by Annie West
He didn’t understand how she fired this craving in the blood. Despite her guts and beauty, she was nothing like the woman he’d planned to take as his life partner.
His footsteps slowed as he passed her room. He hadn’t seen her this evening. She’d stayed late at the hospital and he’d kept to his office.
He paused. That was when he heard muffled weeping. Instantly he tensed. Through everything she’d never cried. Except when he took her virginity. He’d convinced himself then that she’d wept in ecstasy.
This sounded like despair. His gut twisted. What could make his courageous wife cry as though her heart had broken?
He shoved open the door and stepped inside. She was hunched on the window seat, arms wrapped round her knees. Her feet were bare, her hair a tangled swathe of coppery red burning like fire in the lamplight. She wore a shapeless sleep shirt that was downright ugly with its inane cartoon characters printed on pale cotton.
She looked perfect.
His insides clenched at the sight of her. Desire, need and something more. Something…warm and protective.
‘Alissa.’ In an instant he crossed the room, hands in pockets to prevent himself reaching out. She’d feel contaminated by his touch. Helplessly he watched her shake as a tremor racked her. ‘What is it? Speak to me.’
Hearing Dario’s voice, Alissa gulped down the salty knot of emotion filling her throat and scrubbed her hand across her eyes. She hadn’t seen him for days and now he had to find her like this.
‘Alissa! Tell me what’s wrong.’ His voice was rough, that gravel-over-satin tone she’d last heard in his bed. Something unravelled inside and her breathing snared like a bird in a hunter’s net.
‘Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.’
‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’ Long fingers clasped her chin and turned her face up. Tendrils of forbidden delight wove out from his touch. She was so susceptible.
She scowled. Had she interrupted his sleep? But a glance showed he wore dark trousers and a white shirt. Her gaze dropped from his intense expression to the V of golden skin at his collar-bone. She breathed deep but only succeeded in filling her lungs with his scent.
An instant later he hunkered beside her, his heat enfolding her as he wrapped his arm round her back.
‘Is it your sister? Is it bad news?’
Alissa shook her head, feeling more foolish than ever. ‘N-no. She’s all right. The doctor came with the f-final test results.’ Desperately she tried to master her voice. ‘It will take her a long time to recuperate but the treatment was a success.’ Her lips pulled tight in a trembling smile. ‘She’s going to live.’
A large palm circled slowly between her shoulder blades. ‘Then what’s the matter?’ He was so close Alissa could feel the puff of his warm breath on her cheek. She bit her lip. ‘Alissa?’
‘I d-don’t know!’ It was a wail of despair. She should be ecstatic. She was ecstatic. This was the best news. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t just rejoice?
She’d shared a celebratory dinner in the hospital with Donna and David then made her excuses, knowing they needed time alone. She’d been fine as she entered the elegant house Dario had hired with its discreet smell of money and its plush, indifferent silence. Her smile had waned on the way up the magnificent empty staircase. By the time she’d soaked in the travertine spa there’d been a curious ache in her chest. Then something had cracked inside and she’d collapsed, bawling her eyes out.
‘I never cry,’ she sobbed. ‘Never.’
‘Shh. I know. I know.’ His arm tightened and she burrowed closer.
She felt as if a dam had split, smashing under the force of a welter of emotions. Through everything she’d been tough, never giving up hope. She’d been strong for Donna even in the darkest hours, first with their grandfather, then during Donna’s addiction and illness. She’d fought Dario’s demands too, every step of the way.
But now…Alissa had lost the strength that had sustained her for so long. She was confused and afraid.
Strong arms drew her up against a hard chest.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Putting you to bed. You can’t stay there all night.’
Alissa didn’t mean to snuggle against him. He was the enemy, the man who’d put her through hell and somehow bewitched her soul. Yet she couldn’t resist leaning into him as he scooped her up. She wanted to revel in the illusion that she was protected and cared for. Cherished.
