The Italian's Baby Bargain: The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum / The Italian's Forced Bride / The Mancini Marriage Bargain

‘You know what I do on Saturday nights?’ He shook his head, but Sam’s head was too filled with images of her unsatisfactory life to notice the strangeness of his expression. ‘What I want,’ she told him, ‘is to be more like you. I have needs,’ she told him, ‘and I want to have sex without feeling guilty.’

‘With anyone in particular?’

She stuck out her chin and thought, If he laughs, I’ll die. ‘You, for starters.’

He didn’t laugh, or even contest the ‘for starters’. Instead he grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her towards him. Then, teasing her lips with his mouth and tongue, he took her face between his hands. His mouth came down hard on hers and Sam melted bonelessly in his arms.

Chapter Nine

AS HE sat on the edge of the bed, slipping off his shoes, Sam reached out and touched his dark hair. The thick, lustrous texture fascinated her. Raising herself up onto her knees, she pulled his head round towards her and pressed her lips to his in a long, lingering kiss.

‘You taste incredible,’ she sighed against his mouth, and ran her finger down the stubble that darkened his strong jaw. ‘Rough…’

‘I need to shave twice a day.’

The smoky glow in her eyes deepened as she caught her tongue between her teeth and sucked in a long sultry sigh. ‘Not on my account. I like it.’

‘Madre di Dio!’ groaned Alessandro, breathing hard as the dark lashes lifted from her flushed cheeks to reveal her passion-glazed eyes. ‘Hold that thought,’ he instructed imperatively.

Sam smiled and plastered her shaking body to his back. The heat and hardness of him through the robe was shocking, and more exciting than she could have imagined was possible. She felt his lean body tense and he inhaled sharply.

‘You are impatient.’

Who wouldn’t be? She’d been waiting twenty-four years for this moment. She just hadn’t realised it until now.

Sam let out a tiny startled shriek as his hands closed around her wrists, and a breathless moment later she found herself sitting, or rather lying, across his lap. His head bent towards her and she closed her eyes and moaned low in her throat as she opened her mouth to the skilful incursions of his tongue.

‘God!’ she groaned, suffocating with desire as he kissed his way down the curve of her neck. ‘I must have been mad to say no to this.’

Alessandro stopped what he was doing long enough to look at her with hot, hungry eyes and insert huskily, ‘I didn’t go very far.’

‘And you came back,’ she whispered, sliding her hands under the thin cashmere sweater he was wearing. A jerky little sigh was snatched from her throat as she made contact with the smooth, warm, hard flesh of his belly. ‘You’re so…’ She sighed as, eyes half closed, breath coming in short shallow gasps interspersed by little moans, she let her hands glide palms flat over his satiny skin.

Sam felt the contraction of his stomach muscles as he sucked in a sharp breath, his hands tightening over her bottom as he gave a deep moan of pleasure.

‘I’m awfully glad you came back.’ His skin felt like oiled silk, and it was deliciously warm.

There was a long dragging silence before he confided, ‘So am I.’ Taking both her wrists in his, he drew them from his body and brought them to his mouth.

‘I want…’

He stilled her protest by the simple expedient of kissing her, a deep, drugging kiss that left her weak and wanting more…much more.

‘You shall have what you want. You shall have everything you want,’ he promised huskily.

As their gazes locked, the dark promise in his heated stare made Sam’s heart thud even harder against her ribcage. Alessandro released her wrists and then, still holding her gaze, lifted his jumper over his head in one smooth motion and flung it across the room, revealing the sleek, hard contours of his bronzed upper body.

Sam’s rapt gaze dropped, desire clutching like a tight fist low in her belly, and she thought, You’re the most beautiful thing ever—flawless. The academic interest she had decided she was going to adopt towards her first real sexual experience became a dim and distant memory as she started to shake from head to toe, and she didn’t even realise she had voiced her thought until he said, ‘Thank you, but I am not without flaws.’

