RIPPED: A Dark Romance (Killer Lips Book 1) (3 page)

And now she's the one with inclinations virtually announcing themselves in neon across her face. Not to mention that gorgeous fuckable body. The curving swell of her magnificent breasts and hips. She is pinging with battling emotions. The pretty pink heat that gushes into her cheeks, the way she looks down, all unsettled because of the feelings swishing around inside. It's delicious.

Which one of us is she attracted to? She seems undecided in that. Her eyes bat between us enthralled by what she sees, and widen with that delicious rising hunger. She wants us. Cool. The battle is on.

Riley

“Come it's settled. Josh, help her into the boat,” Mark finally makes the decision easy.

His boat? I guess it isn't so fanciful- to have a car in Venice it would have to come without wheels. Riding around everywhere in a boat sounds so damned sexy though. And it's a black cigarette  speedboat – a boat for spies and supermodels.

Mark places my suitcase in a chest so it won't get soaked with spray. The boat purrs into action and even I can tell the engine is tugging, itching to go full throttle. But the waves on the lagoon are terrifyingly aggressive, whipping up into a ferocious tantrum. Surely Mark will take it easy.

Instead he takes each rolling wave as a personal affront, riding slowly up the curve, surrendering to its power. Then, when the hull brushes against the pinnacle, he guns the motor so we fly from the impetus and slam down on the other side. Like a triumphant warrior he take offs in a sprint across the flat tide before it gathers and he faces it down again.

My fingers are stark white rimmed with blood red where I grip the edges of the black leather seat, certain we're about to wipe out in a surfing disaster. Josh and Mark face the gale up front at the windshield in a whirl of adrenalin and I'm relieved when we finally turn into the mouth of the Grand Canal and the hugest waves are contained within the banks.

My heart racing, we ride the maddened swell up the most incredible waterway in the world, now pulsing high against the buildings and ready to burst over the
fondamenta
. The snow blasts at my eyes as we approach the hexagon of the Rialto Bridge.

Mark veers toward one of the grand palaces edging the water, two massive wooden portals swing open and we are enter the bowels of the centuries old edifice. I feel more invigorated and alive than ever in my entire existence.

“This is amazing, how the canal comes inside the house” I say, breathy with excitement and spent adrenalin. “It's like being back in medieval times. And kind of creepy.”

“I often think of traitors gate at the Tower of London,” Josh says. “How those condemned souls were rowed up the Thames, through the gates, never to emerge.”

His father pulls the boat smoothly up alongside a crumbling stone quay and Josh jumps out to tie it off to a hoary iron cleat the size of a dinner plate.

When he clasps my hand to raise me onto solid ground, I feel as light as a wisp of silk. My inner thighs clench as he keeps my palm in his grasp, holding me to his brutal wide body.

Up a flight of stone steps, so old the lip of each has curved smooth with erosion. A huge wooden door, studded with black iron opens into an opulent hallway.

Mark takes my case from his son and claims my attendance to lead me up another wide flight of stairs carpeted in blood red. Only after we've walked the length of the hall, which is like crossing a stadium, does he throw back a tall carved wood door, all molded in intricate carving and glossed with gilt

“This is your room,” he announces and I gasp despite my promise-to-self to not act like a gawping tourist or whitetrash poor relation.

Chapter FOUR
 

“Oh wow, I feel like Sleeping Beauty or some character in a fairy tale taken to the castle,” I say in a whisper. Because apart from the size, the sumptuous beauty of the solid craftsmanship in the room is overwhelming.

Rich golden silks cover the four-poster bed as well as the small chairs and chaise lounges placed in front of  the tall windows. Chandeliers of hand-blown glass from the island of Murano close by, make the room glow softly along with a hundred candles.

Lush hand-knotted silk carpets of gold and palest pink cover the wide ancient floorboards. The fire burns ferocious in the huge stone grate and it all seems almost as though I'd been expected.

“It's a pleasure to have someone use this room for once.”

“If I were your family I'd be here every weekend,” I blunder, then immediately wish I could take it back.

I look up at him and tremble inside. He's closer than anticipated, his enervating glow penetrates me as we exchange buried gazes. The fire is too intense because a flare of heat sears my skin.

