Sicilian's Bride for a Price

by Tara Pammi

  Steady and clear, she finished her vows.

  When Dante spoke, with no inflection or tone, his gaze fixed, each word swept through her with the force of a thunderstorm. Ali trembled all over.

  And then he was finishing... “I call upon these persons here present, to witness that I, Dante Stefano Vittori, do take thee, Alisha Rajeswari Matta, to be my lawful wedded wife.”

  My lawful wedded wife... The words clung to her skin, as if tattooed there.

  She took the pen from the waiting registrar and scribbled her name in a flourish.

  A second time.

  A third time.

  By the fifth time, her fingers shook. Sweat beaded on her upper lip. Ali had no idea how she kept it together when, with each scribble of her name, it felt as if she was twining her fate with his.

  Okay, yes, she’d never really given much thought to families and weddings in the last few years.

  A wedding had always been some future affair, a loving marriage a dream she had put on the back burner while she figured out the hard path she’d chosen for herself. While she figured out how to save her mother’s charity. While she made something of herself that would have made her mama and papa, and maybe even Dante proud.

  Which was also why it had been so easy to say yes to this blasted arrangement.

  But now her breaths rushed in and out, fast and shallow. She focused on them, willing herself to calm down. It didn’t help. Her hands trembled. The next few months would be hard enough without lying to herself.

  Being Dante’s wife—even in name only, even temporarily—meant something to her. Because he was the one man she’d always...what? Admired? Wanted? Lusted over?

  What was it that she felt toward him?

  Dante went next.

  Despite the misgivings in her tummy, she watched mesmerized as he signed his name with a flourish. No shaking fingers for him.

  Because this whole thing meant nothing to him.

  Except the company, Dante cared about nothing and no one. That had to be her mantra for every waking minute and disturbingly dream-filled nights. She walked as if in a trance as the registrar wished them well and they walked out into the lounge. With people, waiting and watching them.

  “Izzy, give me the rings.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You didn’t...”

  His big palms landed on her hip, and pulled her up toward him with the slightest pressure. Heat from his hands burned through the silk of her dress, stunning her, stealing her breath. Her hands were trapped between their bodies, on his chest.

  His nose was buried in her hair as he whispered, “Stop looking as if you were trapped in a nightmare.” A thread of impatience and something else colored his words. He shifted her hair away from her neck. She knew he was using the thick curtain of her hair to hide his words but still she trembled all over. His breath was warm over her bare neck, sending silky ripples down her spine. “Do a better job unless you want to confirm I’m sacrificing myself.”

  He tugged her fingers up and slipped two rings onto her left ring finger, as casually and as intimately as if he were buttoning her shirt.

  The camera went click, click, click, in tune to her thundering heart.

  The solitaire diamond in its princess setting winked at her, the accompanying platinum band beautiful in its simplicity. The rings felt like a vow, a bond tying her to him.

  Tears filled her eyes and she hurriedly blinked them back.

  God forbid that camera had caught those tears. They would say she’d cried and gone down on her knees at his feet out of gratitude or some such.

  He opened her palm and dropped another ring there. Fingers shaking, Ali somehow managed to hold the ring in two fingers. He extended his hand to her. For the life of her, she couldn’t come up with something casual to say, to shrug off the moment.

  She looked down at his hand. Blunt, square-tipped nails on elegantly long fingers. Such a small detail. Such an intimate detail.

  The Dante database in her brain pinged. God, she was going mental with this. Holding his fingers, she slipped the ring on.

  “Now, if we can get a couple of shots of you two kissing,” the beige pantsuit said with a smile, “our readers are desperate for more about you two. It would be icing on the cake.”

  The rest of the reporter’s words drifted away into nothingness as Ali’s gaze jerked to Dante’s.

  Shock pulsed through her. Jet-black eyes held hers, curiously devoid of anything. No mockery, no warning. Just waiting for her to follow his lead.

  He had known this was coming, had known what the reporter would ask. He’d probably planned it out in his diary the day he’d proposed this arrangement. And yet, he’d left her in the dark.

  If he kissed her, if he even touched her, there was no way to hide her desire for him. To hide this madness he stirred up in her. And the thought of rejection in his eyes, or even worse, pity...

  But he didn’t give her a chance to protest.

  Or to think.

  Hands on her hips tugged her forward. Dark, fathomless eyes held hers as he bent his head toward her.

  Ali could feel herself falling into those eyes, drowning in their intensity. Swimming in the dark depths. Terrified that she’d betray her own longing, she closed her eyes.

  Every other sense magnified a thousand times. The world around them—the reporters, the witnesses, the dingy old walls, everything melted away.

  Only Dante remained.

  “Put your arms around my neck.” He sounded needy, husky, hanging on the edge of desperation. She refused, or couldn’t curb, her overactive imagination. Her hands crept around his neck.

  He smelled like heat and masculine need and dark desires. His hands patted her back, as if to soothe her continuous tremors, up and down until suddenly they were digging into her hips.

