The Cost of Her Innocence

by Jacqueline Baird

  He had sat in the car pretending to work, his mind spinning, and realised she would feel trapped in his apartment, twelve floors up in an elevator. Hurriedly he had booked the hotel. Later he hadn’t been able to get out of the suite quickly enough. He’d wanted her so fiercely, but as the mother of his child and his soon-to-be-bride she’d deserved much better than a quick coupling the night before her wedding. He had stopped at Reception as he left and given strict instructions that she was to be given anything she wanted, and he’d ordered the transformation of the suite for the following afternoon.

  Beth looked at Dante, stunned he had bothered. His hand lifted to curl a strand of hair behind her ear, the other slipping behind her to press in the small of her back and hold her close. The brush of his hard male body against her stomach sent heat from low in her pelvis pounding through her veins. Her eyes lifted to the chiselled lips, the sensual mouth. It was impossible to ignore the way her body reacted to his.

  But Beth tried. ‘No, I wouldn’t believe it,’ she said, in a last-ditch attempt to deny the fatal attraction Dante held for her.

  Her gaze lifted to his dark long-lashed eyes and she felt herself drowning in the glittering depths. She had thought she hated Dante for so many years, but now she wanted him with a hunger and a need for physical contact that she could not control. She raised her hands to his chest....

  ‘I guessed as much,’ he murmured, and the teasing brush of his mouth was on hers, making her lips tingle and part. ‘But at least give me credit for trying, and allow me to try to prove you wrong.’ He chuckled softly and tilted her head to one side. His tongue touched the silken skin below her ear, then trailed kisses down her slender throat.

  Beth dragged in a ragged breath and Dante lifted his head, a long finger running along her tremulous lower lip. Dizzy with longing, she instinctively pressed her body closer and felt the jut of his erection against her belly. It was shockingly intimate and incredibly arousing to think she could do this to him, and it made her forget about the past—only the moment and Dante existed.

  ‘Trust me, Beth, today is a new beginning for us, and I want to make it right for you.’

  And she did trust him.... Meeting his lips with her own, she signaled her total capitulation.

  His mouth explored her with gentle expertise, his tongue curling with hers, teasing, tasting, and she was lost in the wonder of his kiss.

  Dante raised his head and had to battle to resist his basic instinct to take her where they stood. He cupped her head in his hands and looked down into her sparkling emerald eyes. The pupils were dilated to black pearls of passion and he stifled a groan.

  ‘Not here, Beth.’

  Swinging her up in his arms, he carried her into the bedroom and lowered her gently onto the bed. He had never believed her once was enough comment—although ironically it was that one time when he had made her pregnant. But Dante had never suspected Beth was a virgin, and could not help feeling that if he had known he could have done better. Now she was his wife, the mother of his child, and he was determined to give her the wedding night she deserved and would remember with pleasure.

  Beth glanced at yet more candles, then stared in awe as Dante stripped off his clothes, his great body gleaming golden in the candlelight. The fine black hair across his chest arrowed down over his washboard stomach to curl at the junction of his thighs, and his powerful erection sent a primordial feminine thrill quivering through her slender frame.

  Then he was leaning over her, her clothes were being peeled from her body, and she lay without shame, naked before him, mesmerised by the burning gleam in his eyes as they raked her from head to toe.

  ‘You are exquisite, mia moglia,’ he rasped, and kissed her forehead, her nose, briefly her lips, and moved lower to her breasts and the soft curve of her stomach, where he lingered, murmuring in Italian.

  He raised his head and the intensity in his magnificent dark eyes made her heart squeeze. All her doubts and fears for the future faded away, and she linked her hand around his neck, hungry for his kiss.

  Finally his mouth found hers, and she responded intuitively to the searching passion of a kiss that left her breathless and wanting more. Her hands unfurled from his neck to clasp his broad shoulders, while his hands traced slowly and gently over her breasts and stomach, brushing the soft curls as he reached the apex of her thighs. With every silken touch of his fingers Beth’s hunger for him grew. Moisture and heat pooled low in her body, which was pulsing with need. His long fingers flicked around her inner thighs, so close to where she ached. His hands swept back up her body, firmer now, cupping her breasts, his thumbs stroking the rosy peaks.

