A Sudden Engagement & the Sicilian's Surprise Wife Read online

  He was mad! Kirsty thought, searching desperately for some means of escaping the suite that didn’t necessitate getting any closer than she already was to that lean, coiled, masculine body, taut with a suppressed violence she was only now beginning to become aware of, so easily had he masked it with his laconic stance and coolly controlled face.

  ‘You can’t mean that!’ she protested piteously, knowing even as she spoke that it was useless. He had meant it. The sharp flintiness of his glance told her that, the hard implacability of his mouth, and the way it lifted mockingly as he stared down into her flushed and frightened features.

  ‘Amazing!’ he taunted at last. ‘What a pity I’m your sole audience. That was almost worthy of an Oscar; pity there aren’t any parts for distracted innocents any more, you’d fill the bill to a T.’

  ‘Please…’ Kirsty had gone beyond reasoning, the dark urgency in her eyes unknowingly piteous as she stared up at him.

  ‘Please what?’ Drew mocked. ‘Throw a crust to the starving orphan? No way,’ he added in a much harder voice. ‘No one asked you to force your way in here, or act that cute little number you just played. How old are you?’ he demanded curtly. ‘Eighteen—nineteen? As spoiled as they come; used to widening those big brown eyes and having men drown in them, I don’t doubt. Well, it takes more than limpid eyes and a few tears to fool me! If you learn nothing else from this episode, at least you’ll learn not to start what you can’t finish.’

  ‘You can’t mean this!’ Kirsty protested, her throat closing in horrified realisation that he did, and that all the pleas in the world weren’t going to move him. He was made of solid granite, completely unfeeling, as cold as Arctic ice, impregnable. He must be to even contemplate taking her in place of Beverley Travers. She shuddered, shock taking the last remnants of colour from her face, her mouth drooping, as she sought desperately for some way of convincing him to change his mind. ‘You don’t even know me.…’ she managed at last, hating herself for the childish protest, when he laughed—an unexpectedly warm sound, his mouth curling upwards, tiny creases fanning out from his eyes.

  ‘Since when has that been a bar to physical satisfaction?’ he asked her coolly. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of instant attraction—love at first sight?’

  He was taunting her now, and she hated him for it, her hands curling impotently into her palms as she searched for some stinging retort, something cutting enough to get him away from that door long enough for her to get through it. Too late now to regret her impulsive action, and wish she had never set eyes on him. Too late by far, she acknowledged as the look in his eyes told her he had read her mind and had no intention of letting her get within a yard of the suite door.

  ‘You can’t want me,’ she burst out childishly at last. ‘You love Beverley Travers!’

  ‘But because of you she walked out of here,’ he reminded her cruelly, ‘and as for not wanting you.…’

  Kirsty’s skin burned as his glance slid slowly over her body, narrowing with devastating explicitness on the softly rounded swell of her breasts, before pinning her to the spot where she stood. ‘I’m a man,’ he told her softly, ‘and you’ve got an extremely sexy body. Just thank your lucky stars that I don’t go in for physical violence—because after what you’ve done tonight, there isn’t a court in the land that wouldn’t acquit me of whatever charge you choose to bring against me.’ His eyes rested contemptuously on the tangled silky curls she had so deliberately disordered. His mute assessment disturbed her.

  ‘Very effective,’ he drawled at last, ‘but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen you after I’ve made love to you.’

  ‘Made love!’ Kirsty injected as much scorn as she could into the two words. ‘Don’t you mean raped me, because I certainly won’t.…’

  ‘Won’t what?’ Drew Chalmers asked silkily, levering himself off the door, and walking towards her with a steely determination mat made her turn and flee blindly in the opposite direction, not caring that it led only to the bedroom of the suite. ‘Respond to me?’

  His long legs outpaced her easily, and the breath left her body on a pained gasp as he reached for her, lifting her off her feet, the impotent thud of her small fists against the powerful muscles of his chest hurting her more than it did him.

  He carried her as though she weighed no more than a small child, kicking the bedroom door closed behind him, the expression in his eyes as he surveyed the rumpled disorder of his bed making her blood run cold.

