Dante's Contract Marriage

by Day Leclaire

  Oh, heaven help her. Surely, she hadn’t been left with just her wedding gown and…and that. Ariana cleared her throat. “I think I mentioned that my mother doesn’t know that we’re not—” She gave an expressive shrug. “I’m sure she meant it as a romantic gesture.”

  Tossing her nightgown to the bed, he proceeded to strip off his tux jacket. “I don’t have any objections. Nor am I offended.” He ripped his tie free of its mooring, allowing the ribbon of black silk to flutter to the carpet. “And you still haven’t answered my question. Either of my questions, for that matter.”

  If he’d asked any questions, she’d already forgotten. His unnerving striptease had driven them straight out of her head. “I’m sorry…?”

  A hungry smile slipped across his face. He worked the onyx studs free of his shirt and dropped them onto the bedside table. “Do you need help undressing?” he prompted. “And how soon can we break your first marital condition?”

  It took a heartbeat to force her gaze from his gaping shirt and the broad expanse of golden chest beneath. Another heartbeat to gather her wits enough to respond. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do need help undressing.”

  She crossed to Lazz’s side with as much composure as she could summon. There was something about a half-undressed man that struck her as downright dangerous to the female psyche, particularly when the other half was clothed in formal wear. Maybe it was the incongruity she found so appealing. Somehow she’d have to find a way to ignore it, though she didn’t have a clue how. Not when a relentless tug of desire attacked all her senses at once, leaving her totally defenseless.

  Presenting her back to him, she asked, “Would you mind unbuttoning my gown?”

  “My pleasure. And you still haven’t answered my other question.”

  He stroked a hand down the length of her spine. Even through the heavy satin of the material, she could feel the heat of his touch. Feel the tautening of the connection between them. “The answer is never,” she managed to say. “I don’t intend to break any of my premarital conditions.”

  “Or allow me to?”

  “No.” Yes, please. Soon and often.

  “Are you certain?”

  She fought to control her shudder of awareness. More than anything, she wanted to throw herself in his arms and beg him to make love to her. To complete whatever odd bond had formed between them during their wedding ceremony. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  “I’m positive.”

  To her relief, he accepted her response without argument though she could sense that he forcibly held himself in check. “I have to admit, this is a first for me,” he admitted. “I’ve never helped a woman out of a wedding gown before.”

  “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”

  “Why?”

  She felt the subtle give of her gown. “It makes me sad.”

  “Sad, that you’re the first I’ve ever stripped out of a wedding gown?” A hint of amusement ran through his words. The back of his hand brushed against her skin, eliciting a shiver she couldn’t quite suppress. “I would think that would make you happy.”

  “I’m not your true bride, or it would. It makes me sad thinking of your future wife and the fact that all the things that should be a first with her are a first with me, instead.” She twisted around, holding her gown against her breasts. In the short time her back had been to him, a darkness had wiped all emotion from his face, turning it remote and forbidding. “Perhaps I’m not phrasing it well,” she murmured.

  “You phrased it just fine.”

  “I’ve annoyed you. I am sorry.”

  “Not at all.” He made a circle with his finger, a silent demand that she turn around again. “I’m not quite done.”

  “Oh, of course.” She did as he requested, forcing herself to stand perfectly still while he finished unbuttoning her gown. “It’s just that these little memories should be special. I don’t want to tarnish them.”

  He’d reached the last button, but instead of releasing her, he cupped her hips and slid her tight against him. Her breath escaped in a silent gasp, and she froze as his bare chest pressed against her bare back, heat against heat. One hand slid from her hip to settle low on her abdomen where one day she hoped a child would nestle. Desire intensified, driving her nearly insane with need. She could feel the strong, tensed muscles of his thighs and knew he was aroused. Seriously aroused. Knew that she’d done that to him, just as he’d done the same to her.

  “What about you?” he asked. An almost guttural quality slid through his voice. “Am I tarnishing sacred memories for you and your future husband?”

  “No, because this isn’t real.” But it felt real. His hands on her. Their partial nudity. The want that thickened the air and made it difficult to breathe. A wedding night waiting to happen. It felt all too real. “Someday I’ll have a real marriage. But this isn’t it. It can’t be.”

  “It can, if you let it.” He spun her around. “Let’s start with that kiss we shared. Let’s find out whether that was real…or pure imagination.”

  And then he took her mouth in a kiss reserved for lovers, one that claimed, just as it seduced. A kiss that proved that what they’d felt earlier hadn’t been imagination, not unless they were both experiencing the exact same fantasy. Time seemed to halt, to give them endless seconds to wallow in the moment. This man could have brought stone to life, Ariana decided, and she was far from stone. If she could have melded her body to his, she would have. Instead, she simply gave everything she had within her. And then she gave more.

  He slid his fingers deep into her hair as he consumed her, tumbling them from one delicious connection into the next. “I don’t give a damn what we agreed. I need you.”

  And she needed him. Needed the hardness of his mouth over hers. Needed the delicious blaze of heat. She wanted to fill her lungs with his breath, to inhale his scent and taste and revel in the very air that sustained him.

