The voice was painfully familiar. Renzo stiffened as if he’d been struck by lightning. Slowly, he turned. The voluptuous blonde stared back at him, her green eyes wide, her lips red and luscious and kissable.
Kissable. Maldedizone.
Faith sashayed over to him while Gavretti smirked. The bastard.
“I’ve been looking for you, Faith,” Renzo said calmly. He was proud of himself for how calm he sounded. How reasonable.
She was beautiful. Utterly gorgeous, and he was a fool for allowing her to come alone.
“I’ve been looking for you, too,” she said. “Nico was helping me.”
Renzo’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a smile. He’d seen how Gavretti was helping her. The hard bite of acid flooded his throat as he thought of Gavretti’s hand on her—of his attempt to kiss her. Kiss his Faith. It wasn’t the first time Gavretti had tried to take something from Renzo that did not belong to him. “Was he? How wonderfully chivalrous of him.”
Renzo slipped an arm around her lush form, anchored her to him. She gasped, the smallest intake of breath, and his body responded, tightening, hardening. He wanted her beneath him, making those noises while he took her to heaven and back. While he got her out of his system so he could concentrate again.
Because he’d been thinking of little else but getting her naked since this afternoon, when she’d transformed before his eyes. He should have known better. He’d already been attracted to her, inexplicably perhaps, but now? Now he wanted to mark her as his and kill any man who dared to touch her.
Gavretti’s eyes narrowed as his gaze slipped back and forth between them. “If I had known she was yours, Renzo—”
“She is,” he stated with finality.
He could feel Faith stiffening in outrage. Because she did not yet realize the truth. “Renzo, I am not—”
He cupped her jaw and slanted his mouth over hers, silencing her.
FAITH was furious. She sat in Renzo’s sports car, her arms folded over her breasts and her head turned toward the window, seething. Renzo shifted smoothly, the engine revving into the night as the car raced along the Tuscan roads toward his villa.
How dared he? First, Niccolo Gavretti had thought he could have his way with her, and then Renzo had come along—hot, furious and broody as hell—and the standoff had begun. It wasn’t about her—it was about who was in control, about who got what he wanted.
Renzo had kissed her in front of all those people while cameras flashed and caught the moment forever. Her heart did a long slide into the bottom of her stomach. It had only been a matter of time before she was photographed with Renzo, so she could hardly be surprised about it.
And yet the panic that clawed into her now wouldn’t go away. She’d done nothing wrong. Not now, and not eight years ago. But she dreaded the attention if that old photograph was brought to light. The shame and helpless rage.
What angered her most about tonight was that Renzo hadn’t kissed her because he’d wanted to, but because he’d wanted to prove something to Nico. He’d been marking her as his, but only because he knew it would irritate the other man.
The moment he’d let her go, she’d turned on her heel and marched for the door. It was the calmest, most rational response she’d been capable of, since staying there would have necessitated her slapping the both of them.
Renzo hadn’t argued when she’d told him she wanted to go. He’d simply led the way to his car and roared out of the driveway without saying another word.
Now, the car ate up the roadway until Faith’s heart began to beat hard for a different reason. “Renzo, you’re scaring me. This isn’t the track.”
He swore, but the car throttled back to a more-reasonable speed. His hands flexed on the wheel, and his handsome face was harsh in the lights from the dash. He looked furious, which only fueled her anger.
“I don’t know why you’re angry,” she said. “I’m not the one who embarrassed you by kissing you in front of all those people.”
He shot her a disbelieving glance. “You’re embarrassed? Over what?”
She turned toward him, arms still crossed, her heart racing. It was merely a game to him, while to her it could mean being the subject of public scrutiny again. “I realize that you may think you’re God’s gift—heaven knows enough women have told you so—but not everyone wants their private life put on display for the world to see. Not only that, but we have no private life! You did it just to prove a point to Nico.”
His eyes flashed. “Do not call that man Nico,” he growled. “He only wanted to use you so he could get to me.”
Another spike of anger launched her blood pressure into the danger zone. “Do you think I don’t know that? I’m not stupid, Renzo. Two of Italy’s most famous bachelors fighting over me? I hardly think so. I just happened to be the bone that both dogs decided they wanted to control tonight. If there had been a juicy steak nearby, they’d have fought over that instead.”
Renzo swore again. And then he jerked the car off the road and onto a narrow dirt track she hadn’t seen before he turned. The car jolted to a stop and then he unsnapped her seat belt and reached for her before she knew what he was planning.
He crushed her mouth beneath his, his fingers sliding into her hair, his tongue demanding entrance. She opened to him, too shocked by the onslaught to protest. She should be angry. She should push him away. She should do anything but let him kiss her as if he were a dying man and she the last hope he had for salvation.
But, shockingly, she was turned on. Her body was on fire. Her nerve endings were zinging with sparks and her sex ached for his possession. She was throbbing, aching, melting—needing things she’d never needed before.
His tongue delved deep, demanding that she meet him, that she give him everything.
She did.
He slid one hand up her thigh, beneath the hem of her dress. Part of her wanted to clamp her legs together, to tell him no, but that was her father talking. Her damned childhood talking.
She was a woman, and she was capable of wanting a man, of choosing the man who would be her first. It wasn’t wrong or ugly to feel this way. It was a revelation.
A glorious, exciting, shattering revelation.
Renzo’s fingers spread along her hip, shaped her as she tried to get closer to him. When his hand slid over her panties, she had to force herself to keep breathing. She did not know what he would do, but she found herself hoping he would touch her. Dying for him to touch her.
And frightened, too.
And then he slid one finger across the thin silk, and then down … down over the damp heat of her. The groan that emanated from his throat vibrated into her. Thrilled her.
His finger stroked over her again, eliciting a moan. Every thought in her head flew out the window. All she wanted was to feel more of this delicious sensation, this wicked pleasure. He kissed her hard, and she shuddered and arched against his hand, wanting the barrier gone, wanting to feel everything.
She wanted more. More.
He skimmed his mouth down her throat, leaving a trail of hot kisses as the temperature in the car spiked. Faith closed her eyes, gasping at the sensual onslaught.
“I want you, Faith. I want you. It has nothing to do with Gavretti, nothing to do with anyone but you. I want to take you to my bed and spend the night lost in your body. I’ve been imagining all the things