat. "Do it, Beauty, now!"
She swipes her hair over her shoulder, then reaches for the waistband of her shorts. She shoves them down, then kicks them aside along with her socks. Straightens to stand in her bra and panties. Color blooms on her cheeks. How sweet. After everything I’ve done to her, after how she’s come apart under my fingers, she still blushes when she stands almost naked in front of me. I jerk my chin and she bites down her lower lip, and fuck me, but my dick instantly twitches. My balls harden.
I close my fingers at my sides, glare at her. "Take it all off," I snap.
She stiffens. then pulls her shoulders back. Without taking her gaze off of mine, she reaches behind to unhook her bra, then tosses it at me.
I snatch up the piece of fabric and she makes a noise deep in her throat. I stare down at her panties and her flush deepens.
"Do it, Beauty," I growl.
She tips up her chin, hooks her fingers in the waistband of her panties, and shoves them down her legs. She throws them at me. I catch them with my other hand, bring them up to my nose and inhale. The scent of Beauty fills my senses. A pulse flares to life at my temples, behind my eyelids, even in my fucking balls. Fucking fuck, this woman is doing me in.
"You are an animal," she scowls, "you know that?"
"No talking," I growl as I toss her underclothes aside, then stalk over to her. "Also that wasn’t me being an animal; but this is."