Spin (Songs of Corruption #1)(19)

“...but what you’re going to do about the traffic—”

“I’ll be Mayor, not God.” They both laughed.

I’d lost most of the conversation during my locked gaze with Antonio Spinelli. “Excuse me,” I said to my ex and the actress. “Duty calls.”

I walked into the house. The unwritten rule was if the party was in the backyard, guests stayed in the backyard. Wandering off into the personal spaces was bad manners, but I couldn’t help it. I went to the back of the kitchen, to a back hall with a wool Persian carpet and mahogany doors.

“Contessa.”

I didn’t have a second to answer before he put his hands on my cheeks and his mouth on mine. I didn’t move. I didn’t kiss him back. I just took in his scent of dew-soaked pine, wet earth, and smoldering fires. He pulled back, unkissed but not unwanted, his hands still cupping my face.

He brushed his thumb over my lower lip, just grazing the moist part inside. “I want you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

“What happened then?” All my resolve to not use him as a rebound went out the window. “You froze me out yesterday.”

“I don’t like answering questions about myself.”

“I can’t be with you if I don’t know you.”

“Do you want me?”

His breath made patterns on my face. I could have pushed him away, but his attention was an angle, a point of reference, and I was but a line defined by it.

“Yes,” I whispered, putting my head against the wall.

“Let’s have each other then. My body and your body. No expectations. No questions.”

Before I could get offended, he kissed me hard, hurting me. His tongue probed my lips, my teeth, pushing my head against the wall. I was aware of every inch of his body, its warmth, its supple curves, the hair on his face, and I yielded. My insides melted, pooling between my legs. I moved with him like a wave, tongues dancing, jaws aligning. I fell into that kiss, its taste of wine and sweet water, the hum vibrating from the back of his throat. I thought I would burst from my hips outward.

He pulled away with a gasp, still close to me, his eyes darting across my features. “You’re blushing. And you’re panting, just a little.”

I couldn’t speak. I wanted him to kiss me again. My body wanted it. The hairs on my arms stood up when I thought about it.

He put his hand to my chest, between my br**sts, and pressed a little. “Your heart is beating hard. This is what it takes.”

He moved his hand slightly, brushing my hard nipple through my dress. I wanted him to stop, but I didn’t want it to end. If I spoke, the spell would be broken. I’d have to go back to the other me, that spurned, unwanted woman. I opened my mouth but just shook my head. What had I become? What was wrong with me?

“Since the minute I saw you,” he said into my neck, “I’ve wanted to open your legs and take you.”

His words had fingers, and as he spoke, they drifted down my body, fondling me and arousing me. No one had ever spoken like that to me, because I would have laughed with discomfort. But when Antonio said it, I forgot everything but his voice and the image of him moving over me.

“I’m not good at casual sex,” I said in a breath.

“I never said it would be casual.”

I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t know how sex could be just two bodies meeting without being classified as meaningless. I couldn’t wrap my head around it because he was near me, his hands on my hips, the scruff of his face brushing my neck.

“Take me,” I said before I thought about it.

Like a cat leaping into action, he pulled me through an ajar door, clicking it behind us. We were in a bathroom with marble tiles and double sinks. White curtains. A thousand details I couldn’t absorb because his lips were on mine.

When I heard him lock the door, I surrendered to what was happening. I stopped worrying about where I was or what the future might bring. I tangled my hands in his hair and kissed him for all I was worth. He pulled my knee up over his hip, stroking the back of my thigh. I tried to remember to breathe, but when he leaned into me and I felt the hardness between his legs against the softness between mine, I forgot.

“I’m going to f**k you right here,” he growled. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” The word came out in a hiss.

“Yes, what?” He pushed against me. “What do you want me to do to you?” He took my hands from his hair and put them above me, pinning me to the wall as he kissed my neck.

“Fuck me.” I said it so softly a butterfly wouldn’t have heard me.

“Say it again. But this time, own it.”

“Fuck me.” A little louder.

He let go of my hands. His fingers brushed past my br**sts to my waist, where they pushed me down against his erection.

“You are so sweet,” he whispered, wrapping my other knee around him, pinning me with his hips. “Dolce. The way you don’t like to say the word f**k, and you say it to me anyway. I know how bad you want me to make you come.”

With that, he hitched me up and carried me to the vanity. He balanced me on it as he kissed me, grinding between my legs and driving me crazy. I yanked up my skirt.

“Antonio,” I said, “protection.”

“I have it.”