Читать книгу Taken for Revenge: Bedded for Revenge / Bought by a Billionaire / The Bejewelled Bride - Lee Wilkinson - Страница 13

SUNLIGHT streamed in through the windows and Sorcha sleepily opened her eyes and yawned. She had often wondered what kind of people spent the afternoon in bed in a hotel, and now she had discovered the answer.

People like her.

She glanced at the figure in the bed beside her. Cesare was sleeping, his magnificent body stretched out like an artist’s model, the olive skin glowing against the rumpled tangle of white sheets. But while his muscular body was hard and lean, his face in repose had a curious softness about it. Thick black lashes formed two shadowy arcs, and the luscious mouth was curved into a sensual little pout.

How many beds had he lain in like this? she wondered. Had he spent anonymous afternoons in luxury hotels in all the major cities around the world? For this was a very different venue from the Urlin Arms, with its faded carpets and temperamental staff. Here the drapes were pure lined silk, the chandelier French, and the writing desk antique.

How many women? Did they all blur into one eager and giving body? In a year’s time would he have to frown to remember just where it was he had stayed with her?

There was a glint from between his half-closed eyes, and a hand reached out to rest with easy familiarity on her thigh. How well sex could mock real intimacy, thought Sorcha with a pang.

‘You look lost in thought,’ he murmured.

‘I was.’

‘Are you going to share it?’

What an emotive word share could be—did he know that? Did women leap on it like hungry little puppies because it hinted at something beyond the communion of bodies which had just taken place?

‘You won’t want to hear.’

‘Try me,’ he murmured, stretching his legs and making no attempt to hide his renewed stirring of desire.

‘I was wondering if you made a habit of this.’

‘This?’

There he was—already playing for time! ‘Having sex with women in anonymous hotel rooms.’

He studied her thoughtfully. ‘What do you think? That every time I visit a city I pick up a beautiful woman and take her to bed?’

‘Do you?’

He laughed. ‘Once—a long time ago—I went through a stage of doing exactly that.’ It had been when he had left her, when he had been hurting—not expecting to hurt, nor wanting to, as if he had a divine right to somehow be immune from the pain of relationships.

There had always been willing women—and at that time it had seemed that the supply of them was endless. It was almost as if his icy indifference had turned them on, providing them with the challenge that they might be the one to break through that cold heart to find the warmth of the man beneath. They never had, of course—and Cesare had turned away more than he had slept with. He had felt like a gorged child who had been given permission to spend the night in a sweetshop.

‘It sounds like every man’s idea of heaven,’ said Sorcha, hoping that her voice didn’t sound sour—because how he lived his life was his business, not hers.

‘It wasn’t,’ he said flatly. ‘Predictability is boring, and when something is so easy to get, it doesn’t have the same value.’

Sorcha went very still. ‘You didn’t have to fight very hard to get me into bed,’ she said in a small voice.

His voice was cool and mocking. ‘You don’t think so? This seduction actually started seven years ago—and, using those sums, I’d say that you were actually the hardest of all.’ Black eyes hardened, became watchful. ‘And what about you, Sorcha, since this seems to be true confession time?’

‘What do you want to know? Actual numbers, like in that film—where I go through my conquests one by one and make you laugh?’

Laugh? He winced, knowing that the fierce stab of jealousy which shot through him was unreasonable—but then, he had never been accused of being a reasonable man.

‘No,’ he grated, and, unfolding his big, lean body, he got out of bed. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

Had he suggested that to distance himself? Because the conversation had taken a distinctly confessional turn? She watched while he went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne, efficiently disposing of foil and cork before handing her a fizzing glassful.

Sorcha sat up in bed, sipping at the cool champagne while Cesare climbed back in beside her, thinking that she really ought to be enjoying this moment. Imagine if she wrote about it in a postcard home. In bed, overlooking Regent’s Park. Fabulous sex. Fabulous man. Fabulous wine.

So why was there this terrible ache of emptiness inside her?

‘It wouldn’t take very long,’ she said.

Cesare frowned as he took a long draught—he who never drank in the middle of the day, but who suddenly wanted something to take the edge off his heightened senses. ‘What wouldn’t?’

‘To list my lovers.’

‘I don’t want to hear about them, Sorcha,’ he clipped out.

‘Him.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What?’

