by Penny Jordan
It was enough to jerk Clio out of the buzz.
Mouth dry, Clio jerked to the front. Or at least tried to. With one arm locking her snug against him, the other climbed up her belly, up her breasts and clasped her jaw.
Long fingers traced her lips, and she forgot how to breathe.
Stop it, please, she wanted to say but the words were consumed by the raw need coursing through her.
The blunt tip of his finger traced the cushion of her mouth. “Open that luscious mouth, Clio.” She did and he pushed his finger inside.
Closing her mouth around it, Clio sucked it while her tongue laved it. Wet heat rushed between her thighs.
He cursed again, louder, harsher, and his arousal grew against the valley between her buttocks. Left her too tight inside her own skin.
She gasped as his teeth dug into the flesh at her shoulder. Pain and pleasure fused together as he licked the tender spot, his breaths coming on top of each other in a harsh rhythm.
And still, he didn’t let her move. Didn’t give her anything more than he decided.
He cupped her breast, and heated wetness drenched her sex. Throwing her head back, Clio pushed into his touch.
Just once, she wanted to feel his touch all over. Just once, she wanted to let it be about pleasure and only pleasure. The hardened nipple rasped hungrily against his palm, an answering pull between her thighs.
Mouth buried in her neck, he licked her skin, and Clio moved restlessly. The slide of her garter against her thighs, the rub of her own skin was torturous, her sex aching and throbbing.
With his fingers under her chin, he tipped her face up. Caught by the reflection in the oval, floor-length mirror, Clio flushed. Her eyes were droopy, her mouth trembling.
And he…he could have been cast from marble for all the expression in his eyes.
“Have you had enough, bella?”
Something in that mocking tone of his lit a fire in Clio. It was a fantasy to believe that he could feel anything for her—hurt or pain or desire—without allowing himself to do so, a fantasy to think she could affect him in a way he couldn’t control.
A fantasy she was becoming more and more invested in, a fantasy that would break her if she didn’t kill it now.
That fear sliced through the haze of desire and alcohol. “Have you had enough, Stefan?” she said, meeting his gaze in the mirror. She had no idea how she strung the words together, no idea how her brain even cooperated when she was aching everywhere. “Have you proved to yourself that you can have me panting in heat within a few seconds, that I’m the same as every other woman on the planet in this, too? Isn’t that the game we are playing, dear husband?”
He turned her around, and still there was not a glimmer of emotion in his face.
Clio would have taken anything, even fury at this point. She wanted to crack that hardened shell he wore like armor; she wanted to shatter it and wound him. And it was the most dangerous thought she had had in her life.
“Why did you drink tonight when you never do, bella?”
“Because you’re a mistrusting, cynical asshole who hates the very sight of me and who thinks I’m a manipulative bitch out for your millions.”
“I never said that.”
Clio didn’t know why she was so angry, only that it was unbearable that he wasn’t even moved. “Your look all evening did it for you. After that first drink, I found it was easy to not give a damn about you and your glaring and your low opinion.”
“Or it could be because you know what’s been building between us this past week and you’re terrified to face it and you wanted an easy out.
“Whatever happened tonight, come morning, you could say, I was out of it.”
He dissected her emotions, her decisions so easily that she felt raw, out of control, bereft of words.
He undid the golden cuff links and pushed his sleeves back, arrogant confidence dripping from every pore. “Is the buzz evaporating yet, cara?”
Clio pushed him, something hot and achy clamping her throat. “I’ve had enough of you and your—”
“No, you haven’t,” he said grabbing her again. This time, she was facing him and there was nowhere to hide. “Stop hiding, Clio. Unless you stop and face it, there’ll always be another situation to run from.”
“I’m not—”
“You left England when you found out that your father had arranged every day of the rest of your life from what you’ll study to who you’ll marry. It was an incredibly brave thing to do but it was still running away.
“For all these years, you hid even when you knew Jackson was cheating you—you let him do it. Tonight, you drank because you don’t know what to do with me.”
He placed his hand over one breast and a gasp fell from her mouth. He covered her mouth with his and sparks cindered at her mouth spreading far and wide, making her hungry and desperate for more. “What you’re doing to me, standing here like this, with desire lacing your gaze… Do you have any idea how torturous this is for me?”
And he gave her what she wanted.
He stroked and bit, nipped and laved at her mouth while she clung to him, her body, her will, her mind, all his.
“You drank because you didn’t want to be responsible for this, Clio,” he whispered against her swollen mouth.
Slowly, he pushed her back, creating distance between their bodies.
“For all the names the media calls me, I will not seduce you tonight and shoulder responsibility for it tomorrow while you call it a drunken mistake.”
Disappointment cooled her body as neatly as if he had dumped the champagne bucket full of ice over her head. “No?”
“No. When I take a woman to bed, it’s not out of pity or shame or joy or anger. It’s pure lust, bella.”
“So you won’t finish what you’ve started, then?”
