Buying His Bride of Convenience

by Michelle Smart

  She nodded slowly. ‘You continually surprise me.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘When we met I thought you were nothing but a selfish playboy but you’re not, are you? Beneath your don’t-care exterior I see a man who does care and does want to help. You’ve donated money to good causes before, haven’t you.’

  It wasn’t phrased as a question.

  ‘Guilt money. I leave the true philanthropy to others.’ Like his brother.

  She twisted a little in the seat, her eyes holding his and studying him as if she was trying to read him. ‘At least you’re honest about your motives and don’t use it to further an agenda or because you crave adulation.’

  ‘You know people who do that?’

  She nodded. ‘For some, I get the impression that their philanthropy is an act.’

  ‘An act? In what way?’

  She grimaced. ‘Please, don’t think I’m speaking badly of them. What they do is wonderful, whatever their motives. It’s just that there’s some I never think mean it on an emotional level. You understand what I mean? That it’s all for show? That it’s the adulation and plaudits they crave, not a genuine, emotional desire to help or make things better. Only some of them, I should add. I met many you could see genuinely cared.’

  ‘What about my brother? What category did you put him in?’

  Expecting the usual waffle of what an amazing man Pieta was, he was slightly thrown when she hesitated and bit into her lip.

  ‘You put my brother in the category of doing his great acts of philanthropy for the adulation?’ he asked slowly, a prickle of anger setting loose inside him.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You don’t deny it.’

  ‘I only met him a couple of times and never on a one-to-one basis. I hardly knew him.’

  Her evasive non-answer made the prickles deepen. ‘You thought you knew him well enough to judge him.’

  ‘I didn’t judge him,’ she protested. ‘He was an amazing person—what he did to help those in need was incredible...’

  ‘But you still felt he did it for show.’ His heart battering against his ribs, Daniele leaned forward. ‘My brother did more than anyone I know to help others. He spent so much time fundraising and organising projects for his foundation and going into dangerous situations with little thought to his own safety because he wanted to help and he knew he was in a position to help, and he never took a cent for himself, unlike charity employees such as yourself who are paid a salary for your good works. And you have the nerve to criticise him?’

  Eva remained incredibly still during his tirade. He didn’t know where that had come from, spoken even as the rational part of his brain knew he was being unfair to her but unable to stop.

  In his entire life he had never heard a word of criticism towards his brother. Not one word.

  ‘I didn’t criticise him,’ she refuted steadily but with a tremor in her voice. ‘You asked for my thoughts and I gave them. Your brother did incredible things, and nothing can or should change that, certainly not my private opinion, which isn’t worth anything.’

  Daniele breathed deeply and dug his fingers into the car seat.

  Painful as it was to acknowledge, Eva’s opinion matched precisely his own. He’d always thought Pieta’s good deeds were for show, a way to display to the world what a magnificent man he was. He’d never believed it had come from the heart.

  But his private thoughts towards his brother were one thing. He was his brother, it was his job to pick faults and criticise. No one else’s.

  ‘You have a right to your opinion,’ he said, doing his best to modulate his tone. ‘But you should remember that he was my brother and I will always defend him.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said quietly. ‘Families are complicated but the bonds can be very powerful. Even when they’re the worst kind of human, the instinct to protect them is strong.’

  He didn’t have to ask to know she spoke from experience and that fired the stabbing prickles in his blood off again.

  He wouldn’t ask for details. He didn’t want to know any more about her. Their marriage was supposed to be a long-term parlour game where emotions were placed in the box labelled ‘no’, a marriage that was a means to an end for them both.

  Their vows were supposed to tie them together in a figurative sense.

  He wasn’t supposed to feel anything for her but desire.

  CHAPTER TEN

  EVA COULDN’T UNDERSTAND why she felt so wretched. She hadn’t said anything derogatory about Daniele’s brother but she knew she’d angered him.

  She wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She hadn’t been thinking of his brother when she’d mentioned the philanthropists who did their good deeds for the adulation. She’d been thinking of Daniele and how beneath the seemingly egotistical, selfish outer layer lived a good, thoughtful man who had no need for adulation. She was coming to think adulation was something he actively worked against receiving.

  The last ten minutes of the drive back to the castello had been conducted in silence. When they’d pulled up in the courtyard, he’d got out first and offered his hand to help her, but instead of taking the opportunity to keep hold of it as he usually did, he’d dropped it as soon as she was on her feet.

  The silence had continued all the way to the now warm bedroom. He’d offered her the use of the en suite, muttering something about using the bathroom next door before walking back out again.

  So she’d taken a shower, wishing she knew the words to say to make things right between them again.

  After drying herself, she stared at the clean pyjamas she’d brought in to change into and swallowed, indecision racking her.

  It amazed and scared her how quickly her feelings towards Daniele had changed. Her relationship with Johann had developed over many years, sweetly and shyly. In his own way, Johann had been as sheltered as she had, a small-town boy with big dreams and an even bigger heart. Love and friendship had been their driving force, not, she was sad to acknowledge, passion. When she’d looked at him she would feel content and safe. When she’d kissed him she’d felt comfort.

