Page 26 of The Virgin's Dance with the Devil
Her smile widened. “I was far too much of a good girl to even dream of doing that. But I bet you did.”
“At every available opportunity.” He’d been a tearaway: drinking, chasing girls and fighting with anyone who looked at him the wrong way from the age of thirteen.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t chased a woman since Marisa had caught his eye. Four months without sex, the longest he’d gone since losing his virginity at fourteen.
“And that’s what makes us perfect for each other,” he added, even though he knew he shouldn’t; knew he was leading her further on a path towards pain and leading himself closer to the pits of hell. “Every good girl needs a bad boy to bring out her suppressed desires, and every bad boy needs a good girl to tame his worst instincts.”
As their lips fused again, his phone vibrated.
She sighed and gazed into his eyes with a sad but dreamy smile. “I need to let you go, don’t I?”
More than she knew.
He gazed at her a moment longer with the sensation in his veins that he could spend the rest of his life staring at her and never feel the need to look at anything else.
She put her fingers to her lips. “Good night, Rico,” she whispered before placing her fingers to his mouth. “Sweet dreams.”
His chest lifted, filling with an emotion he couldn’t begin to explain. “Sweet dreams to you too, my angel.”
She disappeared into the shadows, and then she was gone.
Chapter Eight
The buzzof Marisa’s phone finally pulled her out of a fitful sleep. It was ten a.m. Checking her phone, she found a message sent an hour ago from her mother saying they were going to get breakfast in Accardiano and a new message from Luisa asking if she wanted to meet for brunch at the hotel’s Bistro. She replied to her sister:
Give me thirty minutes x
Yawning, she climbed out of bed and immediately spotted the envelope that had been slid under the crack of her door. She pounced on it with the speed of someone who’d got eight solid hours of sleep, the racing of her heart telling her who the sender was even before she read her name scrawled in the handwriting that had become as familiar as her own.
Dearest Marisa,
I hope your dreams were as sweetas your kisses.
My love always,
Rico x
A wide smile on her face, she read it five times before kissing his name and putting it in the drawer of her bedside table.
Luisa was waiting for her at a table inside the Bistro.
“Are you okay here or would you prefer outside?” she asked after kissing Marisa’s cheeks.
“Let’s go outside,” she said. “It’s a beautiful day.” And it would be easier for her to spot Rico when he was up and about.
Although she knew intellectually that he was unlikely to be up before lunch, she couldn’t stop her gaze darting about for a glimpse of him.
The sisters ordered their food and made small talk Marisa had to concentrate hard to keep up her part in. She felt fit to burst, constantly replaying everything that had taken place between them. Replaying, too, his words,Every good girl needs a bad boy to bring out her suppressed desires, and every bad boy needs a good girl to tame their worst instincts.
Her desires hadn’t been suppressed. Until Rico, they’d been non-existent, and remembering what she’d allowed to happen on the Bali bed made her cheeks burn in a blush, not just at what they’d done but at how easily she’d lost herself.Anyonecould have seen them. Remembering how incredible it had felt… what did she mean,remember? She could still feel the heat he’d evoked, alive deep in her most secret places.
It was when they’d finished eating and Luisa was gazing at her phone with an absent expression on her face that she realised she wasn’t the only Rossellini there in body but not in spirit.
“Are you okay? You look like your head’s somewhere else.”
The face Luisa pulled made Marisa blush. It was a look that perfectly expressed that she knew Marisa’s head was elsewhere too. Mercifully, Luisa didn’t probe her, answering with a small laugh, “Gennaro… It’s only taken two years but he’s finally taken something I said seriously.”
“What do you mean?”
