by Lynne Graham
Excitement took her in a fiery rush as he found the throbbing peaks of her breasts, lowered his proud, dark head and tasted the swollen buds, laving them with his tongue, delicately grazing them with his teeth. He was setting her on fire, rousing a tight aching feeling deep in her pelvis, making her gasp at the slow-burn effect of his knowing touch on a body too long starved of sensation.
‘I do want you…I always want you!’ she moaned in sudden shame at her inability to control the wild hunger he had ignited.
Rafaello leant over her like a dark avenging hero, hot golden eyes flaming over her, primal satisfaction emanating from every hard angle of his darkly handsome features. ‘And all I want to do is torture you with pleasure until you beg…’
Shock momentarily stilled the upward rise of her hips, the squirming invitation she could not prevent that close to his lean, powerful frame. Rafaello claimed a devouring kiss from her swollen lips, sending an electrifying current through her sensitised body, and gazed down at her again, connecting with the bewilderment in her passion-glazed eyes. ‘And beg…and beg…until you’re enslaved, amore mia.’
Glory tried and failed to swallow, staring up at him like a rabbit caught in car headlights, certain of destruction but hypnotised. ‘S-sorry?’
Rafaello ran an expert hand down over her quivering length to the very heart of her, where she ached for the merest hint of a touch, and her entire body rose in an eager movement as unstoppable as a tidal wave. Something akin to anger burned in his intent scrutiny as he watched her respond helplessly to that provocative power-play. ‘I was a bloody fool when you were eighteen. I should have taken you to bed. I don’t believe that anything could have parted us then!’
‘R-Rafaello…?’ Glory was startled by the angry regret and bitterness that he made no attempt to hide from her.
‘But we’re together now, amore,’ Rafaello growled, capturing her mouth again and shifting a hair-roughened thigh over her to hold her captive.
‘I love you…’ she gasped, lost in the tormenting hunger he had ignited.
Rafaello tensed and then vented a harsh laugh, scanning her with blistering golden eyes that emanated anger like a forcefield. ‘If you say that one more time I’m walking out on you forever!’
Glory stared up at him, utterly intimidated by that threat. She could feel the tears of rejection welling up. With a roughened imprecation in Italian he curved his hands to her cheekbones and he followed the track of one salty tear with his lips in a disorientatingly tender salutation that bemused her even more. ‘It’s OK…’ he soothed not quite levelly. ‘Really, it’s OK…’
All shaken up, she lay there quivering under him, scared to speak, scared to do anything in case it was the wrong thing. It was as if her whole life was up for grabs, there to be lost or gained on a single shake of the dice, for that was what he meant to her. In Corfu, when she had been without him, every day had stretched like an endless grey sea in front of her, empty and without colour.
He kissed her breathless and she clung to him, her own need surging higher than ever, instantly recalled, instantly reawakened. He teased the most sensitive spot in her entire body until she cried out, wanting more, driven by impulses much stronger than she was and a need that was more than she could bear. He shifted in a lithe rearrangement and employed his expert mouth on her instead.
From that point on, thought was too great a challenge and she was enslaved by her own frantic, feverish responses, her hands twisting through the thick silk of his hair, helpless cries breaking from her throat. By the time he rose over her, settled his long, muscular frame between her spread thighs, excitement had deprived her of all control. He entered her with a sure, forceful thrust and sent her spinning into a convulsive climax. Out of her senses with that sudden, shocking overload of pleasure, she cried out his name at the peak of ecstasy.
‘And now you do that again, cara,’ Rafaello instructed thickly as she came drifting back down in a sensual daze into her own body again.
‘Again…’ Glory echoed, ‘I can’t—’
‘You can.’ He surged deeper into her again, all virile male and hungry dominance. Her tender flesh was so sensitive she moaned out loud. The raw excitement snatched her up again, her heart thundering in her ears as he drove her back into the grip of pure, mindless pleasure where nothing mattered but that he not stop, where all that guided her was her own overwhelming need. And, without feeling she had anything to do with the development, she hit another shattering climax that totally wiped her out.
