“Good morning, sexy.”
“Mmm, good morning to you, too.” Samara stretched as she struggled to cover her nude form. “What time is it?”
Peeking under the covers to enjoy her nakedness, a slick grin spread across his face. “I’d say it’s time for round three, but I don’t want to wear you out before you have to go back to your shoot.”
“I don’t want to go back to work, and I don’t want you to, either. I was hoping that we could … well, you know.”
Dorian stroked his chin, wondering how far he wanted to take the teasing between them. “Persuade me.”
“And how can I do that?”
“Use your imagination.”
She leaned in, daring him to press his lips against hers. “Will you to stop me once I try to convince you?”
“Allow me to, in my own way, but you can’t stop me once I start.”
“I have a feeling I won’t like where this is going.”
“Yes, you will. I promise you will.”
Samara straddled his lap before he could protest further, staring into his eyes with an intensity he didn’t anticipate. She traced a finger across his chin, lightly kissing his lips a few times, moving to his neck, then closing his eyes, fluttering her eyelids against his like a butterfly breezing in the wind. He tried to resist her advances, but she playfully forced him to clasp both sides of her waist. She cupped his face in her hands as she pressed her lips against his once more, parting them with her tongue, to get inside and kiss him with everything she had to offer.
“Mara—”
“No, baby, you can’t stop me, remember?”
She continued tempting him, and as much as he wanted to reciprocate, he couldn’t. No matter how badly he wanted to let himself go, he couldn’t. He struggled to regain some semblance of control over the situation by slipping her off his lap at the very least, but Samara was unwilling to yield it to him.
“Kiss me, DK. Kiss me the way you kissed me when we were kids back in Rio,” she implored. “Kiss me like you want to make me yours. I’m all yours. I’ve always been yours.”
He hesitated as the memories of the first night they made love—the night he fell in love with her—flooded his psyche. He was weak for her, desperate to allow his emotions to rise to the surface, but he wasn’t ready to let that happen. He needed to turn over the operations to one of his lieutenants before he could step away permanently and give himself completely to her.
His other dilemma: could he kill “The Wraith”—a persona he’d embodied for nearly his entire adult life? It was the one thing Samara didn’t know about him, the one secret he’d kept from everyone he held dear, except his father. His mother was convinced he worked for the State Department all these years, and he refused to allow her to believe anything different.
“Dorian … kiss me. It’s only a kiss, baby. I know you want to; I can see it in your eyes. Don’t hold back, darling. Kiss me.”
