by Anne Mather
The self-imposed wait was over at last.
He lifted a hand to his tie and tugged it undone.
‘Alessandro!’
His eyes had a glazed look: too intense, too febrile. As if the cool, utterly controlled man she knew had been replaced by a being only half tame. His scar complemented his lawless air. He looked dangerous, rapacious. He’d turned from magnate to pirate in the blink of an eye.
A delicious shiver shot through her, even as she tried to be sensible.
Sleeping with Alessandro would solve nothing. Not when his heart wasn’t engaged. Experience proved she was too vulnerable to him, too hungry for more.
But it’s not sleep he wants, purred a demon voice inside her head.
She watched in fascination and dawning horror as his bow tie slid from his neck to the floor. Dark olive fingers flicked open his shirt.
Carys scrabbled backwards on the bed, hampered by the long veil underneath her and the voluminous skirts.
‘What do you think you’re doing? This wasn’t part of our bargain.’ If only her voice was strident rather than breathless. Instead it sounded like an invitation.
‘Our bargain was marriage, piccolina. You’re my woman now.’ His voice had dropped to a throaty growl that should have warned but instead thrilled her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, seeking the strength she needed.
A dip in the mattress had her eyes popping open to discover Alessandro kneeling astride her thighs, pinning her wide skirt to the bed.
His glittering gaze raked her as if there was no exquisite gown covering her. As if she was his for the taking.
A shiver of pure carnal anticipation ripped through Carys, making a mockery of all her logical protests.
The truth was that, stripped of the varnish of urbane sophistication, Alessandro held an even more potent allure. His untrammelled machismo sent her hormones into overdrive.
‘Alessandro.’ Her voice was a telltale husky quiver, but she pressed on. ‘You don’t really want this.’
Or me. Her throat closed convulsively before she could blurt that out.
He’d turned away from her totally once he had discovered Leo. The completeness of his withdrawal, from hot pursuit to cold distance in the blink of an eye, had left her in no doubt she’d been a convenience, easy to use and easy to discard. Of no intrinsic value.
Hot, familiar pain suffused her and she dropped her eyes. She fought against a lifetime’s experience of rejection, telling herself she was important.
‘Not want this?’ His words were sharp as the crack of a gun firing. His nimble fingers paused from reefing his shirt undone. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You want to make it appear as if we’re a real married couple, for the benefit of the guests,’ she said in a low, cramped voice, her eyes fixed on his hands rather than his face. ‘But carrying me all the way up here did the trick. There’s no need to continue the charade.’
‘Trick? Charade?’ He spoke softly, yet the words throbbed with outrage. ‘We are really married. You are really my wife. And I am now your husband. The only man in your life. Remember that.’
‘There are no other men in my life.’ She wished he’d move. Being caged by his long, lithe, hot body was doing terrible things to her pulse. It throbbed deep between her legs, in the place that suddenly felt so empty and needy. Her lovely dress felt too constricting, the bodice cramping her breath. If only he’d move away.
‘And there will be no others from now on. Remember that.’
‘I don’t need a man in my life.’ All she needed was Leo.
‘Then you should not have married me, Carys.’
The finality of his tone penetrated, yanking her gaze back to his. Her mouth dried as she looked into his proud, severe, gorgeous face. Clear intent was etched in every angle and curve as well as in the glint of green fire in his deep-set eyes.
‘I will not be used as a convenience, Alessandro. We might have married for our son’s sake, but you can’t have me on tap.’ Her jaw ached with tension and she fought to keep her words calm, despite the emotions jangling through her.
‘Convenience!’ His eyes flared wide. ‘You think this is convenient?’ He snatched her hand up and pressed it, palm down, against his groin.
A massive erection throbbed against her touch. Hot and powerful, it filled her hand. Carys gulped at the memory of all that power unleashed inside her. Need spiralled deep within and she clenched her thighs against the moist proof that he still turned her on as no man ever had.