“Not unless you speak the words.” In an intimate gesture that set fire to her skin, he tugged the delicate neckline with rough fingers. It gave in with a tear and a rasp—thousands of dollars and ripped now. The upper swell of her breast bared to his slumberous gaze. He bent his arrogant head and pressed a hot kiss to the flesh. Nipped it with his teeth.
Need knotted at her nipples, making them achy and tight. Her sex pulsed, wet and aching.
Clio had never known such liquid desire, as if her skin and sinew was all filled with want. Want for him. Want for the one man she shouldn’t want.
Want for the man who had given her everything, but really nothing.
“Tell me that you want me to tear that dress off of you completely, bella.” Anger colored his words. “Tell me to run my hands and mouth over every inch of your skin, tell me to sink into your heat until it is all either of us can feel.” Contempt punctured the heat in his words. “Tell me to give us both the relief that we’re both so desperately craving.
“Tell me and your every wish will be my command, bella.”
Utter resignation reverberated in the way he held her loosely against him, in the way he sighed against her willing flesh. And it was that resignation, that shuddering exhale as if he was giving in to the inevitable even as he hated it, that cleared the haze from Clio’s head.
Had she known that this moment was coming? Was this the only way she could think of having him, when she could absolve herself of all responsibility? Was this how she had let Jackson walk all over her?
Would she always let life happen to her, rather than take charge of it?
Shame cooled her skin, leaving her shaking. Tugging the torn lace of her dress upward, she stumbled back. Her breathing out of sync, she tried to collect her aroused senses together.
She wanted to be held and kissed and touched by him so much that it was a cavernous chasm inside her.
But not like this.
No. This was not fai
r to either of them.
She looked up and met his glittering gaze, every inch of her vibrating with need. “When I look back at this night a decade later, I want to remember something else other than your self-disgust that you want me and my desperate attempt to escape it, as you put it so well.”
“Clio—”
“Yes you do, Stefan. You hate that you want me when it isn’t your will, don’t you?” She blinked, striving for strength. “I want to have one thing that will make me proud about today. I want you to leave. Thank you for saving me from myself once again.”
The flesh over the angular bones of his face, already so lean and spare, tightened even further, until he was all jutting angles and brooding arrogance. He went still, inch by inch, ridding himself of that glittering want and desire, ridding himself of any emotion.
That growing stillness in him, that willpower in action—it was the most disconcerting thing she had ever seen.
“As you wish,” he said with one lingering look before he turned and left.
She could almost believe that her words had pierced him. Almost.
Roughly tugging at the bodice of a dress that could have probably fed a starving family for a few months, Clio sank to the bed and covered her face.
As caustic as his analysis of her life had been, Stefan had stopped them from making an irrevocable mistake.
She should be glad for it. All she needed was to convince herself of it.
* * *
Standing under the ice-cold shower spray, Stefan shivered. His teeth chattered in his mouth, his skin grew goose bumps. If he looked down, he would probably see that his balls had forever turned blue.
But even the possibility of permanent damage to his manhood couldn’t erase the picture of his wife from his mind.
He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Her vulnerability shone in her eyes, her desire too pure and real to be anything but temptation, her struggle to be better than herself a wonder for him to watch.
Neither could he curb the small flicker of warmth in his chest.
Was this what Clio would do for him?
Punish him, torture him and yet push him toward being a better man than he had been this past decade?
That he had resisted her, that he hadn’t given in to his need and taken what she had so freely offered, that he had protected her, even from himself, he would count as a win; he would count it as a little bit of honor still left in him.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN CLIO OPENED her eyes the next morning, there was a hammer and a pointy needle inside her skull, and someone had pulled the silky curtains aside to let in reams of sunlight to punish her with.
Or at least, that’s how it felt.
Clutching her head, she turned to her side and groaned. Tears prickled behind her eyes at the dull, pounding ache through the top of her head.
Her mouth was dry, and her throat parched. She tried opening her eyes again and was about to sit up when a strong arm pulled her up with infinite gentleness.
A whimper erupted from her throat as a blend of lime and aftershave and masculine musk teased her nostrils. It was like a slap to her senses, at once decadent and eviscerating…
Just like the man was.
She stiffened in his hold but he didn’t relent.
Of all the unholy, damnedest things in the world, why did Stefan have to be up before her on the first morning of their ill-conceived marriage? Why couldn’t she have started it by setting an unaffected tone, one that she wanted?
“Buon giorno, cara.”
The honeyed words boomeranged against her skull as if he had shouted them.
Another moan escaped her and a smile curved that sinful mouth.
Thick wet hair fell onto his forehead. His freshly shaved jaw glinted, and he smelled clean and nice and as sinful as the red-velvet cake she had devoured last night.
Bastardo, she mouthed the word that she had heard Alessandra use.
His gorgeous green eyes glittered with humor, his smile so beautiful that her chest hurt.
