Читать книгу Bound By My Scandalous Pregnancy / Redemption Of The Untamed Italian: Bound by My Scandalous Pregnancy / Redemption of the Untamed Italian - Maya Blake, Clare Connelly - Страница 12

MY BREATH BURST from between my lips, the wild, dizzying leap of my pulse a damning testament to the fact that his words had exhilarated me for one blind nanosecond before reason reasserted itself.

He can’t truly mean that. He’s just toying with you.

Even if he wasn’t, the proposal was absurd.

‘Is this a joke?’

‘Do I look amused, Sadie?’ he returned.

No, he didn’t. That raw confession in the kitchen returned, and the looming possible result of my actions—that I’d deprived not just him and his immediate family but the larger Xenakis clan of his future descendants—hit me with powerful force.

Helpless despair wove through me, and my chest tightened as I watched him, attempted to see beneath the taut mask of his face. Was this all because he truly didn’t want to be alone to confront the dire position I’d put him in?

If so, was this his answer?

I shook my head. ‘I…I’m not sure what this is all about.’

He shrugged. ‘You want me to provide spoilers for a story you seem very interested in. I invite you to peek beneath the cover. Or are you all bluster?’

‘Just so we’re clear, I’m not making any so-called reparation in the form of sex,’ I blurted. Simply because my imagination was threatening to take flight again, and the look in his eyes was sending my senses into free fall once more.

I grappled them down—hard.

One mocking eyebrow elevated. ‘You jump to conclusions with the same careless abandon that I suspect landed you in this predicament in the first place. Perhaps you should wait until you’re invited to my bed before you respond in one way or another.’

His censure smarted, regardless of the fact that I’d agreed to give him a little leeway in the perpetrator-versus-victim scenario.

‘I’m not stupid, Mr Xenakis. I can read between the lines. And whatever you think is going to happen here, it isn’t,’ I stressed, although the caution was equally for me as it was for him.

‘Has no one told you to quit while you’re ahead?’

Many times. But I never went against my instinct.

‘I believe in laying my cards on the table.’

Slowly, his relaxed stance altered. His arm dropped from the sofa, his body leaning closer as he pinned me with his gaze. With the width of the sofa between us, he wasn’t crowding me. But he didn’t need to. His presence filled every square inch of space, proclaiming his power and glory in ways that were hard to define and impossible to dismiss.

‘Do you? Well, hear this. If I wanted you in my bed you would come—and willingly. Not because of the unfortunate circumstances you find yourself in.’

‘If that’s some sort of dare, I promise I won’t be taking it,’ I stated firmly, despite that insidious temptation striking deep. Deeper. Making my every breath strain, making my nipples tingle and peak and yearn.

God, what was wrong with me?

He shrugged again. Drawing my eager attention to the firm, bronzed expanse of his throat. Striking me with a fervent need to place my hand right there…where his pulse throbbed powerfully beneath his skin.

I averted my gaze, but the lingering look he gave me said he’d caught me staring. I needed to get up. Leave. Put some distance between myself and the turbulent temptation that oozed out of him. But doing so would send another weakening message. He’d invited me here. I’d lobbed the ball into his court. So I waited for his move.

The muted sound of a door opening heralded the arrival of a butler, bearing a silver tray with more drinks on it. While I was a little startled, Neo looked unruffled, as if nothing unusual had happened to interrupt his normal after-dinner routine.

He accepted a glass of cognac, then glanced at me. ‘Nightcap?’

I shook my head, surprised at his cordial tone. Then I snapped my spine straight. I couldn’t afford to lower my guard. He still hadn’t spelled out the parameters of my reparation. Nor given me a straight answer to my question…

With a few words Neo dismissed the butler. The moment we were alone, he discarded his untouched drink and turned his piercing gaze on me.

My eyes connected with his as if pulled by invisible magnets. As much as I was reluctant to admit it, the man was a superb specimen. His impossibly broad shoulders demanded attention, and the gladiator-like synergy of sleekness and power combined with an animalistic aura impossible to dismiss.

The look in his eyes intensified, sending the distinct message that now we were getting down to the heart of whatever was on Neo Xenakis’s mind.

‘Come here, Sadie,’ he ordered, confirming my frenzied thoughts.

Get up. Walk out. He can’t stop you.

