LITMIR.BIZ

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haunts you,” he said, a dark, male hunger stamped across his face. “I haunt you. Believe me, Elena. I know.”

      She jerked her hand from his. But as she did, she had a searing burst of clarity.

      She wanted him. She always had. It didn’t matter that it didn’t make sense, that a single dance should never have affected her so much. It had. He had. And that wanting had ripped apart her world, changed everything. She’d been paying for it for six long months, in isolation and often in fear, moving from odd job to odd job across the whole of Italy, trying to keep herself out of sight and away from Niccolo.

      All because of this. All because of Alessandro.

      She had already been crucified for this crime. She paid for it every day. Why not commit it?

      And if there was a part of her that knew that this was also the best way to prove to Alessandro that she was exactly the kind of woman he believed her to be, that this would cement his opinion of her, she told herself that only made the decision easier.

      “This isn’t a haunting,” she whispered, watching the thunder roll through his eyes. “Neither one of us is a ghost.” She smiled then. “I can prove it.”

      And then she indulged the roaring inside of her, that terrible hunger, and put her hands on him.

      Not a light touch on his shoulder as she had when they’d danced, polite and appropriate. She slid her palms over the whisper-soft cotton that strained against his marvelous torso, and felt the pure, raw heat of him. The iron strength. Her head spun, dizzy and delicious.

      Alessandro let out a sound that was almost a laugh, and then he tugged her closer, lifting her up against him. Her aching breasts pressed hard against his beautiful chest, sending a frantic shiver through her, and he muttered a curse. He settled her on the rail, his arms strong and hard and exquisite as they held her fast. She heard her boat shoes fall off, two loud slaps against the stone floor, and then she forgot them.

      Alessandro stepped between her legs, and it wasn’t enough. Her skirt kept him from pressing against her, into her, even as he leaned into the palms she’d flattened against him. She was surprised to see her hands were shaking. She was shaking. Or maybe the world was, all around them, and she didn’t care.

      This was finally happening. Finally.

      He held her with one hand in the small of her back, hot and hard and his, while his other hand moved to her neck, her jaw, tracing patterns. Igniting her. And it wasn’t enough—

      “Look at me,” he commanded her, that low voice of his snaking through her like a brushfire, making her skin seem to pull tight over her bones, and she would do anything. Anything he wanted. Anything at all.

      Anything to keep them both burning like this.

      His dark green eyes flashed, triumph and fire, and that wonder she knew was only theirs. Only this. His mouth looked nearly grim with need, and she knew she should be afraid. Of him. Of what was about to happen—what had always been going to happen, sooner or later.

      But again, she felt only that wild passion. That desire. And that conviction that she was safer now, in his clever, dangerous hands, than she had been in months.

      “Inevitable,” she whispered before she knew she meant to speak, and the faintest hint of a smile moved across his mouth, then was gone.

      “Hold on,” he ordered her with a gruff intent that made her core seem to glow.

      He moved his hands to cradle her face between them, and she grabbed his shirt in greedy fists.

      At last, that voice chanted inside of her, again and again. At last.

      And then he took her mouth with all of that ruthlessness and command, and Elena lost her mind.

      CHAPTER THREE

      HOT. WILD.

      She was his.

      And she kissed him back as if she wanted to devour him, too.

      As if he’d set her on fire and this was how they’d burn, together, in this tumult of heat and glory, and her perfect mouth he couldn’t taste enough.

      She was better—this was better—than Alessandro had dared imagine in the middle of a hundred nights, when he’d pictured this in stark detail. When the dark fury that she could bewitch him as she had and be so much less of a person than he’d hoped didn’t matter.

      It didn’t matter now, either. Need stormed through him, making him closer to desperate than he’d ever been before.

      He wanted her skin against his, slick and sweet. He wanted his hands on those tempting breasts, her enchanting curves. He wanted to lick between her legs and stay there until she screamed. He wanted deep inside of her. He wanted. And every kiss, every taste, every little way she moved against him, only drove him higher.

      “More,” he said, and he picked her up again, yanking that damned skirt up and over her hips.

      Deep masculine elation pounded through him when she lifted her legs and wrapped herself around him. And then he was there. Hard and hot against her melting heat, separated only by his trousers and the slightest wisp of material she wore. A delicate shudder moved through her, and for a moment he thought he might lose control.

      But Alessandro wanted her too much, and had for too long. He took her mouth again, thrilled when she met him with a passion he could taste. She arched against him, her arms wrapped around his neck, and it wasn’t enough.

      It would never be enough.

      He carried her to one of the loungers scattered about the terrace, then set her down. She was unsteady on her feet, her blue eyes wide and dazed, bright with need, and he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone else. More than he’d imagined it was possible to want.

      “Please,” Elena said, her voice ragged with desire. The most beautiful thing he’d ever heard. “Don’t stop.”

      Her hands were still on his chest, and he could feel each touch, each caress, directly in his sex. He kissed her again, deep and demanding, ravaging her mouth, and she thrilled him by returning it in kind.

      Out of control. So good it hurt. Again. And again.

      “These clothes need to come off,” he muttered, pulling his mouth away from hers.

      Alessandro moved to tug her T-shirt over her head, then hissed out a breath when he threw it aside and she stood there before him, bared to the waist. No bra to block him from her perfect breasts, small and round, with nipples like hard, ripe points. Lovely beyond reason. He nearly shook as his hands went to her skirt, working the zipper and then grabbing on to her panties as he tugged all of it down over her hips and out of his way.

      And then Elena was naked. Gloriously, beautifully naked, and she was real and here and his. Finally his.

      For a moment he only stared at her, a kind of awe sweeping through him as his body went wild, so desperate for her he could hardly bear it. He swept her up and then took her down with him, splaying her out above him as he lay back on the chaise.

      Elena twisted against him, and then her frantic hands were on the hem of his T-shirt and he sat up slightly to peel it off. He brushed her hands out of the way to rid himself of his trousers, kicking them aside. And when he pulled her back into place they both sighed in something like reverence. And then she was like silk against him, all over him, soft and naked and hot.

      Finally.

      Alessandro’s heart pounded. He was so hard it bordered on the painful, and then she rolled her hips and moved all of that slick, wet heat against the length of him, and he groaned. He traced the line of her spine down to her bottom, and then bent to take one of those achingly perfect nipples into his mouth. She made a wild, greedy sort of noise, and he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t take another moment of this magnificent torture.

      It

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