“Go away,” she said, hiding her face in the pillow, superaware of her messy hair, parched mouth and her old Columbia T-shirt that constituted her nightwear.
“Take this,” he said, opening his palm to a white pill—her migraine medication—and a glass of water in the other hand.
Too far gone with the ache in her head to even offer a token protest, Clio grabbed the glass and ingested the pill. She lay back down gingerly, any sudden movement piercing her head.
His handsome face filling her vision, Stefan straightened the cotton duvet around her and tucked it to her chin. Tapped her nose with his finger, and pushed her hair back from her temples. “Sleep, cara,” he whispered.
Sleep and exhaustion hit her in waves and Clio decided the concern she had heard in his voice had to be a side effect of her medication.
* * *
The next morning, Stefan awoke in his bed with the smell of coffee teasing him awake. It took him a few seconds to figure out why he had a feeling that he had missed something. He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which said eight in the morning. The red digits burned his brain.
He hadn’t checked on Clio in a few hours.
Pushing back the covers, he leaped from the bed and walked through the corridor to her bedroom.
He came to a halt as he found it empty with the bed neatly made up.
The scent of gardenias clung to the air and before he knew it, his lungs were filled with it. Running a hand through his hair, he leaned against the entrance, a wisp of something keeping him in the room.
A hairbrush lay on the dresser opposite the bed, and a pair of jeans and a silk top neatly folded on the bed.
A strange quiver gripped his abdomen to see the bed empty of her tall, athletic form after seeing her there all day yesterday. She had refused to even eat anything, only asking for water again and again. Silently bearing it as if it were her punishment. Looking at him with eyes wide with shock as he checked on her every couple of hours.
Why are you checking on me? she had asked once, her eyes drugged with sleep.
Did she think him so heartless that she was shocked at such a small act of concern? Had he given her a reason to think differently? Why did he care?
Irritated at how scattered his thoughts were, he walked back to the kitchen, following the smell of coffee.
He came to an abrupt halt at the unusual scene in front of him.
Clio stood at the counter, her back to him, unpacking breakfast, he assumed, from the mouthwatering smell.
She was dressed in dark blue jeans that hugged her long legs from ankles to her trim waist and a sleeveless white silk shirt that showed off her tanned arms.
Her hair fell straight to her waist, a river of ambers and reds, glinting where sunlight struck it.
He watched in rising fascination as she slid the lid off one plastic box, grabbed a fork and popped a piece into her mouth.
Pancakes and maple syrup, mouthwatering bacon and coffee—his favorite meal from back when they had been at university. They had all teased him because he would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Her face turned toward the French doors, she closed her eyes and let out a long moan as she chewed. A drop of syrup stuck to the side of her mouth and she licked it off with another satisfied little groan. Color suffused her cheeks as she repeated the ritual.
Bemused and turned on, Stefan watched as the pleasure she wrought from the little ritual rendered him stupefied.
The next time she picked up another piece with her fork, it took everything he possessed to not join her and direct her fork to his mouth. Or not to taste the syrup on her lips.
“The suite comes with a butler on call twenty-four hours, Clio,” he said, pushing off the wall and w
alking into the kitchen. “You don’t have to arrange our meals, bella.”
Her fork clanged on the counter, the tinkering sound of it filling the silence.
She turned and watched him with those big eyes, color climbing up her neck.
The silk blouse was so sheer that he could see the outline of her bra, and the dip of her waist. It was so strange how so many small things about her he observed, his fascination arising from the most mundane of moments.
Like the delicate turn of her wrist and the blue veins there, like the crooked slant of her nose, the way she grabbed her hair away from her face with both hands and roughly pulled it back thrusting her breasts up…
Dannazione, the woman was lethal in how quickly she made him think of sex and skin.
Shrugging, she stepped back as he advanced. “I actually wanted to cook breakfast as a thank-you,” she muttered. “But this state-of-the-art kitchen doesn’t even have sugar and milk. So I walked a bit and grabbed breakfast.”
“A thank-you? Why?”
Her expression was straightforward, her shrug a bit too casual. “For looking after me yesterday.”
“Do they always last that long?” he said, thinking of how she had held her head. For a couple of hours, he hadn’t left her side, a tenderness he had forgotten he had possessed keeping him there instead of ordering the staff to help.
It had been a long time since he had done something so simple and satisfying as looking after someone. He used to do it all the time.
Another of his innate traits that he had buried deep.
“Kind of, yeah.” Another shrug. “This whole week has been very stressful and then I didn’t eat anything the whole day of the wedding and then guzzled down that champagne, so it was kind of like inviting the demons to play inside my skull.”
“Why was it stressful? Didn’t the wedding planner take care of everything?” he said, covering the distance between them.
The closer he moved to her, the heavier his blood flew in his veins. Just the scent of her soap and skin…it set up an instant reaction in him.
Blinking rapidly, she clutched the counter behind her. Which stiffened her posture and thrust her small breasts up.