But temptation could. It wrapped its sinuous vines around me, hard and fast, left me breathless and speechless.

This was theory testing. Curiosity satisfying. Nothing else.

My life had taken a left turn this morning. Not that things had been rosy before… My mother and her gambling problem, my landlord’s growing threats, my jobless state… My life and plans were a world removed from what I’d imagined for myself back in the idyllic days when I had the illusion of a solid family. When a fulfilling career, perhaps eventually a family, wasn’t a laughable, ephemeral prospect.

The dismaying sensation in the pit of my stomach that had arrived along with my father’s callously dismissive postcard and stayed all these years later, the sensation that mocked and questioned and poisoned my dreams, claimed I was as worthless as my father had deemed me, was very much present now, questioning my audacity to remain here, reaching for this temptation.

Step back, it said. This isn’t for you.

But I wasn’t ready to step back into my life just yet. I craved more time in this peculiar bubble with Neo Xenakis. Just for a little while longer.

Before I could stop the motion, I swayed towards him.

He didn’t reach out. Simply lounged against the velvet seat, the king of his shiny castle, awaiting his due. And, like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t resist the danger, the excitement, the otherness he offered.

One taste. Then I could end this any time I wanted.

One minute, then I could get back to why I was here, perhaps armed with the confirmation that he wasn’t impaired in any obvious physical way.

The thought that I was attempting to slot this beneath the banner of research drew a hysterical chortle, quickly smothered beneath the pulses of lust swelling through my system.

Before I knew it, my body hovered next to his, almost horizontal on the sofa as I heeded his command.

‘Here I am,’ I replied in a voice that sounded nothing like mine.

Storm-tossed eyes traced every inch of my face, lingering longest and fiercest on my mouth.

‘Yes. Here you are,’ he replied.

His warm, cognac-tinged breath washed over my lips, causing them to tingle wildly.

Desperately, I slicked my tongue over them, then again when his sizzling gaze followed the wet path. His next breath emerged a touch harsher, his sculpted chest straining against his pristine shirt. The tingling flashed to my fingers, where the need to explore that mouth-watering expanse lashed harder and faster.

‘The invitation still stands, Sadie,’ he breathed.

Stay. Explore. Indulge.

I lifted my hand until it hovered mere inches from his skin. Until his heat caressed my palm, its gravitational pull tugging me with unrelenting force.

Was I really doing this? Baiting a predator to avoid my own reality?

Snatching a jagged breath, I hesitated.

Eyes even fiercer, Neo shifted. My hand met the hard wall of his chest, rested on the powerful thundering heartbeat. Lust burst through like a hot ray of sunshine through fog, melting away the last of my reservations. I slid my fingers up superbly well-defined pecs, over the tie he’d loosened during dinner, to glide around his neck.

The thought that I was headed in the wrong direction, going up when I should be heading down, evaporated as I explored him. He’d invited this. And I wanted to make sure my investigation was…thorough.

His eyes grew hooded when my fingers speared the hair at his nape. Lustrous strands slid through my fingers, and that small act fired up the tempest coursing through me. Enthralled by the sensation, I repeated the caress.

A gruff sound left his throat. His Adam’s apple moved in a strong swallow. Had he moved closer or had I? My gaze fell to his full lower lip, so temptingly close. Promising a heady reprieve from chaos, despair and uncertainty.

One tiny, tiny taste.

I strained another inch closer, watched his eyes turn darker, felt his chest expand with a heavy inhalation.

One second ticked by. Two.

Then, with a rush of breath and a growl of impatience, he breached the gap between us, fused his lips to mine in white-hot possession.

Indecent. Heavenly.

Outrageous and masculine and, oh, so powerful.

Neo took control of the kiss, brazenly swept his tongue along the ultrasensitive flesh of my bottom lip before delving in between to taste me. With a whimper of urgent need, I parted my lips wider, welcoming him with the eagerness of a starving woman granted a feast.

But even while his lips clung to mine, his hands remained where they were, maddeningly removed from my body. The challenge was too much to resist. Crawling closer, I wrapped both hands around his neck, drew him deeper into the kiss. Dared to meet his tongue with mine on the next sweep.

His body jerked and another growl left his throat as our tongues found a unique dance of decadent delight, of thrilling desire that built with each ferocious second.

