I’m rock hard, my body screaming at me to end this with her on her back, but I don’t want to stop, I don’t want her to let me go. I want to watch her come, listen to her gasp my name again and so I don’t stop. I stroke and circle with my fingers, until her body stiffens in my hold and she’s shaking, and then I bend my head, covering her mouth with mine as she comes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Olympia
I’m shivering againsthim as the aftershocks hit me. His arm is like iron around my waist and I’m gripping his coat for dear life. His mouth is gentle though, in stark contrast to the agonising pleasure that ripped me apart. I can’t do anything but hold on as the sweetness of his kiss devastates me.
I don’t know what happened. One moment I was sitting on the couch while he stood over me, tall and dark and dangerous, telling me I had to marry him. Next minute, I was up against him, gripping his coat, lost as a storm of desire took me, the heat of his body and the delicious scent of his aftershave, the one that’s been haunting my dreams for months, freezing me in place.
He looked down at me, some storm of emotion I couldn’t untangle flickering in his dark eyes as I’d demanded to know why he’d sent me away that night in Singapore. I shouldn’t have betrayed that it mattered to me, but I hadn’t been able to mask my hurt. And then he’d told me he’d lied, that he hadn’t been done with me at all, and through my shock had come triumph. He’d felt it too, this…thingbetween us, still burning and still burning hot.
A bad man, that’s what he is, he said, and I told him he was wrong. Because how could a bad man make me feel this way? Make me feel as if I’d die if he didn’t touch me. And then he’d ripped open my coat, his gaze on my stomach and there had been a feral light in his eyes as he’d touched me.
I hadn’t been able to look away from his face, shivers wracking me as his hand followed the curve of my stomach and then down further. I should have pushed myself away, but I couldn’t do it. His touch felt too good, and I’ve had months of dreaming about him and at least a month of worrying about what to do about the baby. But now he was here and part of me just wanted to lose myself in the pleasure he could give me.
Except reality is crashing in and I’m standing in his arms, trembling with the aftershocks of the orgasm he gave me, yet nothing has changed. He’s still the stranger I met in Singapore. The stranger who demanded that I marry him.
I rip my mouth from his and try to push myself away from him, but he won’t let me. His arm tightens around my waist, keeping me against him, and it’s probably a good thing since I’m not quite steady enough on my feet to stand without help. The hard line of his arousal is pressing into the sensitive place between my thighs and I’m suddenly fiercely glad that he’s as affected as I am by this heat between us.
‘No,’ he murmurs. ‘Don’t do that.’
I lean my forehead against his chest, not wanting to meet his intense black gaze, not quite yet, and I feel a gentle hand settle on the back of my head, stroking my hair. There is something inexplicably soothing about it, but I don’t want to be soothed. It’s Christmas Eve and my brother will be home, and I won’t be there to see him. I’m in Sicily, kidnapped by the father of my child and he’s talking about things like marriage, and I don’t know what to do.
Don’t go to pieces, not here, not now.
No, I can’t. I can’t give into my rising panic. I have to hold it together, because it’s not just about me any more. I have a child to consider now.
‘We can talk about this tomorrow,’ he says, still stroking my hair. ‘You need to be tucked up in bed.’ There’s a roughness in his voice that betrays the effect what he did to me has had on him, and a part of me wants to use that, give him a taste of his own medicine. A way to make me feel strong and not as weak as I feel right now. And I hate feeling weak. I hate feeling the way I did when Ulysses first rescued me, an abused little girl afraid of her own shadow.
Fragile, that’s what my brother called me, and that’s how he treated me too, and while fragile is certainly what I was all those years ago, I’m not fragile now and I won’t be treated like a child.
So I gather my strength and this time when I push away from him, I’m strong enough that I slip out of his imprisoning arm and take a few steps back.
He doesn’t protest, but his black eyes burn as he looks at me.
‘Don’t patronise me,’ I say to him flatly. ‘And don’t think that one orgasm is going to change my mind. I’m still not marrying you.’
He stares at me for a long moment. ‘We can talk about that tomorrow. You look dead on your feet.’
I fold my arms and stare back, trying to get my brain to work again, because I have to think. This conversation is important and some of the things he’s said to me don’t quite make sense. Such as ‘rumours’ of me being a prisoner and how he bribed my doctor. The speed at which he brought me here, which could naturally be that he didn’t want to deal with Ulysses, and who could blame him? Ulysses isn’t a man you cross lightly. Then again, Rafael Santangelo looks a match for him, so it can’t be that he’s afraid of what Ulysses might do. He’s kidnapped me on Christmas Eve and now he’s demanding marriage…
‘No,’ I say, gripping tight to my courage. ‘We’ll talk now. Tell me the real reason I’m here, Rafael. It’s not just for the sake of the baby, is it?’
A muscle in the side of his jaw leaps and he mutters something vicious in Italian under his breath. ‘Don’t push me, dragonfly.’
‘I’m not pushing you. I’m only asking you a question.’
‘And I am choosing not to answer.’
‘Why not? Are you afraid of my brother? Is that it?’
His mouth lifts in a sneer. ‘No. Why the hell would I be afraid of him?’
A fine thread of contempt winds through his voice and it betrays him. My brother has enemies—that’s why I have a security detail, after all—and perhaps Rafael Santangelo is one of them. Why else would he sneer? If so, I need to find out and fast. Before he touches me again.
‘If you know what’s good for you, you would be,’ I say. ‘You know him, don’t you?’
Rafael’s dark eyes are unwavering. ‘Don’t ask questions, Olympia. Especially when you might not like the answers.’
