Page 5 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

Still, he couldn’t gentle the kiss, his grip on her. Everything in him resisted the knowledge he needed to pull away. Set her back. Wait until he could control himself. Take this step by step. Slake his lust, and hers, knowing he was in control.

Control. Always control.

Finally he managed to wrench his mouth from hers, their breaths mingling in harsh gasps for air. Her mouth swollen, her eyes heavy-lidded and needy. It took every last ounce of willpower to resist.

He had to resist. Didn’t he?

“If I take you to bed tonight, Saverina, I do not have it within myself to be gentle,” he growled. The best warning he could muster as needs and wants and thwarted desires jangled in his gut like a dangerous concoction set to explode.

Her dark eyes studied him for a long moment before she spoke—not pulling away in the slightest. “Who said you had to be?” She nipped at his lip, teeth scraping just enough to cause a quick, sharp stab of pain underneath a potent arrow of pleasure. “I’m not made of glass,” she continued. “I’m certainly not fragile. Is that what you think of me?”

He had no answer for that shocking response, no reason over the roar of his blood, the tightness in his body that she’d put there. He tried to hold on to all his control, all his plans, everything he was.

“Be honest with me, Teo. If that’s rough, so be it.” Then she pulled his mouth down to hers once more and...if this was what she wanted, if this was all her doing, he wasn’t losing his control. Ruining his plans.

He was only enjoying what she offered. He could not give her honesty in all things, but he could give her the honesty of how he wanted her in this moment—because she wanted it too.

So he didn’t bother with the buttons of her blouse, simply tore as he ravaged her mouth with his. He tried to pull the shirt off of her, but it got caught there, trapping her arms behind her back, stuck in the sleeves of her shirt.

He pressed her against the wall, needing something he could not articulate, could not find. He pulled back from her mouth, but there was no anxiety in her gaze, no tightness in her shoulders. She didn’t shake her head or warn him off. She met his gaze, direct, intense.

“Well, don’t stop,” she murmured.

So perfect, boldness and fire at odds with the delicate form of her. He kissed her once more, her mouth, her cheek, her neck. Then went ahead and used his teeth, scraped down the slim, elegant curve of her neck. Her sigh was a shudder as he jerked her skirt up.

Need was a molten river. There was no finesse. Just a race to be one. To chase all of these tangles inside of them to some precipice that felt, in the moment, as if it might solve it all.

He didn’t bother to remove her undergarments, or any more of his clothes. He simply freed himself, moved her underwear out of the way and slid home. When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around him, and in one thrust she came apart there in his arms, shaking and shuddering, his name on her lips.

It was wrong, and yet it felt as right as anything ever had. The soft give of her—fire for fire. Turning all this rage into something not so sharp, not so all-encompassing. Her hands in his hair, her body bowing to meet every desperate thrust.

“More,” she demanded of him.

So he gave her more. He took her to that edge, flung her over it until she was weak with it, limp with it. A shuddering mass of everything he could do to her.

Him.

He roared out his release, and in the aftermath of it all, he knew he’d solved nothing. And yet he felt as though he’d solved it all.

CHAPTER THREE

SAVERINA HAD NEVER spent the night at Teo’s place before. Though they often spent time here, in his bed, she usually she made her excuses somewhere near midnight, half hoping he’d ask her to stay, but he never did.

Last night, though, they’d worn each other out—over and deliciously over—and she’d dozed off before she could make her customary offer. So this morning she woke up tucked next to him, warm and sated and...happy.

It was a step, surely. Instead of shuttling her away, he’d let himself feel his feelings with her. That had to mean something. Something positive. She certainly felt positive this morning. Blissfully, pleasurably used and spent and worshipped.

She sighed into the memory, snuggled closer to his warm form. But he was a bit like a very hard, immovable furnace. Maybe he was still asleep, but she got the feeling he was awake. Lying there next to her. Making no effort to pull her close, to drop a kiss to her forehead, to do anything.

Almost as if...he didn’t want her here. Almost as if last night was different for him than it was for her, no matter how many times they’d happily destroyed each other.

Saverina kept her breathing carefully even as anxiety began to creep in. He could have told her to go. He could have done a lot of things. So she wasn’t going to catastrophize. She was going to open her eyes and be happy.

When she did, she noted he was in fact lying there wide awake. Staring at her. He had an expression on his face that reminded her of last night. Not angry, but all those things he put over the anger to hide them.

Happiness drained away quite quickly, anxiety seeping in easily, but she was a woman with pride. She did not let anything show in her expression, she hoped. She even smiled. “I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”

She made a move to roll away when he said nothing, but he held her there. So she could not make a casual slide out of bed and far away. She steeled herself to look over her shoulder and raise an eyebrow at him. Cool, regal, sophisticated. God, she hoped.

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