“Please…” she breathed, the word slipping past her lips before she even understood what it was she begged for. Her body was a storm of need she couldn’t name, hollowed out by an ache that only his touch seemed able to fill. Yet Marcello’s cruelty was in how he fed the fire without quenching it.

Her back remained pressed to him as his mouth wandered over her skin, teeth grazing, lips tugging. Each slow, deliberate bite coaxed her spine to arch, drawing her body into a taut bow that ...