by Lynne Graham
‘Are you not eating?’ Angelo enquired.
‘I’m not hungry.’ Except for you, a little voice whispered inside her head, shocking her with that instinctive message that rebelled against everything she had believed about her nature. But it was true: fascination had taken a powerful hold of her and she had shut out the voice of common sense that usually kept her feet on the ground. Even though she had suppressed that initial reckless thought she still found it almost impossible to break the potent hold of his dark golden eyes. Soon she was lost in her admiration of the ebony luxuriance of his lashes, the smooth olive planes of his hard cheekbones above the blue-black roughened skin of his jaw line and the pure masculine beauty of his wide sculpted mouth. In the same way she could not resist the exhilarating zing of awareness in the atmosphere.
Every fibre of his lean, powerful body on sexual alert, Angelo thrust his plate away. Finally he had her full attention and his predatory reaction was instinctive: to take immediate advantage. He reached for her hand. ‘Let’s go...’ he urged huskily.
‘But we haven’t finished,’ she framed shakily.
Angelo used his strength to inexorably tug her upright. His smouldering gaze gripped hers with a sensual force that made her knees tremble. ‘We haven’t even begun, bellezza mia.’
The buzz of conversation around them died. Gwenna was conscious of the stares as Angelo escorted her out, an arm possessively closed to her slim back. Her colour was high, her legs as weak as twigs. Without warning she found herself wondering if he had been with any other woman while he’d been away and a hollow sensation filled her tummy. He tucked her into the limo, got in beside her and pulled her to him. A heartbeat later the hungry driving heat of his mouth was on hers and a blaze as hot as an indoor sun was coursing through her tremulous length. It hurt not to breathe, but it would have hurt more to do without the gloriously erotic plunge of his tongue and the sweet flood of sensation he unleashed. A vital force was energising her body to a pitch of response so intense it almost hurt.
He released her lips, leaving her gasping for air and yet stricken at that loss of contact. Her bemused blue eyes focused on him again.
‘You’re amazing,’ Angelo purred. ‘I knew you would be.’
Her lashes dropped to shadow her shaken gaze. In a matter of moments he had rewritten her knowledge of herself. Her body was crying out for him and she was shocked. Chafed by the lace cups of her bra, her tender nipples were tingling. The prickling throb between her slender thighs painted her face pink. She wanted him. He had made her want him. Of course, a few glasses of champagne had loosened her inhibitions, she told herself defensively. But wasn’t that a good thing? Angelo Riccardi had offered her the devil’s bargain, and she had surrendered choice when she agreed to share his bed in return for the charges against her father being dropped. Wasn’t it wiser to make the best of a bad situation rather than try to resist the inevitable? And wouldn’t asking if she was currently the only woman in his life demean her? Give him the impression that she cared?
Angelo could feel her trembling and his very sensitivity to that fact annoyed him in the same way that so many things had in recent weeks. Disturbed nights when he had tossed and turned and burned for her had presumably affected his mood. The concept of deferred satisfaction was not for him. He wasn’t used to waiting for a woman. But he wasn’t an animal either, was he? She was a virgin and as highly strung as one of his pedigree racehorses. Gone, he could not help noticing, was the happy aura of serenity she had exuded at their first meeting. The brutal pressure he had utilised had left its mark. But why should that bother him? As Donald Hamilton’s daughter, she had been raised in the cosy comfort of middle-class respectability, he reminded himself grimly. The discovery that the world could be a much more challenging place would be a character-building exercise for her.
In the hall of the Chelsea house she gave him a swift uncertain glance from eyes as blue as the china his mother had once collected. He closed a hand to hers in an imprisoning gesture. ‘You haunt my dreams,’ he ground out with a harsh laugh. ‘You could be seriously bad for my health.’
Gwenna was feeling slightly dizzy from the champagne. Her mind was full of muzzy, disjointed thoughts, but the bitter light in his brooding dark eyes twisted something painfully inside her. Without understanding or conscious decision she lifted a hand to trace his aggressive jaw line in a soothing motion. Then startled by that extraordinary prompting, belatedly aware that he was equally surprised as questioning gold drenched the darkness of his gaze and his ebony brows pleated, she froze in confusion.
