Convenient Brides: The Italian's Convenient Wife / His Inconvenient Wife / His Convenient Proposal

“Of course I am!” she whispered, at once desperate and terrified. Desperate for him to continue, and terrified tha the would.

“You are sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” she cried, as if, by protesting loudly enough, she could silence the voice of conscience battling to be heard, and listen only to the yearning in her heart. “I want you to make love to me, Paolo.”

When he seemed still to remain unconvinced, she took a hefty swallow of the champagne. Then, riding high on the false courage it gave her, she put the bottle aside and did the unthinkable. She clamped her thighs together, imprisoning his cupped hand against her. At the same time, she reached down and dared to touch him.

He was so hard and big that the fabric of his trousers was pulled taut. Enthralled, she shaped her fingers delicately over the contours of his erection.

Confined though it was by his clothing, his flesh throbbed. She could feel it. And all because of her!

His muffled groan of pleasure filled her with a heady sense of female power. All sleek muscle and tensile strength, he stood well over six feet tall. In physical confrontation with any other man, he would doubtless prove a formidable opponent. Yet she, at only five feet six inches, and weighing no more than a hundred and fifteen pounds, held him captive in the palm of her hand, both literally and figuratively. He was her prisoner; her slave!

Bolder by the second, she unsnapped the fastening of his trousers and inched open his fly. Wove her fingers inside his briefs until, freed at last, he sprang, hot and heavy and smooth as silk, into her hand.

She cradled him. Stared in dazed wonder. She wasn’t entirely ignorant. She knew how men were put together. In the privacy of their rooms at the exclusive all-girls’ boarding school she’d attended, she and her friends had pored over forbidden magazines and giggled furtively at illustrations that left little to the imagination. But nothing she’d learned had preparedher for the power and primitive beauty confronting her now.

“Oh!” she breathed, drawing tiny circles along his length until she reached its tip.

Any notion that she was in control fled then. With a low growl, he sent her skirt floating up around her waist, yanked off her panties and flung them carelessly to the floor. Looming over her, he pushed her legs apart and drove inside her.

Pain, sharp as slivered glass, pierced her champagne-in-duced euphoria, and she bit his shoulder to silence her cry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. It should be slow and lovely and tender. He should be holding her close and telling her he loved her, not pulling away with a shocked, “Dio! You are vergine?”

Vergine—virgin!

Fiercely she locked her arms around his neck and tugged him down until her breasts lay flattened by his chest. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t worry, Paolo. I’m not a virgin.” And it wasn’t a lie, not really, even if it would have been, if she’d said the words a few minutes earlier.

“But yes!” Supporting his weight on his elbows, he stroked her cheek with trembling fingers. His voice was ragged with regret, his touch gentle. “Tesoro, I would not have treated you so…would not have brought you here—”

“Hush!” she protested softly, and when he went to withdraw, held his sleek, pulsing flesh captive between her thighs. Because, surprisingly, the discomfort had passed and so had the fear. Now, her body welcomed his invasion. Craved it, even. “This is what I want, it’s what I need…please, Paolo!”

He remained unconvinced, however, and afraid her introduction to intimacy would end before it had properly begun, she relied on blind instinct to guide her, tilting her hips and rocking against him in flagrant invitation.

His response was immediate and powerful. Seeming driven by demons he couldn’t control, he gave a moan of despair and drove deeply inside her, again and again, as if trying to outrun the enormity of something he wished he’d never started but hadn’t a hope of stopping.

Finding herself again in unknown territory, Callie tried to respond appropriately to the wild ride she’d initiated. She wasn’t sure what was expected of her, or how it would end, but she was very sure that she didn’t want to disappoint him.

She found, though, that it wasn’t so difficult to match her rhythm to his, or to murmur his name with heartfelt desire. When the tempo of their lovemaking increased, her little cry of pleasure was unpremeditated. When she dug her nails into his shoulders, she did so with unrehearsed joy and a real sense of anticipation.

Then he spoke, his words urgent with command. “Si,” he panted, cupping her bottom and seeming to hold himself on the brink of destruction. “Don’t hold back, tesoro! Let it happen now! Let me feel you come!”

And at that, she froze.

Come? She didn’t have a clue how to come! But she knew she was supposed to, and she knew if she didn’t that she’d disappoint him after all, and she’d seen enough movies to have some idea of what orgasm was all about, and what did one more little deception matter at this stage of the game? So she thrashed her head from side to side, jiggled convulsively up and down on the bench, and uttered a long-drawn-out, breathy, When Harry Met Sally kind of “Ooh! Ooh, Paolo, yes!”

