Читать книгу Modern Romance September Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Julia James - Страница 15

BUT IT WAS much more complicated than that, Belle thought helplessly as she watched Dante tugging loose his tie, shrugging free of his jacket. Where did they go from here? Was this a one-night stand, as it was called? Would they move on and act as if it had never happened for the duration of their time together? Would one act of sex kill the attraction between them? How was she supposed to know?

She was lying in a damp towel on a bed and common sense was telling her to throw it off, but she didn’t feel brave enough for that. Although she had been half-naked in his arms the night before, that had been different, and her lack of self-consciousness had been entirely due to the heat of the moment when no thought had been required from her and no single sensible thought had occurred to her. No, Belle was very much aware that such thoughts came afterwards, and nervous tension held her fast with Dante providing a very welcome distraction as he stripped.

He was very fit, she conceded numbly, sentenced to silence by awe and shyness as rippling bands of muscle sheathed in bronzed skin began to appear. He shed his shirt, toed off his shoes, peeled off socks, his sleek muscular development on continual display as he flexed and turned and straightened, his trousers hanging low on his lean hips, an intriguing ribbon of dark hair snaking down his flat stomach and disappearing beneath the waistband. He was beautiful, like some flawless fantasy brought to life in the flesh, she reflected, shutting her eyes circumspectly as the trousers slid down. She had felt his arousal, noticed, but she wasn’t going to stare while he was watching her like a hawk. Those clever dark golden eyes didn’t miss a trick and she didn’t want to embarrass herself and be guilty of doing that blushing-virgin thing that he had already mocked.

* * *

‘You’re as quiet as a mouse,’ Dante whispered, tugging gently at the edge of the towel as she held on to it. He was as aroused as hell and fighting to stay in control.

‘There’s too many lights on in here,’ she told him, violet eyes flying wide.

Without a word, Dante reached up and dimmed the lights to a more acceptable level. ‘Better?’

Belle nodded jerkily. Now that he was actually on the bed, naked and ready to proceed, nerves were swallowing her alive.

‘I want you to be sure about this,’ Dante breathed abruptly. ‘I don’t want you sharing this bed with me if you’re going to regret it. I don’t want to take advantage of you.’

‘I know you don’t...’ Involuntarily, Belle lifted her hand to his lean, darkly handsome face and ran soothing fingers across his brow, where he was frowning, her fingertips skating up into his silky black hair, smoothing down the tousled strands.

It was the warmth she emanated, Dante recognised in consternation. That was what had made him spill his guts the night before, that seemingly natural warmth and affection that had broken through his habitual reserve. That discovery about her and about himself, that he could actually be that impressionable, that easily influenced by a woman, unnerved him. Yet, in defiance of all the defensive instincts that urged him to back off and steer clear of such manipulation until he could get a better handle on it, he still leant down and kissed her as though his life depended on it.

From zero to ninety in seconds, she thrummed into life like a well-primed engine, Belle thought dizzily as he ravaged her parted lips with the kind of hunger that set her on fire. A jolt of high-voltage electricity shot through her, ensuring she was aware of every inch of her pulsing body and every point of contact where his hot, muscular body connected with hers.

‘This is the very best moment of my day, cara mia,’ Dante confided, undoing the clasp in her hair and tossing it aside before fanning out the tangle of her curls round her face.

The towel was gone and she hadn’t noticed it going, Belle registered in dismay as a lean hand travelled up over her ribcage to mould a pale, pouting breast, catching a straining pink nipple between thumb and finger to massage it in a way that sent little tremors down to her pelvis, ensuring that she became insanely conscious of the damp heat blooming there.

He used his tongue to tease her sensitive nipples and the little tremors picked up pace as he sucked on the swollen buds. Her hips shifted upward of their own volition and he flattened her to the mattress with the force of a sudden demanding kiss. Her hands went into his hair and locked there as he ground his hips into her, sending need rocketing up through her in a heady surge. Her body strained up to his and, by then, all her anxiety had fled because nothing had ever felt so necessary, so right or so good. Even the scent of him, dark and masculine laced with a spicy cologne that had already become familiar to her, was compelling.

He shimmied down the length of her, lean and lithe, parting her thighs, burying his mouth there with a fervour for that intimacy that shocked her. ‘You taste so good,’ he husked while she trembled all over with reaction, torn between wanting him to stop and wanting him to continue.

As exquisite sensation seduced her, she fought to stay in control, to stop panting for breath, to stop making little noises she couldn’t restrain and to still the urge to simply writhe. The pleasure was all-consuming, like a slow burn rising from the heart of her with his every spellbinding caress. Pulsating bands of tension tightened round the dull ache of need at the very heart of her, driving it higher until it peaked and set fireworks rocketing inside her, her whole body convulsing in physical delight.

