He held onto my hand while he backed away from the balcony. He inched backward toward a partition where heavy velvet curtains separated the balcony from a hall leading deeper into the mansion.
Voices came from down there, and a few women came up the stairs heading in that direction. The bathroom must be down there, but Luca didn’t go that way.
He ducked behind the curtains and pulled me in behind him. My chest ached, fighting to breathe. Was this really happening… withhim?
He raised his hand to my face, but instead of touching me, he pulled my mask off. His eyes moistened behind his own mask when he saw my face uncovered. I searched those eyes, struggling against rising turmoil.
I couldn’t bear to see his eyes change. I couldn’t survive if the Luca I knew vanished and left that cruel mob boss in his place. I needed him too much.
He pulled off his own mask, and my heart exploded with so much relief and delight when I saw him—the real him, the Luca that had always been hidden beneath that merciless exterior.
He dropped both masks, and our lips met in a kiss that lit my whole life on fire. I was kissing Luca.
My throat constricted, fighting down rising emotion. This was all real.Hewas real.
He really was the Luca I remembered. He was fine and strong and brave and true. He never changed. He just erected a facade to protect himself from his own pain.
His arms closed around me, and I collapsed into his embrace. I would go to the ends of the earth for this man.
He spun me around, and I bumped into something solid, but I didn’t care. The curtains hid us from the ball and from the other guests farther down the hall, but not even that bothered me. I was with him. Nothing bad would happen to me.
He pressed tighter into me as our kisses reached a fevered pitch. His hands burned through my corset, and I gasped for breath in his mouth. God, I needed him so bad!
He drove his prick between my legs, and this dress made me feel so sexy and luxurious that I wanted him to take me right now. I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to risk something coming between us.
He grasped my breasts, but my bodice stopped him from really touching me. In half a second, he pinned me against the wall and scooped up my skirts. He was really going to nail me right now.
He hoisted my legs up and drilled between my thighs. He bit my lips kissing me in ravenous fury, but I couldn’t get it fast enough.
He ripped open his pants, pulled my panties aside, and plunged in. I gasped and would have screamed, but I stopped myself in time. I didn’t want to announce to the world that Luca Fortino was fucking me like a bitch in heat, even if I felt like one. I wanted to be that to him. I wanted to be the one he wanted.
He pounded in and drove me up the wall with deep, masterful thrusts. Holding back my screams of ecstasy rocketed me into the stratosphere right away, and my honey gushed around his cock. Fuck, he felt so good!
He broke off my mouth and slammed his hot, panting mouth against my ear. “Fuck, Princess!” he hissed. “You don’t know how good you feel. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck yeah. You don’t know how much I needed you this past week.”
I reeled at those scorching, exhilarating words. I crashed into a drunken climax, clinging to him for my very life.
He forced himself up into me with such power that my back bumped up the wall. I collapsed onto his spike every time he pulled back for another thrust. My thighs surrounded him in rapture. I wanted this so damn bad.
He kept whispering and murmuring those words into my brain. “Goddamn, Princess. I can’t get enough of you. Do you know how much you torture me? Fuck, yeah. Fuck, Princess. Oh, yeah.”
I couldn’t take much more of this. I started to spiral into a kind of insanity when he drove in hard and roared in my ear, but the noise from the ballroom drowned it out. Only I heard that aching desire fulfilled after so many years of anguish and despair.
I gave him that. I brought him full circle and made him whole again. I loved him more than anything for that. I never wanted to let go of this feeling of holding his heart in my hand and having my heart resting safely in his.
He pivoted over to my face, and his mouth enveloped me in soft sweetness. I threaded my fingers into his hair while he lowered my legs to the floor.
He slipped out of me, but the wetness of our combined juices dampened my panties and left me trembling for more. I could take so much more of him right now, but that could always wait until we got home.
He let my skirts fall, and he buckled his belt while we kissed. His eyes floated before me in a kind of hallucination. No sign remained of the harsh, cruel, ruthless criminal I met that first night. Luca was back. He was real, and he was mine.
He finally dropped off my lips, but he didn’t pull away. “Let’s go home,” he murmured.
“What about the Vittorios? What about your whole plan?”
He shrugged it off. “I don’t want you around these people anymore. I want you home where you’ll be safe. We’ll find another way to trap the Vittorios.”
“Are you sure? I want to help the family. If luring them into a trap will help you, then I want to do it.”