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Her brazenness, her fire, is completely unexpected. It’s almost enough to make me want to rewind time and give her back, because I can see the ways in which she might very well make my life hell over the coming days and weeks.
But it’s also turning me on beyond anything I’ve ever felt before.
“Well?” She taunts again. “Are you trying to remember how to do it? Where it goes, maybe? I can’t imagine very many women are lining up to jump in bed with you, Salvatore. You’re so far past your prime, after all. Maybe it was different when you were younger, but—” She shrugs, sliding back onto the bed, her tongue flicking out over her lower lip as she leans back against the pillows. “Should I just go to sleep now? Maybe it won’t matter one way or another. You’ll spend all night making up your mind, and Pyotr will come for me in the morning?—”
I should gag you. I should find another use for your mouth. I should show you all the things I could do to you, and you’d forget every insult you’re thinking of right now, lining them up to fling at me like knives. I bite my tongue against everything that springs into my head, knowing that engaging with her mockery won’t make this any better, or easier.
She frustrates me to no end. I grit my teeth, sucking in a breath as I look at her slender, naked body on the bed, and reach for the buttons of my shirt. By the time I undress, I tell myself, I’ll have this under control. I won’t engage with her taunts that Pyotr is coming to save her; I won’t?—
I see her eyes flick to my chest, as my shirt falls open. I’ve kept myself in good shape over the years—far better than most forty-year-old men. I see her gaze sweep over my muscled chest, down to the hard lines of my abdomen, lower, where the lines on either side of my hipbones disappear below the edge of my belt.
The warring urges within me are enough to drive a man mad. The dance of seduction is familiar to me, the rhythms of lust, the things I would say to her if she were any other woman in the world. My cock strains against the fly of my trousers, utterly insensible to the fact that this woman, we’re not supposed to want. This woman should have been off-limits.
But I’ve made her mine, and now I have to follow through. Even if it feels as if I might damn myself in the process.
I let my shirt fall to the floor, and I see Gia look away, as if trying to pretend that she didn’t notice—that she didn’t find me attractive for a moment. I start to reach for my belt, and then pause.
“Hurry up.” Gia lets out an exasperated breath. “I’m bored.” She rolls towards me, propping her head up on one hand, her body exquisite as a painting from this angle. “I should have known you wouldn’t be man enough to fuck me, even after you stole me. After all, you’re not man enough to keep your promises, are you? Why would you follow through on this?”
The words are sharp, slicing at me, stinging. I made a promise to her father, to uphold his decisions, his legacy. I made a promise to protect his daughter. Those, in and of themselves, were at odds with one another. And now, to protect her?—
I have to do what should be unthinkable.
But my body is all too eager to do what has to be done. And my bruised and battered ego is tired of taking her blows.
I move onto the bed, grasping her hip with one broad hand. Gia gasps, startled just long enough for me to easily roll her onto her back. She stares up at me, her eyes widening as I sweep my hand down the outside of her thigh, nudging her legs apart so that I can kneel between them.
“What are you—” Gia sucks in a breath as I place my other hand on her knee, slowly sliding it up her inner thigh. Her mouth trembles, just a little, as my fingers slide higher, and I feel her muscles tense under her touch, see her abdomen tighten as the unfamiliar sensation washes over her. “What are you doing?—”
She looks utterly stunning, laid out for me like this. Keep it brief. Quick, I remind myself. Pleasure her enough that she won’t be hurt by the act, but don’t draw it out for your own enjoyment. I cling to that thought, to the idea that what I’ll do next is for her, not for my own gratification. I’m well aware of my own size, and the effect it might have on a virgin. I’ve never taken a woman to bed for her first time before, and it’s paramount to me that I don’t hurt Gia.
This is for her, not for me. I repeat it in my head like a mantra, as I slide my hand up to the dark curls between her thighs, clinging to it as the means to get through this. I’m not doing it for my own arousal, or because the sight of her with her legs spread and her breasts shaking with each breath makes my cock throb with an excruciatingly pleasurable need. I’m not doing it because I’m aching to feel the wet heat of her on my fingertips, to find out what sound she’ll make when I graze her clit for the first time.
It’s all necessary. Unavoidable. A part of my duty to protect her. To keep her safe. To keep her from harm.
“Preparing you,” I murmur softly, brushing my fingers over the outside of those soft curls, not delving between her folds just yet. “I don’t want to hurt you, Gia. I want you wet. Ready for me.”
Gia snorts, turning her head away, but I see the hitch of her breath in her throat. “You’re not that big,” she taunts, but I don’t miss the way her eyes quickly flick to the shape of my cock in my trousers, and away again before she thinks I can see. But I see everything. I’m watching her, making certain I don’t harm her. That I don’t frighten her.
That she’s protected in this, as in everything else.
I promised, I think as I slip my fingers between her folds, grazing a fingertip against her clit for the first time. I promised to keep you safe. That’s all this is.
But her eyes widen, and she gasps, her hips arching up as she feels the touch of a man’s finger against her most intimate, sensitive spot for the first time.
And I know I’m lying to myself, if I say I don’t want this.
Gia
You bastard. You fucking bastard.
I’ve been repeating it in my head all afternoon, all night, since the moment Salvatore brought me here. Salvatore, the man who I always thought saw me as a ward, an untouchable princess, someone for him to protect and guard, but never desire. And here he is, shirtless with his hand between my legs, kneeling over me on the precipice of taking the innocence he swore to protect.
You lying bastard.
I’ve been robbed of everything. My promised husband, my wedding, my wedding night. So the only revenge I could think of was to ruin it for him, too. The only enjoyment I’d be able to get out of it—mocking him, getting under his skin, reminding him that he’s nothing but a perverted old man who is getting off on taking his best friend’s daughter to bed.
But the man kneeling over me, his hands sliding up my thighs, could hardly be called old. And the look in his eyes?—
