It Started With A Proposition: Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed / Contract with Consequences / The Passion Price

Was she really going to do this? Go to bed with Gino within ten minutes of running into him again?

Her heart fluttered wildly as her eyes raked over him. He was everything she remembered. And more…more handsome, more mature…and even more masterful.

She would not have believed herself capable of being seduced so quickly these days, even by Gino.

But seduce her he had, in no time flat.

Jordan knew that if she spent the night with her wickedly sexy former lover then it would be Chad who’d be history. She’d had a slim chance of forgetting Gino when he’d been safely consigned to the past. No way could she forget him now.

Still, maybe she wouldn’t have to forget him this time. Maybe they really could take up where they left off.

Oh, she hoped so.

‘What are you doing up here in Sydney?’ she asked, almost running to keep up with him. ‘And why are you staying here? This is a very expensive hotel.’

‘Don’t ask questions, Jordan,’ he returned, his tone impatient. ‘Not right now. Leave it till the morning.’

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. In truth, she didn’t want to talk. But she didn’t want to think, either. And silence encouraged thinking.

Thinking brought doubts and worries. She could imagine what Kerry would think if she saw her now. She’s say she was insane!

When they reached the bank of lifts, one of them was empty and waiting. Gino took no time steering her inside, inserting his key card and pressing the tenth floor. The moment the doors closed he pulled her forcefully into his arms.

‘I can’t wait another second,’ he growled, his mouth already descending.

What was it that made one man’s kiss different from another?

Jordan had once tried to analyse this when other men’s kisses never did for her what Gino’s had done.

Now she knew: it was not just a matter of technique, or the sensual shape of his mouth. It was the passion behind those kisses, that all-encompassing hunger which came not just from his lips and tongue, but from his whole body.

Jordan was panting by the time he wrenched his mouth away.

His black eyes blazed down at her. ‘I should never have left you,’ he said. ‘Never!’

The lift had stopped by then, and the doors slid open. Two couples were waiting there to get in, all glammed up for a Friday night on the town. The women glanced at Gino as they exited, the men at Jordan.

She cringed a little when she saw her reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite. She looked dishevelled—some strands of hair falling down, her mouth devoid of lipstick, her eyes dilated and glittering with desires as yet unsatisfied.

Gino enfolded her hand in his and drew her along a carpeted hallway, stopping in front of room number 107.

As he bent his head to insert his key card again, Jordan noticed that his hair was shorter than he’d once worn it. She wondered if he was still a construction labourer. Maybe he was a foreman by now.

Another thought popped into her mind as he opened the door and waved her inside. Surely he must have a girlfriend back in Melbourne. Men like Gino didn’t live celibate lives.

As jealous as this idea made her, Jordan held her tongue, not wanting to spoil the moment with any upsetting truths. All she needed to know for now was that he wasn’t married and that he still desired her. As she still desired him.

But do you still love him? came the intriguing question as Gino followed her into the hotel room, kicking the door shut behind them.

Jordan was no longer a romantic teenager. She’d learned in the decade post-Gino that falling in love did not come as easily when you’d seen more of life. And of men.

When Gino curled his hands over her shoulders and leant her back against him Jordan realised she didn’t care if she still loved him or not. Her desires had moved past the point of no return. She was Gino’s woman again. At least for tonight. No, for the whole weekend.

An erotic shiver rippled down her spine as he eased her jacket off her shoulders.

‘Do you wish to go to the bathroom first?’ he whispered.

‘No,’ she choked out.

Her jacket gone, he turned her round and began unbuttoning her blouse. When her nipples tightened within her bra, she closed her eyes.

‘Open your eyes,’ he commanded.

She obeyed him, if a little reluctantly.

‘Now keep them open. I want you to see that it is Gino making love to you.’

‘You think I wouldn’t know it was you, even with my eyes closed?’

His smile was almost smug. ‘You have not forgotten me?’

‘I remember everything about you, Gino,’ she said, echoing his words down in the bar.

His eyes smouldered as he stripped the blouse from her body, then her bra.

‘Then you will remember I am not always a patient lover.’

Jordan’s mouth went dry.

Sometimes, when he’d come home from work, he’d lifted her skirt and taken her swiftly, standing up. No foreplay. Just his flesh filling hers whilst he told her how he’d thought about doing this to her all day.

His impassioned words had excited her as much as his actions, sending her over the edge within a shockingly short space of time.

She shuddered at the thought that this was what he was going to do to her now. Though he couldn’t, could he? Not with what she was still wearing.

‘You should not cover your beautiful body with clothes such as these,’ he told her, as he unzipped her pin-striped trousers and pushed them down over her hips. When they pooled onto the floor she stepped out of them, leaving her standing there in nothing but cream cotton panties, beige knee-high stockings and sensible black pumps.

‘Ridiculous,’ he growled, his top lip curling at the sight of her. ‘Get them off. Get everything off!’

She might have done as he ordered if he hadn’t started undressing himself, tossing aside his black leather jacket and reefing the white T-shirt over his head in a flash.

The sudden baring of his chest kept her rooted to the spot, her heart thudding as her eyes washed over him. He was leaner than he had been ten years ago—leaner, yet still utterly gorgeous.

‘Do you want me to do it? Is that it?’ he asked as he unzipped his jeans and shoved them down, taking his underpants with them.

Jordan swallowed. ‘What?’

Gino shot her a frustrated glance before sitting down on the edge of the bed and yanking off his shoes and socks.