“From the very start, Vivi…”
Oh God, she should stop looking at him.
She should start running away.
But she couldn’t.
Not when he was looking at her so hungrily, like he wanted to devour her.
Not when she was feeling so helpless with need, like…she wanted just as much to be devoured.
His head lowered.
Run now, Vivian.
His hand cupped her breast.
Oh.
His head lowered.
Ooooh.
And then before she knew it, he was cupping her breast, plumping it until he could slowly draw her nipple into his mouth. The impact was astounding, the heat even more scorching than what she had experienced with his kiss, and her knees knocked against each other as she actually started to lose her balance. She might have fallen back, it was entirely possible, if not for his arm encircled around her waist tightening, and then he was sucking even harder on her nipple.
A whimper escaped her.
“Please—-” She didn’t know what she was pleading him for, but it seemed like he did, and Luca moved to her other breast, paying it the same lavish attention as he tongued her nipple before starting to suck.
Her hands clenched and unclenched, and then she somehow found herself moving her hands up, running them over the muscles of his arms, his shoulders, and finally she was gripping his hair.
Her fingers tightened.
He bit her nipple.
She moaned, and even as tiny bursts of fireworks exploded behind her eyelids, she also started to panic as the enormity of what she was doing – of what she was letting him do – hit her.
Somehow, Vivian found the strength to push him away. “S-stop!”
To his credit, he didn’t use his strength against her, immediately releasing her nipple from his mouth. She stumbled back as he straightened, her hands clumsily righting her clothing, pushing her bra up to its proper position and then pulling the sides of her blouse together in an effort to cover her chest.
“I know what you want,” she stammered, “but I’m sorry. I just—-” Her gaze fell to the receipt lying discarded on the carpeted floor. “I just can’t do it, even though you’re holding that against me.” She waited with bated breath for him to speak, her gaze searching, but every inch of Luca’s gorgeous face remained unreadable.
Crossing his arms against his chest, he asked in a neutral voice, “What do I want then?”
“To make me your sex slave.”
His eyebrows arched. “My…sex…slave.”
She could feel herself reddening. “Don’t tell me you don’t.”
“I don’t,” he said promptly.
And strangely enough, she believed him – which also meant she was wrong, and she had just made a fool out of herself, again.
Vivian covered her face. “I can’t believe I said that out loud.”
Even with her voice muffled by her hands, he had no problems understanding her, and he said solemnly, “You watch too many movies.”
Face still hidden, she shook her head. “Books. Read too many books and assumed—-”
Luca almost laughed at the way she failed to swallow back her wail of embarrassment.
“It was a sensible conclusion to make,” he said soothingly.
Knowing she had to stop acting like a kid, she reluctantly lowered her hands but even so, she was still unable to meet his gaze, mumbling, “It wasn’t.”
“Care to make any other guesses then, Vivi?” He was smiling as he asked, but his gaze was hooded.
It was all so very mysterious and sexy, and there went her heart again, beating faster and faster, acting all excited when it should have acted terrified or alarmed. You have an idiot for a heart, Vivian, her brain told her disapprovingly.
She took a deep breath and tried to think of everything calmly and rationally. She could assume, after the first day, that he had staged their every meeting. But he had also chosen to hide his identity from her, perhaps to ensure she wasn’t a gold-digger. She could understand that, but then why the interest in someone like her? Why bother buying her debt? Why did he need to have something to hold over her head?
But then she remembered the photocopied letters of the little girl.
And Vivian heard herself say, “You want me as a mistress…because you’re married, and you have a kid, and y-you’re unhappy with your marriage.” Oh, how it hurt to say such words, even though she knew she was being stupid to feel that way, and over someone she didn’t really know at all.
She raised her gaze to him, but still she couldn’t read anything from those light blue eyes of his. “T-that’s why you need someone like me? Y-you think I can give you something your wife can’t, and you can also make sure that I won’t cause you t-trouble because you practically o-own me?”
A full minute passed, and somehow she could sense him struggling internally, almost as if he was considering walking away from her…for good.
And somehow, the prospect was…terrifying.
“L-Luca?”
“You’re only half-right, I’m afraid.”