Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
He moves his fingers tantalizingly through my hair, sending sensation twisting beautifully across my skin. “I figured she would.”
“I’m so sorry about your parents,” I whisper. “I know how it feels to grow up without parents, but I’ve got no idea what it’s like to have them wrenched away from you.”
He lets out a deep shivering breath. “It’s not something I’d wish on anyone. But it happened and I’ve learned to deal with it. My mom was the worst. She faded slowly. My father was taken violently. And so I grew up. I moved on. I made the best of the situation.”
I claw onto his chest, digging my fingernails through his shirt and squeezing onto his skin. He lets out an animalistic snarl of a sigh, something primal and sent from deep inside of him.
“You make me fucking crazy, Lucy,” he says. “You have no idea how badly I want you—I need you.”
I’ll disappoint him, I want to scream.
I won’t be able to satisfy him.
I won’t be able to give him everything he wants and needs in the bedroom.
He’ll get all excited for this crazy sex… and then he’ll remember he just has me.
“I want you too,” I whisper. “But I don’t think I’m ready yet. I only had my first orgasm this morning.”
He makes another growling noise. “Fuck. You say you want to wait and then you talk to me about orgasms. Are you trying to drive me crazy?”
I giggle and look up at him to find him smirking down at me, his lips twitching into something like a beast’s toothy grin.
“Maria said you were besotted with me when you spoke to her on the phone.”
He chuckles, and I see what Maria meant earlier when she said he was like the excited boy he was before he became a man. There’s a glint of it in his eyes, a passing flicker, something intense and so real it makes me ache to draw out more of it.
“I wouldn’t use that word,” he says. “But she wasn’t lying.”
“What word would you use, then?” I tease, staring a challenge up at him.
I’m stunned by this sudden appearance of confidence.
It comes from nowhere and takes me completely by surprise, but I don’t try to beat it down or question it, or otherwise push it away. When Luca’s got his arm wrapped around me, I feel as if I can let out aspects of myself I’ve always kept locked up.
“I’m thinking obsessed,” I say with a playful note in my voice.
He leans down, bringing his face close to mine, his lips within kissing distance. His smirk twitches and his eyes sear into me.
“That sounds perfect to me, Lucy. Obsessed… committed… forever.”
“Forever,” I whisper, and then he presses his lips down on mine.
I kiss him back, both of us opening our mouths in surging hunger, our tongues screaming at us to find each other’s pleasure points. He growls through the kiss and I moan with him, our noises of release combining to make the most carnal song imaginable.
He moves away suddenly, letting out a growl
“What’s wrong?” I ask as he climbs to his feet. “What did I do?”
He looms over me, his jaw tight, his intense eyes unfocused. “You did nothing wrong. You did everything right, Lucy. You always do. It’s just that if I go on kissing you, I won’t be able to stop myself from claiming every other part of you. So let me treat you like my queen instead. Let’s have some dinner.”
I gesture down at my clothes. “I think I’m a little underdressed.”
“Don’t worry.” He smirks as he strides across the room to the dresser drawers. “I’ve got something to help with that.”
Butterflies swarm in my belly, screaming trick, over and over again. I beat them down. I wave them away.
This isn’t a trick. It’s my life. And it’s time I accept that.
But when Luca returns to me with a dress in his hands, a fresh wave of disbelief and self-hate burns through me, scorching my insides.
It’s a gorgeous dress, cut high at the neck but cut low at the thigh. It has elegant gemstones inlaid tastefully into the collar. But that cut… I’ll be showing more of my thigh than I ever voluntarily have before.
“I’ll look silly,” I murmur.
“No, you fucking won’t,” he snarls. “You’ll look sexy. You’ll look irresistible. You’ll look beautiful. You’ll look like all the things you are, that you’ve always been, but have never been allowed a chance to show. Stop doubting yourself, Lucy. That’s a goddamn order.”
The force of his words barrel into me.
“Get changed.” He places the dress on the bed and steps back, folding his arms. “Now.”
Chapter Eleven
Luca
I fold my arms and stand in the corner of the room, staring across to where my woman stands.
I have to distance myself. Otherwise, my predator instincts will kick in and I’ll charge across at her, wrestling her to the bed and tearing her clothes off with my teeth before she gets a chance to undress.