I’d barely settled when I was being hoisted again and placed on his lap. Ryan started unbuttoning the coat I was wearing, the privacy divider already slowly rising between us and the driver, as Pietro took the front passenger seat. “My apartment. Now!”

The divider closed completely just as he pushed the coat off my shoulders. “Where is the zipper?”

“What?” I blinked up at him, sure I’d heard him wrong.

“The zipper, Nova. The fucking zipper. Where is it?”

Confused by the question, I turned, showing him the small clasp and zipper at the back. On my next inhale, the clasp was undone and the zipper lowered, causing the front of my dress to fall forward. With a small scream, I caught it and held the material to my bare chest.

“Release it,” he commanded, his tone making it clear I needed to listen.

In the dimness in the back of the SUV, the windows so tinted that not even the flashing city lights could penetrate, I clutched the material closer. Afraid he wouldn’t like what he saw if I were naked. That he wouldn’t want me. That I wasn’t beautiful enough. How many women could he have fucked by this point? How perfect were they all compared to me? “I-I’m not wearing a bra.”

“I am very much aware of that fact.” His tone made me shiver, but not in fear. I heard something lethal in his voice, but there was no disguising his hunger. And it turned me on in an embarrassingly telling way. “Release the dress, Nova. Now.”

I slowly let go of the dress, allowing it to fall to my waist, and then I crossed my arms over my breasts, hiding my nakedness from him. Ryan lifted my hips, taking it completely off. Pressing the power button to roll down the window, he tossed the dress out into the busy night. Gasping, I watched as the car behind us ran over it while Ryan powered the window back into place.

“The panties?” He was panting now, but I wasn’t sure if it was from his continued rage or the fact that I was sitting on his lap in nothing but a pair of silk bikini briefs. “Did he give them to you as well?”

“N-no,” I breathed, watching his chest rise and fall with each labored breath he took. “I-I got them the last time I went to Paris.”

Leaning in, he touched his nose to my neck, breathing in slowly. Goose bumps pebbled the skin along my entire body, making me shiver as an ache began to pulse deep between my legs. “You’re lucky you smell like my Nova. If you had smelled of someone else, I would have ordered Pietro to turn this car around and killed the motherfucker.”

“Why?” I gasped, shaking my head in an attempt to clear it of the fog his closeness and my near-nakedness were causing. “Why would you kill him? He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He clothed you. Touched you. He wants to take my Nova from me.” Ryan tangled his hand in my hair, wrapping the long strands around his wrist and pulling tight until my head was angled back—not enough to hurt, but exposing my neck to him. He skimmed his nose up and down, breathing me in over and over again, like he couldn’t get enough of my scent. “He made you laugh. That precious sound is for my ears only, and you let him hear it.”