Page 27 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

She needed to know what it was to have her body cherished. Lavished with pleasure.

And that, that rationalization, that was straight from Satan himself. But it was not the first deal that Dario had made with the dark Lord, and wouldn’t be the last. And so, he found himself moving toward her, cupping the back of her head and bringing her in to kiss her mouth.

The sound she made was shocked and short.

And for a moment, she was still beneath his mouth, but then, she surrendered. Like a flower beginning to open. Her lips softened, parted, and when he slid his tongue against hers she responded in kind.

Suddenly, her hand came up to grip his shoulders, and she was moving toward him, leaning against him, her whole body pressed to his.

She was behaving as if she had never experienced anything like this before, and he knew that he hadn’t.

The softness of her mouth, the sweetness of it, was a sucker punch. It was beyond. He always liked women, but he had known from the moment he had begun to feel attraction for Lyssia that the real danger with her was a chemistry that existed between them that she wasn’t even aware of. Her whimper was one of helplessness, and as she clung to him, her kiss became bolder.

And that was when he moved. He pressed her down to the floor in front of the fireplace, licking his way into her mouth as he gave himself over to the clawing need between them.

It had always been this. Burning between them. What he had attempted to handle with indifference could no longer be contained, because he could not find a shred of indifference left in his soul.

He was jaded.

And from the beginning, the way that he felt for Lyssia challenged that jadedness.

It was dangerous.

It always had been.

He heard stories about such things, and he had always doubted them. That there was the potential for chemistry to overwhelm everything. Good sense and the whole of a man’s nature.

He had never believed it. He had always thought that it was an excuse for weakness. Perhaps this was weakness now.

No. It was not a weakness. He had made a decision. He had made a bargain. And he had followed through with it.

It was no less than he did with a business deal. With anything. They were here, they were snowed in. It was an opportunity. A connection. And it had to be managed.

And managed it would be.

He stripped her sweatshirt from her body, followed by her shirt. She had a fine, white lace bra underneath that showed the pale shadow of her nipples.

She was beautiful.

So far beyond anything he had imagined she might be.

Beneath the cups of the bra was a delicate gold chain, linked in lovely intervals to the delicate fabric, creating a seductive design.

“What is this?” he asked, moving his thumb across one of the gold chains.

“It’s... I had... I mean, you saw my suitcase,” she said, breathless.

“Yes. I did. Was this for you to seduce him?”

“Yes. But obviously, I thought that maybe I would wear it because...”

“Were you going to seduce me, Lyssia?”

She laughed. “No. I wasn’t that brave.”

He looked down at her face, those glorious, glittering blue eyes. “Why do you not think you’re brave?”

“I’m not. I...”

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