  ‘Slightly larger, I think,’ he said huskily, his glittering gaze on her breasts.

  His head lowered and his mouth closed over a pouting nipple. She moaned low in her throat. His tongue rolled the rigid tip and his teeth nipped and tugged. The pleasure was almost pain before he licked the throbbing peak and excitement threatened to explode inside her.

  Her fingers pressed into his muscular shoulders, nails digging into his flesh. When she could stand no more her hand fisted in his hair to pull his head back, and with a husky groan his mouth closed over hers with the powerful, possessive passion that she hungered for....

  His hands, big and strong, caressed her skin and his mouth followed—kissing, tasting, discovering pleasure points she’d never known she had. But Dante knew...

  Oh, how he knew...

  Beth writhed beneath him, aroused to fever-pitch by his prolonged sensual exploration. His mouth returned to hers, playful, teasing and passionate, while his long fingers continued their delicate exploration of every secret place with an erotic skill that drove her wild....

  She was burning up. Her slender hands stroked him and found the thick, hard length of his erection. She knew he was as desperate as she was. With a guttural growl he tore her hand from his body and his mouth found hers again, devouring her. His hands lifted her, and his great body was tense as steel as finally he was where Beth madly, desperately wanted him. He began to probe gently—too gently—and she locked her legs high around his back, her body arching as with supreme control he probed a little deeper, stretching her...

  He withdrew.

  ‘Dante!’ she cried, desperate for all of him. ‘Please!’

  With a husky groan and a thrust of his hips he answered her. his hard length filling and holding her. He drew a taut nipple into his mouth and raised his hips and thrust again. Then he paused and suckled its twin, and a starburst of feelings blinded her to everything but Dante. He moved in a fluid, ever increasing rhythm, harder and faster, pulsing inside her until she convulsed around him in a blaze of heat and light, like a star going nova, and she heard his cry of triumph as he followed her, his life force spilling inside her.

  ‘I’m too heavy for you,’ Dante rasped some time later, and with a gentle kiss on her love-swollen lips he rolled onto his back and slipped a hand beneath her waist, easing her into the curve of his shoulder.

  Beth rested a slender arm across his broad chest. She had thought the first time Dante had made love to her had been incredible, but tonight had surpassed that. She had never felt so complete, so languorous, so perfectly at peace in body and mind in her life.

  ‘How do you feel, Beth? I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ He stroked the hair back from her brow.

  She raised herself up on one elbow and looked down at Dante. His hair was all over the place, his incredible eyes serious, and she let her hand stroke over his chest, her fingers playing with his chest hair. ‘No, you didn’t hurt me. Though I have to admit...’ She paused teasingly, and surprisingly felt his body tense. ‘You were right. Once was not enough.’

  ‘Why, you little tease.’ He grinned and pulled her head down to his to press his lips against her mouth.

  In minutes they were making love again.

  Dante took his time to explore her and to show her various ways to please him that surprised and excited both her and Dante! T
heir senses were on a knife’s edge, and when he finally surged up into her with a few pounding thrusts they climaxed together.

  Beth lay across Dante’s body in the aftermath, totally sated. She had been on top during their lovemaking—something she had never envisaged before—and as her head rested on his chest she found herself too languorous to move. Instead she listened to the heavy pounding of his heart gradually steady.

  ‘Beth?’

  Dante said her name and she glanced up at him.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you.’ His strong hands clasped her by the waist and he lifted her as if she was as light as a feather and sat up, placing her flat on her back on the bed. ‘These damn candles are a fire risk. I can smell burning.’

  ‘So much for romantic gestures,’ Beth said, and burst out laughing.

  Dante slid out of bed and snuffed out the candles. Beth watched him as he walked to the bathroom. Big and lithe and stunning from the rear, with long legs and firm, tight buttocks—not something she had ever really noticed in a man before, but now she found every inch of Dante fascinating.