Dear God, he could kiss. Even when he wasn’t putting his complete effort into it, even when he wasn’t touching me, I was nearly driven out of my mind.

In another heartbeat that was all I wanted. Neo Xenakis’s hands on me.

Then I would stop.

Because this was getting out of control.

As if he’d heard my silent plea, he finally dropped his hands from the back of the sofa. They glided over my shoulders, down my ribcage, in slow, sensuous exploration to my waist. After the merest hesitation, he wrapped his large hands around my hips and pulled me with supreme masculine ease into his lap.

No need for any southern exploration.

The unmistakable evidence of his proud manhood was imprinted, hot and thick, against my bottom.

At my muted gasp he broke the kiss and edged me back, long enough to deliver a smouldering look of arrogant confirmation.

‘Now you know,’ he breathed.

‘Y-yes…’

A look flickered through his eyes—one that seemed to ask and answer a question in the same heartbeat. Then he was tugging me back into his body, one hand spiked in my hair, the other on my hip, pinning me to his lower body. It was as if he wanted nothing but his powerful masculinity to occupy my mind now he’d provided the evidence.

As if I could think of anything else. Feel anything else.

With only one lover in my past, and a fleeting one at that, sex was still a mystery to me—a land whose borders I’d barely breached before retreating, first out of disappointment and then through the sheer strain of holding the tattered rags of my life together.

Now, presented with this tantalising feast, every past experience paled to nothing. My instinct warned that a man like Neo would have more experience in his little finger than I would in my whole body. That this brief taste was merely a drop in the ocean of what he could deliver to the right woman.

Except I wasn’t the right woman.

I was the woman he’d goaded into taking this risky, mind-altering challenge. A challenge whose fire blazed to heights I’d never encountered before.

You can stop. Now.

But his lips were intoxicating. And the way his tongue and teeth and lips commanded mine was intensifying that persistent, needy throb between my legs…

With another moan I locked my hands around his neck, strained even closer to that magnificent body. And gasped when he abruptly pulled back, his hooded eyes darting from my parted lips to clash with mine.

He let out a heavy, unsteady exhale. ‘This isn’t how I foresaw this meeting evolving,’ he rasped.

‘Me neither,’ I muttered.

He gave a short, jerky nod before his fierce gaze bored into mine. ‘Then perhaps it’s best if we draw a line under it,’ he invited.

But the slight clench of his fingers on my hip said that wasn’t what he really wanted. And when his hold loosened, when I sensed he was about to disengage, I clenched my gut against the lash of disappointment and loss.

‘Is that what you want? For me to leave?’

His jaw clenched and that hot gaze locked on my lips. ‘The more important question is, are you ready to let go, Sadie? I ask this because you’re clinging to me as if I’m the last piece of driftwood in your ocean.’

My arms unlocked from around his neck, slow with a helpless need to stay connected, moved down his chest. At his deep shudder a powerful sensation gripped me, along with a twinge of uncertainty barely born, before it was smashed beneath the colossal hunger clawing through me.

I’d never felt anything like this. And the voice inside telling me I never would again birthed a terrifying need to seize this unique experience.

Everything around me was slowly crumbling to dust. My mother’s spiralling gambling. Looming homelessness. The job I no longer had. My own shattered dreams…

A secret fear plagued me in the dead of night. One I’d never admitted to anyone. That perhaps my father was right. That unconditional love was an illusion—an obligation fulfilled only up to a point. Or worse, that I hadn’t been worthy of the effort.

The urgent need simply to forget for a little while longer hooked me with mighty talons, refusing to let go.

‘Say what’s on your mind,’ Neo insisted.

The raw demand in his voice. The turbulent look in his eyes. The edgy hunger in his face. All of them echoed the deep clamouring inside me perfectly. Like two halves of a magnificent, earth-shaking whole. And really, in the desolate landscape of my uncertain future, where and when would I get the chance to experience anything close to this?

‘Maybe I’m not…not ready to let go. Just yet.’

For the briefest moment he hesitated, as if he intended to refuse this…refuse me. More than a little panicked at the thought of being thrust back into my dreary life, I clung to his lapel.

Need smashed through his fleeting resistance.

Decadent headiness filled me, swirling in a sense of triumph I knew it was unwise to savour.

