by Penny Jordan
“When I found out I was pregnant, I actually considered telling her it was Ryan’s. Pretend I went to a fertility clinic. She’d still hate me though.”
“No,” Paolo blurted out, appalled. He never should have left her vulnerable and coping alone for three months, nursing such desperate thoughts. He should have been with her from Charleston on.
“No, she wouldn’t actually hate me,” she agreed with a nervous glance at him for his vehemence. “But she’d act like she did. I can tell you right now, we could marry in her living room and she’d refuse to come to the wedding. She won’t condone it.”
“I mean, you can’t tell her the baby is Ryan’s.” He was driven forward to grasp her arms. “This baby is mine.”
His ferocity made her start a little and he unconsciously tightened his grip, staggered as the barriers he’d put up against accepting the baby fried into nothing. The truth was a surety in him. A terrifying excitement.
Lauren wore the same defenseless expression that probably contorted his own face. He hadn’t expected it to be like this. He wasn’t choosing to believe her. Certainty arrived with blunt force and it made him weak and invincible at the same time. He wasn’t acknowledging facts in gentle ripples. Giant tsunami waves of conviction buffeted him, shifting the axis of his life, forging a new potency in him as he took on the emotional load that children were for any caring parent.
His life would never be the same.
“We didn’t just make love that night. We made a baby.” He grappled to absorb that a part of him was growing inside this woman, connecting them forever.
“I know,” she returned, thick lashes blinking fast with shock over eyes that were growing shiny and tender. “I thought I told you that in New York.”
His laugh caught as he pulled her close. Something tore open inside him. No misgivings behind it. Just joy tempered with pent-up prayers for his child’s health and wellbeing. Tenderness for the woman in his arms, growing his child.
“I didn’t want to believe you. I didn’t want to be let down again,” he choked out, beyond moved. Dizzy.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” She drew back to set a warm hand on his jaw, her touch sincere, her beauty beyond physical. It radiated from her inner being.
The desire he always felt for her took a sharp turn into a swifter current of deeper waters. Kissing her wasn’t a desire, it was a necessity. Gathering her into perfect alignment to his own body, he lowered his head to take her mouth with all the emotion flaring uncontrollably inside him.
Paolo’s kiss was so sweet. Lauren moaned into it, afraid she would cry with joy. This was the reaction she hadn’t dared dream of. He was kissing her like he loved her. She returned his ardor jubilantly, aware at the back of her mind that this could get out of hand fast, but that was okay. They were in complete accord now.
Their hands moved to reacquaint and she knew, oh she knew with a delicious clench of anticipation, that they were going to make love. He pressed his firm palm into her lower back and trailed his mouth down the side of her neck. She arched to offer herself, shivering when he grazed a sensitive spot. Her skin prickled with delight.
“Oh, Paolo.” She clutched her fingers in his hair, feeling as though she’d shake apart she needed him so badly. She had missed him.
“I have to touch you, Lauren. I love the way you feel.”
Her heart tripped as he spoke the l-word. The voice in the back of her mind waved another caution flag, but she ignored it. Her world had been absent of his life-giving caresses for too long.
He lifted his head and the hunger in his gaze nearly swallowed her whole. Her stomach dipped while a powerful zing of pure need struck that delicious spot where she was mashed against his fervent heat. Because it was him and he seemed to bring it out in her, she let instinct guide her and tilted her hips, seeking more pressure and a better, more acutely sensitive angle.
He growled something in Italian, but she drew him down to kiss her again while carefully backing toward the bed. He never stopped kissing her, the movement of his mouth wickedly hard in its power, tongue invading to pleasure and possess, as though he was trying to anchor her to him while she insistently drew him along as she flowed backward.
She melted onto the bed, pulling him onto her like a weighted blanket, squirming deliciously as he settled half over her.
He used his thigh as a weight to control her restless legs, almost as if he was trying to keep this from going too far too fast, but she was determined to let the wildness take them both. She longed to feel him losing control the way he had that night in Charleston. Her deepest, darkest needs had been met when he’d been as desperate for her as she’d been for him. It couldn’t happen fast enough for her.
She cupped his head and did her best to incite him, urging him to settle completely on her. When he kept his weight on his elbow, she used the space to arch and reach the zip of her dress.
Paolo helped her, but didn’t pull her sleeve down her shoulder, just cupped her breast through the loosened fabric and gently massaged, slowly driving her crazy. Her nipple ached for proper attention and she whimpered, covering his hand, conveying that she needed more pressure. He lightly bit at the nipple through the dress and she encouraged him with a whispered plea.
He groaned out another spate of Italian, something about trying to kill him, and kissed her with sudden raw passion, scattering her thoughts so she knew nothing but the heat of his leg on hers and the much anticipated stroke of his hand from her rib cage down past her hip, under her dress, up her thigh and then—
She raked her fingertips down his back then pulled his shirt free and sought the hot skin of his back. Her entire being went taut with expectancy, tingling under his trace of her underpants. With a small lift of her hips she encouraged him and he rewarded her by sliding his fingers beneath the lace. His knowing touch parted and pressed and slowly caressed as he gently worked his hand into intimate contact with her wet center.
