Page 96 of Arianna

No wonder then man is looking at me as if he wants to strangle the life out of me right about now.

“Don’t ever do that again.” Sebastian’s voice breaks me from the trace. Looking up at him, suddenly feeling less angry and more anxious, I say. “Look, I am so—” he doesn’t let me finish my sentence when his strong hand grabs a hold of the back of my neck and pulls me closer until my lips are a breath away from his.

I feel it again.

Not fear as I usually do when a man corners me.

But the strange sensation that’s been unknown to me for so long.

I wonder if Sebastian feels it too.

Desire.

This feeling, for me, is a miracle.

An impossibility, just like any dream, when it comes to the man who is holding me as if he’s not sure whether to kiss or kill me.

“You acted impulsively. Like a brat who got her little girl’s feelings hurt, and instead of speaking her brilliant mind, she decides to act like a petulant child.”

I know he is right, but no way in hell did he say that.

Brat.

Petulant child.

“Wait a damn second. I did—” He doesn’t let me get a full sentence in.

“Don’t make me repeat myself because you won’t like it when I do. Don’t ever let your emotions cloud your judgment to the point you put yourself in danger.” Sebastian’s lips are so close that I could almost taste them, but that’s not what has me out of breath, no. These are his words. He is not mad about what I said to the media. How? I would be furious if someone dirtied my name as I did minutes ago.

“Why are you like this?” I whisper, not sure if he’s even able to hear me. “Why do you care?”

My heart flutters in an entirely different way.

God, I was traversing dangerous ground.

I blink, trying to process what I am feeling.

This tingling in my belly. This fullness in my chest.

Was that what this was? Did I…want him? Did I want him to touch me? Want to touch him? For the sake of what? Dipping my fingers into forbidden waters? To experience something unlike I’d ever experienced before?

To sate the feeling that suddenly washed through me?

Something hot and sticky twisted my stomach into a thousand knots. A feeling I hadn’t felt in so long.

I gasp a little under the pressure of it. Shivers raced down my spine and spread down to throb between my thighs as he edges an inch closer.

Nothing but a man towering over me.

“I don’t fucking know. You drive me mad, Parisi.” With that, he turns my world on its axis when he pulls me closer and takes my lips in his.

Confused and a little bit angry, now at myself more than him, I give into the feeling. All rational thought is no longer in my brain. We both have our hands in each other’s hair while we suck the air right out of the other’s lungs. The man kisses me as if he’s a starving man and I am a full-course meal.

And I kiss him as if my life depends on it.

Because, right now, it feels as if it does.

Too suddenly, he pulls away. Both of us are out of breath with the haunting realization that nothing will ever be the same between us again. “Ah, it seems as if I enjoy playing with fire, darling.” He reaches out and strokes the pad of his thumb down the length of my cheek.

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