It seemed to work because, after a brief, disbelieving pause, Paolo tensed, shuddered violently, then collapsed on top of her, his chest heaving.

It was over. She’d survived her ordeal by fire and emerged relatively unscathed—or so she believed until he pulled away from her, and drawled, “We’ll take a rest, then try that again, Caroline. And the next time, you will come.”

She wished the earth would open up and swallow her. But by then too deep into a charade entirely of her own making to escape, she continued the lie. “I don’t know what you mean, Paolo.”

“No,” he said, disgust and amusement layering his voice. “I’m well aware of that. But it will be my pleasure to educate you in the fine art of true sexual completion. And when I am done with you, cara, you’ll never again have to pretend to come—at least, not when you’re with me.”

“You’re looking more ghastly by the minute, Caroline. Decidedly unwell, in fact. Are you feeling airsick? If so, I can have the steward bring you something to ease your discomfort.”

The past had roared back to haunt her so vividly that it took a moment for Callie to resurface in the present, and realize the man observing her with mild concern now was the same man who’d humiliated her so thoroughly nine years before.

“No,” she said, sipping her water to settle her queasy stomach. He, and not the jet, was the one making her feel ill. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“And I’m hardly convinced! Did I perhaps strike a nerve? Nudge your conscience a little?”

How complacent he was, lounging carelessly on the settee next to her. How insufferably sure he wielded the upper hand.

“You reminded me how callous you are,” she said. “I can’t believe I’d forgotten.”

“Callous?”

“That’s right. Only a complete cad would hark back to one insignificant night buried in the past, when his brother and sister-in-law have been recently killed and left two children orphans.”

“Hardly orphans, Caroline,” he replied, not the least put out by her comment. “The children have grandparents and an uncle who care deeply about them.”

“They have an aunt, too. And I care every bit as deeply about them as do you or your parents.”

“Yes?” He stroked his jaw idly, and shot her a glance halfhidden beneath his thick, black eyelashes. “Unless I’m mistaken—and I seldom am, by the way—we’ve already had this discussion, not two days past. For reasons which defy explanation, you chose to be nothing more than an aunt-in-name-only to the twins, which makes your professed deep attachment to them rather difficult to swallow.”

So here it comes, Callie thought. At last we’re getting down to the real heart of the matter.

Somehow controlling her voice so as not to betray the apprehension rippling through her, she said, “I’d find that remark offensive, if it weren’t so ludicrous. As it is, your arrogant assumption is nothing short of laughable. You have no idea what kind of connection I feel for those two children.”

He shrugged, an elegant, carelessly dismissive gesture. “I repeat, it is hard to imagine you feel any connection at all, considering how little time you’ve spent with them.”

“We lived half a world apart. Not exactly ideal for dropping by whenever the mood takes you.”

He indicated the plush leather upholstery in the aircraft cabin, the fine crystal and china on the mahogany table, the monogrammed linen napkins. “Thanks to advances in aerospace engineering, not to mention comfort, the world grows smaller every day, Caroline.”

“I lead a very busy life, and so did my sister.”

“Indeed, yes.” He nodded. “She traveled widely with my brother. He was heavily involved in the family automobile business, particularly as it pertained to our foreign dealerships.”

“I know that. Vanessa and I kept in close touch, even if we didn’t see each other often.”

“Then you must also be aware that once Clemente and Gina started school, they weren’t always free to accompany their parents. They stayed, instead, with their grandparents.”

“And your point is?” Although she tossed the question at him nonchalantly enough, Callie sensed where the conversation was leading, and another ominous chill ran up her spine.

“That my mother and father have invested a great deal of time and effort in the wellbeing of their grandchildren.” Leaning forward, he leveled a telling stare her way. “And that, in case you’re wondering, is the real reason I chose to meet you in Paris. Because if you harbor any notion that you’re going to disrupt the status quo, I intend to disabuse you of the idea before we touch down in Rome. I will not have my parents made any more upset than they already are.”

Unfortunately that would probably be unavoidable, but Callie decided now was not a good time to tell him so. Instead, choosing her words carefully, she said, “I don’t take pleasure in inflicting unnecessary pain on anyone, Paolo. It’s not my style.”