My thoughts are clouded. “Are you saying you wanted me to try?”
“I’m saying I thought you were supposed to be the smart Ricci daughter. Yet here I stand, disappointed again.”
Closing my eyes, I suck in a deep breath and try to square my shoulders. “Just kill me then, Leopoldo.”
“Leo,” he corrects with a tsk. “And why on earth would I give you an easy out when punishment promises to be so much more fun?”
He pulls away, his breath no longer tickling my nose. I grit my teeth, bracing for the impact of whatever abuse he’s planning to hurl, and he pries my mouth open again, pushing the blade inside. I don’t have a chance to blink before he pounces, cupping my jaw and crushing me to the brick as he crashes his lips to mine.
His tongue flicks in, maneuvering the blade around, and his teeth scrape against mine. My head bounces off the wall, and he cups my skull with one palm, covering the spot as he continues the assault.
Mind swimming—drowning, rather—I press my hands to his chest to keep from falling completely into his embrace.
Heat stirs in my gut, sparking like a thousand little firecrackers. I jerk my head, trying to escape before the sensation can really take root.
Something coppery blooms inside my mouth, but I can’t seem to focus on the taste of anything but him. Bitter, like hard liquor and blood.
The hand in my hair flees, snaking a fiery path down the front of my dress. He bunches the long skirt in his fingers, inching it up until I feel a cool breeze brush my ankles. A sound of protest dies between us as he drags the fabric higher, exposing a sliver of my flesh to the moonlight.
“What are you—” I attempt to say around the kiss and blade, but suddenly, he’s grazing the outside edge of my lacy pink panties while his tongue plays a wicked symphony inside my mouth.
When he finally yanks his head back, his breathing is ragged, and his eyes are wild. One finger skims over the seam of my pussy, above the lace, in a horizontal motion that makes my hips buck, immediately seeking more.
“Uh-uh.” His voice grows as dark as the night air above us. “Be careful,stellina. Wouldn’t want you to cut yourself.”
My brows furrow as confusion weaves a tapestry in my chest—until a little scrap of blue fabric appears between his lips.
The athletic tape.
I swallow hard, and my tongue twitches inside my closed mouth, locating the uncovered metal blade sitting right in the middle.
My breaths grow short and staggered. God, I am anidiot.
“Stay very still,” he says, even as his hand continues its exploration, dipping beneath my panties for a millisecond before sliding back out and drawing invisible circles over my pulse point. “Or would you like a mouthful of blood, wife?”
At that, my skin heats—and not just because he’s tugging aside the crotch of my underwear and stroking me. He does it lightly, as if testing the waters to see if I might protest.
I should. Oh my God, I should.
But I don’t want to.
“Are you afraid of me?” he whispers, bringing his forehead to mine.
I shake my head.
“Interesting. Then you’re wet because youdowant to fuck me?”
When I don’t reply, he releases a deep chuckle, swiping through my sensitive flesh once, twice, and a third time for good measure. His glove is rough, creating an extra layer of friction that I should find uncomfortable, but for some reason, it’s kind of nice.
“Tell me to stop.” His chest rises and falls rapidly. “If you don’t want it.This.Otherwise, I’m going to take what your father offered me inside. Right here, while you do your damnedest not to cry out for mercy.”
If I open my mouth to speak, the blade will almost certainly cut me. He knows it, I know it, and that knowledge makes the core of my being throb with heightened awareness.
Still, he said I could stop it. That he wouldn’t continue if I didn’t want it.
I could shake my head again or push at him. He’s not restraining me, despite being plastered to my body. Dark, delicious tension coils tight in my stomach as he shifts, revealing the evidence of what I’m doing to him against my hip, and it’s…powerful.
Surreal.
