Page 53 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

Valentin

THEFURYATEme alive, burning up like a fire inside me. But Olivia’s mouth was cool, and suddenly cool was all I wanted.

Cool, to douse all this heat.

I didn’t move, taking a moment to get myself in hand, to concentrate on her mouth and the soft touch of her fingers on my face.

Our kisses over the past week had been passionate and intense, but this was different. She didn’t open her mouth this time, and she didn’t press close to me; she simply cupped my face in her palms and kissed me delicately and without demand. As if the pleasure was all in my lips on hers and she’d be satisfied with that and nothing more.

I was impatient, though, and as suddenly as I wanted cool I wanted heat instead, and fire, channelling my own pointless fury into sex, which was the most pleasurable way to channel the emotions I didn’t want.

I didn’t want this fury. I didn’t want Olivia looking at me as if she knew exactly what I was thinking, which she didn’t.

She’d never had to deal with Domingo.

She didn’t know what it was like to want the attention of a psychopath. To enjoy it. To like matching wits with him, to like standing up to him. To be pleased to see respect and approval in his eyes.

To know that all this time you’d been telling yourself lies about how you were trying to protect your own brother, about how you were the hero, when all along you were so desperate for your father’s approval, you didn’t care what you had to do to get it.

And you still don’t care. You don’t care that you took her away by force. You don’t care that you’re going to take Constantine’s company from him like you took away his toy soldier. You dress it all up by telling yourself you’re protecting them, but you’re not. You’re not the hero. You’re the villain.

I reached for Olivia, jerking her close, trying to drown that thought in the sweet taste of her mouth. Drown all the terrible doubts that pulled inside me. The fear that, yes, I had made it worse for Constantine with my constant rebellions and defiance. And, yes, my choice to disobey Domingo had put Olivia in harm’s way.

And maybe even something I’d done had led to my mother’s death...

What if it did? You hurt people and you don’t care about them. You only care about yourself.

Her hands were stroking me, my racing thoughts fracturing beneath her fingers, and abruptly I was desperate.

I needed to get rid of the voice in my head; I needed her and the pleasure she gave me to strip it away.

My hands tightened on her hips and I walked her back to the couch. Then I pushed her down onto it, raking up the thin silk of her dress.

She welcomed me as she always did, her legs wrapping around my hips, the damp heat between her thighs pressing against my fly. ‘Slow down,’ she whispered in my ear, her hands gently stroking. ‘There’s no rush.’

But I didn’t want slow. I didn’t want gentle. I wanted oblivion.

I shifted onto my knees between her spread legs and reached down, tearing the fabric of her dress completely apart. She was naked beneath it as during the past week she hadn’t bothered with a bikini.

Her body was beautiful, her pale skin lightly tanned after a few days of swimming naked in the sun. She was perfect, so perfect. I reached down to undo my fly, but she sat up, her hands covering mine. Her eyes were full of heat and something else, something I couldn’t read. It looked like tenderness or sympathy, or maybe even pity, and I didn’t like it.

‘Don’t look at me like that.’ I growled. ‘Just lie down.’

‘Don’t look at you like what?’ Her hands had found their way under the hem of my shirt, her cool fingers stroking my stomach. But the look in her eyes wasn’t cool. It blazed with increasing intensity. There was no trace of her veneer, no trace of the diamond armour she wore.

But she wasn’t purely the girl I remembered from years ago, either. She was more. She was strength and vulnerability and passion all at once.

She was a star. A pure, glorious star. ‘Don’t look at you like I love you?’

It shouldn’t have been a shock to hear those words. It should have been something expected, because wasn’t that the whole point of this mission? To get her to love me the way she had when she was fifteen?

She’d said those words to me once before, as we’d lain under the stars on our beach. And I’d said them back. I’d never had anyone love me or tell me so before, not even Constantine, because why would he? He’d had no idea what those words meant, and neither had I. Not until her.

So this moment should have been triumphant; it should have been a win.

Yet it wasn’t triumph that settled in my gut, but ice.

You kidnapped her. You manipulated her to get what you want. Everything you do is about whatyouwant. And now you have it. You have everything.

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