  When she looked at Daniele she felt as if she had two hearts beating in her chest. When he’d kissed her she’d felt her desire for him like it had a heart and life of its own, a blazing force of nature she’d only just managed to tame.

  Not tame. No, that was the wrong word. How could you tame a force of nature? All you could do was run away and hope you ran fast enough to beat it, or hide somewhere and hope your hiding place was good enough to save you. All she had done to escape the feelings that had roared through her with their kiss had been to run, but she knew she could never run fast enough to escape it. For as long as she was with Daniele, it would be there, glowing red-hot between them, provoking and tempting her to fight her fears and confront it.

  But what was she even frightened of? It was only sex.

  She was overthinking things again.

  Sex had always meant so little to her before so why blow it up out of all proportion now? She’d told Daniele right from the beginning that she would never have sex with him because she’d needed to keep some power in her own hands and because their marriage was a contract based on money and she could never countenance having her body used as a form of return payment. To her, it would have been nothing short of prostitution.

  Her feelings had changed. They’d changed. Making love with him... It wouldn’t be prostitution. What power would making love give him over her? She was free to leave whenever she wished.

  Suddenly she snatched at her robe hanging on the door and, still naked, slipped it on, tying it securely around her waist.

  No more thinking. No more worrying. No more complicating things in her own mind when the facts of the matter were simple.

  She wanted Daniele and he wanted her. What was there to fear about that? What was there to fear about acting on it?

  Not prepared to hang around in the bathroom a moment longer and give h
er imagination the time to answer, she opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.

  Daniele was already in bed, lying on his side under the covers, facing the wall. He’d turned the main light off, leaving her bedside one on.

  There was no movement from him, no acknowledgement of her presence.

  Softly she stepped over to her side of the bed. Instead of climbing in, she untied the curtain tied to the post and pulled it to the centre of the bar connecting the posts together.

  He turned over slowly onto his back.

  With Daniele watching her wordlessly, she made her way around the bed, untying the curtains and drawing them shut until the entire bed was surrounded by the heavy maroon drapes. Then she slipped between the two that had come together on Daniele’s side. They fell back into place with a swoosh, enclosing them in.

  It was like stepping into the past. She could imagine his ancestors doing the very same thing centuries ago, closing off the world along with the chill of the night air. The utmost in privacy. The only illumination came from the soft glow of tiny lights running atop the wooden headboard, which he must have switched on while she’d been closing the drapes, bathing them in a flickering red glow.

  Daniele now had a hand behind his head and was staring at her with an incomprehensible expression in his eyes.

  Eva stood beside him and placed her hand on the bedspread that covered the rest of the sheets on the bed, all resting on his chest. Working from his stomach, she smoothed her hand up the sheets until she reached the top and then, not giving doubt or fear any space in her head, pulled them down to his feet.

  Then she just stood there and drank him in.

  In all the time they’d been living together she’d only seen him fully clothed, never bare, not even those nights they’d slept together and he’d slept nude beside her.

  He was naked now and he was glorious.

  Muscular legs and thighs led up to snake hips between which jutted an erection so huge she almost blinked to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the flickering light, reaching up to his flat navel. His chest was muscular and defined with a light smattering of dark hair in the space between his brown nipples.

  Deep inside her something throbbed and pulsed, the force of nature she’d been running from awakening and curling its tendrils through her veins. She welcomed its hold, her resistance a thing of the past.

  This was now. This was what she wanted; what they both wanted.

  Her gaze drifted back down to his large and surprisingly handsome feet. She’d never known feet could be handsome. She reached out and placed her hand flat on the right one. His toes made a little wiggling motion. Slowly and gently she traced her fingers over his ankle and up the leg and thigh, over the washboard stomach covered in fine dark hair that pulled in at her touch, past the straining erection, up over his rapidly rising and falling chest and collarbone, up the side of his neck to his jawline, coming to a stop when she reached his mouth.

  His lips parted and he strained towards her. Pressing her forefinger down on his lips in lieu of a kiss, she then, finally, sat on the edge of the bed beside him.

  Keeping her gaze on his now darkly hooded eyes, she unknotted the sash around her waist.

  Her robe fell open, exposing her to him as he was exposed to her. The widening of his eyes and the movement of his throat drove away any shyness she might have felt.

  She took the hand resting by his side and held it between hers. He made no movement, letting her run her fingers over the length of his, so much longer and thicker than hers, and stroke the smooth palm before brushing her lips over it and tracing the lifeline scored on it with her tongue.

  His breathing had deepened, become ragged.

  Then she placed his hand on her aching breast.

  The sensation it evoked was like heated darts firing through her skin and her head rocked back with the force of it.

  Daniele felt as if he’d fallen asleep and woken to the most erotic dream he could have wished for.

  All the tormented emotions he’d carried up to the bedroom were forgotten.

  With the bed curtains drawn around them it could be only the two of them in this world.

