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This time his kiss was pure sensual enticement, the sort of kiss that seemed to draw her soul out of her body, making her head swim and her blood heat in her veins.
She melted against him, her body arcing as it pressed up against his, her breath catching in her throat as she felt the heated, swollen evidence of the reality of his desire for her. He might be able to choose his words, disguise his tone in order to be able to carry out whatever tormenting plan had been in his mind, if he had meant to tease her as he had done in the past. But this was no tease. This was hard, solid, physical reality. The uncontrollable response of a man to a woman for whom he felt a desire that he was incapable of concealing.
And the same response was flooding through her own body, melting her already vulnerable heart, twisting along her nerves. Every sense throbbed in hungry reaction, sending a stinging sensation straight to the most intimate, most feminine point between her legs. Sighing her need into his mouth, Megan moved restlessly, her hands clutching at the broad strength of his shoulders as the unwary movement brought her once more up against the heat and force of his erection.
‘I think we would be a little more comfortable if we…’
The rest of Cesare’s words were lost in another long, burning kiss, but Megan didn’t need words. Half-blind, totally absorbed, she would have followed him anywhere, and so she went with him, step by sightless step as he led her towards the big, squashy settee that stood before the huge open fireplace in the centre of the library.
‘Sit down…’ he dragged his mouth from hers long enough to say.
Obediently she sank down onto the soft cushions, her clinging hands pulling him down with her. As soon as he was beside her she moved closer, taking his mouth for herself, letting her tongue play intimately with his and slide along his lips.
‘Meggie…’
This time she found nothing to object to in his use of her childhood name. It was soft and tender, a seductive and a verbal caress in one. But what excited her most was the thread of total surrender in the sound, the wordless declaration of the way that he had abandoned himself totally to her lead.
The thought gave her a thrilling sense of power, one that had her reaching for his tie and tugging it loose at his throat. No sooner had she exposed the tanned skin, the strong, corded lines of his neck than the overwhelming need for more gripped her, driving her to impulsive action. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips against the point where his pulse raced, hard and strong, savouring the slightly salty taste of his flesh, the heated velvet against her mouth.
‘Meggie!’
It was a groan of resignation, a sound of total abandonment. In one twisting movement he came to lie on his back on the wide settee, with Megan half at his side, half lying across the supporting strength of his body.
His hands were impatient now, tugging the white T-shirt free of her jeans at her waist, pushing it upwards over her slender ribcage, his fingers caressing the exposed skin left in its path. Megan caught her breath sharply, writhing in pure delight, her breasts hardening, pouting, pushing against the confinement of her bra in a physical mirroring of the burning arousal she had seen in Cesare himself already.
‘Bellissima, magnifica, squisita…’ Cesare had lapsed into his own language, crooning the words deep in his throat, his lyrical accent growing deeper, more musical on every word. ‘Megan, you always were enchanting as a child, but as a woman…’
Words failed him as he lifted passion-glazed eyes to hers and for a moment it seemed as if time had frozen. For long, silent seconds, their gazes locked and it seemed to Megan that in that time there was some wordless question asked, and equally soundlessly answered.
She thought she could guess what was in Cesare’s mind. He still thought of her as a child, the infuriating youngster who had hung around him, dogging his every step until she must have driven him to distraction. And those thoughts must make him hesitate, wonder if she was ready to go further, if she was woman enough for him.
Surely the fearless, unwavering way she met that burning, questioning stare was enough of an answer for him? But just in case it wasn’t, she lowered her head and took his mouth again, deliberately putting every ounce of sensuality and enticement she possessed into the kiss, using it to communicate the heated need that throbbed between her legs.
‘The answer’s yes, Cesare,’ she whispered unevenly, her mouth very close to his ear. ‘If you want me then yes, yes, yes! I’m yours right here and now—anywhere and anyway you want me!’
His only answer was a thickly muttered and near-incoherent curse in raw Italian and a moment later Megan too was beyond thought as hot fingers slid underneath the elastic sides of her bra, not even pausing to unfasten the slip of lace at the back. Her involuntary cry as the hard warmth of his palms cupped and held the soft weight of her breasts was a primitive sound of ecstasy, her head going back, her eyes staring sightlessly ahead. And when his thumbs moved, softly, slowly encircling her nipples in a tormenting, tantalising dance of provocation she writhed in delight under his touch, sighing her pleasure.
‘Madre de Dios!’
Cesare muttered in Italian again, tugging off her clinging T-shirt and tossing it impatiently aside before coming back to take her breasts into his hands once more, holding them up and out so that all he had to do was lift his head ever so slightly from the worn velvet cushions and he could take one swollen tip into his mouth, suckling on it hard.
‘Megan, mia amante, you weren’t lying when you said you’d done a lot of growing up lately. When I last saw you, you were still a little girl…’
A wickedly hot tongue snaked out, slid over the sensitised nipple, making her shudder violently in uncontrolled response.