  ‘I think,’ he told her with icy cold clarity, ‘that on this occasion we’ll dispense with the champagne and get on with the matter in hand, don’t you?’

  It came to Kirsty then that behind the cool façade, molten anger boiled and that he meant to degrade and punish her, and that what was going to happen to her had nothing to do with a man satisfying his physical desire for another woman and everything to do with a particularly cruel and degrading form of revenge, and all the fighting spirit drained out of her, a suffocating sense of helpless inevitability overwhelming her.

  She was dimly aware of Drew Chalmers dropping her ungently on the bed, and then locking the door, before he came towards her.

  ‘How did you know I would be here tonight?’ he asked casually, as the bed depressed under his lean length, the fine fabric of his pants brushing against the silky slenderness of her legs.

  ‘I didn’t.’ Kirsty recoiled instinctively from the intimate contact with his body, tensing as his gaze narrowed on the pale triangle of her face.

  ‘You’re overdoing things,’ he warned her softly. ‘And it won’t work. That frightened virgin act went out years ago—if it was ever in,’ he added cynically. ‘You’re a fraud and a cheat,’ he added softly. ‘You made damned sure you could use circumstances to suit your own ends and did so without a qualm, but when the tables are turned you don’t want to take the nasty medicine, do you? Well, little girl, it’s high time someone showed you that sometimes you have to be forced to take it for your own good!’

  It was useless trying to tell him that she had had second thoughts the moment she entered the bedroom of his suite, or that she had, in Shakespearean terms, decided upon her plan of action in a mood best described as ‘pot-valiant’. Now, when the effects of the wine and cocktail had completely worn off she lay rigid with terror on the bed, unable to decide what was worse—her present situation or the humiliation of the one she would find herself in when Drew Chalmers inevitably discovered the truth.

  What would he say if she told him that she was a virgin? Call her a liar, she decided bitterly, willing the weak tears she could feel blocking her throat not to fall, but once again the hatefully drawling mockery of his voice told her that he had guessed when she turned her head slightly and it was ruthlessly turned back with fingers that gripped her chin unkindly and held it while the moon silvered her face, revealing her expression to him while his was concealed from her.

  ‘Crying? Crocodile tears and very pretty, but alas, completely unconvincing. Do you know what the young innocent you’re trying to portray would actually do in your circumstances? Well, she certainly wouldn’t simply lie here, all passive resistance and melting tears,’ he told her brutally, ‘she’d be terrified.’

  His brutality broke through the strange calm that had descended on her and she struggled to evade the crushing grip of his fingers on her chin, her eyes darting defiance at him as she stormed bitterly, ‘How do you know? Do you make a practice out of brutalising inexperienced virgins? Is that how you get your kicks? Is that.…’

  Her breath was cut off by the sudden fierce pressure of his mouth, as it moved impatiently over hers, stifling her ability to think, swamping her with a terrifying sensation of panic, of swirling blackness and a bottomless pit into which she was being relentlessly drawn.

  The tension held her body stiff with rejection; she gulped in air as his head lifted, arms braced against his chest to push him off.

  He was breathing heavily, a dark glitter in his eyes, as he sai
d unevenly, ‘The way I get my kicks is by having a warm, responsive woman in my arms, and by God, that’s what you’re going to be, if I have to spend all night making you respond to me!’

  He wanted her to respond to him. Kirsty couldn’t understand it, unless it was part of his plan to humiliate her by first arousing her and then rejecting her. She had read about such things, and wondered at them, because so far none of her boy-friends had aroused any feelings in her even approaching such an intensity of feeling, and she was beginning to wonder if they existed only in works of fiction.

  ‘I never will,’ she told him stubbornly. ‘I hate you!’

  ‘Hatred is akin to love, or had you forgotten?’ he mocked her, turning her on to her side, one arm curved round her so that her breasts were pressed against the fine silk of his shirt, the hard contact oddly disturbing.

  Suddenly it became difficult to breathe normally. Strange sensations vibrated through her, her senses relaying to her an awareness of him that frightened and alarmed her. She could smell the warm maleness of his skin; feel the hardness of sinew and bone beneath the palms she had pressed against his shoulders to fend him off.