She tried to pull back, but he wouldn’t let her.
Her pulse rocketed as he loomed over her, an autocratic, sexy captor, trapping her with his superior strength. And more, with the raw promise of pleasure in his eyes.
Heat exploded in her belly. The heat of sexual excitement.
She shouldn’t want him, but she did. Badly. Despite pride. Despite everything.
‘From the moment I saw your photo I’ve been hard.’ He shook his head and she saw a fleeting glimpse of confusion in his eyes. It almost matched her own disbelief at the revelation. He’d wanted her? Not just seen her as a source of information for the memory he’d lost?
Could it be true? Part of her needed to believe that he’d wanted her, even if only on the most superficial level. That she was special to him.
‘Hungry for a woman I didn’t even know! And in Melbourne…’ His eyes flickered half closed as he tilted his body, pushing right into her hold with a jerky thrust that ended in a low masculine groan of need.
The sound aroused her terribly. Memories swamped her of Alessandro gasping out his desire and his pleasure as they melded together in passion. She squirmed beneath him, fruitlessly trying to ease the wanton ache in her womb.
‘Do you know what it did to me, letting you go?’
Dumbly she shook her head. He’d seemed so controlled. Yet now, looking into a face drawn tight with barely bridled hunger, a face of pain, Carys began to doubt her certainty.
‘For the first time in two years I wanted a woman, but it was obvious you weren’t ready. You were exhausted and overwhelmed by the changes in your life.’
He leaned forward, braced on one hand above her, the other hand still clasping her to him. Part of her revelled in his dominance, even as she fought to clear her mind. ‘I thought you needed time, Carys. That’s why I pulled back.’
For the first time in two years? Her brain stuck on that statement.
She couldn’t have heard right. Alessandro was a virile man who revelled in physical pleasure. When all else had bled away, and their relationship grew empty, he’d still been a passionate lover, almost ferocious in his need for her. And in his need to give her equal pleasure.
A shudder of pure longing rippled through her.
‘Don’t soft soap me, Alessandro. I don’t care how many lovers you’ve had since we were together,’ she lied. ‘So you don’t have to pretend to—’
‘Celibacy?’ His mouth twisted in derision. ‘And what if it’s true? What if there’s been no one since you?’
Her mind boggled at the idea of Alessandro celibate without her, only feeling desire when he saw her again.
As if his subconscious had kept him for her alone.
No! That was nonsense. The inane imaginings of a woman who’d once been too much in love.
‘You can’t mean it.’
‘You know,’ he growled, ‘I’m getting tired of you telling me what it is I mean or feel.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WITHOUT warning he moved back. Carys was free, her skirts no longer pinned beneath his knees, her hand no longer pressed against that most intimate part of him.
She was relieved. Of course she was. She drew a long, shaky breath. In a minute she’d move and—
Her skirts bunched as strong hands slipped up from her ankles over silk-stockinged calves and knees. By the time Carys collected her stunned thoughts his fingers had reached her thighs, pausing to circle the tops of the stockings Carlotta h
ad insisted she wear with her new underwear and glamorous gown.
Dumbfounded, Carys stared up over a froth of silk to Alessandro’s stern face. He was looking down to where his hands played with her suspender straps. Her breath jammed in her lungs at the incredibly erotic sensations his feather-light caresses evoked.
She leaned up, intending to push him away, but it was too late. Already he’d thrust the fabric higher, baring her to his gaze. She felt a waft of air as, with a single tug, he ripped the delicate fabric of her panties away.
The look on his face stopped her instantaneous move to cover herself. Heat sizzled in her blood at the way he stared. Hungry. Possessive. Intense.
The air thickened, making breathing difficult. All she heard was the throb of her pulse, heavy and quick.
The soft wool of Alessandro’s trousers brushed her thighs as he knelt between her legs, pushing them wider. Desire exploded as her blood rushed faster in her shaking limbs.