Minutes later she lay huddled at the centre of her too big bed. Shivers racked her until he slid in behind her and pulled the covers up.
‘No. Don’t!’ She tensed and scrabbled to escape. ‘I don’t want—’
‘Shh, Alissa, I’m going to hold you. Nothing more.’ He wrapped his arms round her and pulled her against the furnace-like heat of his bare chest. Caution told her not to let down her guard but something deep inside urged her to trust him.
Her need for comfort was too strong. She slumped against him, grateful beyond words that he was here. She didn’t understand what was happening. Never had she experienced this loss of control. She sniffed back the despised tears and turned her head into the pillow.
‘You’re overwrought. You need to get warm.’
Overwrought! She’d never had the luxury of giving in to nerves. She was the strong one, the protector, even sometimes the scapegoat, putting herself between Donna and the old man when his temper grew dangerous.
‘What’s wrong with your arm? Have you hurt yourself?’ She looked down to find she’d been rubbing her forearm. It was a nervous gesture she hardly noticed now.
‘It’s an old injury. It doesn’t hurt any more.’
‘What happened?’ His words feathered her ear and a sliver of heat pierced her, warming her from the inside.
Alissa stared across the room, stunned to be sharing a bed with Dario, soaking up his warmth and reassured by his presence. It was insane, but it was real. It felt so good.
‘Alissa?’
What did it matter? There was no point in secrets now.
‘I broke my arm a few years ago when my grandfather knocked me off balance and I fell down a flight of stairs.’
The sudden spasm of Dario’s arms around her midriff robbed her of breath.
‘Dio buono! You could have been killed.’
‘I was lucky.’ She watched his hand curl round her wrist, stroking as if to soothe the long-dead pain. The sight of him touching her, the sensation of his caress, unknotted some of her coiled tension.
‘How did it happen?’
‘One good, hard push.’ Her lips twisted on the memory.
‘It was deliberate?’ His voice was a husky croak of disbelief.
‘With my grandfather it was always deliberate.’ There was a sense of release at sharing the truth. Residual anger against the old man was enough to banish her teary weakness, for now at least. ‘He made my mother’s life hell when she brought us to his home after our father deserted us. When she died the old man turned his attention to me and Donna. Necessary chastisement he called it.’ The bitter taste of memories coloured her words.
Dario’s iron-hard arm around her waist tightened even as his touch on her arm gentled. Alissa suppressed a sigh as that simple, tender caress eased her bone-deep tension. He had such power to heal as well as to hurt.
‘No one saw?’
She snorted in disgust. ‘No one wanted to see. I tried to get help when I was young, when I was worried for Donna. But it was easier to turn a blind eye, especially as my grandfather was an important man. He had money, power and reputation. No one wanted to know. He ensured the town believed I was ungrateful and unruly, causing trouble.’
Alissa drew a shaky breath. ‘He was obsessed with controlling our lives, from who we met to how we dressed. The worst wasn’t the beatings but the mind games, the manipulation, the continual battle for dominance. If he’d had his way we’d never have made a decision for ourselves.’
Each word plunged into Dari
o’s brain like a stiletto blade. His meeting with Gianfranco Mangano had confirmed the old man was the sort of snake with whom he’d never normally do business. Only Dario’s vow to his long-dead parents, his vow to retrieve what they hadn’t been able to, had made him swallow his pride and deal with such a man.
He remembered the glitter in Mangano’s eyes as he’d complained of his granddaughter’s wild ways and her need to learn obedience. The vengeful twist to his mouth had been ugly as he’d declared his intention to marry her to a ‘strong man’ who’d keep her out of trouble.
At the time Dario had believed the unscrupulous old swindler had simply reaped what he’d sown in the form of a granddaughter as appalling as he.
Dario slid his fingers over the soft skin of Alissa’s inner arm, amazed at the strength of this tiny woman. His stomach clenched at the history of abuse she’d revealed.
Wrath, white-hot and untrammelled, fired his blood. Animals like Mangano didn’t deserve the blessing of a family. Especially not when others, loving and responsible, were denied the chance to grow old with their children.
