Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
For a brief moment there I felt my heart miss a beat. She was gorgeous. I found myself admitting to myself once again, and it wasn’t in a glaringly obvious way. Rather, her beauty seemed like something that occurred to you the moment you saw her but you needed quite a while to understand. There was innocence in her gaze, but at the same time mischief, and a whole lot of sorrow. It made me wonder if there was a time when she had been truly completely happy. If there had been, then more than anything I wanted to know what had caused it so I asked her.
“Why would you shoot me?” I asked.
She smiled. “I could find a reason.”
This made me smile. “Like what?”
“We didn’t go all the way yesterday,” she said. “Shouldn’t we finish what we started?”
“You are driven by pain and a need to escape,” I muttered.
“Take off your shirt,” she said.
My cock throbbed in my trousers. I knew I should go, but I couldn’t move. I stared at her. She was forbidden to me.
I stood as still as a statue as she came forward and began to unbutton my shirt. She kept her gaze on me until all the buttons were undone. Then she pushed the shirt off my shoulders and gazed at my body. Her lips curved into a slow appreciative smile.
“You shouldn’t do this because you want an escape from the hurt,” I growled.
She smiled sadly at my words. “Can you take me back to the days before my father died?”
I stilled at her words.
“Because that’s where I want to go, but I can’t, can I?”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I promised your father I wouldn’t,” I whispered hoarsely.
She pushed me down to the chair. “You’re not going to. I’m a big girl now and this is what I want.”
She stared pointedly at me as she pulled the robe up her thighs and before I knew it, she was astride me. She held onto my shoulders and lowered onto my lap and her warmth settled against the bulge in my pants.
My relations with women in the past had never been tumultuous. Obviously, I took enjoyment from their soft skin, their beauty. It was enjoyable, but I always thought of it as a passing excitement. Soon it would be over and they would go their way and I would go mine. And it was always so…
Until now, I found myself holding my breath. She brushed her hair over her shoulders as her gaze lowered to my lips.
My hands went to the shapely curve of her hips. She leaned forward to kiss me. I could taste the red wine we’d shared. “Don’t you want me?”
“More than you know, Zola, more than you’d ever know, but I promised your father,” I whispered.
“He’s dead, Dante. He’s dead. I don’t think he would give a shit if you fucked me,” she cried and began to sob softly.
I held her close to my heart and felt the terrible grief in her shaking body. “Let me dry your hair.”
She turned her face away. “Do what you want.”
“Stay. I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes later I returned and saw her seated in my chair with her glass of wine once again in her hand. She looked dejected as she stared out of the window.
I found an outlet nearby and plugged it in.
Chapter 30
Zola
The dryer came to life and drove away the strained silence of the room. I watched his reflection in the glass of the windows.
I found myself enjoying the sensual almost hypnotic feel of his hands moving on my scalp. It was very subtly done with no expertise, but with a tenderness that I would not have expected from a cold hard man like him.
When the hairdryer was turned off, I didn’t turn to look at him. Our eyes met in our reflections.
“I’m not a sixteen-year-old girl, Dante. I’m a grown woman. No one is going to get hurt. It’s just sex. Nothing more. My father loved us both and he would never deny either of us this brief fling before we go our separate ways."
His body stilled, and for a few seconds, he did nothing. Then I turned and he reached out and touched my bottom lip as if he couldn’t believe I was real.
“I know I shouldn’t, but you’re so beautiful I can’t help myself,” he whispered more to himself than me.
“Don’t think of me as Marco Leone’s daughter. I’m just a woman in a hotel room in London.”
His eyes moved from my lip up to my eyes and we stared at each other. I thought I saw something like pain cross his features. He remained still and shut his eyes as if he was praying to his God.
When he opened his eyes, he was different. “Just sex?”
“A brief fling before we go our separate ways,” I confirmed.