[Excerpt]

I smile and curl a dark tendril of hair around my finger. “Silk. Beautiful rare silk.” My fingers continue upward until they reach flesh, the porcelain skin around her chin.  

She lets me kiss the side of her neck. “Oh, God. What am I doing. I barely know you.”

“We can fix that.” I nuzzle her ear.

She averts her head to avoid my mouth but doesn’t push me away. So I take a different route. I take her hand and drift a light kiss over the knuckles.

“There’s a theory about men like you.”

I lower my head and come within inches of kissing her lips. The space between us crackles, we’re both so turned on. “What’s that, honey?”

“The Pareto Principle, the 80/20 theory. Pareto was an—”

“Economist.” Heard of him at Wharton. I lift the flipped ends of her dark hair, letting strands catch between my fingers. “An Italian guy like me.”

“Eighty percent of the sales come from twenty percent of the clients. You’re part of that twenty percent of the men who get eighty percent of the sex.”

“Hmmm.” I lean over, closing in. My left hand slips under her open coat, and I lift the hem of her sweater. I encounter a warm, slick back. “Oh, baby. You’re burning up. We’ve got to get you out of these clothes.” I’m kissing her throat and tug on the right sleeve of her coat, trying to pull it off. 

She’s trembling, rolls in the opposite direction to dodge my hand. The sleeve is off her shoulder and she still lets me nuzzle her neck. “Zaccardi . . . two C’s, right?”

“Nick, honey. Nick.”

“You know what I’m going to do?”

“Make this morning a lot more interesting?”  

[Excerpt – ELENA’S POV]

“Why are you so upset?”

She set the vase on the dresser, on top of the macramé table runner. “I’m mad. Mad at myself.” She tossed a turquoise throw pillow on the bed. Don’t think of him. Don’t.

But she couldn’t help herself. At his cold, beautiful mausoleum of an apartment, she knew he’d try something. She’d encouraged his wicked skills, moving into him so he could pounce. Just for once, she wanted to experience a sexual virtuoso like him, and he’d made her knees buckle. Being close to him shook her to the core. Those golden eyes, his lean hands. His potent cologne and musk scent. Intoxicating. Opium and sin rolled into one.