Carpathian 00 - The Scarletti Curse

the reality of monsters in men.
    "Are you ill, Nonno?" He made the inquiry gently, when all he wanted to do was sweep Nicoletta into his arms and carry her away from any possible danger.
    His grandfather held up a hand and shook his averted head. Giovanni tightened his hold on his wife when she would have gone to comfort the older man. "We must leave and let him rest, Nicoletta," he commanded softly. He was urging her out of the room, his body pressing close so that she was forced to move into the hall.
    "Traitors," she whispered to the guards as she was whisked past them. Both grinned sheepishly though un-repentantly at her.
    "I know now why my ancestor built that tower," Giovanni informed her. "I think it would be in my best interest to lock you in it as soon as you rise. My heart cannot stand the strain you continually put on it."
    She looked up at him, her dark eyes meeting his gaze. It was a mistake. She knew it was a mistake before she did it, but she couldn't help herself. His eyes ensnared her in a dark world of erotic need, temptation, excitement. Nicoletta didn't want to feel any of those things, not after her recent vows of good behavior. Not with his grandfather's warning echoing in her mind.
    Jealousy. A madness that destroyed good men. She had already observed signs of it in Giovanni, yet the threat wasn't enough to keep the embers smoldering deep within her from leaping into flames at one look from his hungry eyes. He made her weak with need, her body coming alive when he wasn't even touching her.
    He led her along the hall, his large frame urging her in the direction he wanted her to go, his body hard and hot, a temptation she wanted desperately to resist, a pleasure she wanted to taste again and again.
    "Giovanni." She whispered his name, a plea to let her go.
    He knew it, the confusion of her thoughts; he was somehow sharing her mind. Never, cara mia. I will never release you. She could feel his fierce determination, his vow. He dragged her into a room she had never been in, firmly closing the door and turning the lock. It was smaller than many in the palazzo, with Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    stained-glass windows and dark reliefs covering the walls. His mouth found hers, taking her response, hard and dominating, his terror of losing her evident in the firestorm of hunger rushing through his veins.
    It was only when he felt the tears trickling down her face that he lifted his head, his hands framing her face so that he could kiss her eyes, the corners of her trembling mouth, taste her tears. "What is it, piccola? Am I such a monster that you cannot bear to live in this dark palazzo with such a brute?" He could never let her go; she was as essential to him as the air he drew into his lungs. He had no hope of explaining, no hope that she didn't recognize the danger to her life and how utterly selfish he was.
    His voice was so tender, it turned her heart over. He sounded so alone, aching with his need of her.
    Nicoletta looked up at him with her innocent honesty. "I do not understand this place or the people in it. I do not know right from wrong here. You are very powerful, and you sweep me away so I do not recognize myself when I am in your arms. I do not even know you, yet I…" She trailed off, her face flushing scarlet, but she bravely met his gaze.
    "Nicoletta." He seemed to breathe her name, almost in relief. "What a husband and a wife do to express feelings for one another is never wrong. How can such a thing be wrong?" His hands shaped her body, brushed her breasts, free beneath the thin material of her blouse. "Can this be wrong, that a husband would want to touch his wife, show her the strength of his feelings? Would you wish to live years without wanting what is natural between a man and woman?" His hands tugged at her blouse so that he could bend his head to the offering of her breasts.
    Nicoletta closed her eyes as jagged streaks of lightning seemed to dance through her body. Her slender arms cradled his head to her. She couldn't resist him, his dark hunger and intense need. She couldn't resist the way her body craved his. "No," she whispered in defeat. And it was true. Better to live like this, wanted and fiercely alive, than unwanted, performing only for the sake of heirs and detesting the act as some other women did.
    He drew up her long skirt, his hand moving up the bare flesh of her thigh until he found the hot, moist treasure he was