by Lynne Graham
with lancing satire.
'Yes.. .what a good idea,' Jessica slung back at him bitterly. 'And maybe if you're very lucky you can find a whore in the bar, because clearly that's the only kind of woman you're accustomed to!' she completed with the shrill edge of hysteria in her shaking voice.
An electrifying silence fell. Carlo dropped her arm as though she had burnt him. Beneath her distraught ga2e, he had tautened. Dark colour had highlighted his blunt cheekbones. 'Is that how you think I am treating you?’ he gritted back at her.
'What do you think?' After that one explosion, Jessica
was drained.
'That was not my intention.' He released his breath
in a hiss. Dully, she looked back at him, her lack of conviction
in that assurance clearly visible.
'I'll go downstairs,' Carlo intoned flatly. 'I suppose I may hope that when I return, you will not have broken out into a rash or got blind drunk in my absence.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Cary Grant and Doris Day... That Touch of Mink,' Carlo supplied sardonically. 'Haven't you ever seen that
movie?'
'I'm afraid not,' she admitted tightly.
'I don't think I'll buy a video. You're doing just great
on your own.'
And he was gone. And she couldn't quite work out how she had managed the feat. Smothering a yawn, she wandered into the bedroom, wondered if he realised that his biggest challenge would be keeping her awake. She rooted through her bag, dug out what she required and went into the bathroom without once looking at the bed.
Maybe he would meet some loose woman down in the bar.
Carlo was very, very good-looking. Funny, how she had sort of blocked that out over the years. Along with so much else. The cliff edge excitement he generated. The swift, volatile changes of mood. She didn't want to think about that afternoon six years ago. The turmoil, the passion, the sobbing utterly soul-shattering pleasure of his mouth and his hands on her body. Briefly she closed her eyes, her skin flaming. She really hadn't realised that the episode could have been anything that special on Carlo's scale of experience.
But evidently it had been. Otherwise why would he be so blatantly impatient to get her into bed? Then, on his terms, nothing very much had happened that long-ago day. A few heated caresses, a little disarranged clothing. But their lovemaking had not gone to its natural conclusion. Carlo had been deprived of that ultimate triumph. And had she come across as some sort of raving sex bomb? She crept into the enormous bed as warmly clad as a great-granny ready for the Blitz in the middle of the night, sheathed from throat to toe in brushed cotton. Why should she make it easy for him?
Tears burned her eyes and crept slowly down her cheeks into the pillow. It was sheer farce... all of it. You are not without experience, Carlo had blithely assumed. A sob tore painfully at her throat. Six years ago she had honestly believed that she had a terribly low sex-drive. Simon had confined himself to occasional rather chaste kisses. Simon had never asked for more. And she had decided that in that field they were as well suited as in every other. Sex did not play a part in their relationship before their marriage. She had been proud of that fact, certain that their bonds were built on far more sturdy foundations than those formed by couples in the heat of passion.
It was frighteningly ironic that Carlo had found her an unbearable temptation then. She just hadn't had a clue how to handle that. It had been an entirely new experience to meet a male who couldn't take his eyes off her, who would use the smallest excuse to touch her and who could turn her scarlet over a dinner table in company just by looking at her.
Yes... Carlo had wanted her. It had been Simon who hadn't wanted her. Simon who got exceedingly drunk on their wedding-night and who continued to drink throughout their fancy honeymoon in the Caribbean without consummating their marriage.
Jessica had gone through hell, reading his lack of interest and his drunkenness as her punishment for her shameless behaviour with Carlo. Guilt had tortured her into a ceaseless circle of blame and unending mortification. It had torn her apart night after night... the belief that she was reaping exactly what she deserved and that she had hurt Simon so badly that he couldn't even bring himself to touch her.
Who did you talk to about something so deeply personal and private? Simon had refused to talk about it, had withdrawn into a shell if she'd dared, and once or twice had taken off for days on end to avoid the subject. Her best friend had stopped being her best friend and become a moody, rarely sober stranger. It took her an incredibly long time to realise that Simon did not want her as a man wanted a woman and that, if she accepted that status quo, he was quite happy to live in a sham marriage and go back to being her best friend again.
