Virgin Mistress, Scandalous Love-Child

He stroked between her legs with deliberate, agonizing slowness.

“Please,” she whimpered, twisting her head from side to side against the glass. “Please!”

“Please what?” he said softly. He lowered to kiss her, biting her neck.

She could feel him leave a mark on her skin. As he'd long ago left a mark on her soul. He'd already marked her in the deepest way possible: he'd filled her with his child.

“Tell me what you want, Ellie,” he murmured against her skin. “I want to hear you say it.”

What did she want?

A cry rose up from her heart. A man she could love. A man she could trust with both her child and her heart.

She wanted the impossible.

Tears rushed into her eyes.

“Isn't it bad enough that my baby will be born without a name?” she whispered. “Bad enough that I'm an unwed mother—bad enough that everyone thinks I'm your whore? Are you so selfish that you want to make it true? To take the last bit of pride I've got left?”

He froze. Looking down at her in the shower, his expression was half-shadowed in the light of the translucent bathroom windows.

She had the vision of his muscular body in the sunlight flickering through the hot steam, standing proud and fierce like an ancient god of fire. An all-powerful heartless Greek god who seduced mortal maidens at will and left them cold and starving for his fire until the day they died.

He looked away.

“I never wanted to hurt you, Ellie,” he said in a low voice. “Never.”

Abruptly, he turned off the hot water.

Without another word, he pulled her from the shower. He dried her off with a thick cotton towel, then did the same to his own muscular body.

And even as she trembled beneath his touch, she still couldn't look away from his perfect masculine form, the dark hair on his chest and belly forming a perfect arrow down to his…

She squeezed her eyes shut.

She told herself she didn't want him. And even if she did, she couldn't have him. The pleasure he offered was like a drug. One more taste, she would never escape the addiction.

Diogo was a selfish womanizer. He took what he desired. He grabbed a woman and didn't let go until he'd had his fill; then he tossed her aside for the next one. He cared only for his own pleasure.

She heard him leave the room and waited to hear the front door slam. Now that she'd denied him his instant gratification, he would move on to some other, more compliant woman.

She closed her eyes. He would easily find another woman to satiate his desires. A woman a thousand times prettier and smarter than Ellie would ever be.

“Ellie,” he said.

Shocked he'd returned, she opened her eyes. He was dressed in a black shirt and dark jeans. He held out something for her.

Taking the pile of clothes in her arms, she saw a lovely dress, panties, a bra in her size—all stretchy enough for her expanding shape, but soft and very, very pretty. The kind of maternity clothes that cost a small fortune.

“Where—how did you—”

“I had my staff arrange a wardrobe for your stay.”

“My—stay?”

He gave her a slow-rising smile that she felt down to her toes. “Come with me.”

CHAPTER SIX

ALL THROUGH BREAKFAST, Ellie couldn't stop giving Diogo little furtive glances over the table.

Sitting on the sunny warmth of the penthouse balcony, with a wide vista of the Atlantic Ocean and the sharp, cragged peak of Sugar Loaf Mountain rising to the east, she watched Diogo drink black coffee. Watched him smile and chat easily in Portuguese with the housekeeper. Watched him eat his buttery croissant slathered in jam with obvious pleasure.

So different from Timothy, who ate his meals with surgical disinterest. Diogo enjoyed his life. Even the little moments.

Sitting with him in the Brazilian sunshine, breathing sea air that was fresh from last night's rain, Ellie realized that she was enjoying herself, as well. She wiggled her toes in her comfortable new sandals, then sat forward in her chair and accepted the housekeeper's offer of a second ham-and-cheese omelet.

For some reason, for the first time in forever, Ellie felt…hungry.

Happy.

She sipped sparkling water from a crystal stem. Finishing her ham-and-cheese omelet, she gobbled down two chocolate croissants, all the while gulping down papaya, mangoes and açai berries, washing it down with sweet-tart pitanga juice. Every bite was ecstasy. Every taste better than the last. She felt good down to her bones.

And every time she looked up from her plate…

She saw him.

Their eyes met, and a shiver went through her. He hadn't left her when she refused to make love to him. He hadn't run out to look for some other woman. He hadn't even been angry. He'd just brought her outside to share a meal with him in the sunshine.