Not understanding the odd inflection in his voice, Sam felt a frown form between her brows. She reached for him, but to her frustration he levered himself off the bed in a fluid motion. Taking two steps away, he turned back to face her.

‘What’s wrong…?’ The tension that had begun to build between her shoulderblades seeped away as he began to unbuckle the belt on the jeans that clung to his long, muscular thighs, only to be replaced by another sort of tension.

Touching her tongue to the beads of sweat that had broken out across the curve of her upper lip, she felt the feelings that he had aroused in her coalesce into a sexual desire so raw and primitive it pushed every other consideration from her head.

As he kicked aside his trousers he held her eyes.

The lustful surge that slammed through her body was so all-consuming that it was a few moments before Sam registered the scars that ran the length of his thigh. Unable to stop herself, she gasped. ‘From the accident?’

Sam had watched the programme, had seen him looking barely alive on the stretcher, but until that point she hadn’t considered his injuries. Those scars spoke of many weeks and months of pain and suffering. They spoke of a long and difficult period of rehabilitation.

Her throat closed over as she thought of him going through that alone. Her hands tightened into fists. Dear God, let there have been someone there for him.

His flat voice was totally devoid of emotion as he asked, ‘You find the scars repulsive…?’

The dry question brought a rush of furious colour to her cheeks. ‘Do I look shallow and stupid?’ she demanded.

He studied her face for a moment in silence, and then, although his expression didn’t alter, she sensed he relaxed. ‘You look…’ His eyes darkened as they slid slowly over her recumbent form. ‘You look incredibly desirable and sexy.’

‘Oh…! So do you, actually.’

His eyes glittered. ‘How well suited we are.’

That, she thought, sucking in a breath as he lowered his long, lean frame beside her on the bed, remains to be seen. It could be that I’m going to be really awful at this. Was it really wise to begin with someone who must have pretty high standards? Of their own volition her eyes dropped to the bulging evidence of his arousal, barely contained by the boxers he wore.

‘Still my fiercest critic…?’

Sam’s eyes lifted. ‘I’m not finding fault,’ she confessed huskily. ‘And how can I be your fiercest critic—we’ve hardly spoken?’ Hardly spoken…and today you’re in his bed!

‘You don’t need to speak—you have very eloquent eyes. You have been hating me silently for two years. When I woke up this morning the last person I expected to end up in bed with was Samantha Maguire.’ Except in my dreams. But a man wasn’t responsible for what his subconscious got up to. ‘Who did you expect to end up in bed with?’

His wicked grin flashed out, and Sam realised that she didn’t want to do this with anyone else. It was a revelation she had to share. ‘I only want you.’

He laced his long brown fingers into her damp hair and pressed his lips to the pulse-point at the base of her neck. By the time he reached her mouth she was writhing with pleasure. ‘I like a woman who knows what she wants.’

As they lay side by side on the bed she slowly ran her fingers over the long white scar that ran the length of his flank, and then over the network of smaller scars above his knee. ‘I had no idea you were hurt so badly, Alessandro,’ she said huskily.

‘It looks worse than it was,’ he lied, catching her hand and bringing it to his mouth.

Accepting that he didn’t want to talk about it, she sighed with pleasure as his hand curved over her bottom. Lifting her mouth from his some time later, she touched a finger to the scar just below the hem of the silk boxers he wore. ‘Does it go all the way?’

He smiled that stunning, wicked smile that made her heart flip and husked, ‘No, cara, but I do.’ Laughing at her blushes, he tipped her onto her back with masterful expertise and reached for the tie of her robe.

Before he slid the knot, she grabbed his hand in both of hers. ‘I’m not very…’

Gently but firmly he took her hands, one by one, curving her fingers around the metal bedframe. ‘I think we should have no secrets, cara.’

Sam held onto the bedframe for dear life and closed her eyes, sure that the moment he unwrapped her he might change his mind. ‘No…’ he cautioned, kissing her eyelids. ‘Open your eyes.’