The Italian's Baby Bargain: The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum / The Italian's Forced Bride / The Mancini Marriage Bargain
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Her breath coming in short, painful bursts, Sam did as he requested. ‘I…can’t…’
‘Relax…’
Relax! She was in bed with the most beautiful man she had ever seen, who happened to be half naked and about to undress her. In other circumstances she might have laughed. At that moment holding her breath seemed a more appropriate response.
Slowly, his eyes holding hers, he unslid the knot on her robe and parted the fabric. Alessandro swallowed before his eyes dropped.
A reverent cry of, ‘Dio, but you are perfect!’ was torn from his lips.
Sam sagged with relief, then tensed again as his hand closed over first one taut tender breast and then the other, stroking her skin, teasing the straining, prominent peaks to new heights of quivering pleasure with his fingers and then his lips.
She snaked her fingers into his dark hair and said his name, her voice aching with the same inarticulate longing that drenched her body. To see his dark head against her pale skin was so unbelievably erotic that Sam writhed and arched her back, pushing up against him, gasping a little as their naked bodies touched, and then a lot more when his hand slid down the length of her smooth pale thigh.
Levering himself up until his face was level with hers, he looked deep into her eyes before he kissed her, and Sam clutched at him, her fingers digging into the taut golden flesh of his back as she moaned, ‘Please…’ into his mouth.
She had no idea what she needed, but Alessandro was not similarly inhibited. He seemed to know where she wanted to be touched before she did! As his skilful mouth and hands moved over her body she gave a fractured groan and called out his name again, almost sobbing with the strength of her desire.
Sam had no idea how long he touched her any more than she had any idea of at what point she lost her inhibitions about him exploring every intimate part of her. Or being bold about doing the same to him. But when Alessandro finally pulled her beneath him and moved over her she was ready for the next step.
Actually, she was begging for his sensual invasion!
Her body tensed for a moment as he slid into her. Above her she was aware of his doing the same thing. For a moment neither of them moved.
Sam closed her eyes and heard his shocked inhalation, felt his breath warm on her cheek and neck. ‘Just go with it, cara.‘ The sensual rasp of his thickened voice was like a caress. ‘I will look after you. You don’t have to stay in control. Trust me…just let go…’ he urged, sliding his hands under her bottom.
Of all the unexpected things that had happened to her that day, this was perhaps the most unexpected. Sam found she did. She did trust him. Totally. He was the most dangerous thing that had ever happened to her, but she trusted him to keep her safe. It made no sense, but it was incredibly liberating.
As the tension slid from Sam an exultant sigh shuddered through her stretched body.
‘You feel incredible,’ she moaned, grabbing his tight buttocks because she felt as if she was falling. ‘I can feel all of…’ A fractured moan was wrenched from her throat.
‘So good at this…so beautiful…so tight…’ As he moved slowly, hot and hard inside her, sliding deeper and deeper, she was aware of him in every individual tingling nerve-ending. And as he moved he wasn’t just inside her body, he was inside her head. With each thrust and stroke he seeped into her senses.
Alessandro was part of her.
As the rhythm inside her built Sam said some wild things that she shouldn’t have—things concerning his complete and total perfection, things about wanting him to do this to her for ever and ever—but he said some pretty crazy things too.
‘Now, just let go…!’
She did.
As her heart-rate returned to something approaching normal she gave a languid sigh. Alessandro’s leg remained thrown across her, pinning her to the bed—not that she felt any urge to move from where she was. Her body was still rocked with tiny golden aftershocks.
She stroked his dark head where it lay on the pillow and smiled a sleepy, smugly contented smile. Her back arched a little as he stroked a brown finger down the valley between her pink-tipped breasts.
His dark lashes lifted from the sharp angle of his cheekbones. ‘Why didn’t you tell me…?’
Sam, who knew exactly what he was saying, closed her eyes and feigned innocence. ‘Tell you what?’
‘You have never been with a man, cara.’
