Page 28 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

He gripped her chin and held her gaze. “You are brave. You have not been put to the test, but that does not mean that you aren’t brave. I know you feel as if you were not strong today, but if you were by yourself, you would have done well. You would have figured it out. Let me show you how brave you are.”

He knew this because of her spirit. He knew this because she tested him, tried him. He knew because she was Lyssia. And that had been all-consuming for quite some time.

He kissed her again, capturing her beautiful pink mouth and plunging his tongue deep. She gasped, arching against him. Her delicate hands moved over his shoulders, down his back. He growled and flexed his hips against her.

She moaned, unable to keep herself from trembling. She wanted him. As much as he wanted her.

“Did you want to seduce me?” he asked.

She looked down. “I was... I was beginning to come around to the idea.”

“Look at me,” he said. She obeyed, her blue eyes meeting his. “Tell me,” he growled, as he kissed his way down her neck, over the plump, delicate curve of her breasts and down her stomach.

He gripped the waistband of her soft, cashmere sweatpants and dragged them down her legs, revealing a matching pair of underwear beneath. Lace and see-through with a keyhole just above the most intimate part of her, a gold chain creating a delicate web there.

“Tell me,” he commanded.

“I... When I got here, I looked at the tub, and I imagined being in the tub with you. And it shook me, because I... I have pretended all this time that what I feel for you is nothing short of animosity. Because it’s easier. It’s so much easier. Because there’s no point in having a wild, sexual need for a much older man, is there? Especially when he just thinks that you’re a silly girl.”

“I don’t think you’re a silly girl,” he said. He moved his fingertips beneath the waistband of her panties. “You are beautiful. And you are smart, and you are brave. And you will find your way.”

“Is this a motivational speech or are we about to have sex?”

There was Lyssia. Dry and spiky as ever. And of course when she put it like that, in such bland terminology, he knew that it should make him want to pull away from her, but he found that he didn’t. He just didn’t. He had made his devil’s bargain. His mind was made up.

“Oh, we’re going to have sex,” he said. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “You have?”

“You are a problem,” he ground out. “One that I have done my best not to take in hand. To not solve the way that I wanted to. Because I knew it would create only difficulty for me. If your father were to find out...”

“He would kill you.”

“Very likely.”

“He doesn’t have to find out.”

“No. He doesn’t. You should know what it feels like when a man wants you. When he really wants you.”

He took her delicate hand and guided it to the front of his pants. He let her feel him. How hard he was.

Her eyes went wide. She caressed him, slowly and deliberately through the fabric of the pants.

“What are you thinking?” he asked as he watched her breathing increase, as he watched her eyes go wide.

“Well, you are rather substantial.”

He chuckled. “I do well enough.”

“That is the kind of thing that men who are well endowed say. Because men who are not well endowed cannot joke about... Such things.”

“The voice of experience?”

“I have been in the world.”

“The world is often a disappointing place,” he said. “But I will endeavor to not disappoint.”

“I’m not concerned,” she said, her breathing becoming ragged.

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