Page 101 of A Beautiful Crime

Constantine Donati then does what he’s known for, he takes without remorse.

His lips, lips I have always described as sensual and sinister capture my own with a bewildering tenderness.

Air seizes in my lungs as my heart races wildly. My skin feels as if it’s on fire. Veins coursing with electrical currents shock each time his sinful tongue presses against the seam of my lips.

Horrifyingly, I find myself responding. The seam of my lips, which were a firm line meant for no entry, slowly begin to part.

Then, in a breath I thought would never come, his tongue delves in the recess of my mouth and makes acquaintance of my own.

A moan of appreciation passes from my mouth into his. And I swear I can feel his smile in the kiss but I am so lost in the sweet pleasure of his wicked tongue that I find myself not caring.

His tongue leads mine in an erotic dance. And while this may be my first kiss it’s as if I have been kissing these lips for all of my life.

A hand ghosts down my back and my lower abdomen pools with heat when he caresses my ass firmly in his hand.

Heart racing, body compelled by the desire he has casted upon me, it’s to no surprise there’s a slickness between my thighs.

By the hand on my ass he thrusts me up against him. It’s then I feel the desire of his own. Hot, heavy and hard against my stomach. He growls into my mouth. I feel the vibration of it all the way to my engorged and neglected clit.

There’s a need inside me. A need I’ve never once possessed let alone thought to be possible. And yet I feel it all the same. The need to be possessed. The need to be ravaged. The need to feel a pleasure that is blinding and all consuming.

A need has been awakened inside me by a man I am supposed to loathe.

Constantine Donati is the bane of my existence.

He is also the darkness within myself that I am no longer sure I can deny.

And I should loathe him for it. For tempting me like the serpent he is. For awakening me when he’s the one who caused my death.

I do loathe him.

But I also can’t resist him.

And it makes me loathe him more.

Wrenching myself away from his lips I inhale a trembling breath.

As I go to take a step away from him his arm winds around my back keeping me pressed flush against him.

“Let go of me,” I demand with a voice that still lingers with desire.

There’s a smirk upon his face that I want nothing more to skin off. “Your lies don’t taste bitter at all, mia leonessa. They’re deliciously decadent.”

Dio mio.

My breath hitches.

His words. His mouth. Those whiskey colored eyes. They’re all so damn intoxicating.

The Devil really is the most handsome man.

Closing his eyes he slowly licks his lips, as if savoring the pleasure from the taste of my own.

And I find myself doing the same, tracing my lips, tasting him once more.

When my eyes open his are already on mine.

“Would it be such a crime, Carina, for you to admit you don’t loathe me?”

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