‘I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.’ She opened her eyes and saw no answering smile on his face. ‘Sorry if I was totally clueless, but…’ She reached up and stroked his lean cheek, feeling the first stirrings of reawakened sexual interest as she recalled the abrasive sensation of his stubble on her burning skin as he worked his way down her body. ‘If you’re willing to bear with me, I think I could be a very fast learner.’ Then, realising that she was making a lot of assumptions she had no right to make she added quickly, ‘Always supposing we ever…you…we decide…’ Maybe he was already regretting it? Maybe he was wondering how to tell her she’d have to find someone else for lesson two?
‘Perhaps we should get out our diaries and see if we have a spare afternoon?’ he inserted, sounding unaccountably angry.
‘I don’t have a diary.’ She held her breath, thinking, That’s his cue to say, And I don’t have a spare afternoon.
He didn’t.
‘You should have told me…’
‘Are you angry?’ She looked at his face, memorising each plane and angle. ‘About the virgin stuff?’
The awkward addition made his lips quiver. ‘I’m not angry. I’m…I would have been gentler…’
‘That would have been a pity.’ She laid her head on his chest and felt the vibration of his surprised laugh.
‘Today was a first for us both.’
She lifted her head. ‘It was?’
‘I’ve never slept with a virgin before. The women I—’
‘I know,’ she said quickly. ‘They’re like you. That’s the way I want to be,’ she told him, thinking, I can do this! ‘If you want me, that is…’ She swallowed, trying and failing to read his expression.
‘If I want you…?’ he echoed, sounding really strange. He rolled onto his back. She watched as he lifted a hand and then just lay there.
Sam stared at his chest, rising and falling. His hand fell away, and as he turned his head towards her she held her breath.
‘Oh, I want you,’ he said thickly, and as he reached for her with a sigh of relief she went to him.
Much later, when the room had grown dark, Alessandro got up from the bed to throw a log on the dying embers of the fire. His tall, lean body was silhouetted against the dancing flames as he walked back to the bed.
My God, he’s so beautiful!
‘A fire in the bedroom is very…decadent,’ she murmured as she snuggled up to him.
Alessandro ran a finger down the supple curve of her spine, and in the dark she smiled.
Her smile guttered when he asked quietly, ‘Should we be worried?’
Sam knew immediately what he was talking about. The second time they had made love she had not known what he was apologising for until he had explained that the condom had broken. Still floating on a blissful cloud after their slow, sensuous, mind-blowing lovemaking, the implications of his explanation had not hit her. Now they did.
She did some speedy mental calculations and shook her head. ‘No, it’ll be fine,’ she said, with more confidence than she actually felt.
‘Well, you would tell me if…?’
Sam frowned. ‘I told you—it’ll be fine. I’m so glad I settled…’
His finger stopped stroking, but stayed where it was.
‘Settled…?’
‘Uh-huh,’ she confirmed sleepily. Passion expended an awful lot of energy. ‘My mum is always saying there’s no point waiting for Mr Perfect because he doesn’t exist…you should settle…’
‘But he does exist, doesn’t he?’
Bewildered by the edgy note that had entered his deep voice, Sam turned her head on the pillow, and in the shadows found his taut expression inexplicably hostile. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean Jonny was your Mr Perfect, and as he was unavailable you settled for me. It is not flattering for a man to realise the woman in his arms was thinking of another man while he made love to her. Madre di Dio, do you think I will tolerate being someone you settle for?’
‘Thinking about someone else…?’ she parroted, as though the words had no meaning. Which, of course, they didn’t. With her body and mind drenched down to cellular level with awareness of Alessandro, Sam was having understandable trouble getting her head around this idea.
She met his suspicious, angry eyes and experienced a blinding flash of comprehension and anger.
‘For goodness’ sake, I couldn’t even remember my own name—couldn’t figure out where you ended and I started. Think about someone else?’ she ejaculated with a bitter laugh. ‘You’re the last man in the world I’d have thought needed his ego massaging. Surely someone has mentioned before now the fact that you’re really very, very good at this?’
‘Dio!’ he breathed as, overcome by embarrassment, she buried her face in his chest. ‘I really never know what you’re going to say next.’
She slid her hands over the soft whirls of dark hair on his chest and ran a finger across his masculine nipple. ‘Neither do I.’
The husky admission drew a short laugh from Alessandro, who placed a hand underneath her bottom and scooped her towards him.
