The Trophy Husband

And then he moved again lithely, powerfully deepening his penetration, and a truly stunning wave of breathtaking sensation swept her back into that wild oblivion where only the demands of her own hungry body held sway. With every driving thrust he took her with him, made the fire burning inside her flame ever higher, ever more unbearably, until her teeth clenched and her heartbeat thundered and her nails raked fiercely down his damp back because the wild, hot pleasure that went on and on only made her more desperate. The explosive burst of her own climax was electrifying. It blew her apart, left her trembling in devastated aftershock from a sheer overload of pleasure.

'I feel better in my bed.' Alex was sweeping her up, letting his mouth caress hers again tenderly, then there was movement. That was all her punch-drunk senses could recognise. She felt the faint chill of colder air and then a cool sheet against her back before the heat and muscularity of Alex connected with her again.

'Don't go to sleep,' he instructed her, his dark drawl impossibly vibrant and wide awake as he wrapped his arms around her possessively and vented a deeply satisfied sigh of slumberous relaxation.

Not waves on shores so much as a golden sun of glory around which she had revolved, she conceded sleepily. So much effort to think… so much easier simply to feel, and she felt wonderfully at peace.

'We spend the weekend on the yacht. I'm in Paris on Monday… you'll love Paris, car a. What do you think?' he probed.

What did she think? Sara struggled valiantly to think. She thought that he sounded as if he had closed a tremendously difficult and lucrative business deal which had lost some poor fool a fortune and made him another mountain of money that he didn't need: immensely, shamelessly self-satisfied. At that point her brain switched off and she shifted with positive contentment into the warm, comforting solidarity of him.

Her nose twitched on the heady scent of flowers. She lifted heavy eyelids slowly, focused on a giant, berib-boned basket of flowers and then another basket… and then another. Her mouth went dry. She woke up in a hurry, jerking upright in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar bedroom and gaped at all the flowers surrounding her. Her attention lodged on a man's silk tie lying in a tiny splash of crimson on top of a dense, creamy carpet and her heart plunged as if she had gone down at supersonic speed in a lift.

She nearly fell out of the bed in her haste to vacate it. Memory took her back and then forward. She turned as white as a sheet and suddenly knew without any prompting what being sober really felt like. A case she recognised as her own was sitting by the window. With a pained groan of disbelief, she stared at it. He had somehow got her clothes out of the flat? Oh, dear Lord, what had she done? What had she done?

With frantic hands she tore into the case. Taped to the inner lid was a big piece of paper, slashed with Antonia's untidy scrawl. 'What the hell is going on?' it said.

Sara grabbed up a handful of clothes and dived into the en suite bathroom. She studied herself in the mirror- red, swollen mouth, shadowed eyes, wildly tousled black hair. Trollop, tart, she castigated herself with tears of rage and shame burning her eyes. How could she have behaved like that with AlexRossini? She wanted to sink into a great black hole-no, she wanted to put him into a great black hole and pour tons of concrete over him so that he could never escape and she would never have to meet his eyes again!

Thankfully he had already left for the office… Oh, dear heaven, the office!. It was already after nine. She would say that she had missed the bus. Nobody would think anything of that; nobody need ever know… but if she had had any choice she wouldn't have walked into Rossini Industries ever again. However, there would certainly be talk if she suddenly disappeared and failed to work out the last ten days of her notice-much better to grit her teeth and finish her time there. In any case, she conceded bitterly, she badly needed her month's salary because her bank account was almost empty.

Fumbling, with little of her usual dexterity, she contrived to confine her hair into a murderously tight bun at the nape of her neck.

She crept out of the bedroom, her arm nearly falling off from the weight of the case she was hauling with her. Tight-mouthed, she dragged it along to the landing at the top of the stairs. With every movement, she was more and more aware of the complaint of newly discovered muscles in unmentionable places and the undeniable ache in the least mentionable place of all, and her rage thundered higher with very step.

'Buongiorno, cara…'

Her throat thickened. Slowly she straightened, stricken eyes flying to the tall, devastatingly attractive male standing at the head of the staircase.

'I was coming up to see if you wanted to join me for breakfast…but we can do without the luggage,' Alex assured her very softly, measuring dark eyes speeding over her furiously flushed face and lingering with incipi- j ent shrewdness. 'Don't do it-don't say what's brimming | on your lips… Don't disappoint me, cam.'