Strong fingers delved back into my hair, impatiently freeing the knot. As if he’d uncovered a wondrous sight, his breath caught as he fingered the long strands. ‘Your hair is like a living flame,’ he rasped, watching the thick tendrils glide over his skin.

The next instant he’d tugged open the button holding my jacket closed, pulled it off and had me back against the sofa, angling his powerful body over mine. I clung tighter to him, revelling in the erotic thrill of his kiss.

A moan ripped free from him as he settled his hips between mine and I felt the full power of his arousal. ‘Theos mou, you’re intoxicating.’

And he was far from lacking in the ultimate manhood stakes.

I wanted to return the compliment, but words failed to form beneath the assault of his touch. His tongue boldly stroked mine, coaxed it into a thrilling dance, and all coherent thought evaporated.

We kissed until we grew breathless, only the need for oxygen driving us apart.

Frenzied seconds ticked away as Neo stared down at me. From unkempt hair to parted lips to strained nipples. There was nowhere to hide my attraction to this man—the last man I should’ve been doing this with.

Whether he felt the same or not became a non-issue as he resolutely levered himself away from me to shrug off his jacket. His tie followed, both tossed away with complete disregard for expense or care.

Hot hands slid around my hips once more, moulded them for an exploratory second before gliding downward, past my thighs and calves to my feet.

He removed and tossed away my shoes. Eyes locked on mine, he conducted the most maddening caress of one foot before digging an expert thumb into the arch.

A melting sensation pooled into my belly, a lusty moan leaving my lips.

For one fleeting moment, his lips twitched, as if he’d gleaned something about me that pleased him.

By the time he was done with paying the same attention to the other foot, my back was arching off the sofa, my whole body caught in waves of pleasure so unique I couldn’t catch my breath.

He caught me in his arms, and sensation, earnest and powerful, overwhelmed me. Neo too, if his almost frenzied need to divest me of my clothing, filling the room with decadent sounds that escalated the passion-infused air, was any indication.

In minutes he’d reduced me to my panties and bra, and his hand was exploring every exposed dip and curve.

He lowered his head. At the thought that he was about to put his lips on my skin for the first time, I blindly reached for him, eager to undress him before I lost the ability to perform the function.

The first few buttons of his shirt came undone, giving me a tantalising glimpse of what lay beneath. But when I reached for the next one, Neo tensed, one hand staying mine.

‘No,’ he rasped, his voice tight.

Before I could question his response, he dropped his head and laid an open-mouthed kiss on the pulse racing at my throat, then counterpunched by grazing his teeth over the sensitive flesh.

‘Oh!’

‘You like that?’

‘Yes!’

His satisfied growl set off cascades of shivers, rendering my nerve endings even more sensitive as he intensified his caress. One hand slid behind my knee, parting my legs so he could mould his lower body to mine, accentuating his lean hips and the powerful outline of his erection. I swallowed, momentarily apprehensive of his overwhelming maleness.

Pausing, his gaze bored into mine. ‘Sadie, do you want this?’

The question was grave, and it also held a warning. He was reaching the end of his tether and he wanted to grant me the opportunity of ending this before insanity spun us completely out of control.

I didn’t want it to end. I was on that same edge.

I boldly cupped his bristled jaw. He exhaled harshly, his sensual lips planting a hard kiss in my palm even while his eyes demanded an answer.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

Whatever regrets came later—and I suspected there would be many—I was too far gone, had given too many pieces of myself to heartache, from my father, worry over my mother, despair over life itself, to deny this unexpected slice of heaven. Even if it came in the form of an intense, larger-than-life man who was losing himself in me because of the colossal wrong I’d done him.

‘I want this,’ I confirmed, glad my voice held firm.

The words were barely out of my mouth when, with a deft flick, he released my bra. Eyes locked on mine, he dragged the straps down my arms. For a taut second after he flung it away, his eyes remained on mine. Then his gaze dropped to what he’d uncovered. A breath shuddered out of him.

‘You’re exquisite,’ he breathed.

Pleasure arched my back, the act snatching his next breath. His head dropped, sensual lips wrapping around one peak to pull the tight bud into his mouth. I cried out as pleasure ripped through me, my senses scrambling further when his tongue swirled in erotic caresses. More decadent sounds fell from my lips. My fingers slid beneath the collar of his shirt to track urgently over his shoulders, to grip his back, eager to hold him to his task.