‘When my mum was saying all that stuff about Mr Perfect I was still thinking in terms of a life partner. Now I realise I’m not actually suited to marriage.’
‘You’re not…?’
She shook her head emphatically. The last thing Alessandro wanted was a clingy, needy woman. ‘No—definitely not. I’m too selfish. I like my life the way it is…’ Her eyelashes swept downwards as she added huskily, ‘With certain additions.’
He rolled over until he was looking down into her face and her body was pinioned by his long, lean length. ‘A lover being one of those certain additions…?’
Not just any lover. Her perfect lover.
She nodded. ‘Nobody needs to know—I mean, it’s not as if we would be dating, or a couple or anything. We’d just be…’ She felt the heat run up under her skin as, trying to sound nonchalant, she finished, ‘This.’
‘You want this to be a secret affair?’
He looked shocked—or was that relieved? ‘Not secret, exactly, but…’
‘You don’t want to broadcast it?’
‘It’ll be a lot simpler that way,’ she observed, saying what she thought he wanted to hear. If giving him space was the only way to keep him, she could do it, she told herself.
There was a long pause before he said, ‘I’m all for a simple life.’
‘I thought you would be.’
Chapter Ten
ALESSANDRO had been ripping off his clothes with flattering speed when she’d run, laughing, into the bathroom. She had called his name and got no response, and then waited, her heart pounding with anticipation. But when after several minutes the door to the shower cubicle remained closed Sam didn’t linger. After shampooing her hair with unnecessary vigour she stepped out.
‘Obviously I’m not as irresistible as I think,’ she told her image in the steamy mirror. ‘Oh, my, do I have a problem.’
Of course there was a problem—and it wasn’t restricted to talking to herself! Casual she could do—casual was fine—but casual wasn’t living for the brief moments they shared. It simply wasn’t healthy when for most of the time she was just going through the motions, waiting for him to call or like tonight, ring her doorbell.
The fact was she wanted more, and more was something Alessandro didn’t want to give. If he knew how she felt Sam suspected he would run a mile. There was a choice, of course. There was always a choice. She could come clean, tell him how she felt and watch him walk away. Or she could accept what she had.
What was called a lose-lose situation.
Wrapping a towel sarong-wise around her still damp body, Sam stalked back into the bedroom. The first thing she saw was Alessandro. He was actually pretty hard to miss, standing in the middle of the room doing his dark, brooding stare thing into the middle distance.
Well, at least he hasn’t fallen asleep, she thought as she walked straight past him and sat herself down at the dressing table. Maintaining a stony silence, she ostentatiously removed his jacket from the back of the chair and dropped it in an untidy heap on the floor. The provocation provoked no reaction. He just stood there, in the same state of semi-undress as he had been when she left.
But something had obviously occurred to put him in such a vile mood, since he had walked into the room looking at her as though she was water and he was a man who’d spent the last ten days walking through a desert.
She lifted a brush and then with a sigh set it down. ‘Are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to have done now…?’
In the mirror their eyes clashed, stormy green with cold, implacable brown.
‘Why do you assume you have done something?’
‘Maybe something to do with the fact you could cut the atmosphere in here with a knife, but mostly because you’ve got your judge, jury and executioner face on,’ she told him sweetly. ‘You know, this makes me really sick,’ she observed. ‘I’ve waited an entire week for you to contact me.’ Which makes me the sort of pathetic idiot I swore I’d never be. ‘And now you are here all you can do is look at me as though I’m…’
‘Dio mio, do not take that tone with me!’ His unbuttoned shirt billowed as he strode across the room, revealing the sleek, toned lines of his bronzed torso. Taking hold of the back of her swivel chair, he stood there, glaring at her in the mirror.
Sam, who didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on, glared right back.
‘If you don’t like it you know what you can do!’ The least a part-time lover could do was be civil when he did deign to put in an appearance. This no-strings, no-explanation thing sounded great in theory, and maybe it worked for some people, but Sam had come to appreciate that she wasn’t one of them.
If I had an ounce of guts I’d tell him it’s over. Only where Alessandro was concerned she had the backbone and moral fibre of an invertebrate. How many times had she seen and silently sneered at friends who were willing to make concession after concession for their boyfriends? I’d never do that, she had thought, from her position of moral superiority. And look at me now!
