Page 43 of My Dark Fairy Tale
Why was that so much more alluring than simply saying he liked me?
Likingseemed so juvenile and inconsequential next toknowing.
One was surface shallow and the other bone deep.
I was tempted to lie supine before him and hand him a scalpel. Dare him to do his worst. Because I had the sense that in allowing someone like Raffa to know me, I would inevitably learn more about myself.
It was probably a good idea to play it cool. Act like I wasn’t about to burst out of my skin with eagerness to really start thisthingbetween us, strike against it—against him—until all that delicious friction lit into flame.
But even though I was trying to be a different version of myself—bolder, braver, fearless—I was stillme, so I couldn’t curb my enthusiasm and decided not to try.
Even after a week and a half, Raffa had to know I had an overzealous hunger in the pit of my gut that demanded more now that I’d started to feed it.
“Who were all the people on the terrace today? I thought it would be rude to ask in front of them, but it was strange to have them just walk out like they lived there. Wait.” I paused. “Do they live there? God, am I that unobservant that I just haven’t noticed before now?”
“Calmati, Vera,” he said on a small huff of laughter. “They do not live with me, though they each have rooms if they ever want to spend the night. They work for me. You could say they are my executives.”
I considered the motley crew gathered around the breakfast table. Ludovico was a big, quiet man with a crudely carved face and ears that stuck out too far. I’d found myself liking him right away, though. There was something in his manner that said he was the type of man to trap a spider under a glass and transfer it outside rather than kill it. A form of innate kindness that showed through his dark eyes.
Carmine I did not enjoy after my first impression, even though I thought our differences might have been cultural. It was rude not to introduce himself and then to mock me when I was just a stranger to him.
Martina had told me he was harmless when she’d dropped by my room after the meal to chat, but she had also said that about Renzo, who was the largest man I’d ever seen, quilted in such dense muscle I wondered how many hours a day he spent in the gym.
I could have bought Raffa and Carmine as typical businessmen, but Ludo and Renzo didn’t have that look to them. They had to have physically demanding jobs, and for Raffa, I figured something solitary would be best.
“What is it that you do exactly?” I asked as he drove fast along the country roads with one hand on the wheel and the other braced on the edge of the open window.
The breeze ruffled his slightly wavy hair away from his face, and the sun lit the hair on his corded forearm to blue black. His navy blue linen shirt was unbuttoned to the top of his sternum, revealing a wedgeof tanned skin feathered in that same dark hair I wanted to tug between my teeth. My eyes drifted down to his strong thighs beneath the gray trousers and the subtle but honestly mouthwatering ridge of his dick at the apex.
“I can feel you touching every inch of my body with your eyes,” he said, startling me from my survey. His voice was low and rich with sin, something too decadent to indulge in without adverse effects to your health. “Do not be afraid to touch with your hands too.”
I laughed, but it was a little shrill. “You are imagining things in your old age.”
“Says the woman who is so attracted to thisold manthat she is squeezing her thighs together to quell her ache for me.”
I gasped, but it wasn’t indignant the way I thought it should have been. It was soft, an exclamation like I’d heard actresses make in love scenes on-screen.
“Si, cerbiatta mia, I told you I am attracted to you. I told you I want to know you, and that includes the place between your thighs that is growing wetter as we talk. One day, I will taste how sweet you are down there with my tongue. Would you like that?”
I swallowed, but there was no moisture in my mouth to ease the way, so mostly I choked.
His smile was small, but he switched hands on the wheel and moved one to squeeze my bare thigh comfortingly.
“Have I shocked you?”
“We haven’t even kissed yet,” I reminded him a little primly despite myself. “And you’re talking about kissing methere.”
“Your pussy?” he confirmed with a roguish grin.
I rolled my eyes but repeated, “My pussy, yes.”
“La figa,” he said in Italian.
I echoed him.
His eyes were sparkling as they slid to me before looking back to the road. “Should we spend our drive having a sexy lesson in Italiano?”
I laughed, and my nerves shattered like broken glass. “Yes, that sounds fun.”