  His breath hit her mouth in soft strokes, the knot in her belly winding and whirling upon itself.

  And then his lips touched hers in a soft, silken glide. Just there and gone, before she could pull a breath. Ali jerked at the contact, nerve endings flaring into life. She tried to jerk away from his hold.

  His curse filled her ears. “Shh...bella mia.”

  One hand settled at the base of her neck, holding her still and he pressed another of those featherlight kisses.

  Tease and torment.

  An infinitesimal moment after an eternity of longing.

  It wasn’t enough. A feral groan rippled up through her body as he pressed another kiss. Ali opened her mouth. And the careful swipe of his tongue against his own lips became something else.

  Acting on an instinct as old as time and space itself, she slid her tongue against his lush lower lip then dug the tips of her teeth into it.

  The tenor of the kiss changed from one breath to the next. Rough hands moved from her hips to her buttocks, cupping, kneading, pressing her close. The sound that tore out of his mouth was growly, hungry, and it lit a spark of hunger in her body.

  Ali pressed herself into him and trembled all over again.

  He was aroused. He was aroused. Dear God, he was aroused.

  His erection was a brand against her belly, his hard thighs cradling hers. His hands crept into her hair, pulled at it until her head was tilted at the perfect angle. Until her mouth was open for his assault.

  Dante’s mouth. On hers.

  Feral. Hungry. Ravenous.

  Hot. Hard. Wild.

  It wasn’t how she’d imagined it would feel. It was a million times better.

  He plunged his tongue into her mouth, sliding it against hers, licking, nipping, biting. And then he did it all over again. Again and again.

  There was no sense of that self-control, the self-possession that he was known for in his kiss. A torrent of Italian fell from his mouth, gliding over her sensitive skin. Her breasts were heavy, h
er nipples peaking at the constant rub against his chest.

  Her hands clutched his biceps when his tongue swooped in, licking, stroking, nipping and repeating the sensual torture all over again. His hands roamed all over her, kneading, stroking, kindling the spark into an unquenchable fire.

  He didn’t let her gasp for air. His mouth rubbed up over hers again and again.

  Until she was trembling like a leaf against him. Until there was wetness against the soft folds of her sex. Until she splayed her leg around his lean hips and sank into him. That contact was like a jolt of electricity. Liquid fire in her veins.

  Until a cough and a whistle and a “Hot damn, they’re really into each other” punctured the moment.

  Dante wrenched his mouth away from hers, his hands on her shoulders firmly setting her back from him. His breath was harsh, his mouth swollen and dark pink.

  Ali had no idea what he barked at Izzy and the rest of them. Had no idea what was up, what was down. Had no idea if she was walking or floating.

  She went where he took her.

  The hard slam of the door woke her up and she looked out at her surroundings. They were back in his chauffeured limo, cut off from the world. He sat opposite her.

  Color burned in those high cheekbones. “It shouldn’t have gone that far.”

  The cutting coldness in his tone pushed Ali out of the sensual fog. She licked her lips and tasted him there. And liked it far too much.

  She knew how he felt. She even agreed with him. No good could come out of this attraction. This mutual attraction. This red-hot attraction that wasn’t all in her head.

  Dante wanted her. Her mind was stuck in that loop.

  “If you blame me for it, I’ll sink my nails into your pretty face.” Good, she sounded steady. Like her knees weren’t still quaking. “You orchestrated that whole thing there, so don’t you dare blame me if it went off your precious script.”

  Something dawned in his eyes. For the life of her, Ali didn’t know what. Even his remoteness now, as if that kiss hadn’t made even a dent in his self-control, couldn’t douse the feral satisfaction that ran through her.

  The dynamic between them shifted and swirled in the luxurious interior of his car.

  “One kiss doesn’t mean anything, Alisha.”

  She fell back down to earth with a vicious thud even as she told herself the same thing. “No, it doesn’t.”

  But it meant everything.

  The taste of him lingered on her lips, the press of his fingers on her hips a burn.

  It meant Dante saw her as a woman.

  It meant Dante wanted her desperately.

  It meant Dante and his self-control could go on a hike when she was near.

  It meant for the first time in her life, the power in their relationship was fluid.

  She wasn’t foolish enough to pursue this thing, but man, it felt good to have it. She let a sassy smile curve her mouth, determined to come out on top. No matter that she would relive that kiss a million times from here to the end of eternity.

  No matter when she went to bed tonight, her wedding night as it turned out, she was going to play that in her head while she got herself off. In the twisted world that they were inhabiting right now, she actually had the right to him, didn’t she?

  Lawful wedded husband and wife and all that...

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, that something flashing in his eyes again. And this time, Ali recognized it for what it was.

  Dante’s desire for her, despite his self-control.

  “That after my X-rated dreams about you for so long, this time, I have real material to work with tonight. Conveniently, my wedding night,” she said, brazening it out.

  The curse that fell from his mouth was filthy and long and ricocheted around the leather interior. It was music to her ears.

