Taken for Revenge: Bedded for Revenge / Bought by a Billionaire / The Bejewelled Bride

‘You think I am going to do it to you here?’ he questioned unsteadily. ‘Is that what you want? You are one of those women who like it any place except in bed?’

One of those women. He might as well have slapped her. Sorcha shook her head. ‘No,’ she breathed.

He scooped her up without warning and carried her through into the bedroom, laid her down on the bed—and perhaps he sensed that his words had been clumsy, for he started to stroke her and soothe her, and anoint her skin with feather-light kisses, and speak to her in words of soft Italian.

He worked her up into such a pitch of longing that Sorcha was barely aware of the gauzy drapes which fell in soft folds over the imposing four-poster bed. Quite honestly it could have been a bare mattress on the floor of a downtown apartment she wanted him so much—and suddenly she was tearing at his shirt, pulling at it in a frenzy.

He started laughing as a button went bouncing across the floorboards, but he lifted a shoulder to help her shrug him out of it, and when his chest was bare she touched it wonderingly, curling her fingers in the dark whorls of hair which grew there.

‘You are hungry? Like a tiger?’ he murmured.

But his laugh grew slightly unsteady as she unzipped him, pulling off his trousers as best she could and murmuring as she skated her fingertips over the dark silk of his boxers.

His eyes snapped open. ‘Don’t,’ he warned.

‘Or what?’ she questioned breathlessly.

‘Or this.’ It was time to take back control—before he was fooled into mistaking this unique situation for something else. With a fluent efficiency born out of years of practice he peeled her dress off and tossed it aside, then unclipped her bra and sent it across the room in a lazy arcing movement. And then, with a hard smile of enjoyment, he caught the fabric of her mint-green panties between his hands and ripped them apart.

Sorcha’s mouth dried and her eyes widened. ‘Cesare—’

‘Do you know how many times I’ve fantasised about doing that?’ he grated as he pulled her down onto the bed, peeling off his boxers as he bent over to straddle her. ‘And this?’ he whispered, as he cradled his erection and pushed it close to her.

He paused only to reach for a condom, which it seemed he had conveniently placed ready beforehand, and Sorcha began to get a terrible feeling of panic. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Oh, she had known exactly what was going to happen, and her body was crying out for him, but it all seemed so…so…mechanical.

All those dreams she had cherished were about to be dealt a fatal blow. But maybe that was best—it was only forbidden and impossibly perfect dreams which made it impossible to move on. Reality was a much safer beast.

He felt her tension and kissed her with slow deliberation until he felt all her apprehensiveness dissolve—even though the effort it took nearly killed him. ‘I want you,’ he ground out. ‘And I want you now.’

‘You’ve…you’ve got me.’

He entered her slick tightness and he was lost—as if he had found himself in the middle of the sea and a mist had come down so that he couldn’t see any more, could only feel.

And—Madre di Dio—could he feel her! For a moment he felt shaken by the power of each perfect thrust.

Was she doing okay? she wondered as feverishly she kissed his shoulder. Was it acceptable for her to float away on this sensual bubble? Because it had never felt like this before—never, never, never.

Like an adult who had just got back on a horse after years of abstinence, Sorcha tried to remember the moves which pleased most, and she wrapped her ankles around his back and writhed her hips.

For a moment he froze. He looked down at her and his eyes were black, almost…hostile.

‘What? What is it, Cesare?’

‘Oh, but you are…good, cara,’ he said unevenly. ‘Very good. I thought you would be.’

So why did it sound like an insult? And why did something alter from that moment? The pitch and intensity of his movements changed, and he drove into her like a man who had been starved of sex all his life. You and me both, she thought. And—even though she tried to fight it—she felt herself swept away by the longest and most powerful orgasm of her life.

She was still crying out helplessly against his shoulder when Cesare followed, with one final deep thrust which sent him spinning off into a place of unbearable sweetness. It seemed to take him a long time to return to earth.

After it was over he lay back against the bed, staring upwards at the ceiling of a bedroom that wasn’t his, oddly shaken by what had just happened. But that was because he had waited so long, he told himself—and now that the wait was over the hunger and the passion would die a natural death.

He turned to look at Sorcha. Her bright hair was tumbled across his pillow and her skin was rose-pink. But her eyes were closed.

‘Are you sleeping?’ he questioned softly.

Behind the sanctuary of her closed lids, Sorcha composed herself before opening them. Act like you don’t care, she told herself.

‘No.’

His eyes narrowed as he searched her face, but it was blank, like an unpainted canvas—as if she felt nothing. Yet how could that be? Even if she no longer had any great affection for him, he was experienced enough to know that her orgasm had been of the bone-melting variety. Cesare prided himself on giving a woman pleasure—indeed, it often inspired an almost slavish devotion in his lovers. Compliments were his due, and always effusive. Always. But not, it seemed, from Sorcha. He traced a finger along her shoulder and she shivered. ‘You liked that, cara?’

Keep it real, she told herself. Protect yourself. He must know how good he is. ‘It was…’ Sorcha shrugged. ‘It was okay.’

For a moment his face darkened. ‘You mean you were faking it?’ he demanded in disbelief.

Sorcha started laughing. ‘I’m not that good an actress.’

He relaxed. ‘Ah, I see—you are teasing me?’

‘Aren’t you used to being teased, then, Cesare?’

He pulled her closer. ‘Not,’ he said silkily, ‘at moments like these.’ Women tended to idolise him. His ego was vast, but it was not self-delusion which made him sometimes feel like a trophy—not when he knew that women sometimes boasted of having been his lover. Lately he had found the very obvious conquests a bore. He looked down at Sorcha’s bright hair. Yet she had been the easiest conquest of all. Or had she? He felt a twist of inexplicable pain.

‘You have had many other lovers?’ he demanded.

She turned her face towards him and her green eyes were serious. ‘Do you ask every woman that?’

‘Of course I do not. But it is different with you.’

‘Why?’ she whispered.

Because I wish I’d been the first. Because I cannot bear the thought of another man doing to you what I have just done. ‘Just curiosity.’

‘But it’s none of your business, is it?’ she asked sweetly. ‘I haven’t asked you how many women you’ve had.’

Cesare felt wrong-footed. ‘That is different,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Another thing that’s different? My, my, Cesare—where were you when women got the vote?’

He could feel a mixture of exasperation and frustration, because she still hadn’t answered his question. ‘You were right,’ he said suddenly. ‘We could never have been married. For I could never have tolerated a woman with strong opinions such as yours, which often do not coincide with my own.’

‘Then everything has turned out for the best, hasn’t it? Of course if we’d married my opinions would have been different,’ she said. ‘Because you would have helped form them.’

‘And you think that would have been such a terrible thing?’ he demanded, even though deep-down he admired her independence of thought.

There was a pause. She knew that there was an easy answer to give—but what would be the point? This—whatever it was they had between them—was not destined to last, so why not be honest at least? ‘Well, yes—I do. Because then all I would have been was an extension of you—with no intellectual freedom of my own.’

It was one of the things he now found so exhilarating about her company—this feisty and challenging mind she had developed. But surely to admit that—even to himself—would represent a loss of face? ‘And that is why you will never find a husband!’ he stormed.