Italy's Most Scandalous Virgin - Carol Marinelli Page 0,21

no idea, Dante. You look at me and you see a whore, you stand there and judge me, but even with your assumptions, you’re a hypocrite. You think nothing of sleeping with women for money.’

‘I’ve never paid for it in my life.’

‘Please! You think they would be with you if you weren’t rich, if you didn’t shower them in diamonds, or take them to your fancy hotels and give them the full Dante Romano treatment?’ Jealousy coursed through her, as it had for two years, hearing from Rafael and then reading herself of his endless trysts, his lavish ways. But it was something else coursing through her as he met her eyes and gave his response.

‘Oh, they would still be with me.’

Dante said it with such authority that she began to doubt her case, yet Mia fought to retrieve it. ‘No. They want you for your money, the jewels, the gifts; they would hardly want you for your tenderness—’

‘I can be tender when I choose to be,’ he interrupted. ‘And I can be less than tender when she chooses that I be.’

As Dante gave her a teasing glimpse of him in the bedroom, the lights went out in her head. His hand took her left one and he examined it for a moment. ‘You wasted no time in removing your rings, I see.’ He moved the hand he had rejected earlier today to near his mouth and kissed the tips of her fingers.

It was only their second contact ever, and just the lightest touch of his mouth made her want to fold over as his velvet lips brushed skin that felt as if every nerve in her fingers lay exposed and wired to her centre.

‘You see, my dear stepmother, I can be tender...’

‘Stop calling me that!’ Her voice shrilled as he took a finger in his mouth and sucked it. Despite herself, she wanted to press her finger deeper for more of the caress his tongue gave.

He sucked and he kissed, then left her finger cold as he kissed her palm.

‘Why?’ he said, kissing her palm so tenderly, yet it was painful too as between strokes from his tongue he taunted her. ‘Does it embarrass you to be turned on by me?’ he asked. He kissed her hand then placed the palm of it on his chest as he continued, ‘Did you feel shame when you sat in the dining room last night and wanted me?’

‘I did not want you,’ she insisted, pushing back at him a little, her voice strained as it forced out the lie.

‘And then last night, in the kitchen...’

‘I didn’t want you,’ she choked, but his smile told Mia he knew she lied. ‘I don’t want you,’ she begged, though neither believed it.

‘Then go, dear Mia. Stop playing with fire.’

She should go, Mia knew. She should turn and run, except she had never thought she was capable of such a brutal desire.

Because this desire was brutal—an aching, physical want that dimmed regular thought. She was playing with fire and Mia found that she liked the burn.

Their eyes locked and held, and beneath her palm she felt the now rapid thud, thud, thud of his black heart.

His hand came to her face and he traced her cheek, then slid it behind her hair and yet he did not pull her towards him. Instead Dante asked a question. ‘What do you want, Mia?’

‘For this all to be over,’ she admitted.

‘And me.’

‘To never have to see you again.’ She shivered.

‘Yet here you stand.’

‘Yes.’

He kissed her then, slow and deep. His lips were plump as he parted hers with his tongue and she let him. It mattered not that she had rarely kissed a man before, for there was no experience required when Dante claimed a mouth so fiercely, so absolutely.

The thought of tongues had always repulsed Mia.

Now, though, she tasted the cool wedge of muscle and the only thing that repulsed her was her own crippling desire, for she craved more. She danced her tongue with his, tasting him, wanting more, even as she fought to reject his kiss.

It was Dante who removed the pleasure of his mouth and she stood there, running a tongue over her wet lips just to taste him again.

‘And yet still here you stand.’

She swallowed, and his eyes watched her throat as she did so. He lifted her hair, lowered his head, and his mouth met her tender neck.

Oh, God, Mia thought as he pulled her right into him and kissed her neck, not