Neo’s caresses grew bolder as he switched his attention to the twin peak. Arrows of need shot between my thighs, dampening and readying me for the ultimate possession. Possession he seemed determined to tease out as he feasted on my breasts for an age, returning over and over to my mouth to demand torrid kisses.

Just when I thought he’d drag the moment out for an eternity he drew down my panties, flinging them away with the same sexy carelessness he’d given my bra.

‘I have to taste you,’ he said, in that deep, raw voice, gripping my thigh to part me to his avid gaze.

His stare was so potent, so ravenous, I lost what little breath I had left in my lungs. ‘Neo…’

‘Shh, no talking, glikia mou. Quite enough words have passed between us.’

Denied that outlet, I grasped another. I touched, I explored, I kissed every covered muscle within reach, delighting in the slivers of heated olive skin he allowed me.

Right until his bold lips delivered the ultimate kiss between my thighs.

I fell back, boneless, onto the sofa, and another cry was wrenched from my throat as he wreaked wicked havoc between my thighs. All the while delivering rough praise in English and Greek.

How had I even contemplated denying myself this soul-stirring experience? Even at this stage, I knew it paled in comparison with my brief sexual foray back at uni.

Neo tongued my nerve-filled bud and I screamed, the shameless keening urging him into deeper caresses until it all grew too much. Until I had no choice but to surrender to the blistering release that gripped me tight for several electrifying seconds before tossing me into utter bliss.

For endless minutes I drifted, a raw mass of sensation. But in excruciating increments I became aware of my surroundings, of my fingers clenched in his hair. Of the wide, plush sofa beneath me and the hot body slowly prowling up mine. Of the foil caught between his fingers as he eased back, unzipped his trousers and pulled them and his boxers down.

His shirt remained on, the tails covering the tops of his thighs. Eyes pinned to mine, he glided the condom on with that mask of hunger stamped on his face.

Unable to help myself, I dropped my gaze to his shaft. And again I experienced momentary panic at his sizeable thickness. But, as if he’d willed it away with the sheer force of his attraction, the worry receded as he reclaimed his place between my legs.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t suppress my whimper at the first breach.

He froze, teeth gritted, as his turbulent gaze searched mine. ‘Sadie…?’

Fear that he would stop, that this insulating little bubble would burst and I would be flung back into dreary reality, pushed me to blurt out, ‘Don’t stop. Please.’

For heart-stopping seconds he didn’t move. Just stared at me with a mixture of edgy intensity and banked lust. Then, as if he didn’t want to leave this bubble either, he thrust deep.

Pleasure rolled over me, dissipating the initial sting of his fullness. ‘Yes…’

Relief washed over his face, immediately chased away by wickedly ferocious determination. Another thrust. His groan melded with my moan as he slid to the hilt.

‘You shouldn’t feel this incredible,’ he grunted. ‘But, thee mou, you do.’

His words triggered a weird kind of triumph—a fleeting but overwhelming pride that I was good enough for something, worth this moment of nirvana. I sank deeper into sensation, shuddering at the powerful emotions moving in my chest. Then in pure carnal bliss Neo rolled his hips, driving me further out of my mind.

‘More. Please.’

A wicked pause, then he seized my arms, dragged them above my head. The movement drew my body taut, enlivening every inch of me with intense awareness as he splayed his fingers between mine and proceeded to give me far more than I’d ever imagined possible.

With every thrust, every glide of his lips over my skin, I was hurled closer to that intense spark I knew would ignite the most sacred bliss I’d ever known.

I wanted to rush it and slow it down at the same time.

I wanted to hold it in my palm and savour it even while I strained for complete annihilation with every cell in my body.

‘Please…’ I panted, unsure which path I yearned for more.

With a series of piston-fast, mind-melting strokes, the moment arrived. White-hot, searing, intense. I was catapulted into unadulterated bliss, eagerly surrendering to the power and might of it.

His head buried in my neck, Neo gave a muted shout, his body shuddering for endless moments in the throes of his own release.

After the frenzied pace of his possession time slowed to a crawl, as if the power of our jagged coming together, the intensity of the moment, needed reverse momentum to slow and steady it.