  Every nerve in her body screamed in surrender, making it almost impossible to resist the inevitable. Somehow she managed. “We have an agreement.” The words were barely more than a whisper.

  He pulled back just far enough to allow sanity to slip between them. “An agreement…or a suggestion?”

  “It was an agreement you promised to honor,” she insisted. “Please let go of me.”

  He bent his head and buried a final kiss in the sensitive curve between her neck and shoulder. Fire flashed through her, arrowing from her breasts straight to the warm feminine core of her, and a deep yearning threatened all she held most dear. “No one needs to know.” The words hovered, tantalizing with possibility.

  “I would know.” Could he feel how she trembled? Could he sense her longing? She needed to stop him while she could still stop herself. She spoke with difficulty, fighting to translate her thoughts into English. And still her tongue stumbled over the words. “And it would prevent us from getting an annulment. Since we were married in the church, and since Romanos don’t believe in divorce, we can’t take this any further.”

  To her profound relief—or was it regret?—he released her. “If that’s your preference.”

  She clutched the bodice of her gown to her breasts to keep it from slipping. “It is.” Not. Most decidedly, not. She didn’t dare look at him in case her conflicted emotions showed on her face. “I’ll use the bathroom first, if you don’t mind.”

  “Fine.” He stopped her with a touch, one that raced across her skin like wildfire. “Fair warning, Mrs. Dante. There’s only one bed, and I’m not feeling terribly chivalrous, particularly with the flight we have to look forward to tomorrow. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

  “Not at all.” She spared the bed a brief, wistful glance. “It’s large enough to house an entire family. We’ll just stake out opposite sides.”

  By the time she removed her wedding gown and used the toiletries supplied by the hotel, she managed to gather up the tattered remains of her equilibrium. She also managed to silence her wayward body and th
e wicked suggestions it screamed by drowning every hungry inch in an icy shower. Though she attempted to convince herself otherwise, the remnants of his touch remained, soft echoes of helpless passion.

  She smothered the echoes beneath a luxurious Le Premier bathrobe, one that enveloped her sheer nightgown. She emerged from the bathroom to find Lazz relaxing in the bed, reading a newspaper. The fact that he was quite likely nude beneath the sheets—after all, her mother hadn’t left any nighttime garments for him—threw her enough that she spoke in Italian instead of English.

  “Ah, the perfect picture of domestic bliss,” she teased.

  He glanced up and returned her grin, though she suspected it had more to do with the voluminous bathrobe than her comment. “I put a buffer between us,” he said, indicating the line of pillows that divided the bed. “I hope it will make you feel more comfortable.”

  “I assume you’re a man of your word?”

  “Of course.”

  She grabbed the pillows and tossed them to the floor. “Then I trust you without these.”

  As soon as she’d stripped off the bathrobe and climbed into bed, he turned out the light. At first the darkness seemed impenetrable. But gradually her eyesight adjusted, and she managed to make out the various pieces of furniture scattered around the suite. She also managed to make out her husband’s form. Other than tossing aside the newspaper, he hadn’t altered his position. He continued to lounge against a mountain of pillows, his arms folded behind his head. In the darkness his breathing seemed deep and heavy. Hungry. Teetering on the edge of action.

  She rushed into speech before opportunity became deed. “You know, you never explained what happened in the church. What caused that shock when we touched?”

  “As I said before, it wasn’t anything.”

  She sat up in order to plump her pillows and adjust the bedding. Nerves. Nerves were making her restless and chatty. Maybe she should have had that second glass of champagne she’d been offered during the endless round of toasts. It might have helped her sleep. She spared Lazz a swift glance. Or maybe not. No telling what foolish decisions she’d be tempted to make while under the influence.

  “And yet, you also said there was something you weren’t telling me,” she persisted. “When we were in the limousine, remember?”

  “It’s nothing. A family legend.”

  “A legend? That sounds interesting.” She wriggled around in an effort to find a comfortable spot in the massive bed. Since the most comfortable spot was in Lazz’s arms, she didn’t expect to meet with much success. Exasperated, she said, “Since I’m not sleeping and you’re not sleeping, why don’t you tell me about it.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t already heard. But perhaps you don’t read gossip magazines.”

  “I have read a few,” she admitted. “The Snitch. But when Papa came across it, he was furious and banned the paper from the estate. Since then I’ve been gossip free.”

  “Well, that explains it.” Lazz fell silent, and for a brief moment Ariana wondered if he’d decided against telling her his “secret.” Not that she didn’t sympathize, considering she had a few of her own. And then he spoke. “Our family claims an odd sort of legacy. I consider it a not-so-charming fairy tale.”

  “But some of your family think this legacy is real?”

  “Yes. It’s called The Inferno.”

  She instantly clicked on the play on words. “Dantes’ Inferno? I love it. What is this Inferno? And who in your family believes in it?”

  “Most of them,” he admitted. Reluctance tore through his words. “I don’t know about my cousins, but all of my brothers claim to have experienced it. In fact, Primo and Nonna are under the impression we’re marrying because of The Inferno, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  “I gather you don’t believe in it?”

  “Not even a little.”

  “Yet, you expect us to pretend we feel it?”