  Ali laughed, the power that rocked through her washing away the sense of inadequacy that had haunted her for so long.

  Color bled into his high cheekbones, his eyes filled with dark desire as he held hers. He was imagining what she’d said, he knew that, she knew that.

  Ali refused to look away.

  “Alisha, if you—”

  “What’s in my mind is not in your control, Dante. Let it go.”

  Another short, pithy curse this time. “You really thrive on it, don’t you? You have to control everything around you.”

  He nodded and looked away. “Si. It’s... I can’t undo it now. This is a marriage on paper, Alisha.”

  Warning reverberated in his words and hit her right in the solar plexus. But nothing could take away the high she was riding. “You said to control the narrative, si? So, I’ve got it. You fell in love with me on one of your visits while trying to pin me down all these years. Desperately. I led you on a merry chase all around the world and finally, I let you catch me.

  “That kiss says that perfectly. I want to be the star of this story. I want to be the woman who brought Dante Vittori to his knees in love. And when this is over, I will be the one who walked away. Capisce?”

  She stared at him defiantly, daring him to contradict her. Seconds felt like eons. Whatever vulnerability she had felt earlier, whatever emotion had gripped her, lifted as she wrested control of the situation.

  She would be the one to walk away, she’d make sure of that. And in the meantime, she was going to have a hell of a lot of fun poking the sexy, gruff bear.

  His gaze searched her, as if he was seeing her for the first time. As if she’d morphed into something he didn’t understand right in front of his eyes.

  And it was a power trip for her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE TASTE OF Alisha’s mouth—so potently sweet, so addictively warm—clung to Dante’s lips even a fortnight later. Through meetings with the Japanese team over negotiating a multibillion-dollar contract supplying steel spread over ten years, through board meetings that he and Ali attended together to present a united front to Nitin and the rest of the board members, through endless evenings when Dante caught her in the sitting room of his flat before she disappeared into the darkroom on the lower floor.

  She’d been so dainty, so fragile, trembling like a leaf when he’d clasped his arm around her waist, when he’d pressed his palm into her slender back to pull her closer...but her passion had been voracious, honest, a force of its own.

  He’d just meant to touch his lips to hers in a quick press. He’d meant to keep it platonic.

  But thinking Alisha would behave when she could wreak mischief on the whole situation, when she could use the moment to challenge him, to pay him back for surprising her with the press, had been his first mistake.

  Imagining that the attraction between them would wither away if he continued to ignore it, his second.

  Just as Dante had predicted, the media and the world exploded at the shots he’d had his PR team release.

  The Kiss, as it was being referred to by the entire world, had taken the media by storm.

  Except the kiss hadn’t turned out to be the perfectly set up shot he’d planned. No, it was a minute-long clip that had gone viral already on a million websites, as one of the most candidly romantic shots.

  Especially because he looked ravenously hungry for her, because in his adult life, he’d never once lost himself in a woman like that. Ali had gotten what she wanted. The whole world believed she’d brought him to his knees.

  Dante couldn’t even blame the press for sensationalizing the story. The defiant tilt of Ali’s chin as she pressed herself to his body brazenly, the hunger and passion in that moment... His lower body tightened every time he watched it—like a teenager watching his first porn video.

  One glance at the clip and he had an erection.

  Dios mio, it consumed him night and day. It came to him when he saw her lithe body in those skimpy clothes she paraded
around in in the flat. It came to him when they were forced into physical intimacy at any public outing they had to attend as a couple.

  It came to him when he simply looked at her mouth.

  His entire adult life, he’d thrived on control in every aspect of his life and that meant his libido too. The women he’d chosen to take to his bed—he’d never let lust drive those choices. His affairs—even the short-term ones—hadn’t involved wanting one woman so badly.

  They had been more of a quest for release.

  Wanting Alisha of course fell into none of the principles he lived by. If it had been just a physical attraction to her—if it was a matter of an itch needing to be scratched because of their history, because, in his entire life, Alisha was the one woman who never seemed to be cowed by him, who challenged his control, who with delicious defiance came toe-to-toe with him—it would have been different.

  If she had continued to tease and torment him, if she had used the knowledge of his desire for her as some kind of weapon—damn it, it almost seemed like he half expected and half wanted her to do it—then it would have been another matter altogether.

  No, the equally ferocious depth of her desire for him had been a one-off.

  In a strange role reversal, she seemed to be the one conducting herself perfectly, a charming socialite wife, a smart charity hostess in the public eye and a polite, courteous stranger under his roof.

  The charity was growing from strength to strength now that she had thrown herself into it. She had used the news of their engagement to raise its profile, make connections. Her photography she still held pretty close to her chest. He was getting more and more curious about it, he’d even told her he wouldn’t comment on or mock something that was simply a hobby, but she refused to let him see even a single portrait.

  An empty attraction to a woman he didn’t quite admire or even like was an easy matter. But the more days that passed by, the more he saw a different side to Alisha.

  The way she’d thrown herself into it over the past couple of weeks was eye-opening.