Her Exquisite Surrender: Surrendering All But Her Heart / Innocent in the Ivory Tower / Full Surrender

‘I’m fine.’

He put a hand around her wrist, his fingers overlapping her slender bones, his thumb stroking along the sensitive skin. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have taken things so fast. I should’ve taken my time with you, prepared you more.’

She gave him a nonchalant shrug and pulled out of his hold. ‘Save the romantic gestures for someone you didn’t have to pay for.’

A hard glitter came into his eyes. ‘Is this really how you want our relationship to run?’ he asked. ‘As a point-scoring exercise where we do nothing but attack each other?’

‘If you’re unhappy with how our relationship runs then you have only yourself to blame,’ she said. ‘You were the one who insisted on marriage. I told you I’m not cut out for it.’

‘I wanted to give you the honour of making you my wife,’ he said bitterly. ‘But clearly you’re much more comfortable with the role of a whore.’ He took out his wallet and peeled off a handful of notes. Stepping up to her, he stuffed them down the cleavage of her dress. ‘That should just about cover it.’

Natalie took the notes out and tore them into pieces, threw them at his feet. ‘You’ll need far more than that to get me to sleep with you again.’

‘You’re assuming, of course, that I would want to,’ he said. And, giving her a scathing look, he turned and left.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_3d259f05-fa5f-5eb4-b64b-9ac888ac805a)

NATALIE spent most of the day in her room. She heard Angelo moving about the villa but she refused to interact with him. She was determined to avoid him for as long as she could. Hunger was a minor inconvenience. Her stomach growled as the clock moved around but still she remained resolute.

It was close to eight in the evening when she heard the sound of footsteps outside her door, and then a light tap as Angelo spoke. ‘Natalie?’

‘Go away.’

‘Open the door.’

She tightened her arms across her body, where she was sitting cross-legged on the bed. ‘I said go away.’

‘If you don’t unlock this door I swear to God I’ll break it down with my bare hands,’ he said in a gritty tone.

Natalie weighed up her options and decided it was better not to call his bluff this time. She got off the bed, padded over to the door, turned the key and opened the door. ‘Yes?’ she said with a haughty air.

The lines that bracketed his mouth looked deeper and his eyes, though currently glittering with anger, looked tired. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked.

She stepped away from the door and moved to the other side of the room, folding her arms across her middle. She didn’t trust herself not to touch him. Her body had switched on like a high-wattage lightbulb as soon as he had stepped over the threshold. She could feel the slow burn of her desire for him moving through her. Her insides flickered with the memory of his possession. It was a funny sensation, like suddenly stepping on an uneven surface and feeling that rapid stomach-dropping free fall before restoring balance.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

She sent him a chilly look. ‘Fine, thank you.’

He drew in a long breath and then released it. ‘What happened this morning … I want to apologise. What I said to you was unforgivable.’

‘You’re right,’ she said, shooting him another deadly glare. ‘And, just for the record, I don’t forgive you.’

He pushed a hand through his hair. Judging from the disordered state of it, it wasn’t the first time that day he had done so. ‘I also want to apologise for being so rough with you.’ He swallowed tightly and frowned. ‘I thought … I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I didn’t think. I just wanted you.’ His eyes darkened as they held hers. ‘I have never wanted anyone like I want you.’

Natalie’s resolve began to melt with each pulsing second his eyes stayed meshed with hers. She felt the heat of longing pass between them like a secret code. It was there in his dark as night eyes. It was there in the sculptured contours of his mouth. It was there in the tall frame of his body, pulling her like a powerful magnet towards him. She felt the tug of need in her body; she felt it in her breasts, where they twitched and tingled behind her bra. And, God help her, she felt it rattle the steel cage around her heart.

‘Apology accepted,’ she said.

He came to her and gently cupped her right cheek in his hand, his eyes searching hers. ‘Can we start again?’ he asked.

She gave a little frown. ‘Start from where?’

His mouth curved upwards. ‘Hi, my name is Angelo Bellandini and I’m a hotel and property developer. I’m an only child of wealthy Italian parents. I help to run my father’s arm of the business while working on my own.’

She gave a resigned sigh. ‘Hi, my name is Natalie Armitage and I’m an interior designer, with an expanding sideline in bedlinen and soft furnishings.’ She chewed at her lip for a moment and added, ‘And I have a fear of flying …’

His thumb stroked her cheek. ‘How old were you when you first got scared?’

‘I was … seven …’

‘What happened?’

She slipped out of his hold and averted her gaze. ‘I’d rather not talk about it with a virtual stranger.’

‘I’m not a stranger,’ he said. ‘I’m your husband.’

‘Not by my choice,’ she muttered.

‘Don’t do this, Natalie.’

‘Don’t do what?’ she asked, glaring at him. ‘Tell it how it is? You blackmailed me back into your life. Now you want me to open up to you as if we’re suddenly inseparable soul mates. I’m not good at being open with people. I’ve never been good at it. I’m private and closed. It must be my Scottish heritage. We’re not outwardly passionate like you Italians. You’ll just have to accept that’s who I am.’

The touch of his hands on her shoulders made every cell of her skin flicker and dance in response.

‘You’re much more passionate than you give yourself credit for,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the scratch marks on my back to prove it.’

Natalie felt that passion stirring within her. His body was calling out to hers in a silent language that was as old as time itself. It spoke to her flesh, making it tauten and tingle all over in anticipation. She wished she had the strength or indeed the willpower to step back from his magnetic heat, but her body was on autopilot. She pressed closer, that delicious ache of need starting deep in her core.

His mouth came down towards hers as hers came up, and they met in an explosion of sensation that made the flesh on her body shudder in delight. He flooded her senses with his taste—mint and male, heat and primal purpose. His tongue darted and dived around hers, subjecting it to a teasing tango that made her spine shiver and shake like a string of bottle caps rattling against each other. Heat pooled between her legs as he moved against her, the thickened length of him exciting her unbearably. She rubbed against him wantonly, desperate for the earth-shattering release that he alone could give her.

He pulled back slightly, his breathing heavy. ‘Too fast.’

‘Not fast enough,’ she said and, pulling his head down, covered his mouth with her greedy one.

His hands worked on her clothes with deliberate attention to detail. She squirmed and writhed as he kissed every spot of flesh as he gradually exposed it. She tugged his shirt out of his trousers and with more haste than precision got him out of the rest of his clothes. She ran her hands over him reverentially. He was so strong and so lean, his muscles tightly corded, his skin satin smooth all but for the sprinkling of masculine hair that went from his chest in an arrow to his swollen groin. She stroked him with her hand, loving the feel of his reaction to her touch. She heard him snatch in a breath, his eyes glittering as she gave him a sultry look from beneath her lashes.

‘If you’re going to do what I think you’re about to do then this show is going to be over before it gets started,’ he warned.

She gave him a devil-may-care look and shimmied down in front of him. ‘Then I’ll just have to wait until the encore, won’t I?’

‘Dio mio,’ he groaned in ecstasy as she took him into her mouth.

She used her tongue and the moistness of her saliva to take him to the brink. She would have pushed him over, but he stopped her by placing his hands on either side of her head.

‘Enough,’ he growled, and hauled her to her feet.

He carried her to the bed, laying her down and covering her, with his weight supported by his arms to avoid crushing her. His mouth took hers in a searing kiss as his hand caressed her breasts and that aching secret dark place between her thighs.