Glory stirred and lifted heavy eyelids to focus on the bedside light burning at what appeared to be a very low setting.
Never quick to regain her wits on first wakening, she lost a minute or two computing the fact that she had never seen that particular lamp before. She was in Rafaello’s bedroom in his penthouse apartment. The recollection of their passionate lovemaking made her face burn, but she turned cold again almost as quickly as she recalled the angry, bitter frustration he had revealed and the manner in which he had rejected her impulsive declaration of love.
Rafaello felt trapped. Of course he did. Her gabbling like some dizzy teenager about love probably made him feel even more trapped, she thought wretchedly. He might still find her attractive and he might want their baby to have a father, but that was a long way from wanting to marry her. But what other choice did he have? If Benito Grazzini was so keen to establish a relationship with Sam, relations between their families would have to be good and smooth. Glory’s being pregnant by Rafaello and unmarried would make relations exceedingly rocky.
The sound of a door opening startled her. She rolled over to see Rafaello emerging from the bathroom. He was freshly shaven but with his hair still damp from the shower, and his sheer masculine impact took her breath away. He was already dressed in a crisp cotton shirt and dark tailored trousers. His back to her, he paused in front of a dressing mirror to fix his tie, his bold bronzed profile taut, half in shadow, half in light.
‘What time is it?’ she whispered.
Rafaello tensed and only half-turned to flick her a glance. ‘Almost seven. I was about to wake you. Marcel is making dinner for you—’
‘Marcel?’
‘My chef. He’ll travel down to Montague Park with you when you decide to leave town. He has instructions that you have to eat three times a day minimum—’
Glory eased herself up slowly and clutched the sheet as if she was cold. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I have urgent business in Rome tomorrow. My life’s been on hold for the past week,’ Rafaello reminded her. ‘Unfortunately, Grazzini Industries doesn’t run itself. On the way to the airport I’ll call in with Archie to announce our nuptials—’
‘Our…what?’ Glory could feel the distance in him again and she was super-sensitive to that rather sardonic edge to his cool drawl.
‘Our wedding. I applied for the special licence this afternoon and I’ve booked the church down at the Park for ten days from now—’
‘Ten…days?’ Glory parroted in shock and then she pinned her lips shut again, for she had no desire to argue on that timing.
‘The sooner we’re married the better. I spoke to your father’s consultant earlier as well,’ Rafaello revealed, reaching for his jacket and swinging round to face her. ‘By the time I get back from abroad, Archie should be up to attending our wedding in a wheelchair at least.’
‘But I haven’t even said I’ll marry you yet…’ Glory believed he ought to take note of that point and hoped it would puncture his cool.
‘I rather took agreement for granted, cara mia.’ Rafaello focused on the tumbled bedsheets with suggestive intensity before skimming his glittering dark gaze back up to her hotly flushed face. ‘But, of course, if you’re willing to watch World War Three break out between our families, go ahead and turn me down. This is one decision you have to make on your own.’
The silence simmered. Her tummy flipped. He was hitting her on her weakest flank. Love and hatred twinned ins
ide her. ‘You know I’m not going to turn you down.’
In an abrupt movement he swung away from her again, his jawline set at an aggressive angle as he made what seemed to her a quite unnecessary further adjustment to the knot on his silk tie. ‘Do I?’
‘Just tell me…what do you get out of marrying me?’ Glory asked tightly.
‘Great sex and a baby. As long as you leave the love stuff out of it,’ Rafaello drawled with cutting clarity, ‘I’ll have no complaints.’
At that reminder, she flinched.
‘Jon will be in touch with you about the wedding arrangements,’ he continued. ‘He’ll sort out the caterers et cetera. All you have to do is buy something brilliant white and float down the aisle in it looking like an angel—’
‘I can’t wear white in this condition!’
