“Don’t be a jerk,” she hissed.
“Then you get your sweet little ass over here,” Val said. “I’m not playing games, Emme. I’m not doing this with you anymore. I explained about Marge. You know I didn’t want her there. I don’t have other women. You can interrogate Dario. He’s always with me.”
“He’d lie his ass off for you, wouldn’t you, Dario?”
“Yes.” Dario didn’t look up from his phone. “Not that he ever looks at other women. Don’t involve me in your idiotic Romeo and Juliet fights. Emmanuelle, go over and do whatever he wants you to do so he’ll shut the fuck up. You’re going to do it eventually anyway. I can’t tell you how truly sickening this is.”
Emme stomped over to Val, glaring at him the entire way, but her heart was pounding and her stomach did somersaults. He looked so brutally handsome, even with his bandages. Maybe more so because of them. She ached inside when she looked at him. Her body burned for his. He burned equally as bad for her. She saw it in the heat of his eyes. At least she wasn’t suffering alone.
Val had turned in the bed, so one bare leg hung over the side. The other lay atop the sheet, bare but bandaged. The moment she was close enough, he reached for her. Curling his palm around the nape of her neck, he drew her in between his thighs. It was too intimate to stand there, close to the heat of him. The sheet might have been gathered around his lap, but it provided little modesty—but then Valentino had never been a modest man. His erection was brutal, thick and unashamed, pressing tight against his abdomen. His sac was heavy on the mattress, outlined under the sheet.
Emmanuelle tried to keep her gaze fixed on his and her hands on his thighs. She shouldn’t have wanted—no, needed—to touch him anywhere else.
“What is it you want from me, Val?” She wanted to make a demand; instead, it came out a whisper.
“Everything, Emmanuelle. I want everything from you.” His palm was warm on her neck, almost too warm. His thumb slid back and forth in a mesmerizing glide over the artery in her neck. “Right now, I want you to kiss me. If anything happens to either one of us, I want that to be the last thing we have.”
“Nothing will happen to you. I swear it, Val. My family is protecting you and your father. They’ll protect Dario. Miceli isn’t going to win this one.”
“Kiss me, Emmanuelle.”
Kissing Valentino was surrendering to him. Giving herself to him, heart and soul. There was no going back from kissing him. Staring into his green eyes, standing between his thighs, feeling the heat of his body so close to hers and the electric charge of their shared firestorm burning out of control, running up and down her nerve endings, she knew it was already too late to save herself.
Emmanuelle touched her tongue to her lips, already tasting him. Val had always been so masculine. Cedar and rain. A blend of leather and woods. Just his scent had set her body on fire when she would get near him. Now he smelled of those scents, along with gunpowder, blood and alcohol from all the cleanup they’d done on him. It didn’t matter; he was still as sexy to her as ever.
His palm tightened around the nape of her neck, pulling her closer. The pressure was slow but steady. She just let him. Surrendering. Because that’s what she did when she was with Valentino. Heart pounding. Stomach doing mad loops. Breasts aching. Nipples hard. Sex clenching.
His lips were gentle on hers. Nibbling. Teeth tugged with exquisite gentleness at her lower lip. He kissed the corner of her mouth. His lips were velvet soft on her upper lip, then his teeth bit down harder on her lower lip and tugged until she gasped. His tongue slid over the tiny sting, soothing it.
His lips shaped hers. Coaxed. She opened for him, and his tongue swept in. Ruthless. Merciless. Took her over. Fire reigned. Poured into her. Bright, hot sparks lit up her world. Lit his. They came together in a firestorm of such intensity they could have lit the world up. The flames ran up and down every neural path in their bodies, spreading out to connect between them, running back and forth, feeding their hunger for each other, keeping it raging between them.
Val slid one hand into her hair, closing a possessive fist in the thick, silken strands, to position her head to take fuller advantage. At the same time, he urged her closer to him, bringing her almost right onto his lap. She slid her arms up his chest, careful of his bandages, needing to feel him solid and real under her palms. Skin to skin. The kisses went on and on. The fire roared hotter.