‘Per amor di Dio,’ Angelo breathed roughly, cupping her soft cheeks between long brown fingers. ‘Right now I think I could die from wanting you, mia bella.’
He tasted her lips with a searing sweetness that sent her every barrier crashing down. She didn’t want to think, she refused to think when he bent down and scooped her up into his arms as though she weighed nothing to carry her up the handsome staircase. But fear of being seen prompted her to mutter uneasily, ‘The housekeeper—?’
‘Off duty until we call.’ Angelo claimed a passionate kiss that silenced her.
CHAPTER FIVE
MERE minutes later, Gwenna caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the cheval mirror in her bedroom. Dismayed, rudely recalled to reality, she stared at her hectically flushed cheeks and swollen mouth. She looked like a shameless hussy. Air cooled her spine as Angelo ran down the zip on her dress and inched it off her shoulders.
‘I feel like a slut...’ she gasped strickenly.
Angelo spun her round, simmering dark eyes pinned to her unhappy face. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, bellezza mia,’ he censured. ‘I want you and you want me. What could be more natural than the desire to make love?’
A half-dozen tart retorts hovered on the edge of Gwenna’s mind but she kept them there, consciously protecting herself from a pointless outburst that would only upset her more. She was having an affair, nothing more or less, she told herself squarely. Hadn’t she always been a very practical person? Flights of fancy and histrionics were not for her. She would live only in the present, taking each day as it came.
Angelo smoothed her honey-blonde hair back from her troubled brow in a motion so gentle she blinked in surprise. ‘I saw you and I wanted you before you even spoke. One look and that was that.’
‘But that’s crazy.’
‘Dio mio, I would have moved heaven and earth to bring us to this moment,’ he drawled in a driven undertone. ‘Being desired to that degree should be a source of pride to you.’
Disconcerted by that statement, she blinked. ‘We...we don’t think the same...’
Angelo drew her to him with strong hands, a blaze of heat in his hungry gaze. ‘I wouldn’t want you if you were like me.’
He claimed her luscious mouth and she trembled again, made weak by the hunger he could awaken so easily. While she struggled to catch her breath he stripped off the dress and lifted her onto the bed, peeling off her shoes and, more slowly and provocatively, then her lace-topped stockings. He punctuated each and every action with the drugging demand of his lips on hers. So roused was she by this treatment that when he attempted to step back she automatically put her arms out to prevent him and stretched up to find that taunting, teasing mouth of his for herself. An earthy laugh rasped low in his throat as he toyed with her full lower lip and let his tongue plunge deep in an erotically sweet invasion that left her gasping.
Gwenna lay on the bed where he had put her, her senses singing and quivering. Clad only in a flimsy white bra and panties, however, she soon began feeling horribly exposed and shy and all too shamefully aware that she had pulled him back to her, desperate for another kiss. She watched as he cast aside his jacket and his tie in a series of easy fluid movements. Impatient tanned fingers moved to release the buttons on his shirt. The fabric edges parte
d to display the sleek bronzed expanse of his muscular chest and taut flat abdomen. Her tension went up another notch.
‘Relax.’ Registering her apprehension in the evasive flicker of her eyes, Angelo endeavoured to employ a soothing tone for the first time in his life. ‘You look incredibly lovely.’
Gwenna shot him a reluctant glance. He was down to black silk boxers that revealed more than they concealed of his bold state of arousal. It was a view that shocked her and she hastily looked away, her heart racing like an express train. Her tension acquired an edge of panic, for suddenly it seemed unbelievable to her that she was actually about to get into a bed with a man she barely knew. ‘I could really do with another drink.’
‘On the cabinet, beside you.’
Gwenna, who had hoped he would have to go off and get her a drink from somewhere, looked in dismay at the bottle of champagne and the glasses sitting in readiness. Angelo strolled round the bed and uncorked the bottle. Golden liquid foamed down into a delicate flute. He extended it with reluctance. ‘You really don’t need liquid anaesthesia.’
