thin material of my dress beneath his fingers. “They’d realize the truth. Your thorns are sharper. Your
petals are softer. Your smell is different.” His fingers shake. Grasping. Pulling.
Focusing on his words is hard enough, let alone keeping my balance. I sway.
“I could spend years painting you and never learn more than I did last night just by being inside of
you.”
Does that infuriate him? Yes. I can hear the scowl in his voice. Damien Villa, the artist so used to
deciphering his subjects and throwing them away. I confound him.
But he mystifies me.
“I may even rethink my boundary when it comes to the club,” he adds, his voice lowering, just for me
to hear. “I could fuck you in front of them all. Let them see: I’m the only man who will know how it
feels to have you come on his cock. Like heaven.” His palm flexes against my cheek as the thumb of
his opposite hand grazes my lower lip. “Exquisite.”
I’m too breathless to question. Speak. Inhale. All I can do is savor the sensation of his heat on my
skin. His breath mingling with mine. The growl he bites down as I step into him, letting him feel every
inch I can press into his flesh.
“Beautiful girl,” he praises, his lips grazing my ear before drifting lower. “Beautiful, sweet…mine.”
With a predatory intent, he finds the exposed flesh, raking with his teeth. Grasping with his nails.
A moan slips from my lips, my head falling back.
It’s like he’s aware of every sordid thought before I even think it. His mouth finds mine easily. As if
he memorized the distance. He exhales at the taste of me, slipping his tongue between my lips.
Drinking me in. One word grated against my mouth reveals his impression.
“Maddening. The way you sound… It’s sinful. I can tell from one note if you are in pain. Pleasure.
Ecstasy. No one else has such range.”
As if to prove it, his hand finds my breast, stroking the aching peak through chafing cotton.
“I knew from the moment I heard your voice—really heard it—that I was going to count the many
ways I could make you scream.”
Another kiss drowns me in him. His scent. His touch. He steers me back until I’m trapped between
him and a wall of glass, his to devour. Consume.
“And your smell,” he breathes as his hand travels lower, dancing down my belly, hunting for the hem
of my dress. “It’s so damn easy to tell when you’re aroused.”