‘Here, as everywhere else. But you’ve changed, developed…become all woman.’
Changed. Developed. Become all woman. The words echoed bleakly inside Megan’s head, becoming more frighteningly ominous with every repetition. And just the sound of them was a dreadful, hateful reminder, a violent death knell to all her hopes, dousing her passion in one brutal, bitterly cold rush.
‘No!’
It was a cry of pain, of bewilderment, of confusion, sounding high and wild in the echoing room. And it froze Cesare into immediate stillness.
‘No?’
It was like being slapped hard in the face. One moment she had been wild and willing, totally uninhibited in his arms. The next…
‘You don’t—you can’t mean it!’
‘I can! I don’t want this!’
‘Little liar.’
It was softly vicious, deadly. The nagging ache of frustrated passion was doing nothing at all to help his ability to think straight or reasonably.
‘You’re just teasing, you—’
‘No! That’s not it at all!’
With unexpected strength she tore herself from his restraining arms, flinging herself halfway across the polished floor towards the marble fireplace. Wrapping her arms around herself, concealing the creamy breasts his ardent passion had newly exposed, she shook her head so violently that her russet hair flew in a wild arc around her.
‘You have to believe me! I’m not teasing—honestly I’m not! I don’t want this!’
But that was too much.
‘You “don’t want”,’ Cesare echoed with gentle menace. ‘You “don’t want”! Oh, come now, cara, stop playing games! You were up for it every bit as much as I was—and don’t try to deny it!’ he snapped, seeing that she was about to refute the accusation once again. ‘I’m not blind—or deaf! I could see the passion in your eyes—hear it in your voice. “If you want me then, yes!”’
Megan flinched as he quoted her own thoughtless words of only moments before, echoing her passionate tone with cruel accuracy.
“‘I’m yours…anywhere and anyway you want me!” That was what you said, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes…’
Megan could only whisper words into the hands that concealed her ashen face.
‘I know I said that but…’
But what? The question rang inside her head, self-reproach in every syllable.
‘But I—I wasn’t thinking straight.’
She couldn’t have been thinking at all to let herself fall into Cesare’s arms like that, to invite his kisses, caresses…more!
For a few crazy, deluded moments, she had let herself pretend that she was still the young, innocent Megan, the adolescent with the world’s biggest ever crush on Cesare Santorino. And as that Megan she had seen his sudden new interest in her as the fulfilment of her long-held dream, the reward for half a lifetime of waiting.
But she was no longer that Megan. She no longer had the freedom to indulge in such wild and wanton behaviour. She couldn’t think only of herself…as Cesare’s words had reminded her. And the thought of what might have been had brought with it such a bitter sense of loss that she felt as if someone had reached into her chest and ripped out her heart without hesitation.
‘And it doesn’t matter what I said because I can’t—I can’t…’
‘Can’t what?’
Cesare was sitting up now, dark eyes fixed on her, his breathing, and apparently his temper, at last under control. Only the way his skin was drawn tight over the forceful cheekbones betrayed the way he was feeling below the surface of apparent calm.
‘Megan,’ he began again when she could only shake her head weakly in mute despair. ‘What can’t you do?’
‘I can’t sleep with you—or anyone. I mean, I can’t have an affair with just anyone—no matter who.’
‘And why not?’
But that was too much. She couldn’t answer that question because she knew what his reaction would be. And right now she was feeling far too lost, too vulnerable to cope with the rejection that she knew he must inevitably toss in her direction when he knew the truth.
So she simply shook her head again, silent as before, fixing her unfocused eyes on the distant view from the window so as not to have to look into his dark, angry face.
‘Megan—why not?’
Cesare’s tone warned that he would not stop until he got an answer. She knew that he was totally ruthless when he was determined to get what he wanted. And he wanted to know the truth.
‘Why can’t you have an affair with me—or anyone? Why? Megan—are you going to tell me, or do I have to come over there and…’
The step he took towards her was positively the last straw.
‘All right!’
Megan cried out in despair and resignation.
‘All right! I’ll tell you! You want the truth—you can have the truth!’
‘And that is?’ Cesare persisted mercilessly when she still couldn’t make herself form the words. ‘Just what is the truth that you…’
‘That I’m pregnant!’ Megan cut in when, having drawn a deep, determined breath, she knew there was no going back. ‘That’s what’s happened. I had an affair at college—I made a mistake and—and I’m pregnant as a result,’ she finished starkly. ‘I’m having a baby in seven months’ time.’
CHAPTER THREE (#uac5b7874-7cbe-5fec-824d-307dfb8ee3ff)
‘YOU’RE what?’
If he had felt as if he had been slapped in the face earlier, then this sensation was painfully like being kicked somewhere much more delicate—and intimate. It worked like magic on the ache of his libido however, making it vanish in a trice, leaving him numbed and bewildered, his head spinning wildly.