She fell asleep wondering how long Carlo would devote to not smoking downstairs and whether he was already regretting their agreement. Regardless, she slept like a log, flattened by complete exhaustion.
And Carlo laughed with a rich appreciation that would have stunned her when he came back upstairs.
CHAPTER FOUR
JESSICA woke up from a long, dreamless sleep, gloriously relaxed. And then she opened her eyes. Carlo was less than six inches away. Dark golden eyes raked mockingly over her startled face. Relaxation vanished. Tension took its place.
'I don't think a woman has ever fallen asleep waiting
for me before. You could be seriously bad for my
ego '
Jessica sat up with a falsely bright smile. 'Gosh, is that the time?' she gasped. 'Why didn't you wake me?'
Carlo dealt her a genuinely amused smile that quite transformed his powerful dark features. He anchored one hand in the tumbled fall of her silver hair before she could take evasive action. 'Don't worry about it. You're not in an all-girls dorm and sleeping late doesn't mean you miss breakfast,' he murmured, deliberately mimicking her schoolgirlish speech. 'Why did I ever call you stupid?'
Breathlessly, Jessica attempted to keep some space between them. 'I don't know.'
'You outgunned Doris Day last night,' he said softly, appreciatively. 'You stitched me up like a professional. I went out of here feeling like a cross between an oversexed and clumsy teenager and a complete bastard.'
'If the c-cap fits '
His free hand curved to one slanted cheekbone, his gaze probing her wide violet eyes intently. 'And then you got into bed and slept like the dead. When you're asleep with your hair lying over the pillows, you look about sixteen. And incredibly untouched...' His husky
voice deepened. 'Like a story-book princess. The day we met, you looked just like that lying on the road in a white summer dress with a lace collar. Then you opened your eyes and they were the colour of pansies after the rain... Madre di Dio, I never wanted any woman in my life as I wanted you then!'
His deep, rich voice had a hypnotic quality that made her quiver. His palm felt warm against her cheekbone and her feathery lashes dropped low over her gaze, screening her sudden confusion from him. Every breath she inhaled seemed inadequate.
'I never had to fight for a woman before either... but I love to be challenged and you made yourself a challenge with your frigid little smiles and your icy stares,' he told her. 'I knew that that wasn't the real Jessica. It
was an act, a deception '
'No!' she objected shakily. 'You saw something that wasn't there, a woman you created in your own mind, who never existed except in your imagination!'
'She existed here in this bed. She came alive in my arms. Passionate, fearless and irresistible. And I want her back again.'
Jerkily, she ducked her head away, but he wouldn't let her escape his hold. Her angry eyes clashed with suddenly thunderous gold and the long fingers in her silky hair tightened their grip. 'You are very stubborn,' he grated.
'And you're an egotistical jerk! I won't give you what you want. I'll play the part of your fiancee but the acting stops at the bedroom door,' Jessica slammed back at him, imperious in her fury.
'Like
hell it will.' Carlo's enunciation was succinct.
'You want your pound of flesh?' Jessica demanded hotly. 'OK, take it!' She wrenched her hair free of his hold, flung herself flat on the bed again and said, 'Well, what are you waiting for?'
She tensed as his dark head lowered, eyes wide glimmering with defiance and scorn, breathing stilled. He wouldn't get any enjoyment out of it, she promised herself. If his idea of entertainment was making love to ah inanimate body, let him go ahead.
Carlo took her mouth in an explosion of silencing heat, his dark head blocking out the light, his hands on her shoulders hard and rough. The heat was like a red-hot wire shooting through her and she gripped his arms frantically in a last-ditch attempt to break the connection. But he wouldn't let her go.