Refusing to look at him and edging away, Gwenna hugged her knees with one arm while taking a very hearty gulp of champagne.
‘I understand that you’re nervous—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gwenna gritted over the edge of the flute.
‘I’ll make it good, bellezza mia,’ Angelo swore softly. ‘In fact I’ll make the experience addictive.’
‘You couldn’t possibly.’
Angelo sank down on the bed with all the panache of a tiger stretching out in the sunshine. ‘I think that someone’s been telling you old wives’ tales. It won’t hurt.’
Gwenna flushed to the roots of her hair. ‘What would you know about it?’
‘You may be my first virgin but I have intelligence, common sense and exceptional proficiency in certain fields.’ Angelo loosened her hold on the champagne flute and eased her firmly back into his arms. ‘Don’t let alcohol take the edge off what promises to be a very pleasurable event.’
At the instant of contact with the muscular warmth of his lean, powerful body, she shivered violently. ‘You’re all ego—’
‘No, all confidence.’ Gazing down at her with glittering dark eyes of purpose, Angelo skimmed a casually possessive hand over the pale, slim expanse of her thigh. ‘Trust me. I’m not a clumsy or selfish lover.’
Little tremors rocking her from the intimate feel of his lean fingers on the taut smoothness of her thigh, Gwenna looked up at him with bemused blue eyes. Trust me. It should have been a laughable request. But she was making the extraordinary discovery that she was ready and willing to be convinced even if she could not understand why that should be.
Angelo kissed her and she stopped wondering and trying to think her way round unfamiliar and complicated corners. Wanton craving took over. He unclipped her bra and the cups fell away revealing smooth white delicate curves crowned by pouting pink buds. ‘You’re ravishing,’ he groaned appreciatively.
Lowering her down onto the pillows, he rubbed the luscious crests to even greater prominence with skilful thumbs and finally laved the straining peaks with the tantalising warmth of his mouth.
Gwenna was catapulted from a moment of extreme shyness over her nakedness into an infinitely more shocking surge of pleasure. She shut her eyes tight at the height of it. Her tender nipples throbbed beneath his administrations while a feverish damp heat stirred between her thighs.
‘You can equal my passion at every step.’ As she tried to catch her breath and emerge from the sexual spell he had cast she looked up to find Angelo surveying her with unashamed satisfaction.
‘It means nothing,’ she protested, fighting to detach herself from the urgent messages of her awakened body.
He turned his attention back to the inviting fullness of her small breasts, coaxing the rosy points to a peak of throbbing sensitivity that made her hips writhe against the mattress. ‘It means we’re wonderfully compatible, bellezza mia.’
It scared Gwenna that what she was feeling could overwhelm all control. But she still could not resist the pleasure. At some stage in the breathless fervent heat he evoked her last garment was removed. Expert fingers feathered through the silky blonde down covering her mound to explore the coral-pink lushness beneath. He toyed with the delicate pearl at the apex and she whimpered helplessly, her back arching in sensual shock from the instant onslaught of her own intense response.
‘Tell me that you want me,’ Angelo commanded thickly, ceasing his tantalising caresses when she was utterly enslaved by her craving for that sweet, drowning pleasure.
Her dazed blue eyes struggled to focus on him.
‘I have to hear you say it, bellezza mia,’ Angelo admitted in a fierce undertone, his hot tawny-golden gaze welded expectantly to her lovely face.
There was an unbearably tight feeling of yearning low in her pelvis. She shifted up skittishly against a hair-roughened masculine thigh, absolutely desperate for his touch, controlled by instincts far stronger than she had ever imagined. ‘I can’t...’
Angelo studied her with sizzling determination. ‘Stop acting the victim. Tell me the truth.’
There was not an atom of softness in that lean, darkly handsome visage and the flaming high of anticipation he had induced came as close to physical pain as any she had ever encountered. Tears of fierce shame and angry frustration washed the backs of her eyes. ‘All right!’ she cried, despising herself for yielding. ‘I want you!’
