Page 54 of Where Wild Hearts Dance
I curl my fingers around the handle and pull the car door open but he shakes his head once and pushes it closed. “Other side. I’m driving you home.”
“And your car’s going to get itself home is it?” I snap, turning away so I don’t ever have to lay eyes on this man again.
Instead of answering, he turns me toward the back of the car, clamps his hands to my upper arms and chaperones me around the vehicle as if I’m a small child. As soon as I’m clear of the trunk I shrug him off. The feel of his skin against mine is searing.
We each close our doors at the same time and he puts my vintage Camaro into gear. Just before he pulls out he stops and stares straight out the windshield.
“Contessa…”
“What?” I snap.
“Don’t ever put your mouth on me again.”
My breath rushes out and I pan my gaze to him. His jaw grinds slowly like he’s chewing on bone.
“Why?” I whisper.
“Because you’ll start something I won’t be able to stop. And that’s a promise.”
Benito
My entire body is vibrating, and not just because this ancient piece of tin has the suspension of a feather. I can still feel her soft, warm lips wrapped tight around my pinky, licking and sucking like it’s a piece of candy. My cock is plastered against my thigh, dying to jerk upward to make itself known, but I need to keep my head on straight.
This is Contessa Castellano. She’s barely twenty—six years younger than me. She’s the sister of my boss’s fiancée. And the biggest brat I’ve ever met.
When I look at her, I don’t just see the creamy legs that go onforever, the long dark hair begging to be wrapped several times around my fist, or the pink pouty lips that I ache to kiss—and not just to shut her up, but because they look like they might tastelike Satan’s temptation.
I see a young woman who doesn’t even realize how broken she is. Someone who feels like her life spiraled out of control the day her mom died, and she’s too small to make it count. Someone whose only way out of the mess in her head is to lose herself in dance.
I could have let her lips suck on my finger for days, but a voice in my head is asking why—why would she do that when she hates me so much?
A note of smugness unravels across my chest. I didn’t ask her to do that. She took my finger between her lips because she wanted to. Federico had to ask her for her affection; I didn’t. But this can’t change a thing. I can’t lose my grip around her, because if that happens. there’s a very real chance I’ll lose my grip oneverything. I just need to take her home.
Her chest rises and falls in my peripheral vision and her tongue keeps reaching out to wet her lips. It’s doing nothing to quell the hard-on threatening to rival the length and girth of my leg.
“I don’t want to go home,” she says, almost breathless, and as if she can read my damn thoughts.
I don’t respond. We still have a few miles of this stretch before we’re even off the freeway.
“I’m serious, Bernadi. Please… can we go somewhere else?”
I dart my gaze to her. “Like where?”
“Anywhere.” She grips the sides of her seat. “The ocean.”
“Why don’t you want to go home?”
There’s a long pause. “It’s stifling,” she says, quietly.
I flick my gaze her way then back to the road, and swallow. “I can take you back to Cristiano’s.”
She barks out a bitter laugh. “Yeah. So I can be ogled bygrown men, have my outfit choice judged at will, then be chased down the freeway because my choice of destination isn’t to your taste either.”
I grind my teeth. She makes several fair points. “Ocean it is.”
She’s quiet as I come off at the next exit. I take some of the backroads to a secluded bay just east of Washington Port. It’s not exactly the closest ocean point but it’s the one least likely to be littered with tourists at this time of year.
I pull into a small parking area and shut off the engine. Ahead of us is a sandy clearing, with a few swaying palms, and the sea.
