“You think I need you?”
“No.” Her lips caressed mine as she spoke, and fuck, I wanted to kiss her, just to see if she tasted of innocence and sunshine. “I think you want me.”
I stroked her hair away from her face. “And you think that’ll save you?”
“You won’t hurt me,” she breathed.
I traced her bottom lip, and a trembling breath washed over my fingertip in response. “So innocent. So naïve.” The urge to dominate her was like a devil on my shoulder. “So fucking hopeful.”
“What are you going to do?” She had no idea that those whispered words of trepidation only fed the beast that sought to destroy her.
“I’m going to punish you, princess.” I shouldn’t have liked anything about this, but my heart thumped hard in anticipation, my dick throbbing painfully.
“You don’t scare me, Giovanni.” And there was the fire, the sour cutting through the sweet in such a heady combination. She couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice, though. Brave, foolish, and so perfect.
“And that is your mistake.”
11
Emilia
Giovanni Guerra was like a priceless oil painting made up of perfect strokes, but if you scratched that first layer of paint away, beneath would be another image—one of blood and shadows. That was what I saw now, what I had seen the night he’d found me. This side of him was as terrifying as it was intriguing. This was the man my family feared, a beast I wanted to both run from and tame. And every inch of him pressed against me, his fingers cutting off my air, hot breath washing over my lips like sweet poison, begging me to taste it.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and the grip on my throat loosened just enough to allow me a gasp of uninhibited air. The space between us crackled with a dangerous kind of tension, one that would combust if I weren’t careful. But some sick, twisted part of me wanted him to squeeze a little harder, to lean in and kiss me with the same lips that would threaten to kill me. That feral flicker took root in his eyes, his jaw clenching before he snatched my wrist and dragged me to the bed. I nearly choked on my own heartbeat when he shoved me down onto the mattress.
There was a clink as something tightened around my wrist, and when I tried to move, I couldn’t. I glanced at the leather cuff now restraining me to the bed, wondering where the hell it had come from. He’d tied me to the bed.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I kicked out at him, snarling and raking the nails of my free hand over his cheek before he slammed my other arm against the headboard with a crack of pain. He cuffed that one, too. A chain clinked when I fought against it, my heart pounding in my chest like a trapped bird throwing itself against a window. I recoiled into the headboard as he loomed over me. This was it. He was finally done waiting or asking…
“Giovanni, don’t. Please…”
Instead of coming closer, he stepped back, chest heaving, fists clenching at his sides. Without another word, he turned and strode out of the bedroom. My moment of relief was short-lived before I was spitting mad again. Who the hell had cuffs just attached to their spare bed, hidden and waiting to be used? Of course, that was a rabbit hole my inexperienced brain really didn’t need to travel down. And yet, I imagined him coming back in here, touching me, kissing me, teasing me while I was restrained and at his mercy. Heat unfurled within me like a cat stretching from a long slumber. I didn’t want that, did I? A fantasy, non-psycho version of him, maybe…
“You bastard! Come back here and let me go.”
Nothing. Silence. The shackles were tight enough to allow very little movement, but there was some… enough.
It took me twenty minutes to work my right hand out of that leather cuff before I could free myself. The skin around my wrists was chaffed and red from my efforts. It wasn’t the only thing that was red. My vision was tinged crimson as I stormed down the hall to his room.
When I shoved open the door, it was dark inside except for a shaft of light spilling from the bathroom. Giovanni stood in the closet doorway in just a towel. His hair was wet, drops of water glistening in the light as they rolled down the tanned skin of his chest like little diamonds. A few cut through the valley of his abs in a way that made me lose my train of thought. Holy shit.
“Emilia.” His voice was a low growl. A warning if ever I heard one.
“You can’t just tie me to a bed!” I snapped, my anger returning as soon as I tore my attention from that body. I went to step into his room, but he held up a finger.