‘Don’t think I won’t.’
Empty threats…is this what I’ve been reduced to…?
‘Good!’ she snapped, thinking, I might be able to do better than ‘good’ if I had the faintest idea what we were fighting about.
‘I suppose you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this?’
As he bent across her the scent of his warm body caused Sam’s nostrils to flare. ‘What…?’ she said, picking up the creased piece of paper he had slammed down on the dressing table. Her eyes widened as she recognised Jonny’s cheque, which she had shoved in her bag and forgotten about.
‘What is that?’
‘A cheque.’
A harsh expletive was torn from Alessandro’s throat. ‘I know it’s a cheque,’ he growled. ‘Do not be evasive.’ His dark, angry eyes glared back at her from the mirror.
Sam, who had Jonny’s secret to guard, had every intention of being evasive for as long as she could—although the expression on Alessandro’s face suggested that wouldn’t be very long.
She shrugged. ‘If you know, why ask?’
His lean face was drawn into savage lines of anger as he spun her chair around and, curving his big body towards her, planted a hand on either arm.
Sam’s eyes lifted as his shadow fell across her.
‘A cheque for a large amount of money, made out to you, from my sister’s husband. What is Jonny doing, giving you money?’ he demanded in a low, driven voice.
‘Are you trying to intimidate me…?’ If I had any sense at all, she thought, he’d be succeeding. It was pretty obvious from the scorching anger etched into every glorious line of his incredible face that he was just about combustible!
‘I am trying to extract a straight answer from you,’ he gritted back grimly.
‘What were you doing going through my bag?’
He looked outraged at the suggestion. ‘I wasn’t. The damned thing was sitting there on the bedside table. It fell on the floor, I picked it up and…’ He stopped, the muscles of his brown throat visibly working as he recalled the moment when he had realised what he held in his hand. ‘What is Jonny doing giving you money, Samantha?’
Sam shrugged, his judgemental attitude causing her to respond with more provocation than was probably sensible. But actually she didn’t feel sensible. She felt absolutely fed up that he so obviously didn’t trust her. The injustice of it made her want to scream.
‘I don’t owe you any explanations, Alessandro.’ He had certainly never offered her any, she thought resentfully. ‘You’re my lover, not my keeper, and that,’ she warned him, ‘could change at any moment. And anyway,’ she added, ‘it wasn’t a gift, it was a loan.’
The semantics caused his lips to spasm derisively. ‘You will not take money from another man.’
‘I did n—’ She stopped, her eyes narrowing. ‘Another man? Does that mean you’re offering?’
‘Would that not smack of payment for services rendered?’
There was no pause for thought between the intention and the action. Her arm went back in a curve, released, and her hand made contact with his cheek. Alessandro, a look of stark incredulity on his face, straightened up, breathing hard.
Shaking, Sam too scrambled to her feet, pushing her chair backwards against the dressing table. ‘Look what you made me do!’ she accused, appalled by her own actions.
‘I made you?’
‘Yes, you made me!’ she yelled back. ‘You, with your nasty insinuations and always believing the worst.’
‘Are you going to tell me what that money is for?’
Sam shook her head, her expression blank. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘No problem. I will ask Jonny.’
Panic flared in Sam’s eyes. ‘You can’t do that!’ she protested.
‘You leave me no choice.’
Sam closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘My God, but I hate you!’
His lips curled into a sardonic half-smile. ‘At this moment,’ he confided, ‘I’m not particularly fond of you.’ But he still wanted to unwind that towel and throw her on the bed. He wanted it so badly he could taste it.
Slinging him a look of loathing, Sam walked across to the bed and sat down before her shaking legs gave way. ‘I haven’t cashed the cheque, and if you’d bothered to read the date you’d have noticed that’s it’s almost two months old.’
Alessandro’s dark brows drew together in a straight line. ‘So why haven’t you cashed it?’
‘I couldn’t stop him giving it to me, but I didn’t have to cash it.’
‘Do men often feel driven to give you large amounts of money?’ At that moment he felt driven—very driven. The fact that even at this moment all he could think of was burying himself deep inside her and hearing her say, Yes, Alessandro, in that breathy little voice that killed his much vaunted self-control stone-dead, was some measure of the spell she exerted over him.