  ‘Why don’t you simply relax and enjoy yourself?’ The self-assured drawl sent shivers of reaction across skin already far too sensitised to his proximity. The arm constraining her moved, and Kirsty breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly suspended as she felt his fingers tugging at her nightdress.

  Her instinctive protest froze on her lips as the dark head bent towards her, cool male lips teasing the soft tendrils of hair curling round her forehead, brushing lightly against her skin and evoking a reaction that made her quiver softly. By the time she realised that Drew had eased her nightdress from her shoulders and it was too late for her to do a thing to prevent him, because whichever way she moved, trying to stop him, he outmanoeuvred her, his sudden harsh, ‘Look, if you want me to rip the damn thing off you, just say so,’ freezing her into a tense stillness, her protests dying in her throat as the nightdress was tugged downwards over her hips and discarded to lie in a pool of silk on the floor.

  No man had ever seen her in only her underwear before, and she was all too conscious of the rounded smoothness of her breasts against the sculptured lace of her satin bra and matching cami-knickers suddenly glaringly provocative, and colour swept her body as she saw that Drew was looking at her, studying the slender lines of her body with an expression in his eyes that made her heart stand still before racing erratically, its jerky, uneven pace catching at her breath.

  ‘Beautiful!’ The husky timbre of his voice shivered across her nerve endings, the smoky sensuality darkening his eyes from grey almost to black and making her tremble beneath the explicit appraisal of his glance.

  When he bent his head, sweeping aside her hair to touch his lips to her throat, exploring the delicate shape of her ear, Kirsty experienced a small explosion of panic, followed by the undeniable knowledge of her body’s physical response to a touch so sure and knowing that she marvelled that she could ever have imagined she could withstand it. The touch of his hands on her bare arms and midriff triggered off tiny pinpricks of pleasure, each one shivering through her, shocking her afresh. He seemed to know exactly where to kiss and touch. Violence she could have withstood, but not this subtle, sensual attack on her senses, this slowly seductive destruction of all her barriers until her breasts ached to know the possession of those skilled male hands, her lips parting involuntarily, as his tongue teased their trembling shape, the skilled stroking of his hands along her body, making her forget what had originally brought her to his suite, her body in the grip of a feverishly mounting desire that both shocked and fascinated the tiny corner of her

  mind which had managed to stand aloof from his expert assault on her senses.

  ‘That’s better,’ she heard him mutter approvingly, raw sexuality underlining the words as he deftly unfastened her bra, and added throatily, ‘much, much better,’ his eyes feasting on the swelling curves he had just exposed.

  She should feel shame, but she didn’t, Kirsty marvelled. Some wild, wanton part of her she had never dreamed existed positively revelled in the hungry intensity of his gaze, but even so, she wasn’t prepared for his husky groan or the sight of the dark head buried against her breasts, his breath ragged and warm against the tender flesh as lean fingers cupped her rounded softness.

  ‘God, but you’re beautiful! But you already know that, don’t you?’

  Kirsty trembled as the coaxing fingers stroked tormentingly over the hard arousal of her nipple, her breathing ragged and shallow at the sensation the sensual caress aroused. Deep down inside her something seemed to be flowering into life, a weak, yielding sensation, curling through her stomach, the hands she had lifted to push Drew away in protest, hesitating until the rough texture of his skin against the acutely sensitised tip of her breast made her fingers curl in mute protest into the softness of his hair, a small cry smothered deep in her throat.

  ‘God, I want you! Want you, Kirsty Stannard,’ Drew muttered hoarsely as his tongue touched the flesh his thumb had so recently been tormenting. Kirsty’s eyes widened in shock at the exquisite flowering of pleasure his touch evoked, and as though he sensed her feelings, Drew muttered something under his breath, his hand cupping the swollen softness of her before his lips closed gently over the throbbing nipple.

  Kirsty closed her eyes, shuddering with the waves of pleasure sweeping her, her whole being given up to concentration on the fierce tide of feeling enveloping her. Small moans of delight trembled past her lips, her whole body shaken with the torrent of sensation. Above her she heard Drew groan savagely, ‘Kirsty—my God, what are you trying to do to me? Touch me, for God’s sake, and stop driving me mad! Can’t you tell how much I want to feel all of you against me?’

