Page 14 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

The place was heaving, every gambling table full, every slot machine in use, groups of people not throwing away their hard-earned money standing in clusters drinking and chatting and laughing, waiting staff weaving around them all delivering drinks and food, taking orders, sidestepping the more amorous guests trying to goose them.

Of Rico, though, there was no sign. Disappointment lashed her tightly, a feeling that grew when she spotted her sister and Gennaro saying goodbye to a large crowd in the bar.

Marisa didn’t know any of the other guests well enough to feel comfortable joining them, and she kicked herself for not coming straight here with Luisa after dinner instead of kidding herself that not seeing Rico at all was better than seeing him from a distance.

What was she to do now?

She watched her sister and brother-in-law disappear from the ballroom without noticing her. Gennaro’s hand was on Luisa’s back, a stiffness in both their postures, and for the first time, she wondered if something was going on with them. Surely not? Luisa hated him…

Or did she? Marisa’s mind zipped back to Niccolo and Siena’s engagement and her dance with Rico.

She’d left the dancefloor fully expecting to have to justify dancing with the antichrist, but Luisa hadn’t mentioned it, and she hadn’t mentioned it because she hadn’t noticed.

She hadn’t noticed because all of Luisa’s attention had been on Gennaro.

“Well this is a pleasant surprise,” a deep voice murmured from close behind her.

Her heart clattered, and she breathed in the faint trace of warmed oranges. It clattered even harder when the impossibly tall and broad frame moved to stand next to her and adopted a tone of casual conversation. “What do you think of my casino, Miss Rossellini?”

Not looking at him, she strove hard to match the casual tone. “It’s very glamorous, Mr Esposito.”

“Are you looking to play?”

“I don’t know how.”

“I’m an excellent teacher and would be glad to provide you with a private tutorial when time allows.”

“I don’t earn enough to waste what money I have.”

“I’m sure we could come to an arrangement that didn’t involve the exchange of money.” He said this with such a seductive murmur that her pelvis contracted.

Fully aware her cheeks had turned into tomatoes, she swallowed and fought even harder to keep her voice casual. “That’s a very kind offer, Mr Esposito.”

“I look forward to you taking me up on it.” Without missing a beat, he dipped his mouth to her ear. “Meet me outside the side door from earlier. Ten minutes.” The tips of his fingers brushed against hers, and then he strode away.

Unable to use the door without drawing attention to herself, Marisa walked back to the hotel reception and slipped out through an exit there. From it, she followed a path through the landscaped grounds lit by pretty solar lights to the small staff courtyard from earlier.

“Marisa.”

She whipped her head to the sound.

Emerging from the shadows, as tall and as imposing in physique as any of the shadowed statues she’d passed on her walk to him, Rico.

Her heart bloomed.

She stepped to him and breathed in the scent of warm oranges a beat before he rubbed the back of a finger along her cheekbone and then dove his fingers through her hair. His mouth closed on hers.

Electricity zinged through her veins, and she sank into his kiss, letting her senses be infused with his taste and scent, lifting onto her toes to wrap her arms around his neck.

His hands drifted down her neck and back, their bodies fusing as their mouths moved together. She could taste alcohol on his breath and that distinctively Rico taste, a taste so addictively divine she wanted more with every stroke of his tongue against hers.

Her fingers scraping through the soft hairs on the nape of his neck, she lifted herself even higher onto her toes so his mouth could dance flames of sensation down her throat, and moaned at the exquisite pleasure of it, pressing herself even closer into his hard body…

His rock-hard arousal jabbed through their clothing into the soft flesh of her belly.

She gasped at the shock of heat it sent coursing through her loins, the heat flaming as her mind filled with erotic memories of how she’d touched it and brought him to orgasm with her hand, and this time she was the one to deepen the kiss.

Rico groaned into her neck and then, with the deepest reluctance, broke the fusion and cupped her cheeks. “I can’t stay.”

Her smile was wistful. “I know.”

If he was with any other woman, Rico would say to hell with it, press her against the wall, and fuck her. But this wasn’t just any woman. This was Marisa. Not only was she a virgin but she deserved better than to be screwed against a wall.

She deserved better than him. Better than what he was doing to her.

If he had a scrap of morals, he’d end this now, something that had been playing heavily on his mind since his brother’s crude comment had brought home to him that what was a game to the Esposito brothers was far from a game to Marisa.

If heaven and hell really did exist, then never mind his sins of the past, what he was doing to her was a sure-fire way for him to be plunged downwards.

He’d made her fall in love with him.

But he was too far gone to turn back. His feet had started walking to her the second he’d glimpsed her entering the makeshift casino through the multitude of cameras watching every dice rolled and every card played.

This game he was playing with his brothers felt far from a game to him now too.

A loud shout echoed through the air behind them, quickly followed by laughter.

He rubbed his thumb over the plump lips that kissed him with more meaning than all the kisses he’d ever had combined before her. “It sounds like the teenagers have escaped their chaperones.”

She smiled as more shouts and laughter rang out. He guessed the teenagers were sneaking to the spa for privacy.

“I bet you never snuck out drinking when you were a teenager,” he teased.

Her smile widened. “I was far too much of a good girl to even dream of doing that. But I bet you did.”

“At every available opportunity.” He’d been a tearaway: drinking, chasing girls and fighting with anyone who looked at him the wrong way from the age of thirteen.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t chased a woman since Marisa had caught his eye. Four months without sex, the longest he’d gone since losing his virginity at fourteen.

“And that’s what makes us perfect for each other,” he added, even though he knew he shouldn’t; knew he was leading her further on a path towards pain and leading himself closer to the pits of hell.

“Every good girl needs a bad boy to bring out her suppressed desires, and every bad boy needs a good girl to tame his worst instincts.”

As their lips fused again, his phone vibrated .

She sighed and gazed into his eyes with a sad but dreamy smile. “I need to let you go, don’t I?”

More than she knew.

He gazed at her a moment longer with the sensation in his veins that he could spend the rest of his life staring at her and never feel the need to look at anything else.

She put her fingers to her lips. “Good night, Rico,” she whispered before placing her fingers to his mouth. “Sweet dreams.”

His chest lifted, filling with an emotion he couldn’t begin to explain. “Sweet dreams to you too, my angel.”

She disappeared into the shadows, and then she was gone.