She wanted to kick him down the stairs. A temper that she had never had any trouble controlling until now was suddenly threatening to explode. She sucked in air, freezing her facial muscles. 'I happen to be late for work, MrRossini.' Ice dripped from every syllable.

She hit her lowest ebb as she watched his sensual mouth twist and then compress. She didn't need to be told how ridiculous she had sounded. Then his strong dark face tautened. Brilliant dark eyes rested on her 'Sara… I want you to count to ten and think about last night without prejudice. Is that possible for you?'

'No,' she said woodenly, honestly, dragging her mor-tified gaze from his-an act which took so much will power that she felt drained.

'We shared something very special which I don't want… or intend… to lose. It doesn't matter that you were on the rebound… the only thing that matters is how we both feel now,' Alex drawled very quietly. 'Clean page, open book.'

'Close it,' Sara said between gritted teeth. 'I don't mind you cutting off your nose to spite your face…per Dio, I mind very much if you attempt to make a similar sacrifice of me!' Alex covered the space between them in one long, fluid stride. 'I made a mistake, damn you!' Sara spat, tears scorching her eyes.

'No, cara. That's where you're wrong. What happened between us was no mistake-not for me and not for you either.'

'Am I entitled to voice an opinion of my own?'

'Not right now… no.' Alex lifted the case from her, set it arrogantly aside. 'The prudish streak is threatening to go on the rampage.'

Sara flinched as though he had struck her.

'Bella mia…' Alex sighed reprovingly, smoothing long brown fingers caressingly over one pale, taut cheekbone, his accented drawl low and very soft. Even though she didn't want to stand there and allow him to touch her again, something frightening, something stronger than she was kept her still, unresisting, her slender length leaning involuntarily closer as if she wanted to curve into that hand and stretch like a sensual cat. 'Don't leave. I promise not to try and force anything more. You need time and space to think. I'll give it to you. I'll be patient… I'll stay in the background.'

'Alex…' Her voice fractured as she fought to free herself from the spell he cast even while she mentally reeled at the impossible image of AlexRossiniendeavouring to sink into the woodwork.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to regret-'

'But I don't want this!' Sara gasped, suddenly finding that freedom to speak her own thoughts. She jerked her head away from him. 'I don't want to have an affair with you. Last night was madness-'

'Sweet insanity that worked like a dream… Don't deny what you're feeling right now.'

'I feel nothing…nothing!' she swore violently, and, snatching up her case again with an energy born of desperation, she started down the stairs.

'Sara, you cannot possibly go back into the office after this.'

He caught up with her in the hall. A firm hand closed round hers and tugged her back and round to face him again.

'You think I'm going to be your mistress, you think wrong!' Sara threw at him rawly.

'W

hat did I tell you to be sure to remember today? That this was not how I wanted it to be between us,' Alex reminded her with controlled anger. 'But you wouldn't settle for anything less and now you blame me for it. That's very female but bloody unfair."

Her shocked eyes fell from his. 'I'm not blaming you. I just want to forget this happened, that's all.'

'But I will not play that game…and take your hair out of that excruciatingly ugly old-maid style!' Alex suddenly gritted, and hauled her even closer, banding one strong arm round her narrow back as his free hand roved free to the thick coil of hair and released it from its confinement. 'You're a beautiful young woman; rejoice in that beauty…don't stifle it!'

'Let go of me!' Sara told him shrilly.

'All I want to do is take you back to bed,' Alex confided in an undertone of angrily suppressed passion as he brought her up against him, a lean hand splaying to the feminine swell of her hips with a lover's intimacy.

Appalled cat-green eyes collided with his gaze and the atmosphere sizzled. She blinked bemusedly, feeling the piercingly sweet heat reawaken low in the pit of her stomach, the sudden ache of her nipples as her breasts stirred beneath her bra. Her soft mouth trembled. Alex smiled lazily down at her, shifted with fluid emphasis against her and she felt the force of his arousal with shock. Her lower limbs turned to cotton wool. Her ability to breathe and think for herself diminished with terrifying rapidity. 'Stop it…" she whispered breathlessly.

'One kiss, bellamia, and I'll let you go into work,' he bargained mockingly.

'No!' she spat as her heartbeat pounded like a trapped bird in a cage.:

'Stubborn…' Alex breathed thickly, amused. 'You want that kiss as much as I do.'