Alissa felt so small and defenceless cocooned in his arms. He hated the thought of her hurting. Of her fighting such battles with no one to protect her.
Ice clamped his chest as he recalled the stark anxiety in her eyes when he’d confronted her in the boathouse. His fear for her had made him lash out and she’d withdrawn, dragging herself to her feet. Had she thought he’d strike her?
Dario’s heart hammered as guilt scored him.
‘What made him hit you?’ The thought of her, crumpled at the foot of the staircase in Mangano’s ostentatious mansion, made him ill.
‘I stood up to him,’ she murmured in a voice so low he barely heard. ‘A friend had a party and for once I was determined to go. It was a 60s retro night, everyone wore miniskirts or flares. But it wasn’t wild. Her brother even drove me home.’ She paused and he felt her draw in a deep breath. ‘I’d hoped to slip in quietly but my grandfather was up late because you’d visited unexpectedly.’
Memory blasted Dario. Of how he’d sat in his car outside the Mangano house, seething at the old man’s insistence on marriage to his granddaughter. Dario had seen her, bare legs and long, loose hair, smiling at the guy who’d driven her home. Even in the gloom she’d been breath-stoppingly gorgeous. He’d been jealous as hell of the youth, just because he’d been on the receiving end of her megawatt smile. The memory had infuriated him ever since because of its unfailing ability to stir his libido.
‘So, it was punishment for being out without permission. But you weren’t a child.’ There’d been no mistaking her for anything but a full-grown woman.
‘I lived there till Donna was old enough to go too. I couldn’t leave her with him.’ Alissa shifted as if to move away and he firmed his hold till she subsided against him. Did she have any idea what it did to him when she wriggled like that? Her perfectly rounded bottom was pure invitation against his groin. His boxers were no barrier to desire. Jagged darts of heat speared him as he fought not to react.
It took a moment for her next words to penetrate his rapidly fogging brain. ‘He was angry about the party. But what really did it was our argument about you.’
‘Me?’ He shook his head, trying to clear it of subversively potent images of Alissa inciting him to take her. ‘You argued about me?’
She nodded and her hair slid against his bare chest, a silken caress that loosened all the power in his limbs.
‘He demanded I marry you. He’d talked about it before but I don’t think he believed it was a real possibility until you visited.’ The uninflected way she spoke chilled Dario to the marrow. He sensed the pain it hid.
‘He was so excited, so determined that I obey. He wanted it arranged as soon as possible.’ The chill became a hoar frost of tension.
‘What happened?’
‘We argued. He demanded I sign a marriage contract and I refused.’ Alissa paused long enough for Dario to count the blood pulse three, four, five times in his ears. ‘The old man lost his temper and lashed out. I went to hospital with a broken arm and a cracked rib.’
Her words, so matter-of-fact, revealed a horror he’d never guessed at. He felt contaminated, dirty, realising he’d unwittingly been culpable in injuring her. If he’d continued to refuse Mangano’s scheme as he had originally, this wouldn’t have happened.
‘I can’t breathe,’ she gasped and Dario discovered he was squeezing her in a vice-like grip. Instantly he loosened his hold, his body trembling with the force of a fury that had no outlet.
‘I’m sorry, Alissa,’ he whispered against her velvet-soft cheek. ‘So sorry.’
How much damage had he done to this woman?
No wonder she avoided him. Understanding hollowed his chest. He could barely imagine the stress she’d been under. Only now, with the easing of fears for Donna, had Alissa’s defences weakened. Her formidable control had shattered.
What a burden she’d carried. And for so long. Trying to protect her sister against their monstrous grandfather, and against Donna’s foray into drug abuse.
Then he, Dario, had come on the scene. Another man with money and power. Another man determined to bend her to his will. Determined to believe the worst.
His gut twisted as he realised how he’d compounded her pain, how he’d compounded her fear of being manipulated and abused by a man.
