Page 36 of ‘I Do’ for Revenge
She could hear Vito’s hum of approval in the back of his throat and she felt a jolt of pure adrenalin when his fingers pushed aside the flimsy gusset of her underwear and stroked into her with expert precision.
Flora gasped into Vito’s mouth as his fingers worked to bring her to a rapid and shuddering climax, her whole body trembling in the aftermath.
As much as it excited her that he could do this to her, it also scared her a little. It was as if once he touched her she wasn’t remotely in control of her own autonomy. She opened her eyes and was mildly comforted to see the stark look of hunger on Vito’s face. On an impulse she put her hand on him, where his body was hard under his trousers. She suddenly felt audacious. His eyes glittered. He said, ‘If we weren’t just minutes away from our destination I wouldn’t stop you.’
Flora took her hand away and straightened herself as much as she could. She stored up the fact that there were things she could do to push this man off his axis as much as he did to her. Maybe on the way home...
‘What are you thinking?’
Flora looked at Vito, affecting an innocence that this man had stripped her of with her full consent. ‘Nothing at all.’
Flora heard him mutter something that sounded liketemptressand resolved there and then to definitely turn the tables on him on the way home. But first she had to navigate an upmarket social event and she just prayed that the stylist who’d told her to wear this strapless thigh-skimming cocktail dress wasn’t sending her out to make a fool of herself.
The cocktail party was taking place on the rooftop of one of the tall buildings almost directly opposite Vito’s apartment on the other side of the park. The crowd here was different from in Rome, a little more relaxed. Flora was relieved to see that she was far from the only woman baring so much skin.
People here were curious about her but they didn’t have the same intense interest as the people in Rome, understandably.
The entire terrace had been set up for the party and was being hosted by one of New York’s grand dames.
‘It’s basically a very exclusive networking opportunity,’ Vito had told Flora when she’d asked the purpose of the party.
There were delicious-looking canapés, but each time a waiter appeared Flora resisted the urge to taste one, knowing that she’d end up with caviar down her chest or some other catastrophe.
Vito was locked in conversation with a couple of other men and Flora was staring wistfully at another tray of canapés leaving her sight.
‘I get it, too nervous to eat in case it goes everywhere?’
Flora turned to the woman behind the voice. A beautiful blonde woman with her hair swept up in an elegant chignon, exactly the kind of up-do Flora could never achieve.
She smiled ruefully. ‘It’s that obvious?’
The woman—who sounded English—chuckled and gestured to her own classic sheath of a sleeveless dress in a light cream colour. ‘Let’s just say I can empathise. Tell you what, I’m starving because I didn’t have lunch, we only arrived in from London today, so why don’t we go and eat together and then we can make sure we’re still presentable?’
Flora grinned. She hadn’t expected to meet someone so friendly in a place like this. ‘Deal,’ she said and let the woman lead her away from Vito to where caterers had a table set up groaning under a veritable feast of food.
‘Who was the woman you were talking to during the party?’
Flora turned to Vito in the back of the car. ‘I’m sorry, was I meant to stay by your side? I was just hungry and so was she and I was too scared to eat any of the canapés in case I spilled something and so was she and so—’
Vito put a finger to Flora’s lips. He shook his head. ‘I don’t expect you to stay by my side. You’re a free agent.’
He could feel Flora’s breath against his finger and he got hard. He pulled his hand back, cursing her effect on him. Cursing her for distracting him all evening—either when she’d been beside him, with her scent and presence and her body, poured into a dress that emphasised her tiny waist and shapely hips and generous breasts, or even worse when she hadn’t been beside him. When she’d been talking to someone else.
‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘If I ever went to a social event with my uncle, say if my aunt was ill, or away, he’d expect me to stay right beside him and remember everyone we talked to. He’d quiz me on the way home.’
Vito’s conscience pricked. ‘Like I am now?’
Flora shook her head, making tendrils of her hair move around her face. Her hair hadn’t been straightened, but it had been pulled back into a low bun. Acting on instinct, Vito said now, ‘Turn around.’
She did, giving him her back. Of course he was immediately tempted to pull the zip of her dress down, but he resisted. He wasn’t a teenager.Maledizione.
He pulled the pins out of her hair and it slowly loosened and fell down her back and around her shoulders.
‘Oh, that feels so good,’ she murmured.
Vito speared his fingers in her hair and massaged her skull. She groaned softly and that only made him harder. He gritted his jaw.
‘So, the woman? I’m just curious because she looked familiar.’