Mediterranean Tycoons: Tempting & Taken: The Italian's Runaway Bride / His Inherited Bride / Pregnancy of Revenge. JACQUELINE BAIRD
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a wantonness that amazed her, her body responded to his every touch. He was a magnificent male animal, power and virility in every line of his huge body. He nudged her legs apart with one of his own, and she gasped as his long fingers delved between her thighs, but her legs moved wider, welcoming the intimate caress.
Her hands slipped down to clutch his hips, one small hand stroking across his thigh, revelling in the different textures of skin and soft curling body hair, and tentatively to the core of his manhood.
Gianni instantly reared back. ‘Kelly,’ he grated, his massive chest heaving. He wanted to take it slowly. He wanted it to be good for her, the best ever. He did not ask himself why.
‘Don’t stop,’ Kelly begged, her blue eyes, dark with need, fixed on his hard face. ‘Please, please,’ she moaned.
Gianni slid his hands beneath her hips and lifted her to him. His need for her sang in his blood, raced through his veins. There was a roaring in his ears and any notion of taking it slowly was obliterated.
With one swift thrust he entered her, sheathing himself inside her. Kelly cried out as a fierce pain ripped through her. For a second Gianni froze, but before she could react to the pain with a low groan he surged into the hot, sleek centre of her again and again, and slowly the pain subsided. Euphoria took over as he drove her higher and higher to some destination she had only ever dreamed about.
Afterwards Kelly wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging his great body, relishing his weight on her as the sounds of their frantic breathing became regulated. She could not find the words to describe how he made her feel. He had captured her heart and soul. ‘I love you,’ she sighed, and with a murmur of pleasure kissed his sweat-slicked shoulder, still wanting more.
Gianni said something harsh and guttural in Italian and tore himself from her arms and leapt off the bed. ‘You were a virgin,’ he grated incredulously, his dark eyes narrowing down to where she lay naked on the bed. ‘Why the hell did you not tell me?’ he demanded with barely contained rage. He could not believe he had lost control so totally and maybe fallen for the oldest trick in the book…
‘I NEVER thought,’ she murmured, her new-found euphoria dwindling at the repressed fury in his tone. Towering over her, the lover of a moment ago was gone, and in his place was a furious naked man; his hard eyes clashed with hers and the dark menace of his expression made her inwardly wince. Kelly did not understand what she had done wrong. Her mouth dried, and she dampened her top lip with her tongue, tearing her gaze away from the violence in his.
‘You never thought!’ snorted Gianni, shaking his dark head in disgust.
Kelly had no defence. She could not help having been a virgin, and it had never entered her head to mention the fact. How naïve could one get? she thought, feeling sick with a mixture of embarrassment and humiliation. ‘Obviously I made a mistake,’ she said in a flat little voice, forcing the words past trembling lips; suddenly she quite desperately wanted to cry.
‘I certainly did,’ he muttered between clenched teeth as he began to pull on his clothes. ‘A virgin.’ His black brows drew together in a frown as he surveyed her slender body spread-eagled on the bed where he had left her, the blush of passion tinting her pale skin. ‘Cover yourself, for God’s sake!’
The electric light that she had not objected to before now seemed to be fixed like a spotlight on her naked body. Jerking up into a sitting position, she grabbed the sheet and tugged it up under her chin. ‘I’m sorry.’ But she was not apologising to him, she was sorry for herself—his reaction had turned what she had thought was a wonderful experience into something shoddy and shameful.
Kelly saw it all clearly now. Gianni had been looking for a holiday fling, and she, poor fool that she was, had thought it was love, the real thing…
‘Sorry. You’re sorry!’ Gianni snarled. ‘What about me? Is it too much to hope you are on the Pill, or can I expect a paternity suit in a few months’ time?’
As soon as the words left his mouth he knew he was being cruelly unfair. He should have used protection. But he had been so out of his head with wanting Kelly that for the first time in his life he had forgotten. He had lost control, and not only that, he thought, as his dark eyes, bright and hard as jet, raked over her huddled figure on the bed: he had taken her virginity and not even satisfied Kelly sexually, something else he never failed to do with his usual lady-friends. It was a massive blow to his ego. But then, he had known the moment he’d set eyes on her she would drive him crazy, and she had. He needed to think, and think hard, and he could not do it with Kelly sitting like a broken doll on the bed.
‘Sorry, Kelly—’ he reached out a hand to her ‘—I should not have said that.’ Whether she was a clever little fortune-hunter or not, she did not deserve his anger.
Pregnant! Paternity! While she had thought love, he had been counting costs. All the colour drained from her skin, and cold beads of sweat broke out across her upper lip; she had the horrible conviction she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. How could she have been such a gullible, careless fool? Galvanised into action by his outstretched hand, Kelly knocked it away and shot out of the other side of the bed. Wrapping the sheet around her shivering body, she raised stormy eyes to his across the wide expanse of the bed, anger, hot and hard, coming to her rescue.
‘Oh, please, don’t apologise; you could not possibly be as sorry as I am.’ Ignoring him completely, she set about picking up her clothes.
He caught up with her as she was heading for the door. ‘Wait.’ His hands grasped one of hers and spun her around to face him.
‘What for? A repeat performance—I don’t think so,’ she shot back, fighting down a reckless impulse to fling herself in his arms and cry her eyes out. She was angry and ashamed, and physically sore, and with her dream of love shattered. But Kelly was a quick learner.
‘No.’ His mouth compressed into a humourless smile. ‘I am not a complete monster, Kelly, though I guess at this minute you will have trouble believing that. Go ahead and get dressed, and then we will talk.’ And before she could stop him she was abruptly hauled hard against his lean body and he kissed her again.
The moment his lips touched hers, the familiar longing swept like wildfire through her veins, but just before she capitulated to the wicked temptation of his mouth he pushed her lightly away. His hooded dark eyes were guarded as he looked down at her. ‘The bathroom is over there.’ He indicated the door with a pointed finger, and he had the gall to pretend to smile with a twist of his lips, but the humour never reached his eyes.
Embarrassed yet again by her traitorous body’s response, she blushed scarlet and darted into the bathroom. Five minutes later, washed and dressed and standing before the vanity mirror, she raked her hands through the tangled mass of her hair, trying to restore it to some order. The pins she’d used had vanished in the bed. She bit her bottom lip to stop herself crying. What should have been the most perfect night of her life had turned into the worst.
A rap on the door made her jump. ‘Kelly, are you OK?’ The caring note in his rich, deep voice was like rubbing salt in an open wound.
Kelly took a deep breath and straightened her slender shoulders, a cynical little smile curving her bruised lips. ‘Just coming,’ she carolled. No way was she going to let him see how much he had hurt her. But it wasn’t easy.
Walking into the bedroom, she was struck anew by the fierce sexual hunger she had felt from the first moment she had laid eyes on him. It wasn’t fair. She almost groaned. He was standing by the door, his dark eyes fixed broodingly on his own large hand curved around the handle. The terrible compulsion to stare was almost uncontrollable. His chiselled profile, with the endearing crook in the nose, the high cheekbones and the firm, sensuous mouth, all added up to one staggeringly handsome man. A man whose long, lithe body looked poised for flight. Her stomach clenched, her hunger for him undiminished even now, when he had made