  “Yes.”

  Ariana rubbed her thumb against the center of her palm where the spark between them had first originated and where the heat from it still seemed to dwell. That spark hadn’t been nothing, despite what Lazz might claim. Could it be from this Inferno Lazz insisted didn’t exist? It would certainly explain a lot.

  “How can I pretend to feel The Inferno if I don’t know what it is?” she asked with a touch of his logic. “Won’t your grandparents expect me to know?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t think of that, but they will expect it.” He shifted in the bed, rolling over to face her. Darkness hid his expression from her, but not his scent. Not his size. Not the fascinating ridges and valleys his body created beneath the sheets. Those were all too apparent. “It’s…it’s a connection. A bond. My brothers claim they experienced it the first time they touched their wives.”

  Ariana’s breath caught in sudden understanding. “And if I asked them, would they say The Inferno felt something like an electric shock?”

  “They might,” Lazz conceded. “According to my brothers, after they touched, they were so overcome with desire, they couldn’t think straight.”

  “Unlike what we felt in church. You were completely in control when you kissed me, right?”

  She could practically hear him grind his teeth at her irony. “You’re a beautiful woman. It’s only natural that I’d be sexually attracted to you. It has nothing to do with The Inferno. The Inferno isn’t real.”

  “Is it that The Inferno isn’t real? Or is it that you consider yourself too logical to experience it?”

  “It isn’t real. I am logical. Therefore, how could I possibly experience it? What my brothers felt toward their wives is simple lust, nothing more. They chose to call it The Inferno because it puts a polite word to emotions that are more carnal than romantic.”

  She pounced on the flaw in his argument. “Then explain what happened when we first touched. Or didn’t you feel what I did?”

  “I felt something. But it wasn’t because of some ridiculous legend.”

  A sudden idea occurred to Ariana, and she fought to speak without inflection. “Do you deny it because you experienced this Inferno with Caitlyn? Do you believe you can’t feel that with another woman?”

  “It’s only supposed to happen with one woman. I thought I felt something with her,” Lazz confessed. “Once. It happened—” He broke off, swearing beneath his breath.

  “What?” She sat up in bed. “I don’t understand. When did it happen?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter,” she insisted. “When did it happen?”

  “The morning after she married Marco.”

  “In the conference room? When you attacked your brother?” When she and her father had been there to witness the fight? When she’d been seized by that overpowering attraction to Lazz?

  “Yes. But what happened that day doesn’t have anything to do with us or our situation. Or, God forbid, The Inferno.”

  His words shouldn’t hurt. For some reason, they did. “Because ours is a temporary marriage, right?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Just out of curiosity, what are you looking for in a wife, if not The Inferno?”

  Lazz hesitated long enough that Ariana thought he wouldn’t answer. And then he said, “I’d rather have a marriage based on compatibility. On reason. On mutual likes and dislikes. Once emotion subsides, there has to be something to keep the marriage together. All The Inferno offers is physical desire. I want more than that.”

  Is that what he’d found with Caitlyn? “And yet, it seems to have worked out for your brothers. I gather you believe you have some sort of special immunity, is that it?”

  Lazz moved with lightning speed. One minute he lounged safely next to her and the next Ariana found herself caged beneath him. He interlaced their fingers, and she felt again that odd burn within her palm. Not that he seemed to notice. But then, maybe he was distracted by the way he anchored her body to the mattress, filling her soft contours with hard male angles, forcing her to give to
his take. His take of space. His take of control. He even seemed to take the air she fought to pull into her lungs.

  “Listen to me, Ariana. What you and I felt earlier was a natural desire. If you want to pursue that desire to its natural conclusion, I’d be delighted to accommodate you.” He freed a hand and used it to cup her breast. His thumb drifted across the hardened peak, showing her without words how easily and how well that accommodation would be. “But don’t expect anything more than the conditions we both agreed to.”

  His words doused the desire screaming through her body. “Thank you for making that clear.” She made the mistake of speaking in Italian again and deliberately switched to English. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to sleep now.”

  His tantalizing movements stilled. “I assume you prefer to do that without me on top of you?”

  “You assume correctly.”

  He lowered his head and skated his mouth across hers. Just a light, tender brush of lips against lips. Her groan slipped out as he slipped in. He told her without words how it could be between them, showed her with a simple mating of their mouths and tongues how he would turn her world upside down.

  But where would that leave her afterward? She’d have given everything and been left with nothing but heartache. Lazz didn’t believe in the possibilities or in the connection that had sparked to life between them. And a night in his arms, no matter how blissful, wouldn’t change that.

  “I gather the answer is still no.”

  Ariana didn’t trust herself to speak, not with the frantic words fighting for release. Words that would beg him to hold her. To make love to her. To give her a wedding night she’d never forget. But it would only add complications on top of complications, especially with Brimstone missing. She pushed against his shoulders, still unable to reply. He rolled off of her without another word.

  She didn’t expect to sleep, not considering her intense awareness of the man beside her and not with her emotions in such turmoil. Not only did she long to give in to base instinct but she also knew that part of her, a secret childish part, wished that she could experience The Inferno with Lazz.