  Kirsty was beyond thought, beyond reason, swept along on a tide of sensual pleasure; a voyage of discovery which was taking her to a world she had never dreamed existed.

  Drew’s lips left her breasts to trail burning kisses over her collarbone and against her throat. He had pulled of his shirt and the rough tangle of body hair on his chest scraped arousingly against the tenderness of her skin. In a daze Kirsty was aware of his removing his pants; of the powerful masculinity of his thighs, the taut muscles, beneath skin darkened with the same crisp hairs that covered his chest. She made no demur when he removed the last of her own clothes, trembling slightly beneath the burning intensity of his gaze, experiencing for the first time the piercing tension of desire.

  ‘You’re a witch, do you know that?’ she heard Drew demand thickly as his hand rested possessively on the narrow bones of her hips. ‘A witch, and God help me, I want you!’

  Kirsty had forgotten that he had promised to make her want him; that the only reason she was here was punishment, and instead, her body gloried in the heady knowledge that she had aroused him; that he wanted her. Innocent though she was, she knew that much; felt it in the taut control of his muscles, saw it in the dark intensity of his eyes as they studied the pale curves of her body; heard it in the husky imprecations he was muttering under his breath, as his hands swept up and moulded her to him, his mouth buried hotly in hers as her arms tightened instinctively around him, her body on fire with a need to melt against him.

  When he lifted his mouth it was merely to mutter hoarsely, ‘Kirsty, don’t make me wait any longer—I can’t, God help me. I don’t know what it is about you,’ he added ruefully, ‘but you seem to have turned me into a raw, uncontrolled boy again.’ His hands cupped her face as he turned it up to her own. ‘Forget what I said earlier,’ he told her roughly ‘This isn’t for revenge, or punishment, or anything else. It’s for me,’ he added huskily, ‘for the sheer pleasure of feeling you melt against me, for knowing the delight of your body. Love me, Kirsty,’ he begged throatily, parting her thighs urgently to slide between them, the heated pressure of his mouth silencing every emotion but the need to respond to the demands of his body.

  And yet.… The ta
ut masculinity of him was faintly alarming. Her muscles tensed automatically, and Kirsty was aware of him hesitating, checking suddenly, a frown touching his eyes.

  He moved against her, almost experimentally, Kirsty thought on a sudden burning wave of embarrassment, and yet it was impossible for her to unlock her inexperienced muscles. Half of her still cried out for fulfilment, but the other half protested that things were moving too far too fast. She felt Drew move away from her, and turned her head, unable to meet his eyes.

  ‘Well now.’ She was amazed at how calm and controlled he sounded. ‘There are only two reasons for a reaction like that. Either you’re frigid—which we both know isn’t so—or you’re still a virgin. Are you, Kirsty?’ he demanded, suddenly grasping her shoulders and turning her round to face him. ‘And don’t lie to me. Are you?’

  ‘Does it make any difference?’ Instead of sounding defiant she sounded merely pathetic. Drew swore and she felt tears sting her eyes. An hour ago she would have welcomed this confrontation, welcomed the opportunity to throw her innocence down between them like a gauntlet, but now she felt curiously bereft of the warmth of his body, there was an ache in the pit of her stomach that left her restless and unappeased, and humiliation lay across her mind like a brand because she had betrayed her inexperience so easily, after succumbing so completely to his touch.

  ‘I suppose I should have known,’ he continued in evident disgust. ‘Only a fool or a complete innocent would have pulled a stunt like that in the first place.’ He pushed impatient fingers through his hair and reached for her clothes.

  ‘Here, put these on,’ he commanded curtly, cursing softly when her fingers trembled over the slips of silk, turning her round while he fastened the clip of her bra, dressing her with the ruthless efficiency he might have applied to a child, his mouth a thin line as he demanded,

  ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you what might happen? No, don’t bother answering that,’ he continued in a harsh voice. ‘It’s plain your experience of frustrated males is nil.’