| BOOK ONE OF THE VENANDI SAGA | A DARK MAFIA ROMANCE |
Teeth scrape over skin as he nips at my earlobe, "I told you..." Threading his fingers through the strands at my nape, he rolls my head to the side and his lips continue their exploration, "...
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Sometime later... ---
Padded bristles on a fanned caress, gentle fingers paint their soothing current in broad, lazy strokes along the curve of my body. Up and down they glide, sketching their miniature masterpieces out of absentminded squiggles and bruised flesh. A heart here... A loopy thingy there... Then, down to cup my ass where they linger just long enough to taunt me with tender pressure before resuming their idle crawl north. If it weren't for the slithering dread hissing in the back of my mind...
"I'm still here, Princess. This isn't over."
...I might even snuggle into Kole's blanket of body heat and take a nap - lulled asleep by his steady strumming and the constant thump beneath his stout chest. Let him carry me to bed for a few hours. Maybe, it would be better if I did.
Lamentably, all I can do is frown at the twinkling horizon, counting the squiggles until I hear, "Mi scusi, Principessa, your father requests you both join him."
Dammit.
"Shhhit." Instantly, Kole scrambles to shield my naked torso, shouting, "Aspettare! We need-uhhh... Uhem... a minute..." Clutched to his side, I watch amused as he blindly flails for what I assume is my discarded tee though, I doubt Blondie and her frayed, white cotton will provide much cover in their present condition. Even so, Kole continues his futile struggle, thrashing wildly for the lump of laundry piled several feet out of reach.
"Uh... S-Signore?" a timid Italian tenor stammers from the stairwell.
"Aaah-yeah... Just a second-Huhn... longer!"
"Si, but... I brought some-a s-spare clothes." Perking, I crane for a glimpse of the promised delivery, pleased to find a basket of clean sweats wobbling in the poor soldier's shaky grasp.Pristinely polished combat boots shuffle to us and eyes trained on the celestial mural above, he clarifies, "His-uhhh... de Raphe, thought you might need-a's-something dry to wear."
"Oooh, yes," I squeal, overjoyed at the prospect of anything other than the sopping bundle tangled around my legs but virile bronze is a triggered bear trap clamped at my midsection, squeezing tighter in anticipation.
"Oooh, no you don't," Kole cautions, "Your dad'll kill me." Whiskey timbre snapsoff an order in flawless Italian, "La principessa ti chiede di lasciare i vestiti e andare!"
At once, grey plastic and lumpy fleece clatters to the platform with a chipper, "Si, grazie," and pristinely polished boots scamper out of view.
"Hmpf," Slumping to prop my chin on his pec, I grumble at Kole's cheerful gloat, "S'pose you think you're hot shit. Huh, Hunter?"
Cheerful widens to wicked as he leers, "Well, I do have a perfect cock."
"Mmm. Yeah. S'a good thing, too," I nod, "'Cause I dunno about the rest o'yah."