‘If this hurts too much, I’ll stop,’ Dante swore, sliding over her, tipping her legs back. ‘Just tell me.’

‘OK,’ Belle mumbled, still semi-lost in the waves of bliss that had engulfed her as she felt his surge against her, hard and determined where she was soft and tender and yet, oh, so ready for him. There wasn’t a doubt in her head about what she was doing at that moment, not with everything feeling so new and fresh and Dante’s experience soothing her insecurities. His dark eyes were pure golden enticement as they held hers.

She skated her hands up and down over his smooth brown shoulders, enjoying the satiny strength of him while irresistible sensation snaked through her as he slowly entered her, stretching her sensitive body. She quivered as the heat of excitement clenched her again and then a stabbing pain hit, and she gasped and he stopped dead.

‘I’m hurting you.’

‘No, don’t stop!’ she exclaimed.

‘Then try to relax. The more you tense, the tougher the challenge is,’ he rasped.

Every nerve in her body still stirred to an edge of breathless excitement, she struggled to relax, and he moved again and it still hurt but this time she buried her face in his shoulder and bore the discomfort in silence. Mercifully, it was fleeting, and she heard his groan of satisfaction as he plunged deeper into her and somehow that lit her up as if she had a thousand-watt bulb burning somewhere inside her.

Her heart rate accelerated as the excitement conquered her again and shot higher with every plunge of his lean hips. A kind of wildness claimed her, and she wrapped her legs round him, urging him on as he pounded into her to finally assuage that insane ache of hungry need at the heart of her. She cried out as the ripples of another climax coursed through her and the wild, sizzling pleasure sent her spinning into release. Dante shuddered over her with a harsh groan of masculine satisfaction and the world went still for her then.

‘Unbelievable,’ Dante growled, rolling over and carrying her with him, golden eyes as bright as if flames burned there as he stared down at her. ‘That was unbelievable. Are you OK?’

Not feeling up to the challenge of speech or voicing an opinion, Belle nodded.

Dante gazed down at her and smoothed her hair with an unholy grin. ‘Your hair looks like I electrified it, amante mia.’

He had electrified her. Belle gave him a drowsy smile. ‘It’s called bed hair and it’s like that every morning when I wake up.’

‘I love your hair,’ Dante told her carelessly as he rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom.

‘Where do we go from here?’ Belle asked abruptly before she could think better of it.

Dante froze and suppressed a groan, knowing that he should have foreseen that question and should not have overlooked her inexperience. She wanted to know what came next when nobody got to know what came next, he reasoned in frustration. Even so, with him what came next after bedding a woman was usually predictable. He would get bored and move on and she would go home.

‘We go on as we have begun,’ Dante responded gruffly. ‘I’ll run you another bath.’

Belle was bewildered. We go on as we have begun. What was that supposed to mean? After all, they had begun as strangers agreeing to a platonic arrangement. Was he suggesting that they now return to that? And how was she supposed to ask him for further clarification? That would make her look a little desperate for reassurance and probably potentially clingy to a man already wary of clingy women. Furthermore, what was the protocol after such an encounter? Should she get up and return to her own room? If he expected that, he wouldn’t be running a bath for her, she told herself irritably and smothered a yawn, too sleepy and comfortable to want to move.

‘We have a problem,’ Dante informed her from the bathroom doorway, something in his voice, something spooked, cutting through her relaxation to make her take notice and push herself up on one elbow.

‘The condom tore,’ Dante completed grimly.

Belle pushed an uncertain hand through the tousled strands of red and copper spilling across her white brow, her violet eyes stricken, her freckles standing out in contrast to her pallor. ‘Tore?’ she repeated shakily.

‘It can happen,’ Dante breathed tautly, his strong bone structure taut below his bronzed skin. ‘But it’s never happened to me before. Possibly I was a little too passionate. Are you on any form of contraception?’

Belle went pink. ‘Why would I have been?’

Dante shrugged. ‘I had to ask. Sometimes women use birth control for other reasons,’ he pointed out without any expression at all, and then he turned on his heel and vanished back into the bathroom.

Belle was frozen where she sat and then, in an abrupt movement, she slid out of the bed, wincing at the ache between her thighs, her newly extreme awareness that she had had sex for the first time... And what a disastrous mistake that impulsive and seemingly daring decision was now starting to seem, she reflected wretchedly. It had not even occurred to her that she could use birth control simply to be prepared for such an event. But naturally she had never dreamt that she would end up just falling into bed with someone like Dante. She had assumed that she would be in a serious relationship before she had sex and that there would be time and space to consider such precautions. And why was that?

