Her Passionate Italian: The Passion Bargain / A Sicilian Husband / The Italian's Marriage Bargain

‘I hate you,’ she choked.

He didn’t bother to answer. She could feel the strength in his fingers where they pressed into her lower back and the very disturbing presence of his thumbs slowly circling against her stomach wall. Tiny senses began to stir in places she didn’t want them to, low in her abdomen and in the tips of her breasts. It was mad; the whole crazy evening was turning her quietly insane. She hardly knew him, she certainly didn’t like him yet here she was, standing in his arms, letting him tell her that she fancied going to bed with him!

The door handle rattled again. ‘Who is in there?’ Angelo’s glass-muffled voice questioned impatiently.

‘Persistent devil,’ Carlo said. ‘Perhaps we should give him a taste of his own medicine.’

Alarm stiffened her backbone. ‘No!’ was all she could get out before he lowered his dark head.

It was the sheer, heart-stopping shock of it that held her immobile, the unfamiliar touch of his mouth against hers. He was taller than Angelo, darker than Angelo, harder and stronger and more forceful than Angelo had ever been with her. Her startled lips were ruthlessly parted, and his tongue darted through the gap. A tight rush of sensation shot from her mouth to her breasts to low in her abdomen then poured like quicksilver down her legs.

She had never experienced anything like it. A shocked, disorientated whimper clawed at her throat as she was suddenly flung into alien territory, the heat, the intrusion, the flagrant intimacy of that invading tongue exploring the inner tissue of her mouth trapping her inside butterfly tremors of bemused response.

He pulled his head back, glinting her a dark-eyed puzzled frown, saw her wide-eyed startlement, the revealingly shocked tremor of her lips. ‘Did Angelo sexually starve you into submission?’ he uttered with an oddly strained laugh.

She just continued to stare at him, too befuddled to take in the question, and his eyes took on a hard light. He hissed something unrepeatable about Angelo then lowered his head again to return to where he’d left off. Only this time with more heat, more sensual purpose, and his hands joined in, lifting and crushing her into closer contact with his body and holding her there while he ravaged her mouth. She felt the burgeoning power of his passion pressing against her then her own body responded as that place between her thighs began to pulse then grow damp. Sensation was slithering everywhere, in her bloodstream, coiling round muscles to make them writhe into greater contact.

It was shocking, so basic and—and physical! Her crushed breasts swelling and stinging painfully as her nipples grew tight.

The door handle rattled. She jerked her head back against his restraining hand and their lips parted with a disconcerting pop. Electric wires had been attached to every extremity. She was breathless yet panting. Her tongue and lips felt swollen and hot. He was staring down at her with glinting black fixed eyes and a perfect stillness, his expression peculiarly…

She didn’t know what his face was telling her. She only knew she’d just been somewhere very perilous and that she did not like it—but she did.

Sex, she called it. Lust said it better. She’d been kissed with hot and driving passion for the first time in her life by a man who was very good at it.

Heat hit her pale cheeks. She dragged her eyes away from him and became aware of the way the flat of her hands braced painfully against the solid wall of chest. Everything about him was solid, his shoulders, his arms, the bowl of his hips where she could feel the solid column of his—

‘Let me go,’ she demanded hazily.

He did the opposite, pressing her closer then lowering his head again to flick his tongue across her burning lips. She almost detonated on a ball of hot static. A helpless cry keened in her throat.

Footsteps sounded as Angelo moved away from the window, bringing Carlo alive with a jolt. His eyes lost that frightening expression, his brows pushing together on a frown. His grip on her tightened and Francesca found herself being lifted again, swung around then unceremoniously dumped in the chair she had used before.

The wretched brandy glass was slotted back between her fingers. ‘Drink it this time,’ she was tersely instructed as he turned away.

‘I’m dizzy enough,’ she thought and didn’t realise she’d said it out loud until his grim response came back.

‘Think how you’re going to feel in about five minutes. Because that is how long it will take Angelo to walk through the other door.’

Feeling as if she’d been tossed from a storm into a maelstrom, she stared at the solid wooden door which lead out to the main hallway as if it were some brooding dark monster. ‘You locked it,’ she breathed shakily.

