Ravelli's Defiant Bride

Belle prowled forward like a stalking tigress and flicked his shirtfront with an angry finger. ‘But how dare you even think that it might have been me who leaked the story to the press?’ she launched at him, green eyes bright with indignation. ‘I wouldn’t do that to my brothers and sisters. They’ve already paid a high enough price for the sins of their parents and the very last thing I would ever want to do is upset them more!’

‘I didn’t accuse you.’

‘You asked me if I had been talking to the press. What sort of a question was that to ask your wife? What reason would I have to expose all of us to that kind of unpleasant public attention?’ Belle demanded.

‘Revenge? Gaetano may be dead but you hate his guts and never got the chance to tell him so. In fact I suspect you distrust and dislike anyone called Ravelli!’ Cristo slammed back at her in condemnation.

‘I’ve changed.’ Yet Belle wanted so badly to slap him that her palm tingled. Only the knowledge that before she met him she had had that attitude burned her deep with shame, for one thing she had learned to appreciate since then was that Gaetano’s hedonistic lifestyle had damaged almost every life he touched, not least those of the children he had fathered without parenting. ‘Well, then I’d have a real problem with my identity, wouldn’t I?’ she fired back with ringing disdain. ‘Considering that now I’m a Ravelli too.’

‘Sì, and my wife, cara mia.’ Cristo found himself suddenly savouring that reality as he looked at her, aggression switching into another similarly testosterone-driven reaction, his attention surging from her beautiful defiant face down to her heaving breasts shimmying below the light tee she wore, arousal roaring through him like an engine revving up.

‘But not so happy to be your wife right now!’ Belle hissed a split second before Cristo cornered her by the wall, closing an ensnaring hand into her tumbling curls to tip up her mouth and then silencing any objection she might have made with the heat of his own.

Belle pushed against his chest but it was, at most, a half-hearted protest because, as fired up by emotion as she was, she couldn’t fight the overwhelming rush of sexual hunger that assailed her the instant Cristo touched her. His kisses were ravenous, both of his hands fisted in her hair, his lean, powerful body pinning her to the wall while his tongue teased and delved inside her mouth with ravishing force. A moan was wrenched from her lips as he squeezed the straining bud of one tender nipple through her clothing and the sensation ran like dynamite to the aching heart of her. She felt frantic, possessed, needy way beyond anything she had ever experienced before.

Belle wrenched at his shirt, struggling with the buttons and then finally yanking in frustration at the barrier between them, so that the buttons flew and the shirt parted and he drew back for an instant. She was shocked by what she had done, her colour high but, regardless, she succumbed to the overpowering desire to mould her palms to the hard planes of his hair-roughened chest and feel the wild heat and strength of his very masculine body.

‘I’ve never wanted any woman as much as I want you,’ Cristo bit out, taking a long stride away from her to slam the door shut, turn the lock and stalk back to her with clear devastating intent in his devouring gaze.

And Belle had never known what hunger felt like until she met him and, even though she was shaken by her own primitive urges, her passionate desire was stoked higher by the boldly visible erection he sported below his chinos. ‘Take off the shirt,’ she told him.

‘Getting bossy now?’ Cristo quipped as he dropped it on the floor.

‘Oh, you have no idea,’ she murmured, relishing the sight of his powerfully muscled chest and impressive abs, helpless anticipation lancing through her as she curled her fingers into his belt and hauled him back to her.

At that point, Cristo flung back his handsome dark head and laughed, lowering his head to kiss her again in the midst of lifting her silk top up and up and finally, somewhat clumsily for a man of his sophistication, off over her head. She was not wearing a bra and he shaped the firm full globes he had revealed with reverent hands, thumbs and fingers stroking over the swollen tips. ‘I love your curves,’ he confided with husky emphasis, skating his palms down admiringly over the sloping softness of her hips before his hand slid below the skirt and ran unerringly up the hot skin of her inner thigh. Lost in the grip of urgent need, she angled away from the wall towards him, wanting, inviting, and truly needing his touch.

