Surrendering All but Her Heart

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  She quickly suppressed that longing, however. She pushed her dress down and her chin up. ‘Was that playing dirty enough for you?’ she asked.

  His dark, unreadable eyes held hers. ‘For now.’

  She felt a delicious little aftershock of pleasure ripple through her as his gaze went to her mouth. Was he thinking of how she’d used to pleasure him with it? He had done the same to her; so many times she had lost count. There had been few boundaries when it had come to sex. She had learned how to enjoy her body with him, how not to feel ashamed of its needs and urges. He had opened up a wild, sensual world to her that she had not visited since.

  She moved away from the wall, wincing slightly as her tender muscles protested.

  His expression immediately clouded with concern. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He put a hand around her wrist, his fingers overlapping her slender bones, his thumb stroking along the sensitive skin. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have taken things so fast. I should’ve taken my time with you, prepared you more.’

  She gave him a nonchalant shrug and pulled out of his hold. ‘Save the romantic gestures for someone you didn’t have to pay for.’

  A hard glitter came into his eyes. ‘Is this really how you want our relationship to run?’ he asked. ‘As a point-scoring exercise where we do nothing but attack each other?’

  ‘If you’re unhappy with how our relationship runs then you have only yourself to blame,’ she said. ‘You were the one who insisted on marriage. I told you I’m not cut out for it.’

  ‘I wanted to give you the honour of making you my wife,’ he said bitterly. ‘But clearly you’re much more comfortable with the role of a whore.’ He took out his wallet and peeled off a handful of notes. Stepping up to her, he stuffed them down the cleavage of her dress. ‘That should just about cover it.’

  Natalie took the notes out and tore them into pieces, threw them at his feet. ‘You’ll need far more than that to get me to sleep with you again.’

  ‘You’re assuming, of course, that I would want to,’ he said. And, giving her a scathing look, he turned and left.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NATALIE spent most of the day in her room. She heard Angelo moving about the villa but she refused to interact with him. She was determined to avoid him for as long as she could. Hunger was a minor inconvenience. Her stomach growled as the clock moved around but still she remained resolute.

  It was close to eight in the evening when she heard the sound of footsteps outside her door, and then a light tap as Angelo spoke. ‘Natalie?’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Open the door.’

  She tightened her arms across her body, where she was sitting cross-legged on the bed. ‘I said go away.’

  ‘If you don’t unlock this door I swear to God I’ll break it down with my bare hands,’ he said in a gritty tone.

  Natalie weighed up her options and decided it was better not to call his bluff this time. She got off the bed, padded over to the door, turned the key and opened the door. ‘Yes?’ she said with a haughty air.

  The lines that bracketed his mouth looked deeper and his eyes, though currently glittering with anger, looked tired. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked.

  She stepped away from the door and moved to the other side of the room, folding her arms across her middle. She didn’t trust herself not to touch him. Her body had switched on like a high-wattage lightbulb as soon as he had stepped over the threshold. She could feel the slow burn of her desire for him moving through her. Her insides flickered with the memory of his possession. It was a funny sensation, like suddenly stepping on an uneven surface and feeling that rapid stomach-dropping free fall before restoring balance.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  She sent him a chilly look. ‘Fine, thank you.’

  He drew in a long breath and then released it. ‘What happened this morning … I want to apologise. What I said to you was unforgivable.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, shooting him another deadly glare. ‘And, just for the record, I don’t forgive you.’

  He pushed a hand through his hair. Judging from the disordered state of it, it wasn’t the first time that day he had done so. ‘I also want to apologise for being so rough with you.’ He swallowed tightly and frowned. ‘I thought … I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I didn’t think. I just wanted you.’ His eyes darkened as they held hers. ‘I have never wanted anyone like I want you.’

  Natalie’s resolve began to melt with each pulsing second his eyes stayed meshed with hers. She felt the heat of longing pass between them like a secret code. It was there in his dark as night eyes. It was there in the sculptured contours of his mouth. It was there in the tall frame of his body, pulling her like a powerful magnet towards him. She felt the tug of need in her body; she felt it in her breasts, where they twitched and tingled behind her bra. And, God help her, she felt it rattle the steel cage around her heart.

  ‘Apology accepted,’ she said.

  He came to her and gently cupped her right cheek in his hand, his eyes searching hers. ‘Can we start again?’ he asked.

  She gave a little frown. ‘Start from where?’

  His mouth curved upwards. ‘Hi, my name is Angelo Bellandini and I’m a hotel and property developer. I’m an only child of wealthy Italian parents. I help to run my father’s arm of the business while working on my own.’

  She gave a resigned sigh. ‘Hi, my name is Natalie Armitage and I’m an interior designer, with an expanding sideline in bedlinen and soft furnishings.’ She chewed at her lip for a moment and added, ‘And I have a fear of flying …’

  His thumb stroked her cheek. ‘How old were you when you first got scared?’

  ‘I was … seven …’

  ‘What happened?’

  She slipped out of his hold and averted her gaze. ‘I’d rather not talk about it with a virtual stranger.’

  ‘I’m not a stranger,’ he said. ‘I’m your husband.’