  They slipped on the robes the hotel had provided and Dante ordered room service. They shared an intimate dinner, and then went back to bed.

  The next morning they took a flight to London and Beth fell asleep on the plane....

  * * *

  ‘Not too bad, hmm...?’ Dante said, with a guiding hand on Beth’s back as they walked out of his mother’s home in Kensington. ‘My mother adores you. And when we finally tell her you are pregnant—if she hasn’t already guessed—she will worship at your feet. As for Harry—he made his feelings very clear.’

  Beth chuckled. ‘Yes, he did.’ She had been dreading meeting Dante’s mother, Teresa—a lovely petite woman, with black hair and brown eyes—and her husband, Harry, but they were a delightful couple and had made her feel completely at ease. Harry was an older version of Tony, and Beth had not been able to help saying so—which had led to her admitting she had lived in the apartment beneath Tony until a few months ago. Dante had added smoothly that that was where Beth and he had met—at Tony’s barbecue.

  ‘So you are the angel girl who supplied my Tony and Mike with food and all kinds of help!’ Teresa had exclaimed, and from then on everything had been plain sailing.

  Lunch had been a happy affair, and an eye-opener for Beth as Teresa had regaled her with stories of Dante as a child—much to his embarrassment.

  Beth turned now as Teresa and Harry followed them out to say goodbye, with hugs all round and promises to return soon. They were finally about to leave when there was a screech of tyres and Tony arrived.

  With a ‘Hi, Mum—Dad,’ he stopped in front of Beth. ‘I don’t believe it, Beth! You actually married Dante. What on earth possessed you when you could have had me?’ Grinning broadly, he gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Beth laughed.

  ‘Yes, she did marry me—so you can take your hands off her,’ Dante said with a smile that verged on triumphant as he slipped a proprietorial arm around her waist.

  ‘You’re a lucky devil, bro, and I’m not surprised you whisked Beth away and married her. I noticed you couldn’t take your eyes off her at the barbecue....’ Tony said. ‘Mind you, I’m not sure you deserve her—’

  ‘That’s enough, Tony,’ Dante cut in, and the tone of his voice brooked no argument.

  ‘Okay...congratulations. You do make a striking couple. So, where are you going for the honeymoon?’

  ‘Somewhere hot—the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean, as it will be December before I can free up any time. Beth can decide.’

  ‘I can decide?’ A honeymoon had never entered Beth’s head.

  ‘Yes—why not?’ Dante gave her a sexy smile. ‘I have been all over the place. You can have fun choosing somewhere you would really like to go.’

  ‘Is that wise, Dante?’ Tony queried. ‘Knowing Beth, it will be a surfers’ beach in Hawaii—hardly your scene!’ he quipped, then added, ‘Trust me, I still shudder at the thought of when she tried to teach Mike and I how to surf.’ He grimaced. ‘But wherever you go you’d better take good care of her, or you will have me to deal with.’

  ‘I intend to—and thanks.’

  ‘Thank you for that, Tony,’ Beth said with a grin. Tony was such a joker, and he enjoyed winding people up, but he was a truly lovable young man.

  ‘Now we really must get going,’ Dante commanded, and with final goodbyes all round Beth slid into the passenger seat of the Bentley and they left.

  Dante concentrated on negotiating the city traffic, with a frown on his face that had little to do with his driving and everything to do with Beth. Seeing the easy interaction between Beth and his brother, and after spending time with her and getting to know her intimately, he could tell there had never been anything sexual about their relationship. Tony was an irrepressible flirt, like most twenty-three-year-old males, but Beth just laughed and ignored it. And Tony’s ready acceptance of their marriage confirmed he had never been serious about her....

  Which made Dante question his own actions—not something he was prone to do—in threatening Beth with dire consequences unless she left Tony alone. He now knew a lot of what Beth had told him was the truth, but did it change anything? Her past was inescapable, and he would still have felt duty-bound to tell Tony why she was unsuitable as a wife, conveniently ignoring the fact that he had married her.