She rocked her hips, hands moving mindlessly on his flexing back as she set the pace. He complied with her signals, lovingly stroking her into madness.
When the sweetness grew too sharp to bear, Lauren dug her nails into his spine. She tried to escape the pressure of his kiss to tell him. She wanted to strip and feel him push his thick penis inside her, but he used his stronger body and all-encompassing kiss to keep her exactly where she was, at the mercy of his unrelenting touch. He refused to let up on the lazy stroking and the cataclysm engulfed her before she could stop it, tumbling through her in an avalanche of thunderous pulses, sending quakes of pleasure echoing through her that were so deep she bit back a scream at the intensity of it.
Slowly she came back to herself. Paolo was kissing her very tenderly between her panting breaths. He extricated his hand from beneath her skirt and she tried to roll into him, sensitized to everything about him: the extreme tension gripping him, the erection thrusting imperiously against her thigh, the blood pounding hard in his throat as she moved her hands to cradle his jaw and tried to bring his mouth to hers.
“Tesoro,” he murmured, roaming his lips over her face. “You have to marry me. You know that, si?”
Delicious lassitude gripped her, but so did a desire to bring him the same pleasure he’d just given her. Marry and do this for the rest of their lives?
“Yes, of course,” she breathed. Her head felt heavy as she lifted to touch her lips to his and only grazed his chin.
He pulled away even further, lightly brushing off her touch while his gaze skimmed down her body, gleaming with ardent possessiveness. Flicking her dress down to cover her thighs, he levered from the bed.
“Where are you going?” She didn’t mean to sound so desperate, but she didn’t understand. Protection wasn’t an issue—
“To make the arrangements,” he answered, his smile tight. “Tempted as I am, I said I’d wait un
til we’re married. I will.”
He walked out.
CHAPTER NINE
LAUREN DIDN’T SLEEP. She didn’t cry, either, even though her eyes burned. She stayed on the bed fully clothed, curled around her aching stomach where fury burned in its pit. He was such a man.
Perhaps not a typical one. She wasn’t a complete idiot about biology and the battle of the sexes. She knew women were usually the ones left unfulfilled while their partners snored off their climaxes. Not that Ryan had ever left her frustrated sexually. He’d always taken the attitude that if she wasn’t finished, he wasn’t finished. At first she’d viewed his attention to detail as proof that he was enamored with her. Later she realized it was more to do with his drive to conquer women through seduction. It had made her sick to realize she was just one more scratch in his headboard.
She felt sick now.
For all his talk about chemistry, Paolo wasn’t nearly as affected by her as she was by him. That made her want to pull back in and disappear. She thought about checking train schedules, but running away was so cowardly. So virginal. And she’d promised to marry him. That wasn’t just a promise, but something she knew in her heart was best for their baby. All her reasons stood strong. Except that she’d let herself believe for ten minutes that Paolo cared for her and had found out she’d been right in the first place. She meant nothing to him.
Her ego withered as she remembered how quickly she’d become besotted. She had let herself read into his sudden show of emotion that, she realized now, had been for the baby growing inside her. I love the way you feel. His thumb and forefinger had been spanning from hipbone to hipbone across her navel when he’d said it, but she’d made it about her.
She tried telling herself that marrying knowing full well that his feelings were only physical was okay, but that was the crux of it. Not that she’d climbed the hill of hope and had a tumble. No, she had thought they were evenly matched in the lust department and they weren’t. She’d just made all the advances—again!—while he had been undeniably aroused but had walked away.
To make arrangements.
Oh, hell no.
* * *
Paolo frowned as he removed his nona’s ring from his safe, determined to give it to Lauren, but briefly wondering if she would accept it. Of course she would. She had agreed to marry him, but the ring had been in the family several generations. It was so old, the diamond’s shape was slightly imperfect because it had been cut by hand long before the precision of modern techniques. Would she see that as quaint or substandard? Perhaps rather than an engagement ring, it should be a wedding present.
Dio! His hand was shaking, his body was so wildly keyed-up with sexual tension.
He was proud of himself though. He’d sworn to marry Lauren before he made love to her again and he would, even though the way she had burst into flames at his touch had nearly taken him apart at the seams. Leaving her when she’d been pliant and aroused had nearly killed him. Only his determination to marry her first had kept him from taking her.
Not that anyone appreciated the level of control he was showing. Everyone he’d just spoken to, right down to his mother and her surprised pause when he’d informed her of the private ceremony he and Lauren would have in the archbishop’s office tomorrow, had suggested he was acting rashly.
They were all wrong. The baby was his. A prompt marriage was imperative.
It was also convenient that rushing the ceremony would allow him to keep his vow without suffering too long. His need for her was acute.
His laptop gave a muted blip signaling one of the emails he’d requested had arrived. He turned to find Lauren standing in the doorway of his office. Her chic dress had been replaced with a pair of baggy pajama pants and a waffle-weave shirt with sleeves chopped off at the elbows. Her face was clean of makeup, her expression strained and stiff.