Just as quickly that frightening instant of forced self-discovery was forgotten again beneath his expert touch. The dark, exquisite pleasure of his seduction made her jerk and moan and cling. And she didn’t care, she really didn’t care about anything but that he should continue holding her and teasing her with an erotic skill that made her feel as if she could fly as high and bright as the sun.
At the exact instant when the excitement threatened to become an indescribable torment, Angelo shifted over her and slid between her thighs. She felt the iron-hard length of his sex push against her tender entrance and, although she was frantic, all keyed up with eagerness for the ultimate act, she froze with nerves and the conviction that he was much too well endowed for her.
‘Don’t tense,’ Angelo urged grittily.
Gwenna lay as still as a sacrifice, eyes firmly closed. He stole a sexy, savage kiss that lifted her lashes and he gave her a slashing smile of challenge in reward. Coming up on his knees, he dragged a pillow across the bed and eased it below her hips. ‘It’ll be sublime,’ he swore in a roughened undertone.
The slick, hot heat of him forged a passage into the tender depths of her damp, resisting flesh. He felt massive. A startled moan of discomfort was wrenched from her. Immediately he stopped, apologised, swearing in ferocious Italian below his breath.
Gwenna looked up at him with accusing eyes. Fierce strain was etched in his lean, strong face along with an astonishing hunger that made her feel oddly empowered. She was at a screaming pitch of nervous anticipation, both wanting and not wanting, burning quivers of need still shimmying through her slender frame because he had roused her to a point beyond bearing.
Scorching dark eyes met hers with frowning force. ‘You’re very tight. We could try this in another position—’
‘No...just do it!’ she gasped in wild embarrassment.
He was skilful and smooth, but that slow, deep plunge into her silken softness and the final piercing of the barrier of her virginity caused fleeting tears to well into her eyes. He stayed very still then, allowing her to adjust to the invasion. ‘I’m sorry...I hated hurting you.’
Ripples of heat and stimulation pulsed from the hot, secret heart of her again. Newly sensitised, she quivered, her body angling up to his in an invitation that spoke louder than any words. With a ragged laugh of gratification he moved again and a whimper of
excitement escaped her because he felt amazing. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs. Exquisite sensation built and the knot of ravenous need in her was tightened and tightened as he set up a raw, sensual rhythm. Delirious with pleasure, she abandoned herself to his dark, driving passion. At the height of a shattering climax she screamed in ecstasy before she tumbled down and down and down in a release from her physical body that was so powerful that she was not quite sure she was conscious for several minutes afterwards.
Angelo kissed her and she stiffened, for once the fog of pleasure had seeped away she was gripped by a stark sense of shame and denial. She felt horribly emotional and tearful. How could she have let herself enjoy it? How could she have let herself down like that? Where was her pride? She was attempting to block out those disturbing thoughts when she registered that Angelo was removing her wrist-watch.
‘What are you doing?’ she mumbled unevenly, lying as still as a corpse under him as if to underline the fact that he was holding her entrapped.
Impervious to the hint intended, Angelo murmured lazily, ‘Giving you a present, passione mia.’
Her smooth brow indented. ‘A present?’
She lifted her hand to examine the new watch in shock and dismay. Gold, diamonds, a famous designer name. Painful early memories of similar expensive gifts surfaced. Revulsion ripped through her and she struggled with desperate fingers to take it off again but the intricate clasp defeated her. ‘No, thanks, I don’t want it. Look...how do you get this off?’
Angelo rested his stubborn jaw on the heel of his hand and surveyed her with deceptively sleepy tawny eyes. ‘I want you to wear it—’
‘What for?’ Her Delft-blue eyes flashed into direct contact with his narrowed gaze for the first time and the angry distaste etched there startled him. ‘So that you can kid yourself that you’re really a kind, generous guy? Or so that you can belittle me by paying me in jewellery for what I just did with you? Well, I may be stuck living in your stonking great status symbol of a mansion and forced to wear the fancy clothes that you paid for but—’ Gwenna had to pause just to draw breath.