  He cast a sidelong glance at Beth; she looked so relaxed, so beautiful, and she was carrying his child. Yesterday had been their wedding day and last night he had enjoyed the best sex of his life. He only had to look at Beth to want her, and he knew she felt the same. The past was the past and there was no point in dwelling on old mistakes, he told himself.

  ‘You really do like Tony?’ he prompted.

  ‘Yes, I do. He is so easygoing, happy and carefree,’ she said with a wistful smile. ‘It must be nice to be so uncomplicated. What you see with Tony and Mike is what you get, and they make me laugh. I can’t remember when I felt young like that—if ever.’

  Dante heard the hint of sadness in her tone and could have kicked himself for reminding her of the past; the present and their baby was all that should concern him. ‘No wonder they are a carefree pair, with you helping them out all the time.’

  ‘I told you—we’re good friends. Though sometimes I think I was more like a house mother to the pair of them.’

  Dante shook his head. ‘You are far too soft for your own good, Beth.’

  * * *

  Where Dante was concerned Beth knew she was.... This morning she had awakened in his arms and they had made love again. Bedazzled in the aftermath, she had told him he was a perfect lover. But Dante’s response—‘I always aim to please, cara!’—had struck a discordant note in Beth’s mind. Just how many women had he pleased? she’d wondered, and it had brought her back to reality.

  Dante didn’t make love—love never entered his vocabulary. He was a sophisticated man of the world and he must have had sex with dozens of women. The only reason Beth was in his bed was because she was pregnant with his child. She must never think it was anything more than a convenient marriage for the good of her child and herself.

  But it was hard when a smiling, tactile Dante was so irresistible as they’d shared breakfast in their hotel suite. He had fed her food from his plate and planted kisses on her mouth between bites. He only had to look at her and she wanted him, and she had to keep reminding herself it wasn’t going to last....

  She cast Dante a sidelong glance. His focus was on the narrow, twisting country road, but nothing could detract from the sculptured perfection of his profile and her heart skipped a beat.

  As if sensing her scrutiny, he slanted a knowing smile her way.

  ‘Not long now.’

  Her tummy flipped.

  ‘It’s a shame I can only stay one more night. When I get back next weekend we need to discuss more permanent living arrangements.’

  Later Beth would wonder if she’d had a premoni
tion that night, when she’d decided to share the main guest bedroom with Dante instead of her own room, the master suite.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE LAST DAY of September, and for the past week England had been basking in an Indian summer. The temperature was balmy as Beth walked out of the sea, a smile on her face.

  The marriage deal she had struck with Dante that had filled her with such trepidation was turning out to be nothing like what she had feared. The two nights they had shared had been a revelation; he was an incredible lover and generous in every way. Walking up the beach still smiling, Beth realised she actually felt the happiest she had in years.

  ‘On a day like today it makes you glad to be alive,’ Beth said, and stopped and grinned down at Janet, who was showing Annie how to build a sandcastle. ‘I really enjoyed my swim.’ She reached for a towel from her beach bag on the sand and saw her phone flashing. She picked it up and read the text. ‘Dante’s in a meeting that looks like it’s running late. But he will be back here tomorrow evening.’ She dropped the phone back in her bag. ‘I’ll reply later. The waves are rising and I’m going to get my surfboard....’

  ‘No, you won’t. A swim is okay, but surfing is definitely out in your condition. And from the black clouds on the horizon it’s not going to matter anyway,’ Janet said, and rose to her feet. Looking past Beth, she exclaimed, ‘Will you look at that? Oh, my God!’

  Beth turned to see what Janet meant, and to her horror at the end of the beach she saw a child with a pink plastic ring around her waist, being swept from the shallows by the fast-rising tide.

  Beth didn’t stop to think—she ran.... A man dashed into the sea and then stopped. Frantic, he yelled that he could not swim, and without hesitation Beth dived into the waves.