He was already striding over there. To her utter consternation he turned the key to unlock the door.

‘What did you do that for?’ she cried out in protest.

Ignoring her, he reached up to flick the light switch next. It was like being bombarded with hot shards of glass. She screwed her eyes shut on a shrill little whimper of agony then dragged them open again almost immediately because she needed to know what he was going to do next. He was already halfway back across the room and bending down to pick something up off the floor. She’d never seen such a change in anyone. His energy levels had shot from virtually somnolent to the other extreme.

The black dinner suit barely rippled as he straightened up again, the butterfly collar to his white dress shirt still looked as crisp as it probably had when he’d first put it on. His skin wore a warm olive sheen and his satiny black hair had the merest hint of a wave that she hadn’t noticed before. His head was bent slightly, eyes hooded, those thick lashes hovering a breath away from his chiselled cheekbones. He was breathtakingly attractive and his mouth wore the bloom of their recent kiss.

Fire pooled between her thighs again and she wrenched her eyes away from him. Everything about him was suddenly so physical, so—sexual!

Oh, dear, she groaned inwardly. What’s happening to me?

Lifting up the glass, she took a large gulp at the brandy. Why not get drunk? she decided wildly. It had to be a better option to feeling like this.

He arrived in front of her, making her jump nervously when he bent to use one hand to take the glass from her so he could take his turn with the drink, while the other hand pulled her to her feet. She felt like a puppet—this man’s puppet! He kept pulling and pushing her, picking her up, putting her down and kissing her.

Oh, dear, she thought again as her insides went haywire. ‘No,’ she husked in muffled protest.

‘No what?’ he asked, discarding the glass.

But she’d already forgotten what when he proceeded to hook long fingers beneath the lip of her bodice as if he had every right to touch her like this!

‘What are you doing?’ she choked out in protest as she felt the smooth backs of his nails stroke her flesh.

His answer was a demonstration. Coolly and very proficiently he gave a tug that resettled the dark fabric across the thrust of her breasts. Glancing down, she gave a gasp of horror when she realised how close she must have been to revealing too much flesh.

Like Sonya.

Like Sonya… Her eyes closed on the next dizzying wave to hit her as reality came crashing back.

He moved his attention elsewhere then, throwing her into a deeper state of confusion when he proceeded to tidy her tumbled hair. She hadn’t even realised the knot had come undone.

‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘We haven’t got much time for this so you are going to have to make some quick decisions as to what happens next,’ he said quietly, deciding to organise her wrecked life for her now, she noted dully.

‘Lock the door again.’ That was a decision.

She watched as his mouth compressed. ‘The way I see it, you have several choices. You can turn a blind eye to what you saw and continue with tonight as if nothing has happened…’ She winced at the word blind. ‘Or you can brave it out and go out there of your own volition to announce that you’re calling off the engagement and why you are.’

Either way she looked the fool. ‘Great choices,’ she muttered.

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ he chided. ‘If you really feel you can’t bear to face him then we can leave through the French windows right now, before he gets here, climb into my car and just disappear.’

She glared at his chest and grimly added coward to fool and shrew.

He was using her hair comb to tame the thick silken swathe into some semblance of tidiness, surprising her with the efficiency he used to secure her hair in yet another neat twist. And her scalp was beginning to tingle—with pleasure. She couldn’t bear it. It was all just too much.

‘Please stop it, Carlo,’ she breathed out anxiously.

‘You do know my name, then,’ he said lightly and she lifted her eyelids to show him dark pools of agony.

‘Please lock the door again,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m not ready to cope with him!’

His fingers dropped to cup her shoulders, his eyes suddenly sober and dark. ‘It is midnight, Francesca,’ he informed her very gently.

Midnight. The witching hour. The time her engagement to Angelo was to be formally announced. Her gaze flicked the room as if a hundred glossy people were already standing here watching and waiting to bear witness as Angelo claimed his mighty prize.

She shuddered in dismay as the full weight of his betrayal returned like a flood. The hands on her shoulders moved in reflex response. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said brusquely. ‘He doesn’t deserve your tears.’