Page 17 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

Chapter Nine

Marisa didn’t let him hold her too closely. Keeping as tight a control on herself as she could manage, she rested her hands lightly on his sides and turned her cheek so she didn’t have to look at him.

Her efforts to maintain a decent physical distance between them were scuppered within seconds when Rico’s arms tightened around her waist, and the cheek she’d turned was pressed against his solid chest, and his beautiful, warm orange scent danced into her senses.

His hand slid up the corset of her dress and splayed over her naked skin.

Balling her hands into fists, she closed her eyes and wished the sensation away. Wished herself away because she could feel herself melting.

“I’ve upset you,” he murmured as they swayed.

She didn’t answer.

“Were you jealous of Ciara?”

She stiffened involuntarily.

“I’m sorry, angel. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Flirting with another woman in front of me?” she dragged out before she could stop herself.

If he tightened his hold another inch, she’d suffocate. “No, she was flirting with me.”

“You played along with it.”

He groaned and slid his hand higher to cup the nape of her neck.

“I know I did, but I know how you feel about people knowing about us. We were out in the open, not anonymous like we are now, and you look so damned beautiful and I’ve hardly seen anything of you all day.

If I’d started talking to you, I’d never have been able to stop, and then I would have had to leap across the table to touch you, and then everyone would have known.

If I’d known it would upset you, I would never have played along with her, and now I know how much it upsets you, I will never let anything like it happen again. ”

Maybe she had a latent masochistic side because she felt compelled to ask, “Have you slept with her?”

“No.” His answer was emphatic.

“Do you want to sleep with her?”

An equally emphatic, “No.”

She hesitated before whispering, “You’ve slept with a lot of women, though, haven’t you?”

His fingers gently massaged her neck. “Yes, but there’s only been one woman for me since my sister’s engagement party, and I’m dancing with her.”

The song they were swaying to came to an end.

The hand cupping her neck so tenderly slid down her back, and then he was holding her hips. His piercing stare locked onto hers. “Do you still want to walk away?”

The room they were in, all the people dancing around them, swam in a hazy focus. Only Rico was solid. Real…

Too real. However much he tried to portray himself in his letters as some kind of romantic lead in a book, he was still a flesh and blood man.

A powerful and rich flesh and blood man, and for all his good humour and affability, he was dangerous, but the danger he posed to Marisa wasn’t of the physical kind. It was much worse than that.

Until she’d seen him playing along with Ciara’s flirtations, she hadn’t fully understood the danger she’d been hurtling towards or how deeply her heart had attached itself to him.

Rico had the power to make her heart sing in one beat and then break in the next. He had the power to hurt her badly.

But any hurt she’d felt watching him play along with Ciara’s flirtations had been unintentional. In doing what he’d believed was the right thing for Marisa’s sake, he’d done the wrong thing, his actions clumsy and thoughtless but not deliberately cruel.

And, really, had Ciara’s flirtations been that bad? Hadn’t Marisa watched her flirt, often outrageously, with the men who’d sat beside her during the earlier courses? She’d even flirted with Niccolo and Gennaro’s grandfather.

Gazing into the blue eyes holding hers so steadily, a wave of shame washed over her. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.

A crease formed in his forehead. “For what?”

She closed the distance between them and put her hands on his shoulders. “For acting like I did.” She bit her bottom lip before admitting, “I was jealous.”

His lips curved, his eyes lightening. Sliding his hands around her waist, her drew her back to him. “I thought as much.”

With a long sigh, she slipped her hands around his neck. “I’ve never felt jealousy before. I didn’t think I could be jealous.”

He kissed her forehead lightly. “I like this possessive side of you.”

“I don’t. I don’t feel like myself.” She hadn’t felt like herself since she’d met Rico.

.. No, she had felt like herself, just more , as if parts of her had been dormant and had now awoken, emotions she’d not been aware existed inside her uncoiling.

Gazing deep into his eyes, she whispered, “I can’t share you, Rico.

I’m not cut out for a relationship like that. ”

“I know, and I would never ask it of you.” A hand dragged up her back to touch her bare skin, making her shiver with sensation. “For us, it has to be all or nothing,” he said huskily.

Her heart opened like a flower in bloom.