‘Him, not them. Singular, not plural. Just one. Before you, that is.’ She wondered why she was bothering to defend herself—because that was really what it amounted to. Why his opinion should be so important to her. Was it just that she needed him to know that she had acted in an extraordinary way with him—or rather reacted? And didn’t she run the risk of looking rather pathetic—like someone who was setting out her stall, saying, Look how relatively untouched I am?

‘One?’ he repeated incredulously.

‘That surprises you?’

‘Of course it does. It isn’t many for a woman your age.’

‘I didn’t realise I was defying some kind of national average.’

‘Why did you tell me?’ he demanded suddenly.

‘Why do you think?’ She clutched her glass in two hands in case she spilled wine all over the bed. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you imagined that I did…well, what I did with you…with lots of men.’

There was a pause, and he knew that in light of her honesty he had to be honest in return. ‘I didn’t think that, Sorcha,’ he said slowly. ‘There was such a…’ He shrugged. ‘That kind of combustive sexual chemistry is rare, believe me—I know.’

He put his glass down, took hers from her hands and placed it beside his, and then drew her into his arms and down onto the bed.

His mouth was cool and tasted of wine, and his body was warm, and Sorcha felt a sudden and overwhelming wave of real yearning which transcended mere sexual desire. She kissed him back, long and deep, and then she rolled out from beneath him, kneeling beside him as she bent her tongue to his nipple.

‘Sorcha,’ he groaned. ‘What do you do to me?’

She let her tongue slide all the way down his belly, along the thin line of hair which arrowed towards where he was hard, and she licked him tentatively, so that he groaned again.

His hands tangled in the silk of her hair as she took him into her mouth, and never had he felt more helpless and vulnerable as she rocked her head up and down. He could feel his climax building and building, and part of him wanted to stop her, to take control away from her and to thrust all that pent-up desire deep into her body.

But it was too late.

She felt the shudder which began to convulse the powerful body, heard an expression of disbelief torn from his lips and closed her eyes as she tasted him. Afterwards he pulled her back up the bed and cradled her in his arms—and that did feel like real intimacy.

But she mustn’t do that—perhaps that was where she went wrong? Thinking that it was more than it was—as if some fantastic orgasm would suddenly give him a complete personality change and he’d start opening his heart to her. But it was in her nature to try, and she wanted him to let her share more than just his body.

She pulled at his shoulder, knowing that it was the wrong thing to do but unable to stop herself. As if she needed to have it written in giant letters for her to finally get the message that he wasn’t interested in anything deeper than this.

‘Cesare?’

He sighed, knowing just from the tone of her voice what was coming. ‘What?’

‘Why did you come back?’ She met his eyes as he turned back to face her. ‘Oh, I know that you’re friends with Rupert, and you wanted to do him a favour, and you’ll probably make lots of money—but why was it so important for you to seduce me?’

There was silence for a moment.

‘Because you were the best sex I never had.’ He smiled, but it was a cold and thoughtful smile. ‘For years the thought of what I had missed out on ate away at me like a disease, so I wanted to do this—no, I needed to—just to lay the ghost of what has haunted me ever since.’

There was a pause. ‘I see.’ Sorcha let her eyelids close so that he would not detect the wavering hurt which was making her eyes shimmer with tears. ‘And now you have.’

But that was the trouble. Cesare narrowed his eyes.

He hadn’t.

‘We’d better get dressed,’ he said abrasively. ‘I have a flight to catch.’

‘A flight?’ she echoed blankly.

‘I’m meeting Rupert—we’re flying up to the North. The new factory is about to go into production. Remember?’

‘Yes, of course.’ What an idiot he must think her—they had talked of nothing else for weeks. Yet business couldn’t have been further from her mind—all her thoughts were full of him, and it was time she pulled herself together. One day soon Cesare would be gone, and she did not need her career to be left in tatters as a consequence of his going.

She stared up at the ceiling. ‘It’s such a gamble,’ she moaned. ‘Starting production before you know whether the new campaign will be a success. What if we manufacture loads of extra bottles of sauce and nobody buys them?’

‘Life is a gamble, Sorcha—and sometimes you just have to go out on a limb and take a risk.’ He stroked his finger over her face. ‘I’ll only be gone a few days. Will you miss me?’

Sorcha began to get dressed without answering—because what did he expect? Adoring compliments or declarations of affection? How egotistical was that? Especially as he had been so brutally honest about what she meant to him.

She bit her lip.

It wasn’t the most glowing testament in the world, was it?

She was the best sex he’d never had.