Heartbeats slowed. Pulses quieted. Like a powerful drug taking me under, lethargy stole over me. I closed my eyes and drifted, cloaked in a moment’s peace before I had to face what had happened.

The moment arrived all too soon.

First came the loss of the searing palm-to-palm contact that had somehow heightened this experience from base act to something…more, followed by the complete withdrawal of body heat when Neo rose lithely from the sofa, triggering an acute self-consciousness of my naked state in contrast to his almost completely clothed form.

Then, with his thick curse uttered in Greek, but nevertheless unmistakable, I was wrenched from my insulated bubble.

The living room lights, which had provided seductive ambience during our furious coupling, suddenly blazed too bright, exposed too much, making me blink a few times before I focused on the man frozen in a half turn from me, a look of stark disbelief and something else that looked like furious self-loathing etched into his face.

‘I… Is something wrong?’ I cringed at my husky sex-hoarse tone.

Neo ploughed his fingers through his hair, turned and stalked down the hallway. Dread dripped torturous ice water down my spine. The frantic darting of my mind was locked in place for several long seconds before I jackknifed upward, my feet landing on the plush carpet as I tried to marshal my thoughts.

It took far too long to find and wrestle my tangled panties on. I was cursing my shaking hands and their inability to straighten my bra straps when brisk strides signalled Neo’s return.

My disquiet intensifying, I glanced his way. He ignored me. I told myself to be glad, but my stomach churned harder, the regret I’d anticipated and almost accepted would arrive suspiciously light in place of the hurt and confusion swamping me.

His movements jerky, unlike the smooth, animalistic grace he’d exhibited earlier, he headed for the drinks cabinet, but at the last moment veered away and stopped before the glass wall.

Silence pulsed as he stared out, ferocious tension riding his shoulders.

I dragged my fingers through my hair, shoving it out of the way in order to secure my bra, and hurriedly punched my fingers through the sleeves of my blouse. I was tugging the sides together when he turned.

If his eyes had been turbulent pools before, they were positively volcanic now. But that fury was aimed more at himself than at me. There seemed to be bewilderment, as if I was a puzzle he’d tried and failed to put together and now loathed himself for attempting.

He stared at me for another unsettling minute, his lips parted, his chest rising and falling as if he detested the very words he was about to utter.

‘We have a problem,’ he grated.

I was surprised he could speak at all, with his jaw locked so tight and the tendons in his neck standing out.

The feeling of unworthiness returned—harder, harsher. Not good enough, the insidious voice whispered. Never good enough.

I pushed it and my roiling emotions away for examination later. Much, much later.

‘I can tell. Although I’m at a loss as to what it is.’

But even as the firm words tumbled from my lips, the cascade and echo of old hurts was deepening, intensifying.

‘If you’re about to tell me you regret what happened, please save your breath. We don’t need to dissect it now or ever. I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes. You need never set eyes on me again if that’s what you—’

‘The condom broke.’

The words were delivered like a chilling death knell. I was glad I hadn’t attempted to stand, because my legs would have failed me. I was aware that my jaw had sagged, that I probably made an unattractive sight, sitting there half-dressed, with my skirt askew and unzipped and my blouse wrinkled.

He confirmed it with a quick rake of his gaze and a harder clenching of his teeth. ‘Get dressed, Sadie.’

I ignored the command for the simple reason that I couldn’t move, couldn’t force my brain to stop repeating those three damning words on a loop.

‘I… What?’ I finally managed.

‘Cover yourself,’ he repeated tersely.

‘Why? My nakedness didn’t cause the condom to fail,’ I flung back, and then compounded my words with a furious blush as his eyebrows hiked upward in flaying mockery.

I turned my back on him, a much more earth-shaking tremble seizing me as the ramifications landed home. While he’d listed everything I may have deprived him of, Neo hadn’t definitely confirmed his inability to father children. So did I face a possible pregnancy on top of everything else?

Dear God…

Motherhood? When my own blueprint of childhood was so flawed?

Somehow, through sheer will to fight this battle on somewhere-near-equal footing, I straightened my clothes, slid my feet into my shoes.

There was nothing I could do about my hair, what with the cheap band I’d used nowhere in sight and my refusal to dig around for it under Neo’s heavy, brooding stare. So I took a deep breath, and turned around to face the consequences of yet another wrong turn.