Chapter 5
Domenico
I'm close enough to see my name on her lips.
She won’t say it, though. I step between her legs, and the world shifts. Just me, her, and my command for her to share my bed.
I stare her down, let her see the heat in my eyes, the demand. Her dress is a pale green that makes her eyes glow, wrapped around her body and tied with a bow. One tug on that string, and the whole thing would fall open. I almost reach out and pull at the knot, but not yet.
Wanting her this much should be a crime.
It’s all I can think as I take in the way she’s pressed against the wall for me.
Dark hair, killer legs, but it’s those eyes that do it.
The way they cut through me but act like they’re not trying.
She’s sexy as hell, and the fact that her pussy’s this close to my thigh is driving me in-fucking-sane.
But I won't rush it. Can't just take her. Not like this.
“Tell me you’ll sleep in my bed,” I demand, low and rough.
I need her to want this. Need her to want me.
Plus, I have to figure this damn woman out.
Her reaction is always changing. It’s like chasing a shadow, like trying to nail smoke to the wall.
She lets me into her space, but then she glares like she’s got fire to burn.
Acts like the perfect obedient wife then looks daggers at me.
Her lips twitch, almost a smile.
“If you require it,” she replies, and the words sound submissive but an edge of steel runs through them.
Her mix of obedience and challenge is fucking with me, and I almost pull at the bow that keeps her dress up. Almost.
“Tell me you want to.”
I don’t mean just sleeping in my bed. I mean us. Our marriage. But it’s a gamble, I know. A push, a dare.
I pull back enough to read her. She doesn’t move. When she finally blinks, her lashes draw my gaze.
“Do you want me to lie?” she asks, low and soft.
It’s not the words that hit me. It’s the fucking way she says them, like she’s brushing me off with the truth. Like I’m the one who’s not seeing things straight.
This woman is insane. Enigmatic as hell.
On the surface, she looks mild, maybe even passive.
But I believe it less and less with every passing minute.
She’s playing me, and I don’t know how. Who the fuck is she?
This wife of mine who’s supposed to be here because her father required it, because she didn’t have a choice.
“You are my wife, woman. Tell me you want to sleep in my bed.”
“What would that change?” she asks.
Cool, composed. Unflinching. The initial flash of fear—that one crack I caught a glimpse of in her eyes when I first backed her against the wall—is long gone.
It’s the tension, a live wire between us, that makes her words sound like a dare.
I’m aching to close the gap between us, to pull at the bow that keeps her dress on, to rip it open and see what she does then.
But I can't get a read on her, and it’s driving me even crazier than the fact that I’m ready to bleed desire.
Who is she? What is she? This woman who teeters between surrender and defiance.
“It changes nothing. You belong to me now, Besiana. Don’t ever forget it.”
I lean in, let my thigh press against her, and feel her heat.
I watch the way her pulse jumps. The way her lips part.
Her dress is loose enough to slide open, and her skin looks so soft underneath it, like I could leave my mark on her with just a whisper of my hand.
I want to. God, I want to. But I need her to want it, too.
“What do you want?” she asks, but I hear what she really means. What do you want from me?
My hand finds the edge of her dress, silk under my fingertips. I pull it just enough to see the flash of skin beneath. I give it back and let the fabric fall closed again.
I don’t understand her. The girl who agreed to this marriage without a fight.
The girl who let her father sell her like a pair of stolen shoes.
The girl who lets me back her against a wall and doesn’t even flinch.
She pretends at playing the victim, but she is nothing but fire.
I don’t understand her. It’s making me fucking crazy.
But it doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Our marriage is just a truce, a way to keep the peace with her family while I launch Iride. A way to stop worrying about the Albanians while I secure everything else.
Her eyes narrow like she knows what I’m thinking.
I touch her again, my hand firm on her leg this time, my fingers finding the heat at the edge of her dress.
She inhales sharply, but she doesn’t push me away.
She doesn’t pull me closer, either, which is what I need her to do. Admit she wants me. Beg for it.
I look at her and see the fire. See the obedience. Which one is real?
She tilts her head back against the wall and lets the soft line of her neck show. Lets me see the beat of her pulse. Lets me feel it. It drives me fucking insane. I sense the smile she hides. It’s small, like the edge of a knife.
