A Sicilian Seduction

But he wasn’t singing, he was seething, because she had just confirmed every low, cheap, nasty thing he had ever been told about her. Brazen wasn’t in it. ‘You dare to set boundaries of time around me,’ he bit out thickly, ‘as if I am a stud bull in a field lingering with the female currently in line to be serviced—and then wonder why I am angry?’

She went quite white, and so she should do, he acknowledged as he watched remorse darken her beautiful eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed. ‘I didn’t mean… I just thought you—’

‘Well, don’t think,’ he growled. ‘Not in my bed—ever!’

Then, because he couldn’t stop himself, he buried his mouth in hers and wished to God he knew where this was going to take him, because something nasty was warning him that he was in too deep.

Natalia Deyton was beginning to get to him in ways he just hadn’t expected…

CHAPTER EIGHT

NATALIA had offended Giancarlo and she hadn’t meant to do that. In fact the last thing she ever wanted to do was spoil what had been the most beautiful experience of her life.

So when he kissed her she kissed him back hungrily. He was angry, so the kiss was rough, but the anger also ignited other emotions, which soon began to take them over.

For a second experience so soon after the first, it really should have been disappointing. But it seemed as if nothing this man could do would ever disappoint her. He drove deep and she welcomed his potency. He kissed hard and long and she fed it all back to him. They touched and tasted and lost touch with everything but themselves to an extent that it didn’t even register that they were doing all of this without a single thought to protection.

That singularly terrifying occurrence happened when she was standing in his bathroom, carefully drying tender places after their shower in which their third wild coming together had taken them tumbling over the edge of sanity.

‘Oh, no,’ she whispered, going so still that it was no wonder he spun sharply to face her.

He was standing by the bathroom mirror with a towel looped casually around his lean waist while he used an electric razor, but the sound stopped abruptly when he saw her expression. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘What have you done?’ His eyes dipped down to where her hand was tensely crushing the towel, then blackened in concern as they flicked back to her face again. ‘Did I hurt you, cara?’ he questioned jerkily.

She shook her head, her face so white it could have been porcelain. ‘Y-you didn’t use anything,’ she managed to utter.

He froze, frowning, then slowly put down the razor to begin walking towards her. ‘This is a joke, right,’ he murmured.

But he had to know that it wasn’t. She still hadn’t moved and didn’t think she dared to. Her legs felt strange, as if they were just about ready to give out on her, and her heart was labouring to find a steady rhythm.

‘No,’ she breathed, and began to shiver as shock thoroughly took her over.

Several Italian curses hit her eardrums, but he made a grab for a fresh towel and quickly wrapped it around her before grimly picking her up and carrying her back into the bedroom.

He sat her down on the bed, then swung round to sit down heavily beside her. He was in shock too, she recognised. Or maybe she should describe it as horror. ‘How could we have been so blind stupid?’ she choked.

‘You are on the pill,’ he bit out tautly. ‘All women take the pill!’

‘Well, not this one!’ she shot back, fiercely and furiously. ‘God—’ she jumped up. ‘I should have known this was going to turn nasty on me! You’re the wrong man for me! We shouldn’t even have been doing this—!’

‘I am not the wrong man for you!’ he barked, instantly offended by the suggestion.

But he didn’t und

erstand and she couldn’t explain it to him, so she began pacing the floor with the towel huddled round her, trying to come to terms with the dreadful fact that she might well already be pregnant with Edward’s wife’s brother’s child!

‘Oh.’ The whimper was one of dismay and helplessness. ‘Why didn’t you think to ask?’ she suddenly launched at him.

He was white behind the olive tint of his skin and his eyes were angry. ‘Why did you not think to say?’ he tossed back with biting derision.

‘Because I did believe that most intelligent men thought safe sex a natural precaution!’ she spat back, not knowing why she was attacking him like this when she knew she was as much to blame.

He jerked to his feet, and she instantly felt wretched because his cheekbones were no longer pale but dark with embarrassment. There seemed nothing left to say. As he walked off towards the bathroom again, she began gathering her scattered clothes together in a dazed kind of way that said she didn’t know what she was doing.

By the time he came back a few minutes later he seemed to have himself back in control while she was just standing there staring blindly down at the few scraps of white silk she held in her hands, as if she didn’t know how they’d got there.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered when she felt him in front of her. ‘This is my fault. I should have thought…’

‘Ditto,’ Giancarlo replied and wondered why he wasn’t feeling anything more than a rueful acceptance for his tragic lot.