Her gaze held his for the barest fraction of a second before averting to a safe place beyond his shoulder while her chin thrust out defensively. Her body language hardened into unreceptive lines.
He had a sudden and disturbing flashback to their Morning After in Charleston. She’d been exactly like this after waking up with blatant mortification beside him. He remembered very clearly the way their naked limbs had been tangled and lax. One or the other had shifted in sleep, stirring both of them. Paolo had unconsciously tightened his arms around her, involuntarily growing hard as awareness of who was next to him and memories of their night had rushed in. They had opened their eyes nose to nose with each other.
Despite the compunction that had slammed through him, waking with her soft skin brushing against his nudity had been wonderful. The horror that had paled her face had quickly dampened his gratification however.
Until now, he had refused to go back to that morning. He’d been filled with self-recrimination that had sprung from abandoning his self-discipline and betraying his friend. He’d sensed, however, that Lauren’s regret ran to something deeper and more profound, as though she had been ashamed to have shared herself with him. Her hurry to push away from him had been almost panicked, her desperate silence suggesting she wanted to wipe out the entire experience.
He had rolled away when she had, numbing the bite of rejection with self-disgust. Reproach had saved him, allowing him to blame her for their transgression. He had labeled the havoc inside him “guilt” and used it to harden himself against her. She had distanced herself physically and emotionally, surrounding herself with gate-keeping mourners while he had attached ulterior motives to her actions so he could form a line of contempt between them.
He hadn’t liked how vulnerable Lauren had made him feel. He still didn’t. He’d managed to control himself this evening, but that balm to his ego didn’t go very far. The baby was his, the marriage in process, but uneasiness loomed like a storm.
Sexual tension, he dismissed. It had been months since their tryst and after this evening, his control was hanging by a thread. If he felt edgy, it was at his ability to continue resisting her. Once they were married and he didn’t have to, this nameless agitation would disappear.
His strain to hold himself tightly-reined showed as he gruffly offered her the ring. “It was my nona’s. She was still alive the first time I married. My ex never wore it. I’d like you to.”
Lauren curled her hands into fists of refusal and tucked them under her arms.
His heart took that like a knife. He set the ring on his desk, masking the sting of having the heirloom snubbed. “Of course, if you’d prefer something more modern—”
“I’d prefer,” she said icily, “if you didn’t treat me like a damned sex toy to be picked up and set aside when it suits you! I’m not like you, you know. Making love means something to me.”
As opening volleys went, it detonated like a percussion grenade, leaving his inner ears vibrating. “You think walking away from you was easy?” He was instantly at the same level of anger she was projecting, still riding a wave of intense sexual frustration.
“Oh, I could tell it was hard, Paolo,” she seethed. “But your silly bet was more important to you than what was going on between us. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”
Part of Lauren was screaming in horror that she was revealing herself this way, urging her to clam up and brush this whole thing under the rug. The other part couldn’t stay silent. She was too angry.
“Pitiful,” she supplied. “I’m not proud that I lack inhibition around you, but at least when I let go in Charleston you were there with me. Tonight you sure weren’t! I hate that you can control this attraction between us and I can’t. If you think I’m going to marry into an imbalance like that, you’re crazy.”
Her rejection of marriage seemed to make him stand taller while he narrowed his eyes to keen slits. “Is that why you acted like I had contaminated you the morning after in Charleston? You were embarrassed
by how abandoned you’d been?”
Lauren swallowed, regretting calling attention to how unconstrained she’d been. A blush rose to swallow her face in a rancid burn. She ignored it to mutter, “When Ryan and I—”
“Never talk to me about the two of you in bed together,” Paolo snarled, cutting his hand through the air to mentally slam shut a door he would never open. Ever. He could barely stand knowing it had happened. He wouldn’t listen to the details.
Lauren swayed as though buffeted by the force of his antagonism.
He looked away, not willing to apologize for his outburst, but dismayed that he was revealing how sensitive he was to the topic.
“—married,” she finished with a tremor of incredulity. “I was only saying that when we got married, I’d never even kissed another man. That sort of inexperience was always a disadvantage. You’ve had a million lovers and—”
“None of those women meant to me what Ryan meant to you,” he ground out. “Do you think you’re the only one worrying about comparisons?”
The question stunned her. Her hands went clammy and her mind went blank.
He gathered himself into a haughty cloud of resentful humility. “Why do you think I tried to stop you that night in Charleston?” he growled. “I thought you were reaching for him. I won’t be his stand-in.”
Her mouth opened, but whatever words she might have found caught in her throat. She had never seen Paolo anything but aristocratic and arrogant and entitled, but right now his pride lay on the floor between them as clearly as a skinned hide. She had to tread very carefully.
He rubbed his face. “Dio! Perhaps we should be ashamed of ourselves for falling into bed that night without considering who it could hurt, but what we did there...don’t be ashamed of that, Lauren. I tried to tell you once before, I like that you respond to me as strongly as I respond to you.”