My mouth is almost on her, just a breath away. She’s my wife, and I want to take her, to ruin her, to have her want me to. I want it more than I should. I want it more than anything.
But she stays quiet. She says everything without saying a word.
But I can’t let her have the power. So, I remind her who she married. Leaning in close, I whisper in her ear.
“Don’t embarrass the family,” I say.
It only matters that she doesn’t ruin the Rosetti name. It only matters that she stays in line. That’s all I care about. Not the heat of her skin or the look in her eyes or that I can’t figure her out or how fucking hard she makes me.
I step back.
The corner of her mouth lifts a fraction of an inch, revealing the edge of that hidden smile. That fucking knife smile.
“Coward,” she whispers.
This woman knows no fear. She doesn't even flinch.
I want her. She knows I want her. The way she looks at me with those luminous eyes and that half-smile, it’s enough to take a man’s balls away. She’s playing it cool, and I can’t let this fucking woman win.
“Get changed and go to bed,” I order her, roughly.
She gifts me one more second of her fiery glare, then, like the obedient wife, she nods graciously, then tugs at the tie of her wrap dress.
This is the part where a gentleman would have the decency to walk away. Give her the space to change in private, turn his back, and leave her in the room while he waits for her to play the good little wife. But I’m good at giving orders, bad at following them. And I’m no gentleman.
I want her more than my next fucking breath. I know she knows it. She watches me. I watch her. She uses it. I’m stuck in place, fixed in this spot where I can see all of her. I become the weakest man alive, because even now, even when it’s clear that she’s about to undress, I don’t move.
The fabric loosens at the pull of her fingers, and I couldn’t walk away if I tried.
I’m glued to the spot, staring, as she opens her silk dress and shimmies her shoulders to let it puddle at her feet.
She stands before me in a matching set of peach-colored bra and panties, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to pin her to the wall and fuck her right there.
I swear she’s teasing me deliberately. My jaw is tight, my muscles tense, and my cock is a live wire in my pants.
She knows I won’t touch her. She fucking knows it and she’s using it against me.
“My clothes are in the other room,” she says, kicking out a hip and highlighting those damn curves.
The sight of her is unreal, lips parted, skin glowing. Her body is the only thing I can see. I don’t even blink.
I just stand there, and I fucking stare.
I let the silence stretch between us. Let her watch me watch her, steady and unblinking. She lets me take in the sight of her, half-naked, the thin straps of her bra curving over her shoulders, the matching panties barely covering what they should.
“I need to change,” she says again, like she’s the one giving the orders around here.
“Feel free to remove your bra. Or I can remove it for you. As for those panties…” I prowl closer, just one single step, and am pleased to see a spark of fire in her eyes.
I move in, crowding her space. I’m one step away from pinning her to the wall, from kissing the breath out of her and seeing what she does when she can’t breathe, when every ounce of her control is gone, to see if she’s really as indifferent as she wants me to believe.
I’m one step away from dropping my last shred of patience and tearing the fabric from her body.
“Can I borrow a T-shirt?” she asks.
Three words. Just those three words out of her mouth and I’m done.
It’s her casual tone that shreds me. The image of her in one of my shirts is almost enough to make my cock explode.
Her nipples pushing against the fabric, rubbing hard at it until they’re tight enough to see.
The hem of it grazing her thighs, my scent covering her skin.
My jaw is tight, my muscles tense, and I can’t do a damn thing but follow the command in her voice.
I don’t care who’s giving the orders now.
Without a word, I stalk to my walk-in closet.
I need a second to breathe, a second to get myself under control.
I grab one of my clean t-shirts and toss it to her.
She is a terrible catcher, and it drops to the floor behind her.
When she bends over to pick it up, she gives me a perfect glimpse of her round ass, and I can see a dark line of dampness on her peach panties.
I almost come in my fucking pants. She changes slowly because she knows exactly what it does to me.
She’s trying to drive me crazy, and it’s working.
She climbs into my bed, where she belongs, and pulls the covers up like she didn’t just strip in front of me, like she didn’t just take her time doing it.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I stay right where I am.
She looks at me. I look at her. This should be easy.
I thought it would be. It’s not. Marrying her was supposed to clear away the issue of the Albanians so I could focus on Iride, supposed to make my life simpler.
I have a feeling it won’t. I have a feeling she’ll make it so fucking hard.