“There's only Josh and me right now,” he says. A soft growl in his throat.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know-” Shit, did somebody die? Everybody in his family? My fingers almost reach to brush the length of the dark stubble along his ridge of jawline. I'm perilously aware of the curling muscles pressing back against his snug, expensive black sweater.

It's the heat, the opulence of the huge room bathed in soft glow that somehow makes me feel beautiful. Like I could have a man like Mark. I need to touch him. Even though I'm sure his skin would set my fingertips alight. For the smallest moment it seems that he's going to tip his head down to kiss me. The air crackles between our lips. And passes on.

“Will you have a glass of wine with me downstairs before dinner?” he says.

His woody warm breath glances across my upper lip like a caress. He seems reluctant to break away from our invisible embrace. Despite the heat raging in my limbs, I shiver. My clothes are dank from the fog and snow plowing into me on the boat journey and I say really I'd like to change.

“Although I don't have the right clothes to do justice to the surroundings.”
And heartily wish I was also a Vogue model, with the wardrobe to match.

“There's a stash of outfits in the closet. Feel free to grab anything that suits your fancy.”

As soon as Mark leaves me I go to the tall slender doors, mirrored in tin coated glass created in Venice during the Renaissance at stupendous expense, but find the ensuite of solid white Carrera marble. The bath is fit for a Roman Empress with wide steps leading up and back down into the tub. I long to climb in for a hot fragrant soak after the travel ordeal but my host will be waiting.

I discover the wide closets, filled with an assortment of designer outfits – Prada, Gucci, Armani, Dolce - All Italian designers unsurprisingly. I finger the beautiful fabrics nervously. My immediate customary reaction that the outfits will all be too small for my curves makes me ashamed.

And yet, impossible as it seems and very surprisingly, they're all my exact size, every last one as though Mark only associates with women of a particular shape. Every dress and skirt I pull out seems unworn.

Does he keep this collection in order to seduce women in out of the storm? But still that doesn't explain how every item is my size.

I slip into a marvelous Prada concoction then fall to my knees and rip open the lid of  the top box on a stack that stretches the width of the six-door closet. Oh baby. I pull out the Swarovski crystal studded Louboutin. A platform pump completely encrusted in red sparkles that I sit and caress like a long-lost child.

While clutching my baby I lift another box lid and gasp at the pink glitter buckled sandals, another holds a pair of gold platforms, another black sparkling knee-highs and then, Ohmigod.

The sort of shoes I saw on girls at Wynn pool club parties but would never have had anywhere to wear even if I could afford them. Silver sparkled pumps with ferocious studs sticking out all over. Vicious and completely elegant. Not even daring to dream, I slip my foot in, ready to apply force so the perfect creature contains me.

It fits me like a bespoke cobbler's special creation. How is it possible? Mark must be an amazing man to understand how much women adore their shoes. I pull apart the weighty lined silk curtains and a slivery gust of cold air through the ancient panes of frosty glass makes the candles flicker but there's no view besides a shimmer of tungsten glow through the thick fog.

I turn back to the palatial room and when I take note of the girl in the mirror, my usual critical stance regarding how wide I look is gone. “Riley Hunter you look like a complete stranger- a butterfly come out of a cocoon. Who
are
you, girl?”

Mark & Josh

“It feels like I'm living in a dream,” she tells us, creeping nervously around the edge of the massive five hundred year old door like she's scared of breaking it. She's as divinely fragile as the moment we first saw her.

Thank the devils she's jumpy and out of her realm enough that her tripping and almost falling into the canal allowed me to pull her into my arms at the exact moment I was contriving a plan to get her there.

In this huge room papered with red silk, the glow of a flame turns everything rosy. II lit the fire in the huge iron grate along with a hundred candles because women love them. Perhaps they know the flame makes their skin glow warm and golden.

They seem even more vulnerable by candlelight. I opened a bottle of Brunello, a very good red and left it to breathe while I waited for her. But he came in and went right to the old oak buffet to fiddle with the glasses. So I know it's starting again.

He wants her too.

I hope it's not going to be a battle to the death this time. But why would it be any different than all the others?

