Page 37 of Hard Lessons

Then he turned to her, his jaw tense and his eyebrows pulled low. His shoulders were rounded and his chest puffed up.

More dangerous then.

She retreated and hit the wall, her back touching the cool stonework. “I need to sleep.” She hoped he hadn’t heard the nerves in her voice.

“I know what you need.”

She swallowed and looked up at him, her belly clenching.

“You need to be taught a lesson.” He caught her wrists and dragged her arms upward, trapping them against the wall above her head.

Serena gasped, her body elongating and a new wave of vulnerability washing over her. “Luca, please.”

“Please what?”

She didn’t know, so clamped her lips together.

“You...” he said, lowering his face to hers, “have committed three crimes against us.”

“Against us?”

“Si. One, you flirted way more than you needed to with David fucking Watson. All that touching, kissing, hell, you were enjoying—”

“No, I wasn’t. And don’t forget, you said my name in front of him, you idiot.”

Luca grimaced and his eyes narrowed. “He’d have found out anyway.”

“How do you know? He could have—”

“Plus,” Luca said so loudly she couldn’t compete with the volume, “on top of behaving like a tart at The Rook and Tower you then let those asshole cops think you were a whore. That lie spilled from your lips as I was going down.”

“But I would have gone down with you and—”

“Shut up. I’m speaking.” His grip on her wrists tightened and he gritted his teeth.

She squeaked and writhed against the wall.

“Two,” he went on, “you spent all the money that we’d hidden in the apartment.”

“A sum of cash I’d doubled with my quick thinking if you remember rightly.”

“You went rogue, Serena, you had no right to do that and increase an already risky situation.”

Thank goodness she had. It meant she was rich right now.

“And three,” Luca went on, “you were planning on leaving me, to go to America.”

She held his gaze. There was no point in denying that. It was true, though she did regret her hasty lie about being an escort, but she’d been mad at Luca, real mad... and scared.

“And for all of that,” he said, “you will pay a heavy price.”

“Luca. I—”

His mouth was over hers—a wild, ravenous kiss that stole her breath and made her heart trip along at an alarming rate. His breaths were hard and fast on her cheek, his tongue found hers and he pressed the length of his body forward, trapping her to the wall.

She groaned and closed her eyes, instantly lost to his passion, their connection, and the searing hot chemistry that had always been between them. If she was going to pay in kisses like this, then it wouldn’t be such a hardship.

“Fuck,” he muttered, releasing one of her wrists. “You always did make me lose my mind.”

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