by Annie West
Why should this revelation be so unwelcome?
‘You say you wrote the cheques?’
Again that jerk of tension through her. Her pulse tripped against his palm and he resisted the absurd impulse to caress her there.
She nodded, the movement brief but emphatic.
‘How did you get access to the cheque book?’ Piers would have been canny enough to keep it close at hand, not lying around. ‘Were you living here with them?’
‘No, I—’ She paused and her gaze shifted away. Instinct told him she hid something. ‘But I visited. Often. My mother and I have always been close.’
That at least had the ring of truth. He remembered her misery in her teens, not simply because she hated school and the vicious little witches who made her life hell there, but because she didn’t want to disappoint her mother by leaving. She cared what her mother thought.
Enough to learn her mother’s ways in seeking easy money from a man? Had she modelled herself on Silvia?
The notion left a sour tang of disappointment on his tongue.
‘You’re hurting me!’
Jonas eased his grip, but didn’t let her go. He was determined to sort this out. Until then he’d keep her close.
‘Why did you need the money?’
Her eyebrows arched and she tilted her head as if to inspect him. As if he weren’t already close enough to see the rays of gold in the depths of her eyes.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ Her tone of insouciant boredom echoed the attitude of entitlement he’d heard so often among wealthy, privileged young things who’d never worked a day in their lives. Except something in her tone was ever so slightly off-key.
Suspicion snaked through him.
He pulled her closer, till her body mirrored his. He felt the tension hum through her. Good! He wanted her unsettled.
‘A girl needs to live, doesn’t she?’ This time there was an edge of desperation in her tone. ‘I’ve had...expenses.’
‘What sort of expenses? Even shopping at the top Parisian fashion houses wouldn’t have swallowed up all that money.’
Her gaze slid from his. ‘This and that.’
A cold, hard weight formed in the pit of Jonas’ belly. He was surprised to feel nausea well.
‘Drugs?’
She shook her head once, then shrugged. ‘Debts.’
‘Gambling?’
‘Why the inquisition? I’ve admitted I took your money. That’s all that matters.’ Her gaze meshed with his and a jagged flash of heat resonated through Jonas. It stunned him.
How could a mere look do that? It wasn’t even a sultry invitation but a surly, combative stare that annoyed the hell out of him.
Yet aftershocks still tumbled through his clenching belly and he found himself leaning closer, inhaling her warm cinnamon and hot woman scent.
This couldn’t be happening.
He refused to feel anything for the woman who’d stolen from him. Especially since she was Silvia Ruggiero’s daughter. The thought of that family connection was like a cold douche.
Deliberately he chose his next words to banish any illusion of closeness. ‘Why steal from me when Piers would have indulged a pretty young thing like you? I’m sure he’d have been amendable to private persuasion.’
‘You’re sick. You know that? Piers was with my mother. He had no interest in me.’ She drew herself up as if horrified. Either she was a brilliant actor or she drew the line at men old enough to be her father.
‘In my experience he wasn’t discriminating.’
Ravenna yanked her hand to free it from his grasp but Jonas wasn’t playing. He wrapped his other arm hard around her narrow back, drawing her up against him.
Just to keep her still, he assured himself.
It worked. With a stifled gasp she froze. Only the quick rise and fall of her breasts against his arm where he still held her hand revealed animation.
‘Speaking from personal experience, are you, Jonas?’ Her voice was all sneer. ‘What are you doing now? Copping a feel?’
His jaw ached with the effort to bite back a retort.
Unlike his father he’d never been a sucker for a pretty face and a show of cleavage. Sure, he appreciated a sexy woman. But he was discriminating, private in his affairs and loyal to whomever he was with. His intellect and his sense of honour took precedence over cheap thrills.
When he married there’d be no shady liaisons on the side, no whispered rumours and knowing looks to embarrass his family. None of the pain to which Piers had subjected them.
Jonas stared down at the firebrand who’d managed to tap into emotions he’d kept safely stowed for years. In one short interlude she’d cut through years of hard-won self-control so he teetered on the brink of spontaneous, uncharacteristic, dangerous action. He almost growled his fury and frustration aloud.
He wanted to lean down and silence her sassy mouth, force those lush lips apart and relieve some of his frustrated temper in steamy passion and a vibrant, accommodating woman.
She’d be receptive, despite that accusatory look. That was what made the idea so tempting. Ravenna might hate him for making her face what she’d done. But it wasn’t merely anger she felt for him—not by a long chalk.
‘Oh, I choose my women very carefully, Ravenna.’ His voice was a low, guttural burr. ‘And I never take anything from a woman that’s not offered freely.’
Dark satisfaction flared as he assessed her reaction with a knowing eye.
He read her rapid breathing and the flush that began at her cleavage and highlighted her cheeks. The way her tongue furtively slicked her lower lip. The indefinable scent of feminine arousal.
‘Really?’ Her breathless challenge didn’t convince. ‘Well, keep that in mind. I’m not offering you anything.’