  ‘Not by my choice,’ she muttered.

  ‘Don’t do this, Natalie.’

  ‘Don’t do what?’ she asked, glaring at him. ‘Tell it how it is? You blackmailed me back into your life. Now you want me to open up to you as if we’re suddenly inseparable soul mates. I’m not good at being open with people. I’ve never been good at it. I’m private and closed. It must be my Scottish heritage. We’re not outwardly passionate like you Italians. You’ll just have to accept that’s who I am.’

  The touch of his hands on her shoulders made every cell of her skin flicker and dance in response.

  ‘You’re much more passionate than you give yourself credit for,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the scratch marks on my back to prove it.’

  Natalie felt that passion stirring within her. His body was calling out to hers in a silent language that was as old as time itself. It spoke to her flesh, making it tauten and tingle all over in anticipation. She wished she had the strength or indeed the willpower to step back from his magnetic heat, but her body was on autopilot. She pressed closer, that delicious ache of need starting deep in her core.

  His mouth came down towards hers as hers came up, and they met in an explosion of sensation that made the flesh on her body shudder in delight. He flooded her senses with his taste—mint and male, heat and primal purpose. His tongue darted and dived around hers, subjecting it to a teasing tango that made her spine shiver and shake like a string of bottle caps rattling against each other. Heat pooled between her legs as he moved against her, the thickened length of him exciting her unbearably. She rubbed against him wantonly, desperate for the earth-shattering release that he alone could give her.

  He pulled back slightly, his breathing heavy. ‘Too fast.’

  ‘Not fast enough,’ she said and, pulling his head down, covered his mouth with her greedy one.

  His hands worked on her clothes with deliberate attention to detail. She squirmed and writhed as he kissed every spot of fles
h as he gradually exposed it. She tugged his shirt out of his trousers and with more haste than precision got him out of the rest of his clothes. She ran her hands over him reverentially. He was so strong and so lean, his muscles tightly corded, his skin satin smooth all but for the sprinkling of masculine hair that went from his chest in an arrow to his swollen groin. She stroked him with her hand, loving the feel of his reaction to her touch. She heard him snatch in a breath, his eyes glittering as she gave him a sultry look from beneath her lashes.

  ‘If you’re going to do what I think you’re about to do then this show is going to be over before it gets started,’ he warned.

  She gave him a devil-may-care look and shimmied down in front of him. ‘Then I’ll just have to wait until the encore, won’t I?’

  ‘Dio mio,’ he groaned in ecstasy as she took him into her mouth.

  She used her tongue and the moistness of her saliva to take him to the brink. She would have pushed him over, but he stopped her by placing his hands on either side of her head.

  ‘Enough,’ he growled, and hauled her to her feet.

  He carried her to the bed, laying her down and covering her, with his weight supported by his arms to avoid crushing her. His mouth took hers in a searing kiss as his hand caressed her breasts and that aching secret dark place between her thighs.

  It was her turn to suck in a breath when he moved down her body to stroke her with his lips and tongue. She felt the fizzing of her nerves as he brought her closer and closer. Her release started far away, and then gathered speed and stampeded through her flesh. She lost herself in a whirlpool of sensation that made her feel weightless and boneless.

  She opened her eyes to find him looking at her as he stroked a lazy finger down between her breasts. ‘Do you want to finish me off with your hand?’ he asked.

  She gave him a little frown. ‘Don’t you want to come inside me?’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, gently circling one of her nipples. ‘You might still be sore.’

  She stroked her hand down his lean stubbly jaw. ‘I want you inside me,’ she said. ‘I want you.’

  His eyes held hers in a sensual lock that made her belly quiver. ‘I’ll take it easy,’ he said. ‘Tell me to stop if it hurts.’

  ‘It’s not as if I’m a virgin, Angelo,’ she said, with a brittle little laugh to cover her unexpected emotional response to his tenderness. ‘I can handle everything you dish out.’

  His eyes smouldered as they held hers. ‘Don’t say you weren’t warned,’ he said, and covered her mouth with his.

  Angelo lay on his side and watched Natalie sleep. From time to time he would pick up a silky strand of her hair and twirl it around one of his fingers.

  She didn’t stir.

  Her stubborn refusal to open her heart to him was like a thorn in his flesh. It was as if she would do anything to stop him thinking she cared about him. He thought back to their break-up, to how she had announced without warning that she was leaving. Her bags had been packed when he’d come home from a three-day workshop in Wales. She had told him she had slept with someone she had met at the local pub. He had stood there in dumbstruck silence, wondering if she was joking.

  Their relationship had been volatile at times, but he hadn’t really thought she was serious about walking out on him. She had threatened to many times, but he had always thought it was just her letting off steam. He had planned to ask her to marry him that very night. He had wanted to wait until he got back from the workshop so she would have had time to think about how much she had missed him. But then she had shown him a photo on her phone, of her with a man, sitting at the bar, smiling over their drinks. The anger he had felt at seeing the evidence of her betrayal had been like a hot red dust storm in front of his eyes. She had stood there, looking at him with a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it-look and he had snapped.

