Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
“Well done, Mr. Donato. They were a perfect test of temptation for the girl.”
At my compliment, Damiano stands taller, his tongue slipping free to wet the natural swell of his lips. He dips closer and I keep my gaze on his. He smiles as his mouth comes down on the corner of mine, applying the smallest bit of pressure, testing to see what I might do.
“Can I help you out of this dress?” he whispers, and when I don’t pull back, he shifts slightly so he’s more at my side. His fingers span out, lowering from the curve of my hip to the curve of my ass, and then continue lower until the hem is in his grasp. He lifts it slowly, eyes growing darker before me.
He leans in again, and then his body stills, his hand going up to press on his earpiece.
“On my way.” He steps back, dropping a quick peck to my cheek. “They need me in the control room.”
I nod, facing forward as I remove the horrendous pearls from my ears.
“Hey, Dom?” I call out, knowing he’s yet to cross the threshold into the hall. “Let Valley come to you.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I meet his stare as I take off the other earring. I don’t have to say what I mean. He knows.
The man has a knack for welcoming the girls once they enter, but there’s something about Valley. I don’t want her mind to swim into still water if she’s not the one who jumps in first.
Damiano can’t help them swim, he knows this, and while most of our girls who fall into him are aware, every so often, there’s one whose common sense gets lost in translation. I don’t want to risk her being one. Again, unless she puts herself there.
A small smirk forms on his lips, and he gives a curt nod, disappearing out the door.
With a sigh, I contemplate my next move. To change and go to my girls for a guaranteed good night, or slip back into the hall with a fresh set of daggers, ready to dip them into the girl in the room two doors down from this one?
I close my eyes when Dom’s footsteps come right back as if he knew I might sway on my decision to play nice the moment he left. “You’ve convinced me to control myself tonight, Dom.” Lie. “Go.”
His hand comes around me, pressing firmly against my neck, and my head falls back against his shoulder, his warm breath at my ear once more. “That’s all that was, huh?”
The thick, throaty question tickles along my skin, and a low, derisive laugh pushes past my lips. My eyes flick open, narrowing on the ceiling. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Maybe I got you wrong, Rich Girl.” Tattooed knuckles come into view, but I don’t so much as breathe when they come around, locking along my jaw. He tips my head to the side, and our eyes clash.
Mine flare, the sight far more intoxicating than I remember.
Glacier-blue eyes impale me, long, thick, black lashes framing them. He cocks his head, his blink a low, lazy one. “You the white knight needin’ type?”
“I can swing my own sword with ease.”
His head bobs the slightest bit, as if he figured as much, as if he knows I’m not some docile duchess who needs direction but can think for and handle myself without question. I can, but who the hell is he to assume he knows more about me than the sound of my moans?
Lifting my shoulder in an idle shrug, I continue, “But there’s something about a man willing to put his sword to use when I’m in need of a distraction.”
I watch his face, waiting for a reaction, but he gives none. Not even a slight tic of the jaw.
Why I expected it, I’ll never know.
Annoyed with myself, I jerk my head from his grip, focusing forward, but he isn’t deterred. He simply presses closer.
Leaning in, he nips at my jaw from his position behind me, following it down to the curve of my neck, playing the strings he somehow knows are my favorite. His teeth graze gently, and then he sucks the skin there, his tongue slick, warm. Rough.
Heat explodes in my core, spreading by the second.
His finger presses firmly into my waist, and he murmurs, “Bad day?”
His heated breath wafting over the wet kiss he left behind has my body betraying my calm bravado, and I quake in his arms.
“Nothing a steaming bath won’t fix.”
He hums against me, and my ass presses into him without permission. The groan the move earns draws goose bumps to the surface of my skin. “Who is he to you?”
I almost laugh at his ping-ponging thoughts, but his mere presence is distracting.
“He’s mine.”
The vibration from his low rumble along my back has my muscles coiling, and then I’m shuffled forward toward the dark corner of the room, the corner he shadowed himself in the day he found me here.