Jonas was torn between wanting to kiss her senseless and wanting to put her over his knee. He leaned in a fraction and heard her soft exhale of breath. A sigh...of surrender or triumph?
Suddenly it hit him anew that he was in danger of succumbing to the allure of a Ruggiero female. Of an unprincipled thief who threw her crime in his teeth.
Who enticed with her soft body and tell-tale physical signals.
‘Is that so?’ he murmured, knowing he had her measure.
She’d use any tactic to thwart his retribution. Did she aim to play him for an easy mark, as her mother had targeted Piers?
The realisation stilled his impetuous need to taste her. Yet he couldn’t draw back. He was trapped by a hunger sharper and more potent than he’d known in years.
That infuriated him even more than the missing money. He burned with it, the fire in his belly white hot with a virulent mix of lust and self-disgust at his weakness.
Keeping one arm around her back, he released her hand and let his fingers drift. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move, her eyes daring him to do his worst. Because she thought herself immune or because she assumed he wouldn’t rise to her challenge?
His fingers brushed her soft, high breast and moulded automatically to that sweet ripeness. The hard nub of her nipple pressed into his palm and arousal seared his groin. A spasm of something like electricity jerked through his body.
For a breath-stealing moment she stood rigid as if about to lambast him for groping. Her eyes widened in shock, then dropped in heavy-lidded invitation. Her lips parted on a silent sigh. A moment later she shifted, melting against him.
‘Tell me to stop and I will.’
He prayed she wouldn’t.
She opened her mouth but no sound emerged.
The weight of her in his palm, the press of her body, the heady sense of promise thickening the air between them, sapped his resolution.
He was ready to take her up on her unspoken invitation. His body was rock hard with a
hunger that was all the stronger for being unexpected. Why not take a little something for himself after she’d taken so much from him? Clearly she expected it, wanted it, if the tremors in her pliant body were any indication.
But that smacked of history repeating itself. The little thief would think he kept his brain between his legs, as his father had when he’d run off with her mother, leaving his responsibilities behind.
Jonas couldn’t let Ravenna enjoy the illusion of triumph. He had too much pride.
He was nobody’s gullible mark.
As she’d learn to her cost.
Gently he squeezed her breast, just enough to elicit a delicate shudder in her fine-boned body and a throaty sigh of delight.
The hairs on his arms prickled and his blood rushed south at the sound of her pleasure. But he refused to respond to the urges of his suddenly intemperate body.
‘You like that, do you, Ravenna?’
Slitted now, her eyes had a glazed look that told its own story. She swallowed convulsively, drawing his attention to the slim length of her pale throat. The collar of her dark jacket sat loose, giving her an air of fragility at odds with the pulse of vibrant life he felt as she arched against him.
He’d pull back soon. In a moment. When he’d allowed himself a single taste...
Cinnamon and feminine spice filled his nostrils as he dipped his head, nudging aside her collar and nipping gently at the sensitive spot where her neck and shoulder met. She shook in his hold, her hand grasping his between them as if for support.
‘No. Please I—’
Her words cut abruptly as Jonas laved the spot, drawing in the sweet taste of her warm skin.
Too late he realised his error, as he angled his head hungrily for a better taste, pressing kisses up her arching throat, past the throbbing pulse to the neat angle of her jaw.
She was addictive. Scent or taste or the feel of silky soft flesh, or perhaps all three, had Jonas ignoring the voice of reason and losing himself in the moment. In the luxury of caressing Ravenna.
He’d never come across a woman who tempted him so easily.
Her free hand cupped his neck, holding him close, and he pulled her tight against him, enjoying the slide of her body as she bowed back to give him free rein.
He stroked his tongue along the scented skin behind her ear and had to tighten his hold when she slumped against him as if her knees had given way.
She was so responsive, inciting a surge of arousal that swamped all else. Blood roared in his veins, primal instinct taking over. His focus blurred, his mind racing frantically with the practicalities of getting her horizontal as soon as possible.
He nipped lightly at her ear lobe and she turned her head restlessly as if seeking his lips.
Triumph hummed through him as he pressed a kiss to the corner of her lush mouth.
One quick taste then he’d find that preposterous gilded sofa and treat them both to sexual release so intense it would shatter them. Already he was hard as a rock. Carrying her across the room would be torture but he wasn’t letting her go till he’d had his fill. Till they were both limp and the urgent hunger gnawing at his vitals was appeased.
His ears rang with the force of his blood rushing. He ignored it and tilted his head to take her mouth.
Except her eyes were open now and that dreamy expression had faded. Stark horror flared instead in those dark gold depths.
Jonas frowned. She wanted him. He knew it. He felt it with every muscle and sinew as she pressed herself against him. Yet—
The ringing sounded again. This time he realised it came from somewhere outside his head—the front door.
‘Let me go.’ Her voice was so hoarse he read her lips rather than heard her. Jonas blinked, trying to make sense of the abrupt shift in mood.
She pushed against him with both hands. ‘I said, let me go!’ Her gaze slid from his as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Because he’d made her forget her little game of temptation? Because she’d been the victim of unexpected lust this time instead of the temptress?
