Page 28 of Driven By Impulse

It was like performing choreography from a song she had known a long time ago, and Hanna looked up before she could even realize why she was doing it.

One glance into Nicco’s dark coffee eyes, though, and she realized exactly what had dragged her back.

“You ever play at your brother’s club?” she asked, rather than giving voice to any of the other haunts or furies crashing around inside her head. Nicco’s brother Dante, along with several of his friends, ran a lifestyle club in the mountains. Hanna was drawn to the world more than she wanted to admit, and her few experiments with submission had ingrained a sense into her that had her responding to commands before she even realized what they were.

Nicco laughed, and God, it was a real laugh, throaty and rich, dark, dark coffee, a sticky night in the Italian countryside, relief at being alive.

“After all that, you want to talk about Dante’s club?”

Hanna shook her head. “I just… You reminded me of something.”

Nicco grinned. “You can ask, Hanna. If you want to ask. This time I promise to answer.”

There were so very many other things they needed to be thinking about, but she needed a moment before she could go back inside and face the devils head on. And Nicco was one hell of a distraction.

“Have you ever…?” she hesitated. Knowing what she liked and being able to voice it out loud were two very different things. Still, she hadn’t gotten this far in her life by being a coward. “Have you ever scened before?”

Nicco’s fingers twitched, and she knew he really wished he had a cigarette between them.

“I have,” he replied simply, like it was the most casual thing in the world to play the role. “It’s been a while.”

Hanna could picture it all too well, leather riding pants and nothing else, a dark, dangerous man in his element, standing right at the edge of too much.

Her mouth went dry and she sipped at the forgotten champagne in her glass.

“I don’t think…the instinct goes away,” she muttered. “No matter how much time has passed.”

In the light of the lanterns hanging from the balcony and the heavy moon in the sky overhead, Hanna could see the way Nicco’s expression darkened, intensity clouding his vision, the way she wondered if it clouded her own.

“Leone, what would you know about the instinct?”

Hanna’s breath caught. “I know it’s unignorable, unforgettable. I know… I know it’s something inside you, hungry and demanding.”

“Say what it is,” Nicco whispered into the night. “I want to know for certain we’re talking about the same thing.”

No, he wanted to see if she would follow his command. He wanted to see if she was telling the truth about what she claimed to want.

Hanna squared her jaw and turned to face him. “Submission,” she managed. “Domination and submission, the need to give up power for protection.”

“You don’t need to be protected,” Nicco replied, holding her gaze.

Hanna shook her head. “No. But…but I like to be the one to give up control.”

Nicco took one step forward, and there he was, invading her space, taking over her fresh air with his rich scent, casting her in shadow as his large, powerful body blocked out the moon. She wanted him to reach for her, but was terrified of what she might learn if he did.

That she was craving his darkness.

That the need she had felt when Ash had pushed her against a tree was even more complex than she had originally realized.

That she wanted something different from both of them.

That she wanted both of them.

Nicco brushed her wrist, so gently Hanna wasn’t even certain it was real, until the moment his strong, rough thumb touched her pulse point, sending heat straight through her, a frisson of need and achy wanting that had her heart pounding too hard and her mind buzzing with dangerous possibilities.

“I can understand that,” he murmured. “That…wanting to let go.”

That caught Hanna’s attention. “You can?” It seemed…unexpected in this man, with his resolve and quiet, quivering intensity. “But you seem so comfortable…”