She already knew what nothing felt like. Misery.

When it came to Rico, she’d already passed the point of no return.

Almost unthinking, she raised herself onto her toes and kissed him.

The pads of his fingers dug tightly into her back. Rubbing his masked cheek into hers, he said, “Be careful, my angel. People will see.”

Spearing her fingers into the back of his hair, she gazed into his eyes again and, without thinking, whispered, “Come to me tonight.”

His nostrils flared, and something flickered in his eyes. “Are you sure?”

Their gazes held, and suddenly she was as certain as she’d ever been about anything. Marisa had been waiting her whole life to feel like this. Waiting her whole life for him .

She brought her mouth back to his. “I choose all.”

Rico walked the corridor to Marisa’s room with his heart pounding like a jackhammer.

He knew this was wrong. Knew he should turn around and walk away. Keep walking until he reached a different continent.

If he had any conscience, he would have let her go when she told him to let her pass.

When it came to Marisa, he’d already lost base with a morality he’d only ever had a fingertip to.

He reached her door.

Walk away , his conscience urged. You’re going to destroy her .

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then tapped his fingers lightly on the door.

It was too late for him. He couldn’t walk away if he tried.

The door opened a crack. The shadow of a face appeared.

The door opened fully to reveal a dimly lit room.

Standing on the other side of the threshold, Marisa.

His heart wrenched.

All her makeup had been removed, her hair released from the tight bun she’d had it tied in. Wrapped around her body, a silk robe that fell to her knees. Her pretty feet were bare. She smelled of toothpaste and delicate soap.

Shyly, she held a trembling hand out to him. Feeling like a vampire of myth, he took it and crossed the threshold.

Marisa’s heart was racing too hard and fast to feel the individual beats.

Rico was there. In her room. He was there to make love to her.

After this night, there would be no going back. She would bind her body to him as tightly as her heart was bound, and suddenly she was terrified.

Where she’d led him silently into her room, he led her silently to the bed.

Legs wobbly, she sat on its edge. She looked at him and, mouth dry, swallowed.

He knelt before her and gently cupped her cheek. “Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly. “We don’t have to do anything. If you just want me to hold you, then I’ll hold you and nothing else.”

She covered the hand on her cheek and gave a shaky smile. “I don’t want to be a disappointment to you.”

His forehead creased. “Marisa…” He pressed his forehead to hers. “You could never be a disappointment to me, don’t you understand that? You are everything to me.”

“But you have so much experience and I…” She shrugged helplessly, thinking of all the hours she’d spent over the past four months researching Rico’s past sex life.

She’d done it as a means to strengthen her resolve not to fall for him, but it had achieved nothing except to feed a jealousy she’d been hardly aware of forming. “How could I not be a disappointment?”

He brushed his mouth to hers in a tender, tender kiss and speared his fingers through her hair. “If you had any idea how incredible it feels to know you’ve chosen me to be your first, you wouldn’t ask that.”

“I didn’t choose you,” she confessed in a whisper. “My heart did.”

“And I will take as good care of your heart as the rest of you. You’re mine now, Marisa, and I am yours.”

Her heart ballooning, she smoothed her fingers over his forehead. “Will it hurt?”

“I will do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t.” His fingers dragged the length of her hair. “I’ll make it good for you, I promise.” He placed another tender, tender kiss to her mouth before getting to his feet.

Wrapping her robe tighter around herself, she gazed at him and then slowly shuffled back until she was resting against the headboard. And then, her pulses skittering madly, she watched him undress.

He’d come to her room without his mask and bow tie and with the top buttons of his white shirt undone.

Having discarded his tuxedo jacket, he undid a few more buttons of his shirt and pulled it over his head.

Socks and shoes removed, he put his hands to the fastening of his trousers and locked his stare back to hers.

With just a few movements of his fingers, his trousers were undone and sliding down his legs to the floor, leaving him in only a pair of snug charcoal boxers.

The outline of his erection was visible in them.

When he tugged the boxers down his hips, it sprang free like a jack-in-the-box and injected her with a fresh dose of terror.

She’d known he was big by feel alone, but seeing it in the flesh… The world suddenly spun around her, and for a moment, she thought she was going to faint from fear. The drumbeat in her ears was deafening.