coin flip, one kiss … or perhaps not. Maybe fate will smile on you.”
Calliope glanced over her shoulder, secure in the knowledge that the door was firmly closed and all the drapes of the windows facing the garden had been shut tight. How long could a single kiss take—if he even won this absurd wager?
“Very well. I accept your terms.”
Dominick took a step away from her and flipped the coin. Time seemed suspended as it flew upward, turning end over end on its descent. Calliope held her breath and waited for the desired outcome. Which was, what exactly? For her to win and not have to allow a kiss? For him to win so she could prove that he was wrong about her?
The breath left her on a swift sigh when it landed in his palm. Her throat constricted when he slapped it onto the back of his opposite hand, uncovering it to reveal that it had landed heads-side up. Dominick’s predatory gaze flicked up to meet hers, and she felt his intent a second before he moved with a speed that left her reeling.
The coin clinked to the ground as he closed the distance between them and took hold of her face. His lips slanted over hers with such tenderness Calliope was left reeling. She had expected rough handling and a cruel mouth, a kiss that took but did not give. Instead, he shattered her presumptions with the first press of his mouth, firm but gentle. His thumbs stroked along her cheekbones, his lips pushing and prodding as if trying to coax something more out of her.
This was no soft peck, no sweet overture. It was an outright assault, one made with plush lips and heavy breaths, each pass of his mouth over hers chipping away at the resistance she found it increasingly difficult to cling to.
She brought her hands up to cling to him, her fingers curled in the fabric of his coat as she began losing control of her knees. As if he sensed this, he smoothed his hands down her face and neck, past her shoulders, over her waist. Then, he was hauling her against him, every masculine ridge of him pressed to her. A breathless sound of shock escaped her throat, answered by a deep, rumbling murmur from him. Then, his tongue slid shockingly along her bottom lip, warm and wet, stroking at the seam of her mouth. A tingling sensation spread from where he lapped at her as if tasting some sweet delicacy, and Calliope could bear it no longer.
She melted in his arms, her head tipping back and her lips parting without a fight. She was dizzy and out of her mind, every part of her coming alive as his tongue slid into her mouth and rasped against hers. He repeated the motion again and again, licking at her with an urgency that prompted her to respond.
Reticence melted away, timidity forgotten as she mimicked his motions and caressed his tongue with hers, pushing back against him with tentative swipes and then surer strokes. A deep, guttural groan floated up from him, shattering the near-silence of the peaceful garden. The sound was wild, completely unrestrained, darting through her like an arrow, stabbing into her belly and exploding in a sudden rush of fluttering heat.
Her back arched against the brace of his arms, her breasts thrusting against his chest. Her nipples pebbled tight, agitated by the friction of their bodies. Each hot stroke of his tongue seemed to exacerbate it, while simultaneously creating a pulsing sensation between her legs.
It was the most embarrassing feeling, yet was somehow made all the more decadent and thrilling because of it.
He panted against her mouth, the kiss growing wilder and more heated, finesse giving way to something raw and primal. Calliope could not blame it all on him, for she was behaving in the most wanton fashion, mewling into his mouth and going up on tiptoe to capture more of the bliss he fed her with nothing more than the touch of his lips and tongue.
Shock pierced through the haze that had stolen all her good sense at the press of something hard against her lower belly. Diana had explained enough that she knew what that part of him was, what its turgid state meant for the man pillaging her mouth like the most wicked of pirates.
He wanted her, and at the moment she could not delude herself into pretending his kiss hadn’t made her want him back.