This one is not the same though. Her lips quiver just enough that I want to suck the lower into the strong pull of mine. Something about Riley is unlike any other woman I've ever met. She stirs my deepest needs and I will make sure this time that she doesn't get burned.

Even her voice is soft sweet and so vulnerable.

“Or a fairytale,” she continues and her cheeks flush pink as I'd like them to be when I rip her clothes from her luscious body.

“I knew you'd choose the silver studs.”

“They're so, you know, daring,” she whispers with a huge smile like she's reached the summit of some Himalayan trek.

“Like you. That's why I knew you'd want them,” he tells her. Just to have the pleasure of watching the heat rise and prickle her cheeks and the tops of her amazing breasts.

“Sorry, I don't mean to gush but it must be so amazing to wake up here every day.”

“It is very special. Although we do prefer it when others are here.”

We have to let her know how much we really need her to be with us and that she's more than welcome to stay. And she will.

“Beautiful things are so much better when shared with someone else,” she says, looking at me as though we share sadness. “I've really come to believe that especially since being in Venice.”

Our eyes are held together drowning into each others pools and I know she feels something from the twitch in her face, the flush in her cheeks and the way she crosses her legs as she casts her eyes down. Then he had to step in.

“Chin, chin. Let's toast to a Siberian snowstorm and a fine Italian red to keep us warm on a cold night.”

We raise the heavy crystal goblets and chink.

“Eyes,” he says.

Riley looks between us, from one to the other, meeting our eyes in turn. The candle flames reflect in her large sad pools of confusion.

“Do you know why people say cheers?” he blasts into our moment again. “It's from medieval times when you could never be sure whether your companion had put poison in your goblet.”

I interrupt him before he takes over the evening as usual and recapture her wide gaze.

“Because when you meet a man's eyes you know the truth inside him.”

She colors slightly again as the flush rises to her cheeks and has to look away from me, proving she's hooked.

And proving I was correct about her.

It was difficult enough to find her. Well not that part, since we knew where she was staying but then the storm blew in and we almost lost her. But fate played it well in the end, the storm gave us every reason to bring her here without resorting to the usual methods.

And it may seem crazy- and what isn't in this world- but now she's here I don't ever want her to go.

A man knows what he wants in the instant he spies it.

Chapter FIVE

Riley

I sit at the dining table built for giants. The thing must be twenty feet long and still it doesn’t fill the room, not even close. I'm on one side of and opposite from the two most unbelievably handsome, divine rugged men I've ever seen in real life. As if a night in a palace isn't enough, I'm in man heaven.

So shoot me now.

“Ohmigod, my boss is gonna kill me,” I say. The dawning of real life hits me and hurls me into instant panic.

“Are you one of those women with a power career?” Mark asks.

“Oh Christ, no. Don't I only wish? I'm just a salesperson in my cubicle. It seems a degree in women's studies doesn't get you a power career.”

“So you won't be missed if you don't make it back.”

“Not even remotely. Unless of course someone can't manage to walk ten feet to the machine and pour their own coffee.” Mark looks relieved for me.

Every time I steal a peek at him, his eyes are burrowing into me with a softness and an aliveness that sends pulse waves of energy slamming down through me. My chest expands so hard I can hardly draw air to breathe. I have to look away, casting my eyes down before I make a fool out of myself. There's no way a man like him looks like that at a girl like me.

“I'm terribly sorry, I don't mean to be rude, I'm just so tired all of a sudden.” How many glasses of wine did I drink to quell my nervousness?

The stressy journey, the warm fire, the wine, it's impossible to stifle the vicious yawn stretching my mouth to a moan.

“You must be exhausted after today's harangue with the real world.”

They're both watching me so closely I feel almost stripped naked before them. My pussy tugs and tingles with impossible hunger and I have to get away from the double allure right now.

When we say good night, he holds my hand in his and the warmth transfers so my entire body heats up. I come back to the most luxurious room I've ever stepped foot in my entire life, including hotels and museums and all, lay on the bed and press my hands between my thighs, squeezing the furious throb coursing through me.

Josh & Mark

There's a whole new vibrancy to our lifestyle now we've got Riley in the palazzo with us. It's been so long, way too long, since we had a woman staying upstairs, in one of the many bedrooms now constantly empty and unused.