Her eyes slid shut as he teased the swollen hot flesh already damp with desire at the heart of her and, with a little sound of impatience, he knelt down to dispose of her panties and lingered to appreciate that most tender part of her with his tongue and his sensually skilled mouth.

‘Cristo!’ Belle gasped.

‘For the last three nights while you went to your bed and I went to mine, I’ve been dreaming about doing this,’ Cristo confessed with carnal boldness, the low growl of his roughened intonation vibrating down her spine.

He tasted her and savoured her as though she were the finest wine and intoxicating waves of sensation engulfed Belle until she was trembling and only the wall and his arm at her hips were keeping her upright against that seductive onslaught. Only when she literally couldn’t take any more of the taunting, delirious pleasure that he wouldn’t allow to progress to its natural conclusion did he sweep her up in his arms and sit her down on the edge of the desk. Once she was in position, he stepped between her spread thighs and crushed her reddened mouth below his again with a primal insistence that consumed her like an adrenalin shot injected straight into her veins.

‘I didn’t see us doing this…here,’ Belle muttered shakily.

‘I don’t know how I kept my hands off you the last few days, bellezza mia,’ Cristo confided hoarsely, nuzzling his cheek down the extended length of her throat with a deeply expressive masculine groan of agreement. ‘I didn’t want to rock the boat.’

‘Rock it!’ Belle urged him on breathlessly as he began to push inside her, her inner walls initially protesting the unflinching demand of his entrance and then slowly stretching around him with a delicious sensation of fullness that made her moan in elated response.

His hands firm on her hips, Cristo tipped her back and then he drove home to the hilt with a power and immediacy that was even more thrilling for her highly aroused body. He pulled back and then slammed home again, jolting her with an excitement that ran like a river of fire through every erogenous zone she possessed. Her heart was racing, her entire body straining and pleading for the ultimate climax while he increased the speed of his strokes, driving faster, deeper while the frenzy of her need and exhilaration combined into a wild roller-coaster ride of ever-increasing pleasure. Her body clenched and she convulsed, crying out and quivering as the pleasure burst like shooting fireworks inside her, sending surge after surge of breathtaking ecstasy travelling through her trembling body.

Cristo wasn’t quite sure he could stay upright as his own climax engulfed him and he held her close, groaning out loud as he spilled his seed inside her, and the very newness of that sensation sent him back on full alert. ‘Che diavolo!’ he exclaimed in consternation, immediately imagining the worst possible scenario. ‘I didn’t use a condom!’

Taken aback by the sudden admission, Belle blinked uncertainly as he wrapped both arms round her and steadied them both. ‘Oh…’ she framed against his chest, his heart thundering against her cheek, the musky male scent of his skin wonderfully familiar and extraordinarily soothing to her now.

‘I’ve never ever not used one before,’ Cristo assured her in a driven undertone. ‘You got me so worked up.’

‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled, hiding a smile of satisfaction at the awareness that she could be responsible for exciting him to the extent that he failed to exercise his usual self-discipline. ‘I started taking the pill before the wedding, so there shouldn’t be any consequences.’

Cristo pictured Franco purely in terms of a consequence and was quite astounded to recognise the tiniest pang of disappointment when she reassured him that there was no risk of such a development. He shook his handsome dark head as if to clear it of such an insane thought, seriously rattled by it and where it might have come from. He had no desire for a child, had never had a desire for one and yet there was something about Franco…

‘You’re incredible, bellezza mia,’ he husked, blanking out those unsettling weird reflections in favour of kissing her brow, the tip of her nose and finally her luscious mouth. ‘You have a passion and an ability to excite me that most men can only dream about finding with one woman.’

Slowly, carefully he lowered her back down to the floor before helpfully lifting

her top to slide over her head and back over her torso. Dazed, she leant back against the desk again, cheeks as hot as coals, eyes screened by her lashes as she absorbed that last statement with pleasure but also because she was shockingly disconcerted by the wildness they had shared and the sheer screaming intimacy of the experience.