Rafaello rested exasperated dark golden eyes on her. ‘I want to see you in white…OK? Your father’s a conventional man. I was planning to save the news that his first grandchild is on the way until he’s feeling rather more resilient. As he’s not even aware that we’ve been seeing each other, I should think the announcement that we’re getting hitched is quite enough for the moment.’
Slowly, grudgingly she nodded in receipt of that argument. ‘You have a point.’
‘I also want you to move into the Park itself once you feel you can leave your father to Maud’s devoted care,’ Rafaello delivered.
Glory glanced at him in dismay. ‘Not before the wedding—’
‘The cottage hasn’t been your home in five years, and if you can lure Sam under the same roof it might make breaking the ice between Sam and Benito easier when the time comes.’
‘When is that time coming?’
‘When and if Sam agrees, not before,’ Rafaello told her levelly. ‘My father would be over here right now if he thought Sam would be willing to meet him but he knows he has to be patient.’
And then what? But she turned her troubled thoughts back to her own problems. So, regardless of how Rafaello felt about her, she was still going to marry him, wasn’t she? Coward, you spineless coward, piped up the voice of her subconscious. What he had said to her in bed, about sex on their very first date being more her style than the candlelit dinner he had romanced her over, would haunt her forever more. She shuddered. That was what Rafaello really thought of her. A sexy wanton with few sensibilities and even fewer morals. All right for slaking his high sex drive on, all right as an incubator for the next Grazzini but not much use for anything else.
‘Well, it must give you a real kick to think that the mother of your child and your future wife is a greedy, gold-digging little tart,’ Glory said grittily.
Not unnaturally, she took Rafaello entirely by surprise with that out-of-the-blue attack. He stared at her, brilliant eyes dead-level and serious. ‘I don’t think that.’
‘No?’ Glory widened her bright blue gaze, steeling herself to go a step further. ‘Then you now accept that your precious father blackmailed me into leaving you five years ago—’
‘If I thought that, I’d probably kill him,’ Rafaello murmured without hesitation. ‘But I don’t think it or accept it, and as for the rest of it…’ A rather bleak laugh fell from his lips. ‘I know money’s not that important to you. I got that message in Corfu.’
Reminding her that he wanted to call in with her father before he headed for the airport, he left without fanfare and she sat there, staring at the space where he had been, thinking that no matter how much she loved him she would never, ever understand what went on in that dark, complex head of his. Why did the man who was about to marry her look almost regretful when he agreed that she was not mercenary? Why did he react to the word ‘love’ as if it was a term of abuse?
CHAPTER NINE
‘JOE thinks that finding out I’m an illegit Grazzini is on a par with winning the National Lottery!’ Sam said, tight-mouthed with discomfiture.
It was Glory’s first meeting with Sam since he had left London, and from the instant of his arrival she had been unsettled by her kid brother’s likeness to Rafaello. The more she studied Sam, the more amazed she became that she had never once noticed the resemblance between man and boy. That black hair, those dark, deep-set, dramatic eyes. Her mother had never been that dark. The sculpted cheekbones and the newly aggressive tilt of Sam’s jaw were pure Grazzini. How could she have been so blind to what was staring her in the face?
‘I mean, look at all this stuff!’ Sam spread a censorious and uneasy glance over their surroundings. They were in the rear sitting room at Montague Park, one of the less opulent rooms but still much too grand in her brother’s estimation. ‘Like I said to Rafaello, living like royalty is not about to go out of style with the Grazzinis around. Take that snuff box…sixty grand, and there’s homeless people starving on the streets!’
Glory could not feel that Rafaello, a capitalist to the backbone, could have much enjoyed that particular lecture. ‘You can knock what they’ve got and how they live but don’t forget that Grazzini money saved Dad’s life.’
‘Of course, I appreciate that.’ Sam kicked at the tassle fringing on a nearby chair before stuffing his equally restive hands into the pockets of his jeans and turning away. ‘But I can’t think of him as “Dad” any more. He said it would be OK to call him Archie if I wanted to—’
‘Oh…Sam!’ Glory was dismayed by the thought of how much that request must have hurt the older man. ‘He’s acted as your father for sixteen years. Isn’t that worth something?’