‘What did you say?’
He didn’t need her to repeat the words; they were already disturbingly clear, etched into his thoughts in letters of fire. But he had to say something—anything at all. He had to keep talking—the most inane nonsense if necessary—just so he didn’t say the things that were buzzing in his mind.
So he didn’t say—what the hell did you go and do that for?
And he didn’t shout. Though he wanted to. Didn’t turn and kick something—anything. Though he wanted to. Didn’t demand to know why she had given herself to someone else when she was his! Didn’t she know that? Didn’t she see that she had no right to be with anyone else—let alone sleep with anyone else? But he had spent so long—a lifetime it seemed, pretending with Megan. So somehow he just slipped back into how it had been.
And most of all, worst of all, he had to make sure that he never, ever, admitted to the raging inferno of jealousy that was surging through him. To the pain that was clawing at him, the blinding, black fury at the thought that she had cared for someone else enough to go to bed with him—to make love with him—to conceive a child with him.
‘What did you say?’ he repeated when Megan didn’t speak, but simply stood, white-faced and huge-eyed, her bottom lip trembling slightly as she faced him.
‘You know what I said! You heard me! I said that I’m pregnant.’
‘And how, in the name of God, did that happen?’
Her smile, shaky though it was, was the last thing he had expected. Slightly wobbly and distinctly fraying at the edges, it was touched with a hint of wryness and just the tiniest bit of scepticism.
‘Oh, Cesare, surely you of all people don’t need to ask that! Don’t you know about the birds and bees?’
‘Yes, obviously I do,’ he growled, uncomfortably. ‘But you know what I mean. What happened?’
‘I… Do you think you could pass me my T-shirt?’ she said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘I’m—I’d prefer to cover up, if you don’t mind.’
If anything revealed the way that things had changed, the dramatic alteration in the atmosphere in the room, the way that the tension seemed to have drained away all the air so that it was impossible to breathe, then it was that simple phrase—‘I’d prefer to cover up.’ That and the way that she barely lifted a finger as she gestured in the direction of the white T-shirt still lying on the floor some feet away, where he had tossed it in the heat of passion.
There couldn’t have been a greater contrast with the uninhibited, wildly sexual siren who had delighted him on the settee just minutes before, and this uptight, heavily embarrassed woman who kept her arms firmly crossed over the lush curves of her breasts so as to keep herself hidden from him. She even managed to hook the T-shirt he tossed her on her thumb before determinedly turning her back in order to pull it on, concealing every sexy inch of herself from his watchful eyes.
But perhaps it was just as well, Cesare told himself, automatically smoothing down his ruffled hair and fastening the loosened buttons on his shirt with fingers that were not exactly steady. He needed to get himself back under control and think straight. And that was something he would never be fully capable of doing with a half-naked Megan standing in front of him.
So he waited, forcing himself to breathe slow and deep, until she was clothed again before deciding to speak once more.
‘So,’ he said when at last, dressed and apparently more composed, she slowly turned to face him. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’
It was like being summoned to the headmaster’s office to try and explain some kind of misdemeanour, Megan reflected, feeling reduced once more to the status of naughty schoolgirl, awaiting her punishment. No, it was worse than that. Cesare was counsel for the prosecution and judge and jury all rolled into one, the sombre, frowning disapproval on his face sending a sensation like the trickle of icy water running down her spine.
‘You know what happened! You don’t need me to tell you! I met this guy at a party—Gary. I—found him attractive and he made it plain he liked me. We started dating. One night our kisses led to more and more—as these things do…’
‘As they do,’ Cesare echoed in a voice that made her blood run cold. ‘And so you ended up in bed together.’
‘Do you have to make it sound so sordid!’
‘It wasn’t like that?’
The cynical lift of one jet-black brow almost destroyed her but she forced herself to ignore it and rushed on.
‘No, it wasn’t! It was nothing like that!’
‘Ah, I see…’
Pushing his hands deep into his trouser pockets, Cesare leaned back against the velvet cushions and looked up at her through narrowed eyes. His coldly assessing stare was cruel as a laser, seeming to cut right through to her soul and lay it bare.
‘You were madly in love with him?’ His scepticism scraped over her skin, stripping away one protective layer.
‘Yes! Yes I was!’
It was too vehement, too revealing. Especially to someone who knew her as well as Cesare did. Surely he would be able to guess that she was protesting too much. That she was hiding behind a smokescreen of emotion?
She had thought she was in love with Gary. For a time she had truly believed it to be the case. But then circumstances had changed, forcing her to reconsider. And if she hadn’t already been doubting her own conviction, then her reaction to Cesare just now would have rubbed her nose forcibly in the uncomfortable truth.
‘But he wasn’t in love with you?’