At least he hadn’t beaten her as her grandfather had.
No. Instead he’d forced her, a virgin, to give herself for his pleasure. Self-contempt was a scorching brand burning his innards as he remembered her shock and defiance that night.
By all that was right he should release her instantly.
But he couldn’t relinquish his hold.
Guilt, shame, regret, even his well-honed sense of honour was powerless against the force of his desire—his selfish need for the woman who despised him.
He cradled her close, arms tightening possessively.
He couldn’t let her go. Not yet.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALISSA’S eyes felt puffy when she woke. The salt tang of tears was still on her tongue.
How long since she’d cried? Years. Soon after her mother died Alissa had learned that, perversely, her grandfather enjoyed her fear and pain. She’d bottled up her emotions and pretended to be stronger than she was.
Until tonight when her worst fear had miraculously been removed and she didn’t need to be strong any more.
Weeping had left her numb and empty. No, not empty. There was effervescence in her blood, a tingle of relief. Donna was safe! The words rang over and over in her brain.
After the heavy, dreamless sleep she felt warm and weightless as if she floated on a tropical sea.
Yet it wasn’t the ocean that cradled her. It was the sinew and flesh and hard muscle of a man. In her sleep she’d snuggled closer to Dario till she lay across him, breast to breast, one foot tucked between his bare knees, one hand in the softness of his luxuriant hair. She threaded her fingers deeper into his locks, overwhelmed by the sense of rightness here in his arms, her lips against the steady pulse at the base of his throat.
Her heart turned over as she remembered how he’d held her, simply held her when she needed comfort. His soothing words, his gentle caress. As if the stranger with the harsh, judgemental expression had never existed and there was only the man who’d made such surprisingly sweet love to her in Sicily. Who’d rescued her from the sea. Who’d organised Donna’s life-saving treatment.
As if, despite what had gone before, he was the one man she could rely on. The one man she could trust.
Which was the real Dario?
His circling thumb at the small of her back made her breath catch. Whorls of pleasure erupted from the spot, twisting with devastating accuracy to all the erogenous zones he’d discovered that night in Sicily. Her lips parted in a gasp that brought the tang of male flesh to her mouth.
In an instant comfort transformed into desire.
All it had taken was one tiny, almost innocent caress.
Last night’s storm of emotion had left her defences shattered. She couldn’t even pretend to indifference. She arched into him like a cat stretching to a caress.
This was right, she knew it in her bones. Logic would call her a fool, but now, bereft of every barrier she’d used to keep the world at bay, this craving wouldn’t be denied. For Dario. For the ecstasy he’d brought to her untutored body. For the potent sense of connection they’d shared, as if, for a few moments, their twin souls joined.
It was irresponsible but she didn’t care. Not now when everything in her confirmed he was the one, this was the time. No matter how short-lived the moment.
She pressed her lips against his neck and slicked her tongue along his hot, salty skin. She almost purred aloud at the taste of him in her mouth.
The thumb at her back was replaced by a hand slipping down, squeezing her bottom till she pressed against him. There she found the rigid proof of his answering need. He felt so good. Restlessly she circled her pelvis. Instantly his hand clamped her motionless against him.
‘You’re barely awake, Alissa.’ His voice was a harsh rumble vibrating in his neck, against her open mouth. ‘You’d better stop.’
Why? In case she changed her mind? Hardly, not when need thrummed through her like a life force.
Or was it that he didn’t want her? He hadn’t wanted her in weeks. Yet there was no mistaking his desire. She rotated her hips again and was rewarded by a surge of power, bringing his erection hard against her. His fingers tightened on her buttock.
‘Alissa.’ It was a warning growl. The timbre of his voice, low and rough, stirred her senses. He was so very, very male. For only the second time in her life, that knowledge was a potent aphrodisiac.
This might be her only chance to experience again those wonderful sensations. Through all the worry over Donna and outrage at Dario’s actions, nothing had suppressed her yearning for his lovemaking.
