Page 42 of Obsession & Oath

“Have you tried thinking about that?” I continue as my lips absently begin to caress her neck. “When you touch yourself? Have you tried thinking about all the ways I could take your precious virtue?”

She’s trembling then, finally dropping her mask of indifference. “We can’t.”

“We can imagine it, though, can’t we?” I press myself further into her neck. It’s torturous. Divine. “You liked the feeling of my fingers, of my tongue. I liked the way you tasted, princess. I think I would taste you again, make sure you were ready for me.”

“Dante,” her voice is strained as I suckle at her exposed collar bones.

“I would ease you open, bring you to the very cusp of your orgasm, feel you shivering in my arms.” The fact that she’s shivering now only adds hunger to my words.

“It would be painful the first time. But I’d be so very gentle with you. I’d make you feel so, so good. I’d hold you the way you like. I’d stroke your hair. I’d kiss your neck. I would be positively romantic about it.”

Carmen suddenly becomes eerily still. Her eyes are distant.

I pause, a cool sense of dread washing over me. Have I overstepped? Did I push too far…

“He won’t be gentle with me, will he?” she whispers.

And suddenly, the world feels like it’s on fire.

There’s no need for me to ask who she’s referring to or wonder why she suddenly seems so afraid. I can see it now, plain as day.

And Carmen is shaking now. Not of lust or desire.

“Dante,” her voice is desperate. “He’s…he’s…”

My arms wrap around her instantly, pulling her into the safety of my chest. Having her so close dulls some of the raging inferno, but she’s stillshaking.

There’s only one solution in my mind that seems suitable. Hernando Lacruz must die.

“He won’t touch you,” I say with certainty.

“You don’t understand. He will. He has to. He…”

“He won’t.”

But she’s shaking her head. Out of fear or disbelief of my conviction, it’s hard to say.

“I always knew, but then I never really thought…” she cuts herself off. Her eyes suddenly find mine, and there’s something no mistaking the conviction that lies behind them.

“Kiss me.”

Chapter12

Carmen

“You said…”

“I know what I said.”

And I’d meant it.

Then, it had felt too personal, too dangerous to indulge in. That one kiss we’d shared between the bars of my cell had already been too much. My first and only kiss had been with a man who was my captor. I didn’t want it to count for anything.

But now…

Confronted with the reality of my situation, being forced to compare this ridiculously handsome man before me and the man I was about to be betrothed to…

I can’t bear it.

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