Page 54 of Bitter Prince
Lust and something violent, almost possessive, lingered on his face. I felt weightless, my entire being tingling with sweet relief.
“I think I finally get why Venice has a reputation for romance,” I said, struggling to catch my breath.
Stepping back, his shoulders tense, he let out a sardonic breath. “Cinnamon girl, this is far from romantic.”
I blinked, watching his expression shift from something soft to hard, closing him off to me. Was he trying to restrain his emotions or hide them from me? The intensity of his gaze almost made me hold my tongue, but my impulsivity won and pushed me to say the words anyway. “Then why don’t you rectify that and take me on a date, Amon Leone?”
25
AMON
My mother always taught me that it was wrong to nurture hatred and regret. It made your decisions questionable and made you no different from your enemy. It changed your entire essence and destroyed your soul.
I finally understood it as I watched Reina’s flushed cheeks and eyes shimmering like stars, her golden hair reminding me of summer fields, her cinnamon scent wrapped around me like sweet poison. I knew that destroying her father might steal her innocence. My chest tightened and each breath burned my lungs with the thought that I’d destroy those hearts in her gaze.
Hatred fucking burned, like inhaling smoke, then getting punched in the throat. The poison of that hatred ate at Dante and me from the inside out, cementing our plan.
But for the first time in my adult life, I wondered whether my plan was flawed, and it made me hate Romero even more. I hated the bastard for turning my mother’s life upside down. For pulling her from the only home she’d ever known and then shoving her into my father’s arms. I hated him for breaking her so badly that she’d settle for a man like my father who treated her like trash.
My mood blackened, and Reina’s blue eyes flashed with surprise.
“Geez, I didn’t think asking you to take me on a date would piss you off so badly,” she muttered, taking a step back. Before I even knew what I was doing, my hand grabbed her tiny waist and pulled her against me.
A soft whimper escaped her and I swallowed it with a kiss. She instantly relaxed, her lips molding to mine. She was so fucking responsive to me that I didn’t know how I’d survive until her eighteenth birthday without burying myself deep inside her.
My brother would laugh his head off if he knew I was waiting to fuck her. Well, fuck him. I intended to savor every moment with her until we were finished, but not before she was of age.
“I’ll take you on a date,” I murmured against her lips.
“Really?” Her full pink lips curved into a beaming smile—the kind that could easily steal a man’s heart, and I wondered if she’d try to steal mine. “You want to date me?”
“You asked me to wait for you,” I reminded her.
“I was worried that maybe you’d changed your mind.” I almost did because I knew deep down she was innocent, and it was wrong to make her pay for someone else’s wrongdoings. Even Reina’s moans sounded innocent.
But seeing her eyes haze over as she fell apart for me and the way her expression glowed with post-orgasmic bliss made me greedy. I wouldn’t allow anyone else to see it.
Not until I was done with it. And her.
“I’ll wait for you, Reina Romero.” Although she might wish that I hadn’t at the end of it all. “But you have to promise me one thing.” I ran a thumb across her parted, swollen lips and her tongue darted out, licking the pad of my finger. It sent a rush of heat to my groin as the images of her doing that same thing while on her knees played in my mind. “Don’t fall in love with me.”
She gave me one of those blinding, sunshine smiles. “You can’t order my heart around, Amon Leone.” She rose up onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips against mine. “But don’t worry, my bitter prince. I won’t ask for anything in return.”
I should have known right then and there that I was hers. I had been hers since that first hug.
* * *
I leaned into my seat in the back of the car, Dante studying me while our driver made his way down the highway to our father’s home in Trieste. I could still smell her on me—every inch of me—and every time I took a breath, a memory of her rushed in. It did nothing to ease my fucking hard-on.
Dante had been burning a hole in the side of my head since leaving the girls in Piazza San Marco, laughing and rating men that passed by. And they said men were insensitive dicks.
When Reina gave a random blond prick a five, I had to leave before I followed the guy and made him a zero by smashing his skull into the hundreds-year-old stone. That was how much Reina unsettled me. The most PG thing I had done with a girl since middle school, yet it left me more worked up than I’d ever been.
The next few weeks until her eighteenth birthday would be hell for me, but I intended to make them memorable for her. So when all this shit went to hell, she’d remember me. Crave me. I had a bad,badfeeling that when all this was over, I’d need her more than she needed me.
“It went well with Reina?”Touch me.Fuck, she begged so prettily. I was tempted to just say to hell with my principles and revenge and fuck her raw. And in broad daylight, in the middle of Venice.Jesus Christ.“Amon?”
I didn’t want to tell Dante anything. Reina was mine. I didn’t want him getting even an inkling of how she moaned. I didn’t want him to know how she clawed at me desperately for release like I was the only one who could give it to her.
