She was like a beautiful, unbroken horse that didn’t know when it was beaten. She would obey him for the sake of her life and let him do whatever he wanted, but she would keep some essence of herself reserved, would always make sure he knew that what he took from her would never be given freely without the deal they’d made.
He could laugh. Didn’t she realise how closely he’d spent the last four years watching her? He knew how her mind worked, knew how greatly she cherished her independence and autonomy. The sooner she realised she’d lost both those things, the better. She belonged to him now, completely, to do with as he wished and treat as he wished.
Draining the last of his whisky, he placed the glass on his bedside table and patted the space beside him. “Time to lie down, rat.”
Her plump lips tightened a fraction, but she didn’t break her stride. He lifted the bedsheets for her. Without a word, she lay beside him and fixed her defiant stare on the mirrored ceiling.
Not wasting any time, he climbed on top of her, nudging her thighs apart with his. Resting on his elbows, he gazed down at her beautiful, set face.
Unfiltered loathing stared back at him. All her makeup had been washed off, the light sprinkling of freckles over her cheeks and nose visible. The pulse in her enflamed neck was throbbing just as visibly. He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the delicate skin above it. Felt the heated tremble of her body. Felt the brush of her taut nipples against his chest.
Her eyes closed.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
The long, dark lashes parted. The dark brown eyes firing loathing locked back onto his.
He adjusted his hips so the weight of his erection pressed against her pubis.
Her only reaction was a slight widening of her eyes.
“Lift your bottom.”
Her mouth tighter than ever, her breaths coming in faint snatches through her nose, she did as she was told.
Keeping himself propped on one elbow, Tommaso skimmed his fingers over her delicious breasts, quelling his craving for a taste of them – tonight was about sex and only sex – and reached down to take hold of his erection and press it to her opening.
Poor Gabriella, he thought sardonically. It didn’t matter how mutinously she arranged her beautiful face, he could feel the excited heat vibrating through her body.
She wanted him, he thought with satisfaction. And she hated him for it.
But not as much as he hated her. Or as much as he wanted her.
He slid inside her slick, hungry depths in one long, smooth thrust.
Gabriella came within a breath of crying out.
She’d have been lying to herself if she’d said she hadn’t been burning for his possession, but in no way had she been prepared for the sensation of Tommaso so deeply and thickly sheathed inside her.
There was a pulse of shock in his eyes, and in that pulse a connection flowed between them.
He hadn’t been prepared for the sensation either...
A blink later, and the connection was mercifully severed with such alacrity that she could believe she’d imagined it. Must believe she’d imagined it.
Shehadimagined it. There would never be any connection between them. Never. Tommaso could take her body, do whatever he wanted to it, but her body was not her. He would never haveher.
His jaw clenched. Similar thoughts must have been running through his mind, for only hate-filled lust now pulsed in his black eyes.
He withdrew to the tip and then drove hard inside her again. And then he did it again. And again.
Closing her eyes, Gabriella tried to empty her mind, but it was impossible. Tommaso was on her and inside her, fucking her with determined, rhythmic thrusts so exquisite in their sensual precision that her body was begging her to respond. Begging her to touch him.
She wouldn’t. She mustn’t.
She would not do anything of her own volition.
“Gabriella, look at me.” His harsh, gravelly words soaked into her senses.
