At The Sicilian Count's Command

Was she delirious? Had the fall somehow muddled her brain? What—?

‘Look at you,’ she answered him wryly. ‘This is embarrassing enough as it is, without that!’

‘Embarrassing…?’ he repeated uncertainly as his arms tightened their hold about her. ‘Angel, if you don’t open your eyes now and assure me that you haven’t broken anything, then I am going to be forced into giving you a sound shaking!’ he warned.

Angelica raised her lids with effort, relieved that the world seemed to have stopped spinning at least, a rueful smile curving her lips as she looked up into Wolf Gambrelli’s angry face. ‘And that’s really going to help!’ she commented wryly, not sure that she hadn’t broken anything, most of her still feeling numb from her sudden impact with the ground.

No, it didn’t feel as if anything were broken, she decided as she slowly flexed the muscles in her arms and legs. Her back was feeling bruised, but not particularly painful. Her teeth had been soundly rattled, but as she ran her tongue over them she could feel that they were all still in place too.

She looked up to find Wolf looking anxiously down at her. Their gazes locked, and Angelica watched in fascination as the pupils in those dark brown eyes became so enlarged that there seemed to be no brown left, only black. His dark gaze shifted down suddenly, to the parted softness of her mouth.

Wolf Gambrelli was going to kiss her…!

Angelica became absolutely sure of that fact only a second before his head lowered and his mouth claimed hers in fierce demand, his arms like steel bands about her as he held her close against the hardness of his chest.

She was too disorientated, too shaken up to do anything other than respond to the hard demand of Wolf’s lips on hers. The angry assault on her mouth came too quickly after her fall. Her arms moved up to cling to his shoulders and she once again felt as if she were flying through the air without the benefit of a safety net.

His hair felt just as soft and silky as she had imagined it would as she moved her hand and her fingers became entangled in its thickness. Her other hand was still clinging to the broadness of his shoulder, feeling the tension of the muscles as Wolf strained her ever closer to him, his lips moving against hers with a thoroughness that completely robbed her of resistance.

Her lips parted as she felt the demanding rasp of his tongue against their softness, and he explored their sensitivity before seeking further, that tongue becoming a hard thrust as he laid her down on the ground and came down beside her, his hands moving restlessly over her body from breast to thigh and then back again, impatiently pushing the soft material of her shirt aside to cup her nakedness.

It was too much after the mare’s recent flight and her absolute panic as she saw the wall approaching; Angelica had absolutely no will to fight this almost angry onslaught.

Instead she groaned at the sweet pleasure that suddenly coursed through her body, at the increasing warmth between her thighs, her breasts tingling achingly as Wolf moved his mouth from hers to trail heated kisses down her jaw and throat. The heat of his lips and mouth captured one turgid nipple, and his tongue began to lave moistly across that sensitive peak before suckling her fully into the hot cavern beyond.

Angelica’s back arched in pleasure as Wolf’s hand captured and caressed her other breast. The heat between her thighs was increasing to a dangerous level, becoming a deep, aching need as Wolf sucked harder on her breast, at the same time moving his tongue moistly against her. But that mouth was suddenly wrenched away, and Wolf looked down at her disbelievingly. ‘No!’ he groaned protestingly, even as he put her roughly away from him to stand up, his hands clenched tightly at his sides as he stared down at her. ‘You belong to another man!’

Angelica tried to focus, totally disorientated from her fall, let alone Wolf’s assault on her senses.

Wolf closed his eyes, then opened them as he said, ‘It is against my honour—against every rule that I—For God’s sake cover yourself!’ he instructed harshly, his face deathly pale beneath his natural tan, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.

Wolf’s self-loathing, the contempt in his voice for her, lashed at Angelica as she pulled her shirt back together and scrambled to her feet. Turning her back on him, she moved stiffly to check on her horse as it cropped the grass a few feet away, her knees trembling, her hands shaking slightly as she touched the warmth of the mare’s still quivering neck.

What a stupid, stupid thing for her to have done!

Not that she’d had any choice in the matter—she’d been too stunned after her fall to resist when Wolf began to kiss her with such urgent demand. But to have allowed herself to respond to Wolf’s kisses and caresses—to groan that response out loud!—had been the height of stupidity on her part.