But I'm feeling very connected to her. There's a kind of chemistry between us that I want for myself. All my life I've been forced to share with him and I don't want to this time. I want her for myself.

Riley is beautiful. So fragile and so strong, like the skin stretched across a taut stomach. She bends to our will, doing everything we want and yet she has us dancing circles to her tune, whatever
she
wants. We'll do anything to make her happy and make her stay.

I love to watch her full breasts shiver slightly when she laughs and I imagine them naked just for me. I'm hungry to fill myself with handfuls of the flesh at her perfect ass and mouthfuls of her bare tits. Stroke my tongue across hard eager nipples. And I will.

When she finishes the wine and is sleepy enough to need her bed, then we'll get to open her up. Stroke firm fingers across her glistening slit and watch her shiver through her dreams.

Riley

I wake up after the most blissful sleep with the sound of water slapping at the wall. When I pull back the long drapes it's to the view from a movie. A Sensurround panoramic floor-to-ceiling image of life in the sixteenth century. My room is directly over the Grand Canal and the high water stretches in front of me like a superhighway, boats and gondolas plying up and down against the rough tide. The Rialto Bridge rises across the expanse at the far end of my real life painting. There's not a single jarring note to haul me out of my fantasy back into the real world.

OhmiGod, I'm in a palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal. On the opposite bank, across the wide tossing expanse, a line of ornate palaces, the very same ones I'd longed to venture inside but only gawped at from the
vaporetto
boat bus. Now those people are looking out at me. Or would be if they could see me as they ogle the fantastic skyline and wish they could peep inside just one of the fairytale palazzos.

I wander downstairs. Hopefully it's not out of line to beg a cup of glorious Italian coffee and maybe even a pastry before heading out. Every room I peep into is equally opulent, with the same picture postcard view and finally I discover the dining room.

It's empty but with a line of solid silver chafers laid out in a line on the massive wooden buffet. Seriously, every stick of furniture in this house must have required an army of servants to move into position. Must be why they haven't redecorated in centuries.

“Good morning sleepy head.”

I leap out of my reverie and spin around to face Mark standing at my shoulder. The heat immediately busts into my core from his proximity.

“You're looking for coffee I expect.”

“If it's not too presumptuous before I head out to the airport again.”

“
Mi casa es su casa.
”

“You can hardly refer to this as a house,” I say, feeling the heat in me rise as he hands me a cup of intense dark espresso and his fingers brush against mine.

I haven't seen a saucer in years, never mind a solid gold one. The longing to feel more of him, for any part of his body to connect with mine is unbearable.

“Every room's the size of a football pitch.”

I have to leave here soon and be away from this crazy hunger for a man I met last night. He only offered me a bed out of the kindness of strangers in a moment of need. Better to not start harboring fantasies of being a princess safe in his magical castle. I must remember I have a boring and now lonely life waiting for me in desert-dry Las Vegas.

“It's my home.”

“Of course, I just mean it's so incredible.”
Shut up. You're only digging a deeper hole for your awkwardness.
Another flush rises into my breasts and I pray my hot host doesn't notice.

“Could I use the internet? My phone's service is out.”

“The storm has kicked out everything,” he says. I swallow hard trying to control the strange tingling rising through me. The things he does to me, almost effervescent in his beauty and confidence.

“Is Josh up yet?” I mumble, again aware of my less than perfect body. “Maybe we can head out to the airport together.”

“Josh left hours ago,” he snaps, suddenly angered. “I dropped him at the airport this morning.”

“Oh.” It seems rude to ask why hadn't they woken me to go with them, especially when I've irritated him.

“You were fast asleep,” Mark says, his voice softens. “So exhausted from everything you went through it seemed cruel not to let you slumber. But the storm's risen and the boats aren't crossing the lagoon.”

“But I need to get my flight.” Now what? No internet, no access to the airport. Was I to be a waif in the frozen alleys?

“Do you? You already missed it though.” His eyes delve into me, roaming across my face and down my neck so intently I almost feel his fingers touching me there, the curve where my neck meets my collarbone, across my chest, down to my-

I have to stop this. It's time to leave, I can fantasize about Mark expertly caressing my body when I get back to my cramped and messy one bedroom apartment. First I have to find another flight.

