I swear to God he’s making shit—crap—up now just to catch me off guard. Just to play with his authority. Just to undo me.
And isdamneven really a swear?Barely.
“Not sure about you,” he says in that husky, scary voice of his. “But I like the buttons. Adds a bit to the foreplay.”
The first button slips open. The second. I’m amazed his large hands and thick fingers are so agile. When the third opens, the dress loosens at the top. I anchor my hands on the sink in front of me to keep myself steady when he lowers his mouth to my neck and kisses the skin he’s bared. I draw in a sharp breath as his tongue follows the kiss, tracing a heated line down my spine while he continues to unfasten the buttons.
Oh,God,that tongue. That wicked, heated, sensual tongue of his. My eyelids flutter closed as he continues to undress me, kissing and licking and nipping his way down my spine until the dress is fully unbuttoned. I whimper when he gently folds the fabric down my shoulders and the dress pools at my feet.
“Fuck,” he growls. Like most things in mob life, I suppose the cursing thing is a double standard. “You’re gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. For once I actuallyfeelit. He demands honesty from me, and it seems he pays me the same courtesy. So when he tells me I’m gorgeous… I know he means it.
I stand in front of the mirror wearing nothing but a white satin thong and a matching satin bra, the pearly fabric vivid against my tanned olive skin. It’s the kind of bra meant to seduce, not to support anything, so my breasts are nearly spilling out. My breasts look pretty damn good if I do say so myself. I’m not used to this kind of thing, but when the staff brought my clothes in to help me get changed, there they were.
I wonder if Salvatore picked them out. A part of me thinks he’s too busy to care about such things. But another part of me…
“Do I get to undress you, too?” I ask. I hardly recognize my voice, all husky and sensual in the intimacy of this shared space.
“Do you want to?” he asks in my ear.
I swallow and nod. “I do. Uh, I definitely do.”
“C’mere.” I inhale sharply when he cups his hands under my ass and hauls me up. My legs instinctively wrap around his body—his solid, hard, very muscular body. My arms wrap around the strong column of his neck. I inhale his scent, at once virile and masculine. I try to breathe out my fear. It doesn’t work.
Alright, then. I have to ride it.
I’m his now. There’s no turning back. We either make this work or we don’t.
I want to kiss him. I want to cup his face and kiss those full, pouty, angry lips of his. I like the way he responds when I kiss him, and for one brief flash in time, I feel like I’m not the one being conquered.
The staff’s all evaporated as if they’ve become part of the woodwork, and for a brief moment it feels as if we don’t just have this room to ourselves, or even the hotel to ourselves, but the entireisland.And I know then that if I asked him for that, he’d give it to me. If I asked him…
I stifle a scream when I hear a sound right beside me. We aren’t alone, and this time I’m not the only one who’s noticed something awry.
Cursing, he lowers me to the floor and draws his weapon.
“Get behind me,” he snaps. I quickly obey.
Both of us turn toward a small closet by the doorway. “Come out,” Salvatore barks. “Show yourself.” His weapon’s at the ready. I hold my breath.
At first, there’s no response, but as he steps toward the closet, I hear a plaintive cry.
“Don’t shoot! Please, don’t shoot!”
I gasp at the sound of the voice. It sounds like a child.
Salvatore curses under his breath but holds his weapon down. “Step. Out.Now.”
If that were me on the other side of him, I’d have peed my pants.
I peek around his shoulder as the closet door slides open and a small, thin boy dressed in ragged clothing and streaked with dirt shows his face. Salvatore reaches his meaty fist toward the closet and the boy flinches, but he only grabs a thick white robe and tosses it over my shoulder.
“Put it on,” he growls at me. “Before I have to fucking kill him.”
I’m more than happy to obeythatcommand.
Salvatore doesn’t waste a second. As soon as I finish tying the knot on the robe, he steps toward the closet, reaches in, and yanks the child out so he stands in the bright overhead lighting. I feel my eyes go wide.