Because nobody knew better than Belle, who was illegitimate and the supposed result of a contraceptive accident, that chance pregnancies should be carefully guarded against and that even the possibility of a child should always be planned to the nth degree.

Belle’s father, Alastair Stevenson, hadn’t wanted her... For goodness’ sake, neither of her parents had wanted her! Alastair had had a brief affair with her mother and they had broken up by the time Tracy approached her former lover to tell him that she had conceived. Tracy had sworn that she was pregnant due to a contraceptive failure, but Belle’s father had made it painfully obvious to Belle, aged a mere thirteen at their only meeting, that he suspected her mother’s pregnancy had been no accident. And in all fairness to Alastair, Belle, knowing Tracy as she did, would have been suspicious too, because it was perfectly possible that, having set her sights on him, her scheming mother had deliberately conceived in an attempt to entrap a well-heeled husband.

Pale as milk, Belle wrapped her clammy body in the discarded towel and dropped down on the foot of the disordered bed, deeply shaken at the mere idea that she had run the risk of falling pregnant. And the last thing she wanted to do was raise a child alone with the father having absolutely no interest in his child. It had done nothing for her self-respect to be confronted by a father who couldn’t care less about her, and who indeed seemed to resent her for the simple fact that she had even been born, costing him a small fortune in child-support payments...not that her rich father, a highly successful banker by all accounts, could have found it that much of a challenge to make those payments.

* * *

Dante was grateful for the distraction of running the bath. He had never done such a thing for a woman before but felt the effort was required after his less-than-stellar taking of her virginity, which he had hoped to accomplish without hurting her. He was tense and distracted though, already asking himself why he hadn’t gone ahead and had a vasectomy when the idea had first occurred to him some years earlier. Cristiano had talked him out of that idea. But Dante absolutely refused to give his parents the heir they craved to ensure the next generation of their precious dynasty. And they had been such dreadful parents that he was convinced he would be equally hopeless in the same role. That was why he had never wanted a child. He lacked heart and affection.

But what if he had got Belle pregnant? What would she want to do in such circumstances? If she was even half as fond of children as she was of that scruffy little dog she would want to go ahead and have the child. And then, whether he liked it or not, he would be a father with all a father’s responsibilities.

‘Your bath’s ready,’ Dante murmured from the doorway. ‘I’m going for a shower.’

Belle stood up. ‘What will we do if—’

‘We’ll deal with it...if it happens,’ Dante countered levelly, his dark golden eyes veiled. ‘There’s no point fretting about it right now.’

* * *

There was a lot of sense in that wait-and-see attitude, Belle told herself as she settled down into the bath, unable to relax into its warmth because she was too tense and far too busy watching Dante’s arrogant dark head shift behind the marble wall that closed off the shower. She supposed she might have considered the morning-after pill had she not been so aware that, had such an option been available to her mother, Tracy, she herself would never have been born at all. And that was a very sobering thought. When Alastair Stevenson had refused to marry Tracy as she had hoped, any interest her mother had had in her unborn child had vanished. Indeed, Tracy had resented being left as an unwed mother and had resented even more the damage pregnancy had done to her previously perfect figure, and she had taken that bitterness out on her daughter.

Belle didn’t stay long in the bath. In fact, she crept out of the bathroom like a cat burglar, dropped her towel and donned her pyjamas in frantic haste to get back to her own bedroom as quickly as she possibly could. After all, if there had been an ambience between them, it had died after the mishap. His shuttered face had told her all she would ever need to know about Dante’s opinion of her having his child. He didn’t want it to happen. He didn’t even want to think about such a possibility. And in that, she supposed, he wasn’t much different from any other young single guy put in the same position. How else could she expect him to feel? It wasn’t as if he were in love with her. It wasn’t as if he even knew her that well.

Her dispirited eyes took in the opulence of her bedroom and she sighed. It wasn’t even as if she and Dante came from the same world. She was a girl with a mother and a father who ignored her, only casual friends, and she had been sleeping in a rusty campervan and working as a waitress when Dante had met her. Dante was a guy who travelled in limos, wore incredibly elegant designer suits and he had spent more than half his life being educated. She was a nobody, a nothing in comparison, she decided wretchedly.

Why, oh, why had she slept with him? Why had she let herself be tempted like that? Live a little? Live a little and live to regret it, she concluded unhappily...