“Sorry for rambling.” She sounded embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to talk your ear off about my family.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Her words were sad, but her voice was so sweet I could listen to it forever. “This beats counting sheep.”
Her laugh carried into the night like a soft melody. “Are you saying I’m putting you to sleep?”
Our legs brushed, and my muscles tensed at the brief contact.
I hadn’t realized how close we’d gotten.
Against my better judgment, I turned my head to find her doing the same. Our gazes met, and the rhythm of our breaths splintered into something more jagged.
“Trust me,” I said quietly. “Of all the things you do to me, putting me to sleep isn’t one of them.”
Moonlight kissed the curves of Vivian’s face, accentuating the hollows of her cheekbones and the sensual fullness of her lips. Her eyes shone dark and luminous, like precious stones gleaming in the night.
Surprise glinted in their depths at my words, along with a smoky wisp of desire that made heat curl in my groin.
I hadn’t touched her since our tryst in Valhalla’s library, but all I wanted in that moment was to see those eyes darken with pleasure again. To feel the softness of her body pressed against mine and hear her breathy little cries when she climaxed against me.
My blood pounded in my ears.
The breeze from the vents grew hotter, the air thicker.
The electricity from dinner returned and stretched the moment into one long, perfect thread of tension.
“We should go to sleep,” Vivian breathed. There was a slight shake in her voice. “It’s late.”
“Agreed.”
For a suspended moment, neither of us moved.
Then another boom of thunder crashed in the distance, and the tension exploded with the force of a lit match in a barrel of gasoline.
My mouth crashed down on hers, and her arms wrapped around my neck, pulling me flush against her. A low moan vibrated against my mouth when I rolled on top of her and pinned her hips between my thighs.
Raw desire took over, eradicating thoughts of anything except Vivian.
No Francis. No Luca. No blackmail. Just her.
I stroked my tongue against the seam of her lips, tasting her, demanding entry. They parted, and the heady, intoxicating taste of her coated my tongue.
I cupped the back of her neck and angled her head so I could deepen the kiss.
Her hands sank into my hair; my palm swept beneath her top and over her stomach.
We kissed like we were drowning, and the other person was our only source of oxygen. Wild. Frantic. Desperate.
And it still wasn’t enough.
I needed more of it. More of her.
“Dante.” Her soft cry when I cupped her breast almost undid me.
“Keep screaming my name, sweetheart.” I kissed my way down her neck and chest, eager to map every inch of her body with my mouth. I closed my mouth around a clothed, peaked nipple and pinched the other between my thumb and forefinger, eliciting another moan of my name.
Approval rumbled in my chest. “That’s a good girl.”
I made my way down her stomach to her thighs, my journey languid despite the need raging through me.
I smelled Vivian’s arousal before I tugged her shorts and underwear down, but the sight of her pussy, so wet and ready and fucking perfect, hit me like a shot of pure heroin.
“Please.” She panted, her grip strangling my hair when I nipped the soft skin of her inner thigh.
My cock pulsed so hard it ached, but I didn’t touch it, too focused on the glistening temptation in front of me.
“Please what?”
I received only a whimper in response.
“Please eat out this pretty little cunt of yours?” I taunted, my voice soft but the words rough. “Tongue fuck you until you beg me to let you come? You have such a smart mouth, mia cara. Use it.”
“Yes.” The word was half plea, half demand. “I need your mouth on me. Dante, please.”
This time, the sound of her voice, moaning my name, in that way, did unravel me.
I pushed her legs further apart and delved in like a man starved. I focused on her swollen clit, licking and sucking until her cries of pleasure crescendoed to the edge of pain.
Vivian writhed and bucked, begging me to stop one minute and keep going the next. She was dripping all over my face, and I couldn’t get enough.
I was addicted to the taste of her, to the way she sounded when I buried my tongue inside her and the way her back arched off the bed when she finally came with a full-body shudder.
I waited for her trembles to die down before I touched my tongue to her sensitized clit again and gave it a slow, leisurely lick.
“Hai un sapore divino,” I murmured.
“No more,” she pleaded. “I can’t…oh God.” Her protest split into another moan when I slid two fingers inside her up to the first knuckle. I kept my mouth on her clit and slowly worked my way up to the second knuckle before I pulled my fingers out and pushed them back in.
In and out, faster and faster, my mouth still exploring her clit until she drenched my face and her sharp cries filled the room again.
My cock throbbed in time with my pulse as I pushed myself onto my knees.
Vivian stared up at me, her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving from the aftermath of her orgasm. A light sheen of sweat misted her skin, and her face was so full of trust and satiated pleasure it made my gut twist.
No one had ever looked at me like that before.
Just like that, a cold trickle of reality pierced my fog of lust.
It suddenly hit me who we were and what I’d done.
We weren’t a normal engaged couple. She was the daughter of the enemy, and I’d been forced into this engagement, even if she didn’t know it.
I wasn’t supposed to like her, much less desire her.
Vivian wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her hips up against mine, the message clear.
Fuck me.
I wanted to. My body screamed for it, my cock ached for it. It would be so easy to sink into her softness and let it carry us away for the night.
But if I did, there would be no going back. Not for her, and not for me.
My hands fisted on the mattress as indecision warred.
You can either have Vivian or you can have her father’s head on a platter—figuratively speaking, of course. You can’t have both.
Ice water doused the remaining heat in my veins.
Of all the voices I wanted to hear in bed, Christian’s ranked in the bottom five, but the bastard had a point.
Vivian didn’t have a perfect relationship with her family, but she still cared about them. One day soon, she’d find out the truth about our engagement and her father’s deception, and she’d be devastated.
Adding sex to the mix would only complicate things further.
“Dante?” Tentativeness crept into her voice at my hesitation.
Goddammit.
I unwound her arms from my neck and straightened, trying to ignore the hurt and confusion on her face.
“Get some rest,” I said roughly. “It’s been a long day.”
I didn’t wait for an answer before I got off the bed, headed into the bathroom, and locked the door. I turned the shower as cold as it would go, letting the icy water blast some fucking sense into me.
Self-loathing formed a concrete block in my chest.