She needed to resist the lure of his seduction. But now, faced with the reality of Alessandro, rampant with desire, her longings obliterated every sensible reason for resistance.
All she could think of was that he hadn’t betrayed her. Hadn’t taken another lover when they were together, and, if he were serious, not even since they’d parted.
What she’d felt for him hadn’t died. It had only been dormant. Even her heartache hadn’t killed it off.
‘The only thing that would stop me now is if you said you didn’t want this.’ He lifted his head and pinioned her with his gaze.
She lay supine before the blaze of power she read there, stunned by the immensity of the feelings rising within her.
‘Can you tell me you don’t want this?’
On the words one long finger slid unerringly through moist folds of skin where she was most vulnerable and sensitive.
Carys shook at the riot of sensations radiating out from his intimate caress. She felt so vibrantly alive. So needy.
Hands in tight fists, she opened her mouth to make him stop, summoning her shattered resistance. But with mind-numbing ease his finger slipped inside, pushing past muscles that clenched hungrily around him.
She almost sobbed with pleasure at the gentle, insistent, seductive slide. Just that alone felt so good. Too good. It had been so long and—
‘Carys? I’m waiting for you to tell me.’
From under weighted lids she saw him watch her and felt a flush cover her breasts and cheeks. This was her last chance.
‘I…’ The tempo of his caress changed, the angle of his touch, and all at once the world shattered around her in a storm of ecstatic energy. She felt it splinter into tiny fragments as she bucked up against his palm, tidal waves of unstoppable sensation radiating out from his touch.
Heat drenched her as the sudden climax, as complete and mind-numbing as any she’d known, blasted her apart.
Only Alessandro’s jade gaze held her together. Through the maelstrom of exquisite delight and overwhelmed senses, his eyes locked with hers. The connection between them sparked like a live wire.
An instant later he moved, surging forward in a powerful motion that thrust her back into the mattress, her legs around his already pumping hips.
Better, so much better than before. The heavy, satisfying length of him filled her completely. His breath was hot at her neck, his broad chest flattening hers, rubbing against her sensitive breasts. His arms curled beneath her and lifted her up so that each rapid thrust slid further and further till surely he touched her very centre.
Her spasming muscles had begun to ease, but now, pummelled by the unstoppable force that was Alessandro, spent nerve endings came abruptly to life again. Hearing him growl her name, feeling his teeth graze her neck at its most sensitive point only heightened the intensity of his raw, earthy loving. Tension spiralled anew as she responded to a passion so primitive she’d never experienced its like before.
The force driving him was so elemental Carys felt as if he branded her for life. She revelled in it.
One last thrust, the slide of eager hands, and she looked up into dazed green eyes as an explosion, more cataclysmic than the first, shook them both.
She heard her name, heard her own high-pitched scream, felt the satisfying hot pulse of his seed inside her as the wave took them, and then they collapsed together.
Alessandro couldn’t believe he’d so lost control. One minute they were arguing and the next Carys was tipped up on the bed and he was pounding into her with all the finesse of a rampant stallion.
The sight of her coming apart at his touch, the look of bemused wonder, of yearning on her face, had tipped him over the edge. And shattered every claim he had to be a civilised man.
He had no control where this woman was concerned. Not one iota of subtlety or restraint.
For weeks he’d harnessed a desperate, growing hunger, but not for a moment had he thought the outcome would be so rough or so barbaric.
Alessandro scrubbed a hand across his face and met his hooded eyes in the bathroom mirror. Even now they glittered with unrepentant satisfaction and excitement. Because Carys, his wife, lay in the next room. In his bed.
He should be ashamed he’d taken her with such unskilled abandon. Yet even that wouldn’t stop him a second time.
He reached out for a flannel and turned back towards the bathroom door.
She lay as he’d left her, limp and sated, long legs still encased in stockings and high-heeled satin shoes. The sight of those legs, the rucked up, crumpled dress, and the dark triangle of hair sent a bolt of electricity straight to his groin. His breath whistled out of his lungs as need, instant and consuming, swamped him again.
