A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [52]
‘Gio…’
His name was a sigh of surrender and a cry of protest all at once, and she strained her hungry body away from the wall, needing the pressure of his against it, the heat and hardness of his strength tight against her hungry flesh. A second, choking cry was torn from her as Gio, with a smile she could feel against her skin, slid his mouth away from her lips, heading down this time. Down to where the low-scooped neckline of her T-shirt just skimmed the top of the curves of her breasts, the faint pressure of his kiss, the tantalising warmth of his breath making her writhe in a tormented frustration of desire.
‘Oh, Gio…’ she gasped again and felt his smile grow wide, wicked, fiendish.
The next moment his mouth was against her shoulder, his tongue tracing erotic patterns all the way to where the soft pink cotton of her sleeve began. Hard white teeth fixed on the stretchy material, tugging softly, edging it away and down…
And it was too much for her to take any longer. She couldn’t bear the sensory deprivation and the seductive torment he was subjecting her to at one and the same time.
‘Oh, my…Gio!’
Unthinkingly, blindly she reached for him, wanting to close her arms around his neck, tangle her hungry fingers in the coal-black silk of his hair. Needing…
But Gio reacted swiftly and sharply, snapping his head up and twisting himself away from her grasping hands, breaking all physical contact with her, stepping firmly back, well out of reach.
‘No touching!’ he said, his tone as cold as his eyes. ‘Hands off, belleza, that’s what you said. You made the rules…’
And now she wanted to break them. The agonisingly sharp arousal he had sparked off all over her body was screaming out for appeasement and she felt that she would shatter into a million tiny fragments if he didn’t take her back into his arms once more and hold her tight, kiss away the clamouring distress.
She even held out her hands towards him, wanting, needing, hoping to encourage him to come back to her and finish what he had started. But Gio neatly sidestepped her reaching arms, smoothing down his ruffled hair and straightening his clothing with brisk, coolly efficient movements.
‘Hands off,’ he repeated, his tone cold and clipped, and then to Terrie’s total consternation he actually smiled deep into her eyes.
At least, his mouth smiled, but there was no warmth, no trace of humour in it. And his own dark-eyed gaze remained cool and opaque, impenetrable as polished marble.
‘Your rules, cara mia. That’s the way you wanted to play it.’
Terrie could find no words to answer him. None, at least, that she was prepared to give any sort of voice to. If she opened her mouth, she knew that she would be forced to beg. Beg him to come back to her, to hold her, kiss her, caress her. To take her to bed and make sweet, savage, passionate love to her until she was mindless and melting in fulfilment.
And she didn’t dare admit that to him. Because it meant admitting the effect he had on her, the power he held over her. She suspected that that was something he knew already. But at least if she didn’t actually say it then she hadn’t put the weapon into his hands, giving him something he could use against her whenever he wanted.
And so she remained stubbornly silent, though her whole body trembled with the effort that it cost her to keep her lips clamped shut, her mouth sealed against the weak words of surrender that struggled to escape her.
For a long, silent moment Gio’s dark eyes rested on her face, taking in every inch of her colourless cheeks, her quivering mouth, her over-bright eyes. And then just as she was nerving herself for some other onslaught, one she was afraid her weakened defences would be incapable of repelling, suddenly, shockingly, he smiled again.
‘My plane leaves at five,’ he said, his tone disturbingly matter-of-fact. ‘I’ll be here to collect you a couple of hours before that. I expect you to be packed and ready to leave.’
Terrie still could find no reply to give him, but he made it clear that he wasn’t expecting one, turning on