“Aiz’ aiz’ aiz’, acal’, acal’, acal’, accost’, accost’, accost’, a salut’ vost’,” I cried as I led the group around me to lift their glasses up, down, together, and then to their mouths for a robust sip.
It was over the rim of my wineglass that I finally swept my eyes across the packed room and narrowed in on Elena.
I sucked in a breath, nearly choking on my wine as my gaze widened at the sight of her.
Ah, to think I’d thought she had lacked the inherent sensuality of her sister Cosima.
I was more than happy to be proved so spectacularly wrong.
Ammazza, she was glorious.
Even in the seductive dress, she was still a vision of elegance, hair held off her neck in some kind of hairstyle that had the odd thick curl brushing the creamy skin of her neck and cheeks, only a simple gold chain at the column of that long throat. I’d only ever seen her in feminine but extremely conservative suits and blouses for work and once in a tuxedo dress when Osteria Lombardi had been bombed by Noel in an attempt to kill Alexander, Cosima, and myself.
Never like this.
Apparently unaware of the gaze of dozens of lusty men and envious women pinned to her, she handed off the boxes of tiramisu to a server and began to wind through the bodies on her way to the kitchen. She looked like some heathen goddess of sex and war, conquering the room with her allure with every step she took toward me.
Toward me.
Something primal in my gut tightened and went white-hot. With any other woman, I would have given in to instinct and surged forward to claim that red hair with my fist and that red mouth with my own. I would have steered her toward the nearest room with a door and fucked her against it, rending that red dress in two so it stained the floor like spilled blood, leaving her naked for my ravishing.
Fuck.
My cock jumped and hardened in my suit pants.
It was irrational and ridiculously stupid to become attracted to one of my lawyers, my best friend’s sister, a woman I was certain wouldn’t know sexual passion if it slapped her in the arse.
So, instead of offering one of the dozen compliments that lingered on my tongue like the taste of my Chianti, I pinned her with a haughty look and drawled, “Bene. You wore the dress.”
Instantly, her carefully controlled expression dissolved in the vinegar of my words. “I wasn’t aware I had a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” I said with a tsk, condescending to her just to see the way a flush would spill down her cheeks to pool at the top of her exposed chest. “You made the right one.”
“You flatter yourself if you think it had anything to do with pleasing you,” she countered easily, so quick and cold, her words landed like flurries on my skin. She idly smoothed a hand down her flat stomach to the slight flare of one hip. “The dress pleased me. It was too exquisite not to wear.”
“Of course,” I agreed, secretly pleased because I’d chosen it myself from a selection Bambi had shown me earlier that afternoon.
We were speaking loudly to be heard over the ambient noise of the party around us, and I used it as an excuse to lash forward and grab her hand before she could protest, tugging her closer so she stumbled in those high heels and right against my body.
It was a move I was coming to deeply enjoy.
She scowled up at me, trying to push off my chest with little success as I kept her pinned close with my hands on her silk-covered hips.
“Take your heathen hands off me,” she snapped. “People are watching.”
“I bought the dress,” I argued calmly, my fingers splaying over her slight hips and loving the feel of her long, delicate bones. “It’s only right I should enjoy it.”
“I’ll take it off immediately if you’re so obsessed with it.” Her eyes, a dark gray mottled with bright silver patches and black striations, were frozen with disdain.
It shouldn’t have turned me on. Her vitriol, her constant battle against my will.
I was a man used to getting his own way, and I preferred it that way.
But there was something hypnotic about her, a cold pull like the magnetism of the arctic poles.
Despite myself, I wanted to see if the infamous ice queen would melt under my tongue.
“Do it,” I dared her, bending down to sneer softly in her face. “Give us all a show.”
“I’d rather be naked in front of everyone than have your hands on me for a second longer than necessary,” she practically spat.
“Be my guest,” I purred, already imagining her long, thin body stripped of the luxurious cloth, even more beautiful bared to my eyes. “In fact…” I moved one hand off her hip, banded the other over her low back to keep her immobile, and tucked my raised forefinger under the thin strap of her gown, drawing it slowly down her shoulder.