CHAPTER NINE

      FAITH melted into his kiss as if she’d been born to do so. No man had ever kissed her the way Renzo had, she thought crazily. He kissed the way he rode motorcycles: expertly, passionately, and with a combination of control and recklessness that slayed her ability to think rationally about anything.

      She was lost, helpless, powerless to resist when he held her so close, his mouth slanting over hers, his tongue sliding and teasing and tormenting.

      He kissed her until she moaned, kissed her until she wrapped her arms around him and arched her body against his. Until she forgot who she was or where she was or why this might possibly turn out badly for her in the end.

      His hand slid down her body, brought her hips in contact with his, and she gasped at the evidence of his need for her.

      “I want you, Faith,” he said in her ear. “But I want you to make the choice. It has nothing to do with who we are, and everything to do with this raw need we both feel when we touch. I want to explore this feeling, and I want to show you how good it can be between us when we do.”

      She could no longer deny that she wanted it, too. “Not here,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to do it here.”

      He lifted his head until he could look down at her, stroked his fingers over her cheek before tucking her hair behind her ear. “Of course not,” he said. “Tell me what your fantasy is, cara. A castle? A desert tent? A tropical island? Name it, and it’s yours.”

      Her pulse thrummed in her throat until she felt dizzy, drunk with passion and happiness and fear all at once.

      “I—I’ve never quite thought about it.” My God, what was she agreeing to? Was she really going to be this man’s lover? Was she really negotiating the terms of her surrender in a sunlit office in Tuscany?

      “What about Venice?” he said. “A gorgeous palazzo on the Grand Canal. I will do this for you, Faith, if it’s what you want.”

      He looked so serious, and she knew that no matter what she named, no matter how far-fetched, he would move heaven and earth to get it for her. To make her first time special. She was touched that he would go to such trouble, and yet at this moment she wanted none of those things.

      She only wanted him. In a bed. In his villa, with the scents of the flowers on the breeze and his taste on her tongue. That was all she needed to make it special, memorable.

      But she felt unsophisticated for wanting something so simple when he was offering her the world. Would he think her too sentimental if she told him? Too unimaginative?

      “I can see that you’ve thought of something,” he said. “But you do not want to tell me. What is it, cara? Do you wish to refuse my offer? It is your choice, as I have said.”

      Faith sighed and lifted her hand to trace her fingers across his full lower lip. She was beyond hope now. She couldn’t refuse even if her life depended on it. She knew that her heart probably depended on it, but that couldn’t stop her, either.

      Her fingers moved back and forth while he held completely still. She’d never done anything so sensual or bold to a man in her life, and yet the darkening of his eyes told her he liked it. She liked it, too. She felt as if there was a thread running from her fingers to her core, and when she touched him, her sex tightened with need.

      “I want to go back to the villa, Renzo.”

      He captured her fingers in his and kissed them. “Then that is where we shall go.”

      The villa was only a short car ride away, but by the time they arrived, her bravado was fading and nerves were taking over. She was about to let a famous heartbreaker make love to her for the first time in her life. What if he didn’t enjoy it? What if he was disappointed?

      Because this wasn’t about love. It was about desire and heat, about sexual gratification. Things that she knew nothing about, or at least not yet. What if she was terrible at it?

      They left the car in the drive and passed into the house through the kitchen door, which was open to the breeze and the bright afternoon sunshine. The cook, Lucia, was busy making something that smelled wonderful. She looked up when they entered, and smiled. Renzo spoke to her for a few moments before Faith followed him into the long hallway leading toward the grand staircase, butterflies swirling in her belly until she was nearly sick with it.

      When they were almost at the stairs, Renzo caught her to him and her blood began to sing once again. If he would just hold her, she could do anything.

      “I want you desperately, cara mia,” he said, his blue eyes serious as he studied her face, “but I want you to be certain. And I want to do this right. You should be wined and dined and seduced, not taken upstairs and stripped naked simply for my pleasure.”

      She clutched his sleeves as he cupped her face. She waited for the perfect storm of his kiss, that melding of lips and tongues that drove her insane with need, but his lips only skimmed hers, the kiss chaste and soft. When she would have wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, he lifted his head.

      “Go, before I lose the will to send you away. We will dine together at eight. What happens then is entirely up to you.”

      It was nearly ten minutes after eight when she walked into the dining room. Renzo turned at the sound of her entrance. He’d been convinced she’d changed her mind when she hadn’t been prompt—Faith had never been late even a single day at work, so it was inconceivable that she could be late now unless she wasn’t joining him on purpose.

      But she was here, and his blood began to hum at the sight of her. It was true he didn’t know if she’d changed her mind or not, but the way she was dressed gave him hope. She wore a body-skimming blue wrap dress that was more daring than anything he’d yet seen her wear. It was still modest—Faith would always be modest—but the dress dipped in a V that showed the barest hint of cleavage while clinging to her curves.

      Curves he wanted to explore in thorough detail.

      Her color was high, he noted, her green eyes wide. Her blond hair spilled freely down her back, silky and shining in the lights from the Murano chandelier overhead. He had a sudden visceral reaction: he wanted to bury his fingers in her hair while he thrust into her body again and again.

      Santo cielo.

      He’d been determined not to do this, not to give in to his desire for her now that he knew she was a virgin. But he’d realized today, when she’d bent down to remove his boots, that she was a fire in his blood he wasn’t going to quench any other way. Hell, she’d even invaded his ride on the Viper. At a time when he most needed his concentration, she’d been in his head, her pretty eyes and flushed cheeks, her beautiful full breasts, her hot little tongue as he’d kissed her in the car last night.

      Faith was in his blood, in his body, and he knew of no other way to drive her out than to immerse himself in her. But the choice was hers. Only hers. He would not take advantage of her innocence.