Excerpt

Venice, the city of canals, was built on more than one hundred interconnected islands. Giacomo Casanova, the world’s most famous lover, was born in Venice. He was jailed in Doge's Palace for seducing noblewomen and scamming elderly statesmen. Venice was built on blood, deception, love, and sex.

Thinking of Casanova wandering the streets, seducing women and carousing with prostitutes, I turned a blind corner and crashed into someone standing in the middle of the narrow walkway.

“Scusi,” I said, as the bitter scent of espresso assaulted me. There was a clattering noise, and I looked down to see a man pick up a silver flask from the cobblestones. “Mi dispiaci,” I said, moving to help him.

“I don’t speak Italian,” he said, his back toward me. He stood in the shadows, just out of the moonlight’s reach. “Do you always walk so fast?”

“I’m sorry. Do you always stand like a statue in the dark?” I said, immediately triggered by his condescending tone. Clearly, this rude and arrogant tourist didn’t care whom he inconvenienced.

The clouds parted, and he stood before me bathed in the moonlight. Seeing the face of this stranger, my breath caught. Holy hell. This man was beautiful. Annoying beautiful.

Tall and muscular, his dark hair fell across his forehead, framing his brown eyes. A shadow of stubble covered his strong jaw. He wore a light grey turtleneck under a long, camel hair, winter coat.

He gave me a warm, sexy smile. Strike that. He gave me an arrogant, sexy smile with utterly kissable lips.

He looked like a Cheshire Cat who knew his secret power was bringing women to their knees with one lick of his tongue. At the thought of his tongue licking me anywhere, my knees threatened to buckle.