Had it always been like this with Carys?
Again that tantalising memory teased him, of Carys lying sated in another bed. This time, though, it wasn’t her image that caught his attention but the emotions the scene evoked. As if he could feel what he’d felt then. Satisfaction tinged with stirring sexual anticipation. Blatant possessiveness. And…contentment.
It was the latter, the curious sense of absolute rightness, that unsettled him. The suspicion that along with his memory he’d lost something precious.
He’d never responded to another woman so. That made him wary. But he couldn’t keep away. Didn’t want to.
Already he hungered for her again. This time he’d put her needs first and prove he wasn’t a barbaric lout who didn’t know how to seduce a woman.
Alessandro avoided her eyes. Heat lashed his cheeks at the way he’d treated her.
She didn’t move as he settled himself, naked, on the bed beside her. The dress he’d paid a fortune for was probably unsalvageable, but he didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything but the hunger thrumming again in his veins like a horde of locusts sweeping down to devour him.
She was barely dozing, worn out by his rough handling. He should let her rest. She’d been wound tight as a top at the wedding. But in conscience he couldn’t let her sleep in her clothes and shoes. She was bound to be uncomfortable and wake.
He reached out and took one slim foot in his hand.
Carys stretched, half aware of something behind her, something moving down her back. But she felt deliciously replete and she clung to sleep.
It was only as hot palms slid against her bare skin that she woke fully.
She lay in bed, still in her wedding gown, and Alessandro had undone each tiny button down her spine. His hands were inside the dress, massaging and soothing so she instinctively arched against his touch.
‘You’re awake.’ His deep voice throbbed with an expression she couldn’t identify.
Cravenly she wished she’d woken alone. The memory of what they’d done scoured her brain. The hot musk smell of sex permeated the air, reminding her of how she’d climaxed so easily at his touch. Without even a move to escape!
For all her protests, her fine talk about not being a convenience, she’d succumbed without a fight. Just lay there and given herself up to the ecstasy he
wrought.
Carys bowed her head into upturned hands, hunching away from him. What had she done? How could she face herself?
‘Carys? Are you all right?’ His roving hands stopped, gripping her shoulders beneath her dress.
‘I’m fine,’ she lied.
She fought the tremors of delight spreading from his touch. The secret excitement hoarded close in her heart that he’d wanted her, and no one else, in all that time. Had she no pride?
It would be too easy to fall in love with Alessandro again. Where would that get her? A one-sided relationship where she gave all and he only as much as it suited him.
But she feared it was too late. That there was no turning back. Emotion filled the bitter void she’d lived with so long.
She needed time to work out what this all meant.
Yet there was no mistaking the sizzle of anticipation in her blood as his hands wandered, evoking magic.
Was she doomed to be enraptured by him all over again?
‘Let me help you out of that dress. It can’t be comfortable.’
Carys slithered forward out of his reach. ‘I can do it myself.’ It was too soon to meet his assessing eyes. If she didn’t gather her wits, he’d have no trouble reading the effect he had on her.
She made it to the edge of the bed, sitting up and holding the sagging bodice against her breasts with one palm. She stopped there, rigid, as Alessandro walked around to stand before her.
Naked.
Long-limbed, muscle-toned, a tall Adonis come to life.
An aroused Adonis.
Her body prickled at nape, breast and forehead as heat bloomed. She swallowed hard and tried to control her wayward pulse.
She’d just experienced the most intense climax of her life. Twice. She should not be interested in sex right now.
He shifted his weight, and she watched, fascinated as muscles flexed in broad thighs and across his taut abdomen. A dart of fire pierced her chest and spiralled lazily down into her womb.
She shut her eyes, trying to banish the heady image of Alessandro, pure potent male, before her. But there was no escape. The picture was branded on her brain.
