Page 74 of My Dark Fairy Tale

She panted as I sank two fingers inside her, using the heel of my hand to press against her swollen clit.

“Ride them,” I said in that cold voice I’d grown to know she loved.

Slowly, her hips started dancing, rocking back and forth as she fucked herself on my fingers. After a moment, she whimpered, hands clutching at my hair.

“Not enough?” I crooned. “Do you need more?”

“I wantyou,” she said, words almost slurred with pleasure.

As much as I would have loved to fuck her in the grass, there was no way I was going to take her virginity in the Boboli Gardens. Instead, I pressed another finger and then another inside her so she could feel the stretch and ache.

That was when she came to life.

She tossed her head back, nipples still lifted out of her dress and pebbled in the cool night air as she rocked her hips against me. Her eyes were closed, face tipped to the moon, and I knew I had never seen anything so beautiful.

“Vieni per me, cerbiatta,” I ordered, bending to fix my teeth to her neck in a sharp bite.

She shuddered against my thrusting fingers, grinding into the heel of my palm as she cried out. Her hand clutched so hard in my shirt she popped a button, but I barely noticed, transfixed by the noises she made as she wrung every last drop of her climax against me.

“Bellissima,” I told her, pressing a soft kiss to her throat before running my nose to her jaw and kissing that too. “How are you feeling?”

She sighed and laughed at once, opening lazy lids to grin tipsily at me. “One of the best moments of my life, I think.”

“Bene, then we agree,” I said, kissing the little moue of shock on her mouth before carefully moving my hand from under her skirt. “Now all I want is you in my bed.”

Chapter Sixteen

Raffa

We collected ourselves as best we could, using my silk pocket square to clean up her smeared lipstick and beneath her skirts, but there was no doubt we would leave the party immediately. The idea of being inside a crowd with her now seemed abrasive, the bond between us too open and raw to handle scrutiny or company. My mistake came when Guinevere excused herself to the bathroom as we moved through the courtyard and I did not accompany her. I was caught up in conversation with one of Florence’s most well-renowned historians, excited about the prospect of her return so I could introduce them because I knew how much she thirsted for Italian antiquity, when I heard the choked-off cry.

I knew it was her immediately, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, my heart in my throat.

My head snapped up from where I had bent it to speak with the older man, and I surveyed the crowded courtyard, searching for the woodland creature in the dewdrop dress.

I found Stefania instead by the bar, lip pulled back over her teeth.

“Scusi,” I said to the gentleman and cut through the bodies between us like a knife through butter.

The last people divided in front of me, revealing Stefania towering over Guinevere with an empty wineglass and an ugly sneer.

While Guinevere, my beautiful fawn in her dream dress, was covered neck to waist in red wine.

Anger possessed me like a demon, immediate, irrevocable.

“Stefania,” I growled, stalking forward to put myself between them. “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

“This slut,” she spat in Italian, “claims she is your woman.”

“That is right. She is,” I said, the words cold enough to stick to my tongue.

Stefania glowered at Guinevere over my shoulder, but I snapped my fingers to draw her attention back to me. “Eyes on me. It seems I am the one you have a problem with, so you should have taken it up withme. It is ugly of you to be so childish.”

She flushed beneath her tan, and if Guinevere was right and Stefania was a beauty, I could not see it now, and I doubted I would again.

“She is too young for you,” she leered. “A child.”

“I’m twenty-three,” Guinevere stepped in to say with haughty disdain, and I was so proud of her gumption I almost kissed her right then and there.