‘Yeah, but he’s never loved me like he loved you. No, don’t you argue about that because it’s true and you can hardly blame him for feeling that way,’ Sam warned her with sudden force, flipping back to face her, dark eyes full of a pain that saddened her. ‘I grew up knowing I wasn’t the son Archie Little wanted. Why do you think I play all that sport when I hate it? Only to be what he thought I should be. Have you any idea what it’s like having it dinned into you that five generations of Littles have been gardeners here?’
Glory swallowed back impulsive words in her father’s defence. Sam had to talk to someone and she was grateful that he was willing to discuss his feelings with her. Arguing with his every statement would only silence him.
Sam breathed in deep and then shrugged. ‘Do you know what my first thought was when Archie told me I wasn’t his kid?’
Glory shook her head.
‘Thank God I don’t have to be a gardener…can you believe I was that superficial?’
Glory was concealing her steadily growing shock at what she was hearing. The quiet and affectionate but always reserved eleven-year-old boy she had believed she knew so well five years earlier had turned into a young man she needed to get to know all over again.
‘I was a misfit. Even Mum…’ Sam muttered uncomfortably. ‘Always telling me only sissies want to sit drawing pictures all the time! Narrow people with narrow minds.’
Glory paled and bit her lip. ‘Sam…please don’t talk like that—’
‘You were bright enough to stay on at school and they made you leave and take a rubbish job because that was our place in life. Bottom of the pile and no room for ambition or imagination,’ Sam shot at her with angry resentment. ‘If you must know, it was a relief to find out I wasn’t a Little!’
‘Yes,’ Glory conceded because she could truly see it had been for him. Those Grazzini genes, those strong and assertive Grazzini genes had been buzzing about below Sam’s deceptively tranquil surface just waiting for the opportunity and the freedom to erupt. He was clever and he was deep and he had loathed that yoke of low expectations.
‘Only problem is…’ Sam gave her a rueful lopsided smile that tugged at her heartstrings. ‘…I’m not sure I’m up to the challenge of being even an illegit Grazzini—’
‘You only need to be yourself.’ Glory gave him a supportive hug and sighed. ‘I love you loads, Sam. I just want you to be at peace with yourself and happy again—’
‘No teenager would ever admit to bei
ng happy, Glory,’ Sam mocked. ‘Look, I’ve got a stack of work to do for my art project. Show me where I’m to kip and I’ll get on with it and see you later.’
She was delighted that he was staying the night without argument. When Joe’s father had dropped him off Sam had set his suitcase prominently by the front door and indicated extreme unwillingness to take up residence under the same roof as her.
Her brother followed her upstairs and then, steps slowing, he drifted away from her on the landing, drawn by the paintings lining the walls.
‘Who’s this?’ Sam demanded, stopping dead in front of a canvas of an elderly man.
‘Could be one of your ancestors…but I haven’t a clue. Rafaello could tell you—’
‘Yeah…but I bet this old guy was another super-achieving Grazzini,’ Sam grimaced and accompanied her to the room she had selected for his hopeful occupation earlier that day. ‘I’m never going to fit in anywhere, Sis. This lot are all money mad and into big business, and I want to be an artist.’
‘Why shouldn’t you fit?’ Glory protested. ‘At least the Grazzinis appreciate art.’
Looking thoughtful at that obvious point in their favour, Sam glanced at her. ‘Glad you’re putting Rafaello out of his misery by marrying him.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I talk to him on the phone most days,’ Sam admitted. ‘I still feel bad that I went for him that day in London, because once he explained how things had been with you two—’
‘He did…what?’ Glory folded her arms and surveyed her brother with a martial glint in her enquiring eyes.
‘Glory…you’ve really given Rafaello the run-around. Be honest about it,’ Sam urged. ‘Of course the guy’s insecure. You keep on ditching him. He’s not even sure he can depend on you to show up at the church on Friday!’