  He wasn’t proud of the words he had flailed her with. He was even more ashamed that he’d pushed her up against the wall like a cheap hooker and given her a bruising parting kiss that had left both of them bleeding.

  He shuffled through his thoughts as he looked at her lying next to him like a sleeping angel.

  She had wanted him to believe she had betrayed him.

  But why?

  Hadn’t he shown her how much he had loved her? He had said it enough times and shown it in a thousand different ways. She had never taken him seriously. Funny that, since she took life so seriously herself. She rarely smiled unless it was a self-effacing one. He couldn’t remember ever hearing her laugh other than one of those totally fake cackles that grated on his nerves because he knew them for the tawdry imitation they were.

  Why had she been so desperate to get him out of her life?

  He was still frowning when she opened her eyes and stretched like a cat. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘You didn’t do it, did you?’ he asked.

  A puzzled flicker passed through her gaze. ‘Do what?’

  ‘You didn’t sleep with that guy from the bar.’

  She made a business of sitting upright and covering herself with a portion of the sheet. ‘I went home with him,’ she said after a moment.

  ‘But you didn’t sleep with him,’ he said. ‘You wanted me to think you had. You wanted me to believe that because you knew me well enough to know I would never have let you go for anything less.’

  A tiny muscle began tapping in her cheek and her eyes took on a defensive sheen. ‘I wasn’t ready for commitment. You were pressuring me to settle down. I didn’t want to lose my freedom. I didn’t want to lose my identity and become some nameless rich man’s husband just like my mother.’

  ‘You’re nothing like your mother, cara,’ he said. ‘You’re too strong and feisty for that.’

  She got off the bed and wrapped herself in a silky wrap. ‘I don’t always feel strong,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I feel …’ Her teeth sank into her bottom lip.

  ‘What do you feel?’

  She turned to the dressing table and picked up a brush, started pulling it through her hair. ‘I feel hungry,’ she said. She put the brush down and swung around to face him. ‘What does a girl have to do around here to get a meal?’

  Angelo knew it wasn’t wise to push her. He had to be patient with her. She was feeling vulnerable and had retreated back to her default position. It was her way of protecting herself.

  He only wished he had known that five years ago.

  Natalie sat across from Angelo in a restaurant in Sorrento an hour later. He had given her the choice of eating in or out and she had chosen to go out. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to mingle with other people; it was more that she wanted to keep her head when around him. She couldn’t do that so well when she was alone with him.

  The passion they had shared had stirred up old longings that made her feel uneasy. She was fine with having sex with him—more than fine, truth be told. It was just she knew he would want more from her.

  He had always wanted more than she was prepared to give.

  How long before he would ask her to think about staying with him indefinitely? Then he would start talking about babies.

  His mother had already dropped a few broad hints when she had helped her choose her wedding dress. Natalie’s stomach knotted at the thought of being responsible for a tiny infant. She could just imagine how her parents would react if she were to tell them she was having a baby. Her mother would reach for the nearest bottle and drain it dry. Her father wouldn’t say a word. He would simply raise his eyebrows and a truckload of guilt would land on her like a concrete slab.

  Angelo reached across the table and touched her lightly on the back of her hand. ‘Hello, over there,’ he said with a soft smile.

  Natalie gave him a rueful smile in return. ‘Sorry … I’m hardly scintillating company, am I?’

  ‘I don’t expect you to be the life of the party all the time, cara,’ he said. ‘It’s enough that you’re here.’

  She looked at
his fingers entwined with hers. She had missed his touch so much in the years that had passed. She had missed the way his skin felt against hers, the way he felt under the caress of her hands. She had lain awake at night with her body crying out for his lovemaking. Her body had felt so empty. So lifeless without the sensual energy he shot through it like an electric charge.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, stroking the underside of her wrist with the broad pad of his thumb.

  She met his chocolate-brown gaze and felt her insides flex and contract with lust. ‘Do you want dessert?’ she asked.

  ‘Depends on what it is,’ he said with a sexy glint.

  She could barely sit still in her chair for the rocket blast of longing that swept through her. ‘I’m not in the mood for anything sweet,’ she said.

  ‘What are you in the mood for?’ Still that same sexy glitter was lighting his eyes from behind.

  ‘Nothing that takes too much time to prepare.’

  ‘I can be a fast order chef when the need arises,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll deliver it as fast as humanly possible.’

  Natalie shivered as he came behind her to pull out her chair for her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up as his warm wine-scented breath coasted past her ear. She leaned back against him, just for a brief moment, to see if he was aroused.

  He was.

  She smiled to herself and walked out of the restaurant with him, her body already quaking in anticipation.

  Angelo had barely opened the door of the villa when she slammed him up against the wall as if she was about to frisk him.

  ‘Hey, was it something I said?’ he asked.

  Her dark blue gaze sizzled as it held his. ‘You promised me dessert,’ she said. ‘It’s time to serve me.’

  The entire length of his backbone shuddered as she ran her hand over his erection. ‘Who’s doing the cooking here?’ he asked.

  She gave him a wicked look and brazenly unzipped him. ‘I want an appetiser,’ she said.