And then stop quivering from my closeness to the most gorgeous man ever. No guys ever pay me the slightest mind, not being exactly Vegas material- not skinny enough, no enhanced boobs, no fake eyelashes.

“I really cannot thank you enough for taking me in, a stray in the storm. If you're ever in Vegas – . Well, we've got our own version of a Venetian Palazzo you might find amusing.”

Was that enough of an offer? Let him know I'm definitely interested if he ever comes to my town, without acting all desperate. He could get a girl in five seconds in Vegas, without even having to pay her.

“No. You can't possibly leave now. Have you looked outside at the weather? When Siberia sends out a storm it lasts for days. No flights are leaving.”

“But you said Josh flew back to London this morning,” I counter.

My job is seriously going to be at risk if I just don't show up even if it is my daily dream to ditch it. I'd already been playing it risky with all the personal days taken due to feeling like a pile of you know what.

“Josh left with a friend of mine, a Formula One driver who demanded a car from his sponsor to out race the storm across Europe.”

“Oh. Wow.” It occurs they could have stashed me in the trunk, but what am I thinking? I'm not that girl that race car drivers pick up and no one owes me a free ride around the world. I'm lucky to be staying in a palace on the Grand Canal instead of the cheapest room at the Best Western airport.

“Don't worry, I won't let you freeze on the back streets like a beautiful little match girl. You're more than welcome to stay here until the weather lifts. In fact I insist on it.”

Something about the way he says insist makes me believe he isn't only extending polite hospitality. He really is compelling. His voice more a sultry command than an invitation.

“I don't know,” I mumble.

“Please. You can't know how much pleasure it gives me to be able to rescue you.”

“I mean I hardly know you.” I can't keep up this resistance.

“You know my son. He'll be back next weekend. Assuming the flights out of London are all caught up.”

Do I know his son? Not enough to feel that this is a friend situation. But then how did anyone ever make friends without being strangers first? And let's be frank, there isn't a better place in the whole wide world to wait out a snowstorm from the tundra than where I'm currently standing.

Next weekend?
No, no, no. Stop dreaming and acting irresponsible. You have a job to get back to, a- okay, not much else is waiting for me.
Mark's eyes scan across me intently, making a rash of goosebumps rise across my arms. Suddenly my head is nodding, silently agreeing to his command proposal.

There's an entire room dedicated to books, the library of floor to high ceiling shelves filled with ancient tomes, bound in leather with gold tooled titles. It's strange to hold a book in my hand after becoming accustomed to an E-reader. Amazing how quickly we forget what we swore we'd never let go of. I stretch out on a chaise lounge and between pages, look up at the domed ceiling, painted with a garden of peacocks and naked nymphs.

Mark is gone all day and the housekeeper brings me an
insalata tricolore
and
pasta al oglio
which is the most delicious thing I've ever tasted. How do Italians manage to make plain boiled pasta taste so spectacular?

I would go out to walk the alleys again and stop at a
pasticceria
- one of the ubiquitous bars where a crowd stands at the counter with an espresso and a delicious small cake selected from the dizzying array lined up behind the bar. But the weather makes it impossible so I remain holed up in front of the fire in the museum style library.

That evening and the next we eat alone, just the two of us in the huge dining room, four course meals of exquisite taste and simplicity. It's uncanny how I feel I've known Mark forever and have lived in his
palazzo
in another life. I'm so immediately comfortable with being an actual princess. I like watching him talk, his movie star good looks and his worldly knowledge of almost everything. What can have happened to Josh's mother that she'd let all this slip away?

“I love a woman who enjoys food. It's so sensual watching her eat,” Mark says. He insists on serving me and when the desserts arrive he feeds me a taste of each on the end of a spoon.

He's right. Food must be sensual from the way every meal leaves me throbbing between my thighs. When I get back to my room, I press my fingers over my mound, through the damp fabric, trying to work the hunger out of my folds. I have to leave before I fall completely over the edge for a man I can never have. He's far beyond me, enjoying a little game with a stranger while the weather stinks.