Her hands curled into fists and struck blindly out at his chest. In response, he darted a powerful hand under her limbs and flattened her to the bed. There was a rich, enveloping darkness beckoning behind her closed eyelids and she knew what it was and she fought it, struggling for breath, for control, for anything that would wipe out the sensations he was forcing her to feel.
But her body was treacherous in pursuit of those same sensations. Her nipples tautened into tight little buds, her thighs trembled and every inch of her quivered with anticipation. Excitement was taking over in hot, drugging little spirals that peaked as he stabbed his tongue deep into the moist interior of her mouth. Her hands tangled in his hair and she kissed him back, passionately and wildly, twisting up to him to get closer.
Hard hands wrenched the nightdress from her shoulders, down her arms, effectively imprisoning her, and she couldn't bear it, her hands tugging for freedom from the sleeves. But no sooner had she freed herself than he pinned her wrists to the sheet with an earthy sound of amusement.
The tip of his tongue flicked over the thrust of one swollen nipple and a sob of tortured sound escaped her. His lips enclosed the aching bud slowly, teasingly, and her back arched, her teeth gritting. 'No!' she almost sobbed.
'Yes...' Carlo said thickly, exploring the proud swell of her flesh with his mouth and his tongue and his teeth until she was torn from that last shred of control and frantic only for continuance.
He released her hands and eased her out of her nightdress in one smooth movement. Long, sure fingers caressed her now tender breasts, playing on the sensitivity he had awakened, and a low moan of growing frustration escaped her. Dragging him down to her, she found his mouth again for herself, a long sigh of pleasure torn from her as the black curls of hair on his chest nibbed an abrasive course against her erect nipples.
A blunt forefinger traced the length of one slender thigh and she trembled, jerked as he slid his hand over the flat, silky skin of her belly. It was as if a hot wire were tightening inside her. She couldn't stay still. He made love to her mouth slowly, erotically, every thrust of his tongue making her quiver with unbearable need. She gripped his shoulders, felt the heavy thud of his heartbeat against her, and craved more, shuddering with wave after wave of raw excitement as he lazily trailed one hand through the silvery curls at the apex of her thighs.
He lifted his head and looked down at her hectically flushed face and nibbled teasingly at the reddened curve of her lower lip. She was pitched on an agonising high of arousal as his fingertips flirted with the smooth skin of one inner thigh, maddeningly refusing to touch her where she ached to be touched.
'Please...' she panted, lost to everything but the screaming demands of her own body.
'Are you begging me?' Carlo whispered in a black velvet undertone, his breath fanning her cheek, burnished golden eyes scanning glazed amethyst.
'Carlo...' She trembled against him.
'Tell me.' His dark head lowered and his carnal mouth found an incredibly sensitive spot below one small ear,
sending shivers of hot, burning need running through her.
'Don't stop!' She didn't recognise the desperate edge in her own voice.
And suddenly she was free. Carlo lounged back against the pillows and watched her with hooded, calculating, dark-as-night eyes. Wildly disorientated, she stared back, not understanding, not comprehending anything but the painful ache of her own hotly aroused body,
'Never dare to tell me again that you don't want me,'
Carlo murmured softly, sibilantly, studying her with
chilling detachment. ‘I can make you want me. You're
a very sensual woman. You were made for pas
sion '
Too late she understood, and she dragged the crumpled sheet over her exposed limbs in an agony of mortification. 'No...' she said sickly, stricken by such cruelty.
'Yes. Six years ago I could make you burn just by
looking at you '
'That's a lie!'
'Your skin would flush, your eyes would fire and you'd shift in your seat like a cat being forced over hot coals. You wanted me then... you just wouldn't admit it,' he condemned fiercely.
Stunned, she buried her hot face in the pillow.
'At first, I didn't think of you as a tease. You
were so patently unawakened. I knew you were a
virgin '
'Stop it!' she gasped.
'But then came that afternoon here when we only made it on to this self-same bed by a mighty feat of self-control on my part. If we hadn't been disturbed, I'd have had you,' he reminded her callously. 'After that, you were mine.1
'No, I wasn't!' she cried in turmoil.
