“I’m comfortable with that,” he said, his smile growing wider. He looked like the Big Bad Wolf, ready to devour her. “Would you like some coffee?”
“No.”
“Very well. Then it is time for me to see if you have kept your end of the bargain.”
She swallowed hard, her hands shaking, her fingers cold. “The lingerie?”
“Did you do as you were instructed, cara mia?”
She couldn’t believe it. She had lost.
Her stomach sank into her feet, the intense weight of defeat crushing her before she was able to process all the implications in front of her.
This was the moment of truth. Either she threw the coffee on his face and stormed out of the room, and took what came, later—charges, an arrest, a trial.
Or she did this.
She took control. She pushed him as he was pushing her. Called his bluff.
She would not stand here and wait to be undressed.
Before she could think it through, her shaking fingers found the zipper to her dress and began to tug it down.
He would stop her. He would stop this. She was sure of it. And it was that certainty that kept her going.
She could feel the fabric separating, exposing skin. Could feel the dress getting loose in the bodice. Then the top fell exposing her breasts, clad only in the whisper-thin lingerie. It was the same color as her skin, a kind of milky coffee color. It made her appear almost bare.
She knew, because she had spent a fair amount of time looking at herself in the mirror wearing this, that he would be able to see the shadow of her nipples beneath the fabric.
No man had ever seen this much of her body before. She didn’t know if she was in shock, if she was still convinced he would put an end to it, or if the moment was simply too surreal for her to absorb it all. But she felt cushioned by something, by a gauzy curtain that had been pulled around her vision, making things seem hazy. Making them seem a little less harsh.
Whatever it was, whatever magic this was, she needed it. Because the character, the nervous ingénue, wasn’t a refuge here. Not now.
It was too close to the bone.
Too close to who she was in this setting.
In life, she had very little in the way of innocence. But here? In the bedroom? She’d never trusted a man enough to be this intimate with him. Had never wanted to.
And she didn’t trust him. But she didn’t need to. For some reason, right now, she realized trust didn’t matter. This was all about power. And he had underestimated hers.
She finished pulling the zipper down the rest of the way and pushed the dress down her hips so that she was standing there in nothing but the high heels and the matching bra and panty set. The panties were as sheer as the bra, and she knew he could see the shadow of dark hair at the apex of her thighs.
She stared straight ahead, not looking at him, her eyes fixed on a blank spot on the wall. She was still in this chess game and her new revelation was adjusting her strategy. Putting her in view of Rocco’s queen.
Power. Control. That was the game here. It wasn’t sex.
All she had to do was take his control.
“Look at me,” Rocco said, his voice laced with steel, the command impossible to ignore.
She redirected her gaze, her eyes clashing with his, and all the breath rushed from her lungs.
There was an intensity to his dark gaze that was unmatched by anything she had ever seen before. It could never be said that Rocco looked passive, at least not in her very brief experience of him. But this was different. There was a fire burning beneath this that set something ablaze low and hot inside of her.
He moved toward her, reaching out and touching the silken strap of the bra, sliding his thumb and forefinger over the fabric. “You were a very good girl. I must confess I am surprised.” He never took his eyes off hers, and the heat inside of her intensified.
What was happening to her? Why was he touching her? Not her skin, but beneath it? Why was he making her feel all this heat?
She could still leave. She could still pick up her dress, put it back on and go.
But she didn’t. Instead she stood, frozen, as fascinated as she was terrified by what might happen next.
He leaned in slowly and she held her breath. He pressed his lips against the curve of her neck, just beneath her ear, and a shiver went through her body.
She wasn’t cold at all anymore. But she was still shaking. And it wasn’t from fear.
“I will make you beg for me,” he said, his voice a dark whisper that wrapped itself around her mind.
She angled her head slightly, pushing down every bit of insecurity. She hated this man. This beautiful, horrible man. And she didn’t care what he thought about her. She didn’t care what he thought of her body. What he thought of her soul.
He was her enemy and after today she would never see him again.
For some reason that realization sent a shock wave through her. Confidence, pleasure, a rolling feeling of satisfaction that she couldn’t have explained if she wanted to.
She leaned in, her lips a breath away from his. “Not if I make you beg for me first.”
His lip curled and he leaned in, tracing the line of her jaw with his forefinger. “Do you think you could make me beg?”
“Can you walk away?” she asked, taking the roughness in his formerly smooth and cultured voice as evidence of the effect she was having on him. “Right now, could you leave this room?”
“I am not finished with you yet,” he ground out.
She forced a smile to curve the corner of her mouth. “I guess that says it all. You’re the one who can’t walk away. And I don’t even have prison to threaten you with.”
He gripped her chin tight, and she stared him down. His dark eyes were blazing and she was certain hers matched. Then he slid his thumb across the edge of her lower lip.
And closed the distance between them.
The fire in her stomach ignited, sending flames roaring through her. It was no longer contained, no longer content to merely burn in the hearth. And she realized her fatal mistake too late. She might have taken his control, but hers was gone, too. Whatever this heat was had taken over everything, threatening to reduce all that she was to ash.
She’d never been kissed like this. Had never been held close to a man like this, his arms so tight around her, his body hard and muscular against hers.
This was the last thing she had expected. For him to kiss her as if he was a man dying of thirst and she was an oasis. She had expected him to be cool. She had expected him to hurt her, humiliate her. She hadn’t expected him to make her want.
Make her feel.
Wanting him was almost scarier than the alternative. Because she was only here for one reason, for him to extract the debt she owed from her body. She meant nothing to him beyond that. In fact, he hated her. Saw her as an enemy.
She had a feeling that right at that moment, neither of them had the control. She wasn’t even sure if they were fighting for it. If each brush of his lips against hers was a press for more dominance, or if they’d both given up altogether.
She was forgetting. Forgetting everything but his lips against hers.
He shifted, cupped her face, tilting his head and deepening the kiss, his tongue sliding against hers. The delicious friction sent a shiver through her. It shocked her, sent a wave of pleasure