Face facts, Alessandro, his inner voice goaded contemptuously. While you’re desperately trying to act as if nothing has changed, the fact is everything has changed. You’re so in control you felt it necessary to sweat for twenty-four hours just to prove that you didn’t have to get off the plane and rush to the side of a woman who hasn’t made any effort to contact you.
Sam, realising that she had no option but to tell him the truth and hope he kept it to himself, sighed and said, ‘Jonny wasn’t giving it to me. He was paying me back.’ She looked at Alessandro, who just stood there, giving the impression he wasn’t even listening. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
Alessandro released a long pent-up breath and looked at her. ‘No…yes.’ A frown formed on his lean face. ‘Paying you back…?’
‘Jonny had some cashflow problems and I lent him a little to tide him over until he sorted himself out.’
One dark brow elevated. ‘A little…?’ he said, picking up the cheque and waving it under her nose. ‘You think that is a little…?’
Sam flushed under his ironic gaze. ‘Well, it was only sitting in my account.’
‘I’m all for making your money work for you, but you didn’t choose the safest form of investment, did you? At least I know now why he hasn’t been to me…’
‘You’re the last person he’d go to.’
Alessandro’s dark lashes lifted from the high angle of his cheekbones. ‘And you are the first, it seems,’ he slotted in drily.
‘Well, at least I don’t make him feel inadequate,’ she retorted. ‘I think you enjoy intimidating people,’ she accused.
Alessandro raised an arm to drag a frustrated hand through his dark hair. The rippling this action set in motion over his lean torso caused her to lose the thread of her argument.
‘He should have gone to his wife, not to another woman,’ Alessandro condemned. ‘And the fact is lending him money is only delaying the inevitable.’
Sam, her colour heightened, wrenched her fascinated gaze from his body and said angrily, ‘I am not another woman.’
‘You are not his woman.’ You’re mine!
‘But I am his friend, and with a brother-in-law like you, boy, does he need one! For God’s sake, Alessandro, why can’t you give the man a chance? So he’s no financial genius…’ She lifted her shoulders in an expressive shrug. ‘So what? He’s doing his best. And no man could love your sister more than he does.’
Alessandro’s eyes dropped to where her heaving bosom was on the point of escaping the confines of the towel. ‘Would you defend me with so much passion?’ he wondered, lifting his gaze to her face .
‘Defend you…?’ she parroted, and laughed. ‘What do you need defending against?’ she wondered. ‘You’re so tough you’re virtually bullet-proof,’ she accused.
The streaks of colour emphasising the strong, carved contours of his cheekbones deepened as he responded in a voice that leaked derisive scorn, ‘I would certainly not beg money from a woman.’
‘He didn’t beg!’ Sam protested. ‘I found out by accident.’
‘Accident…?’
‘Yes, accident.’
‘You mean he was drunk?’
Sam read the contemptuous condemnation in the lean, starkly beautiful contours of his face and her lips tightened. ‘Small wonder Jonny didn’t want to come to you for help.’
‘I imagine he knew that I would not hand him a blank cheque and offer him tea and sympathy.’ He flashed her a cold smile. ‘Or was it hugs and kisses?’
‘He doesn’t want my hugs and kisses.’
Alessandro looked at her mouth, so soft, lush and inviting, and wondered how any man worthy of the name could not want to enjoy them. If Jonny wanted to keep his teeth intact he’d better carry on not wanting, he mused grimly. If he had suspected for one second that Jonny harboured any inappropriate feelings for Samantha he would already have taken action.
‘Presumably if he did you would not be in my bed.’
She looked at his mouth, thought about it on her skin, and thought, I would be in your bed if I had to crawl there! ‘I’m not in your bed.’
Alessandro’s eyes slid from hers as Sam followed the direction of his gaze to the tumbled quilt she had hastily pulled across the bed when she had realised who was ringing the doorbell. The colour flew to her cheeks.
His voice dropped to a sexy rasp. ‘That could easily be fixed.’ He accompanied this with the sort of raw, hungry look that stripped her nerve-endings bare and caused goosebumps to break out like a rash on her overheated skin.