A Scandal in the Headlines(12)

But something had changed. His dark eyes burned. She felt the flames licking at her, seducing her and scaring her in equal measure.

“Alessandro.” Saying his name was a mistake. She saw him react to it as if it was a caress, saw his intense focus on her sharpen, and it stole her breath away. “My being on your boat was a coincidence.”

“Liar.” Implacable. Fierce.

Elena’s stomach knotted. She felt a deep kind of itch work through her, from her neck to her breasts to her core, and she felt a terrible panic bite at her then, as if she was in danger of losing herself completely.

You’re supposed to be beating him at his own game! some last remnant of her self-control cried out inside her head.

“You can call me any names you like,” she threw at him, desperate to find her balance again—to claw her way back to solid ground. “It won’t change a thing. I met you once a long time ago. It wasn’t particularly memorable.”

That ruthless, cynical mouth kicked up in the corner, and his gaze turned jet black. It rolled through her, too hot to bear, shaking her apart from the inside out. Until there was nothing at all but this moment.

This. Him. Now.

“Such a liar,” he whispered.

He reached out as if to touch her, but she knew she couldn’t let that happen—she couldn’t—so she threw out her own hand to catch his.

Skin against skin, after all this time. The same way their hands had touched once before, on that glimmering dance floor far away.

And they both caught fire.

The sea and the sun and the whole bright world disappeared into the blaze of it. There was only this man, who she should have run from the moment she’d seen him six months ago. This man, who had eyes like thunder and saw straight through into the heart of her. This man, who had claimed her from across a crowded room with a single, searing glance.

There was only the riot inside of her, the electricity that roared between them. Skin to skin. At last.

Neither one of them moved. Elena wasn’t sure she breathed. This disastrous, unquenchable attraction seemed to swell and grow, radiating from his hand to hers, a hard, gnawing ache that every heartbeat only made worse. It penetrated every part of her, and made her want. Crave. Need.

“It haunts you,” he said, a dark, male hunger stamped across his face. “I haunt you. Believe me, Elena. I know.”

She jerked her hand from his. But as she did, she had a searing burst of clarity.

She wanted him. She always had. It didn’t matter that it didn’t make sense, that a single dance should never have affected her so much. It had. He had. And that wanting had ripped apart her world, changed everything. She’d been paying for it for six long months, in isolation and often in fear, moving from odd job to odd job across the whole of Italy, trying to keep herself out of sight and away from Niccolo.

All because of this. All because of Alessandro.

She had already been crucified for this crime. She paid for it every day. Why not commit it?

And if there was a part of her that knew that this was also the best way to prove to Alessandro that she was exactly the kind of woman he believed her to be, that this would cement his opinion of her, she told herself that only made the decision easier.

“This isn’t a haunting,” she whispered, watching the thunder roll through his eyes. “Neither one of us is a ghost.” She smiled then. “I can prove it.”

And then she indulged the roaring inside of her, that terrible hunger, and put her hands on him.

Not a light touch on his shoulder as she had when they’d danced, polite and appropriate. She slid her palms over the whisper-soft cotton that strained against his marvelous torso, and felt the pure, raw heat of him. The iron strength. Her head spun, dizzy and delicious.

Alessandro let out a sound that was almost a laugh, and then he tugged her closer, lifting her up against him. Her aching breasts pressed hard against his beautiful chest, sending a frantic shiver through her, and he muttered a curse. He settled her on the rail, his arms strong and hard and exquisite as they held her fast. She heard her boat shoes fall off, two loud slaps against the stone floor, and then she forgot them.

Alessandro stepped between her legs, and it wasn’t enough. Her skirt kept him from pressing against her, into her, even as he leaned into the palms she’d flattened against him. She was surprised to see her hands were shaking. She was shaking. Or maybe the world was, all around them, and she didn’t care.

This was finally happening. Finally.