Something soured his belly. Memory. Disillusionment. The realisation that despite his vaunted immunity he’d fallen hard and fast for what she offered: hot sex with a gold-digging opportunist.
Just like his father before him.
He released her so quickly she wobbled and he reached out a hand to steady her.
‘Saved by the bell,’ he murmured and watched heat flush her cheeks. Not for the life of him would he let her see how she’d knocked him for six. That was his private shame.
She knocked his hand away, rubbing her palm over the place he’d held her as if to erase his touch. But he wasn’t fooled by her show of antipathy. She’d lost control too. It was that latter truth that cut him to the core, tapping the long-dammed reservoir of fury so it finally broke free.
He watched her spin away from him, her steps uneven as she headed for the foyer. With each step he cursed himself for his weakness. He’d seen what she was. She’d told him. Yet he hadn’t been able to resist her.
‘If that was you being unaffected,’ he drawled, ‘I look forward to seeing what you’re like when you put a little effort into sex.’ He drew a slow breath, watching her stumble to a halt. ‘I was willing to test the waters to see how far you’d go. And I wasn’t disappointed.’
Her shoulders hunched but she didn’t turn around.
For a moment something like sympathy hovered. Jonas had a ridiculous urge to cross the room and pull her close to comfort her.
He shook his head.
What was it about Ravenna Ruggiero that got under his skin despite what she’d done?
Was there a family weakness after all? Something in the Deveson genes that made them putty in the grasping hands of the Ruggiero women?
He gritted his teeth against a howl of fury and, worse, disappointment that now he’d never have her in his arms again. He couldn’t trust himself with her. How sick was that?
He buried the knowledge behind a wall of disdain.
‘Do let me know, if you decide you have something to offer me after all. I might even consider being a little less discriminating just for the novelty of it.’
CHAPTER FOUR
RAVENNA STARED AT the mellow wood of the floor, wishing the old boards would part in a yawning void and suck her away into nothingness. Anything to escape the sarcastic lash of Jonas Deveson’s contempt.
As if she should be so fortunate! This past year there’d been no good luck in her life. Except the unexpected gift of the rest cure in Switzerland. But now it turned out that had an awful catch. An enormous debt to be paid.
And a big, ruthless debt collector to make sure she paid in blood.
She shivered, cold to the bone, yet her skin crawled with a clammy heat that matched the nausea twisting her insides. She fought it, refusing to be ill in front of him.
Could anything be more humiliating than this?
She felt sullied by him. It was far worse than facing a dressing-down by the head chef at work, whose explosive tirades were legend. As for the torments of her school years—they’d been nothing to this excruciating shame.
For this time every word was deserved. She’d behaved like some slut, eager for the touch of a man who despised her. For the first time she hadn’t behaved like the sensible, careful, self-contained woman she was.
She’d acted like a hormone-riddled stranger with no scruples or self-respect.
The doorbell rang again and she dragged herself into the foyer, propping herself against the wall with a shaking hand as she pressed the intercom.
‘Monsieur Giscard?’ The words were so faint she cleared her throat to try again. The response from below was garbled in ears that still thrummed with the pulse of arousal.
Nevertheless, she pressed the button
to let the visitor in downstairs. Whoever it was, he couldn’t be more devastating than Jonas Deveson.
She felt his eyes on her. Her skin prickled and heat drilled her spine. She could pinpoint the exact place between her shoulder blades where that penetrating gaze scored her. If she found later that his laser-sharp gaze had scorched a hole in her jacket she wouldn’t be surprised.
Ravenna struggled to swallow the hard knot of emotion blocking her throat.
What had got into her to behave so utterly out of character?
Taking a deep breath, she tried to centre herself but instead inhaled the remnants of his tangy, hot citrus scent. It had impregnated her very pores.
Never in her life had attraction been like that—instantaneous and absolute. Consciously, to her thinking mind, there’d been no attraction—just fear and shock at his revelations, and a determination to divert his thunderous anger from her mother.
But something had happened when he’d touched her. Something unheralded.
She’d heard of animal attraction. She had some experience of desire.
But this... This had been a tsunami obliterating reason and doubt and anything like resistance. She’d stood like a rabbit spotlighted by a hunter, watching his eyes cloud with desire as he touched her. Excitement had stormed through her.
Part of her brain had screamed for her to move, to slap his hand away, but she’d stood, rooted to the spot, eager for more. When he’d bitten her neck in that delicate tasting, she’d gone up in flames.
How was it possible?
Brushing off male attention had never been hard. Yet she’d practically begged for more from him as carnal heat melted her insides and left her a quivering, pathetic wreck.
Where was her backbone? Her sense of self-preservation?
The doorbell rang and she stumbled forward. Her legs felt like melted wax and she fumbled at the door with shaking hands.
On the threshold stood a man of middle years, exquisitely dressed and sporting a rosebud in his lapel.
‘Mademoiselle Ruggiero?’ He pronounced her name with the softened consonants of the French.