Page 6 of His Kind of Beautiful
“Don’t,” Tony practically growled, tightening his arms around her. “Don’t you dare feel ashamed for what you had to do to survive. You think I don’t know you did what you did because you had to? I was just thankful that you found Marissa.”
She huffed a short laugh. “It would be more accurate to say she found me.” Leona had been working the streets since she’d left her mother and her bastard stepfather who thought he was well within his rights to touch her when she was only seventeen years old. Marissa had found her when she was flirting with the edge of a serious drug addiction there was no coming back from.
“I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for her.”
She smiled when Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And I will be forever grateful to her for that. I remember the day two years ago when I first saw you in the club. You shone like a star, and I thought I’d be blinded by your beauty.”
Everything in her turned to ice. “Yeah, well, not anymore. I’m more ugly duckling than swan now.”
Tony sighed, then with a truly magnificent display of pure strength, he lifted her higher into his arms, moved onto his knees, and stood with her in his arms before starting back toward the master bedroom again. “You know what,bellezza? Soon, and I pray to every deity known to man that it will beverysoon, I am going to show you just how beautiful I think you are by worshiping your body with my own. And let me tell you this, as soon as I know you can handle that, and me, every time you talk about yourself like that I’m going to turn you over my knee and spank your pretty ass red.”
Leona’s jaw dropped. “You’d spank me?”
Tony shot her a look. “Hell yeah! With pleasure. I would never really hurt you, but I can make it feel so good your body will come to crave the heat of my palm against your skin.”
Leona felt her body temperature rise sharply, all of it sitting low in her belly as heat and moisture pooled between her legs. She hadn’t thought she’d ever feel arousal again and had considered herself broken in more ways than one. With just a few words, Tony had her breathing heavier, her body softening, readying itself for him.
He must have seen something on her face giving that fact away because his smile turned wicked. “I think my woman likes the idea of that. I can’t wait to find out how much.”
Leona poked her tongue out at him quickly even as her face exploded with heat, then she buried her face against his neck. She felt and heard him chuckle and grinned, loving the sound of it. She’d never allowed anyone to spank her before, and had a few men in her past who liked to feel the sting of her palm against their own ass, but she had a feeling she’d love it with Tony.
She was still smiling when he set her on the large bed, helping her shuffle back so that she was seated against the backboard. Then he leaned down with his hands on either side of her hips. “I love that smile you’re wearing, baby. Makes me happy.”
Leona giggled when he pressed a sweet kiss to the tip of her nose then sat close to her hip. His expression turned serious.
“Do you think you can ever get to a place where you feel safe enough with me to share what happened that night?” His tone was gentle and there was no demand there at all.
Leona held his gaze for a long moment, gathering her scattered thoughts. “I do trust you, Tony. More than anyone I’ve met. I can tell you about that night, but I need something from you first.”
Tony smiled at her, melting her heart just that little bit more. “Anything.”
“Will you make love to me first?” Leona blurted it out before she lost the nerve to ask. “I want to feel something good before I go back there. Something real.” She could see from the expression on his handsome face that Tony was going to say no. Not because he didn’t want her, she was fairly confident in that, but because he probably didn’t think she was ready.
“Please.”