'No woman, inexperienced or otherwise, responds like that to one man and then marries another a week later.
still busily maintaining that she madly loves the unfortunate groom. At least, no honest, decent woman..,’ he gibed.
'Shut up, Carlo!' There was a sob in her voice. Initially she had gone to Simon, determined that their marriage should not take place. Confessing all, she had expected Simon to be outraged. Instead he had asked her if she loved Carlo. And she had uttered a vehement no. Nothing in the emotions Carlo aroused had fitted her concept of love. She had seen only lust and a terrifying self-seeking greed for pleasure in what had happened between them. She had grown up watching her mother demonstrate those same traits.
Carole had always done what she wanted, taken what she wanted, careless of the pain she caused others. And Jessica had seen the same frightening stamp on her own behaviour with Carlo. She had seen what she believed she might become without Simon to hold her steady. What Carlo had made her feel had petrified her. And Simon's love offered unconditionally had seemed a safe sanctuary. At the time she had been desperately, humbly grateful for his seeming loyalty, his pleas and assurances about needing her.. .and not being able to face the future without her.
Hard fingers abruptly closed round her wrist. Dully she lifted her head. Carlo wrenched off her wedding-ring and sent it skimming across the room. 'You don't need that in my bed. He wasn't very much on your mind anyway, was he, cara?' he breathed with an insolent smile.
'I have a photographic memory of you walking down the aisle in your virginal white dress to marry another man!' he raked back at her.
'Well, why should that have bothered you? You didn't want to marry me!'
'That rankled, did it?' Carlo incised.
‘I hated you.. .how could it? And I certainly had no desire to be your travelling tart!'
'ScusiV He looked blank.
'Forget it,' she mumbled, but she never had. That day it had been the last straw when Carlo smoothly suggested she travel round the world with him.
He had said he would 'look after her'. That she could have 'anything her heart desired'. That, unfortunately, he wasn't 'into marriage or serious commitment', as he had put it.
That sadly, 'such arrangements didn't last forever', but he could promise that she would 'have a wonderful time while it did'.
And if that hadn't qualified as an offer to be a travelling tart, she didn't know what did. It had set the final seal of humiliation on their brief intimacy. Carlo hadn't loved her, hadn't cared about her...ha
dn't even respected her. She had just been a stupid girl from a small town very nearly conned into his bed for an hour of entertainment. And then there had been the unholy delight he had demonstrated at the idea of taking her from Simon.
She listened to him running the shower in the bathroom, endured the only slowly subsiding ache in her unsatisfied body. Well, now she knew, didn't she? She knew now that she was still every bit as vulnerable as she had feared. And Carlo had proved his point, she reflected bitterly, stiff with self-loathing. She did want him, probably much as a drug addict craved a fix, knowing that it was dangerous and self-destructive but unable to kill the craving. And if it was humanly possible she hated him more than ever for forcing her to concede that reality. The next three months were going to be a one-way ticket to hell. An exercise in constant humiliation.
Half an hour later, after phoning Dr Guthrie to learn that her father had spent an undisturbed night, she joined
Carlo for breakfast. As she crossed the room towards him, clad in tailored ski pants and a loose green sweater, she was furiously conscious of his critical appraisal.
'Today we go down to London and buy you a new
wardrobe and a ring,' he drawled flatly. "Thursday, we
fly to the Caribbean '
'The Caribbean?' she repeated, losing some of her carefully applied cool front. 'Is that where your father lives?'
He ignored the question. 'That gives you three days to tie up your own affairs here.'
'What about my job?' she suddenly demanded.
'You work?’ Carlo elevated a brow.
'I'm a legal secretary. I'm on holiday right now
because my boss is,' she conceded slowly, biting at her
lower lip. 'He's not likely to give me three months'
leave '
'Tell him you've found more interesting employment.'
'You don't give a damn about me losing my job, do you?' Jessica splintered back.