  Eva was seducing him.

  He could hardly believe it was real.

  The heavy weight of her breast in his hand felt real. The breathless sigh that escaped her mouth when he gently squeezed it sounded real. It sounded like his dreams come to life.

  He’d never seen such concentrated desire as he did then from the ice-blue eyes that had become so heated they could be molten.

  He’d never felt such desire within himself.

  Such beautiful breasts, he thought dimly. He’d imagined them more times than he could ever count but they surpassed everything his feeble brain could conjure, as white as snow with nipples as pink as pale raspberries, and the texture...the texture of satin.

  All of her was beautiful. Exquisite.

  He stared again into her eyes and felt the connection between them flow like a running tide.

  Raising himself up, he put a hand to her slender waist and took her breast in his mouth.

  Her head rocked back again, a mew escaping from the lips he suddenly hungered to kiss.

  He caught hold of the robe hanging open on her and tugged it off so she was as naked as him and then turned his attention to her other breast, kissing and licking it, his desire heightening when her hands cradled his head, her fingers digging into his skull, and she arched into him, silently asking for more.

  He needed to kiss her.

  But first he wanted to look at her again.

  Taking hold of her hips, he used his strength to lift her so she straddled him, then lay back down.

  One small adjustment and he could be inside her.

  His erection gave a powerful throb at the thought and he concentrated his mind away from the ultimate pleasure that would come soon enough.

  Eva’s long red hair had spilled over her shoulders and over the heavy yet pert breasts that tasted like nectar. Her stomach had a rounded womanly softness to it...she was soft. All of her, a complete contrast to the hardness of his own body. The perfect complement to him.

  How could he have imagined her like marble?

  He reached out to palm her stomach then walked the tips of his fingers lower to touch the dark downy hair between her legs...his instinct that she was a natural brunette had been proven right. She quivered and closed her eyes.

  Then she leaned down and her hair spilled over him as her mouth found his and he was pulled into a kiss so deep and full of meaning he could drown in it. Her tongue swept into his mouth and he caught that taste again, one he could never describe but that was as uniquely Eva as her scent was and had played on his tongue like a remembrance since their earlier kiss. As their fused lips and tongues devoured each other, he wrapped an arm around her neck and swept a hand over her back and then down to her bottom, which was as ripe as the most succulent of peaches.

  He tightened his hold and rolled her over so she was the one flat on her back and he on top. The feel of her breasts close against his chest was simply incredible.

  Pulling his lips from hers, he stared in wonder into eyes that returned everything he was feeling.

  It was as if his entire life had been a dress rehearsal for this moment.

  He ached to be inside her but he wasn’t ready, not yet. First he needed to discover Eva’s final flavour, the only one he had yet to experience.

  With one last passionate kiss, he began his exploration of the woman who had driven him mad for so long, using his tongue and his fingers to touch and feel and taste, her moans and writhing body urging him on. When he reached her most intimate, feminine part and gently parted her thighs, she gave a shudder before he’d even put his lips to the beautiful folds.

  This taste... This was Eva. This was her muskiness, her desire. And it belonged to him.

  At the first press of Daniele’s lips to the part of her that had never been kissed before, Eva thought she
was going to lose her mind and clenched her hands into fists to stop herself from jerking away.

  She hadn’t been prepared for any of this. She could never have been. It would have been impossible.

  Intimacy such as this couldn’t be real.

  But it was very real.

  Shivers and sensation had bloomed into every part of her, burning her with such a craven need for everything Daniele was doing to her and for...

  His tongue found her most sensitive part.

  Lieve God...

  It felt as if the pleasure surging through her had been gifted by a benevolent creator.

  She could feel the sensations massing together into a heavy tightening cluster that throbbed and burned. A moan echoed softly in the den they’d created...that wanton sound had come from her.

  Just as the cluster reached a point that had her breaths shorten in anticipation of something, she didn’t know what, Daniele shifted and kissed her inner thigh. Her cry of disappointment was muffled when fresh sensations started over her skin and he dragged his lips back up over her belly and breasts...she had never known her breasts could ache so much...and up the sensitive skin of her neck, his body moving with the motion until he was positioned between her legs, his erection prodding between her thighs, staring down at her.

  The heady desire she read in his eyes made her throat close and her chest expand.

  When his lips came back on hers for a kiss that was almost restrained, she tasted something new and realised with a jolt that the taste belonged to her.

  Sliding a hand around his neck, she dragged her fingers through his hair and deepened the kiss and as his tongue swept into her mouth his buttocks moved and he slowly inched his way inside her.

  Lieve God...

  He made love to her slowly, groaning into her mouth, bodies entwined, their chests crushed together, as close as two people could ever be. She wrapped her legs tightly around him, all the sensation flowing through her thickening and gathering into a mass again, but this time he didn’t pull away, driving slowly and languidly inside her. Her cries became louder yet somehow muffled to her ears, the mass tightened and tightened until, without any hint of what was going to happen, it exploded and the purest, headiest form of pleasure imaginable burst through her.