A Scandal in the Headlines

She sat up gingerly, surprised her body still felt at all like her own when he’d made it his—made her his—with such devastating completeness. Her body still hummed with pleasure. So much pleasure Elena could hardly believe she’d survived it, that she was still in one piece.

Then again, perhaps she wasn’t.

He shifted, and she felt his hand on her back, smoothing its way down to curl possessively over her hip. Impossibly, she felt something in her catch anew. A spark where there should have been nothing but ash and burned-out embers.

Surely this was the end of it. Succumbing to what had burned so bright between them had to have destroyed it, didn’t it? But his fingers traced a lazy alphabet across her skin, spreading that fierce glow deep into her all over again, making her realize this wasn’t over at all.

Elena had made a terrible mistake, she understood then. There were many ways to pay, and she’d just discovered a brand-new one. Perhaps, on some level, she’d held out the hope that what had surged between them was all smoke, no fire. That indulging it would defeat it.

Now she knew better. Now she knew exactly how hot they burned. She would have to live with that, too.

“Come here,” he said, and she felt his voice move in her like magic, making her chest feel tight.

Despite herself, she turned. She looked down at him, bracing herself for a smug expression, a cocky smile—but that hard gaze of his was serious when it met hers. Almost contemplative. And that was worse, because she had no defense against it.

He reached up and traced a lazy line from her collarbone down over the upper swell of her breasts, and there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes when she caught his hand in hers and stopped him.

“Alessandro …” she began, but she didn’t know what to say.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he tugged her back down beside him, surrounding her once again with all that warm male strength. As if she were safe, she thought in a kind of despair. As if she’d finally come home.

When she knew perfectly well neither one of those things were true.

His gaze darkened as he watched her. He slid a hand around to the nape of her neck, but she was the one who closed the distance between them, pressing her mouth to his, spurred on by a great wealth of emotion she didn’t want to understand.

This time, there should have been no wild explosion, no impossible heat. This time, she should have been more in control of herself, of all these things she didn’t want to feel.

But his mouth moved on hers and something incandescent poured through her, lighting her up all over again. She felt that spark ignite, felt that same fire grow again inside of her. His kiss was tender, something like loving, and it ripped her into pieces.

She kissed him back, desperately, letting her hands learn his fascinating body all over again, letting herself disappear into this madness that she knew perfectly well would destroy her. It was only a matter of time.

And this time when he slid into her it was a different kind of fire. Slow, deliberate. It stripped her bare, made her eyes fill with tears, battered what was left of her defenses, her carefully constructed veneers. He gazed down at her as he moved inside of her, his dark eyes grave and something more she didn’t want to name, as he spun this wicked fire around them.

As he wrecked her totally, inside and out, and she loved every second of it.

And then he pushed them both straight over the edge of the world.

When she woke a second time, the sun was beginning to sink toward the sea, bathing the sky in peaches and golds, and Alessandro wasn’t next to her. Elena sat up in confusion, only realizing as she almost let it slide from her that she was draped in something deliciously silky. A robe, she discovered when she frowned down at it.

She pulled it on as she stood, belting it around her waist, and when she looked up she saw him.

He sat at a nearby table in the gathering dusk, a wineglass in one hand, his gaze trained on her. He hadn’t bothered with his shirt. A quick glance assured her he was wearing those loose, soft trousers, low on his narrow hips. That lean, smoothly muscled body was even more beautiful from a distance and now, of course, she knew what he could do with it. She knew. She snapped her attention back to his face—and went still.

He was watching her with an expression that made her breath catch in her throat. She recognized that look. This was the Alessandro Corretti she remembered, brooding and dark.

And it seemed he’d remembered that he hated her.

Elena steeled herself. It was better this way. This was what she’d wanted. She ran her hands down the front of the silk robe, but then stopped, not wanting him to see any hint of her agitation.

“Sit down,” he said, indicating the table before him and the selection of platters spread out across its inlaid mosaic surface. His voice was cold. Impersonal. A slap after what they’d shared, and she was sure he knew it. “You must be hungry.”