‘He didn’t make an assumption. I told him that I intend to marry you.’
Shock caused her heart to jolt painfully against her ribs. ‘What...why? Why on earth did you do that?’
Sergio’s brows lifted in an arrogant expression that made Kristen itch to slap him.
‘Do you have a better idea for how we can both be parents to our son and spare him the uncertainty of a custody battle?’
‘I can think of a dozen ideas that do not involve marriage between two people who don’t...’
‘Don’t what, mia bella?’ Sergio tightened his grip on her shoulder and pulled her towards him, crushing her slender frame against his hard body. ‘Don’t desire one another? Don’t hunger for one another night and day? Because if that were the case, I agree the marriage would be doomed to failure. But I dare you to deny the passion that ignites between us with one look, one touch...one kiss.’
His dark head swooped and he captured her mouth, forcing her lips apart with the bold thrust of his tongue and kissing her with fiery passion that lit a flame inside Kristen. Her body responded to its master, but some tiny part of her sanity still lingered, and when he pushed her shirt over her shoulders she tore her mouth from his.
‘What you are talking about is just sex. It’s not the basis of a marriage...Sergio...put me down!’ She beat her hands on his chest as he lifted her as easily as though she were a rag doll and dropped her onto the bed.
‘It’s a start,’ he said, and the quiet intensity of his voice sent a tremor through her. ‘Desire seems a very good reason why I should make you my wife.’
CHAPTER TEN
SERGIO’S PROPOSAL WAS four years too late, Kristen thought bitterly. Not that he had actually proposed. He had told his father he intended to marry her, and as a secondary thought he had casually let her know what he planned. Her anger brimmed over. Four years ago she would have leapt at the chance to be his wife, but his arrogant assumption that she was still the silly, love-struck girl she had been then fuelled her resentment and hurt. Because the real reason, the only reason, he had decided to marry her was for Nico’s sake. And, much as Kristen adored her son, she would not endure a loveless marriage that would be all the worse because in her heart she acknowledged that she had never stopped loving Sergio.
What kind of a fool did that make her? She hated herself for loving him. Hated the way her body was so utterly enslaved by him that one kiss was all it took to make her melt in his arms. She realised with a flash of insight that he was always in control because she allowed him to be. Four years ago she had been too young and awed by him to make her own demands and fight for what she wanted in their relationship. But no more. She was a strong and independent woman now; she’d had to be as a single mother trying to hold down a career and bring up a child. She had no intention of marrying Sergio simply because he would find it convenient. But at the same time she could not deny her desire for him. Her breasts felt heavy and she could feel the warm flood of her arousal between her legs. She wanted to make love with him, but on her terms, not his.
He knelt over her, his dark eyes raging with a primitive hunger to possess his woman.
‘I desired you from the first time I watched you dancing on the sand. You felt the attraction between us that day too, and it has never faded. You want me as much as I want you,’ he said harshly, and with one swift movement he unfastened her bikini top and tugged it away from her breasts.
Kristen’s anger exploded. She pushed against his chest, taking him by surprise so that he was momentarily unbalanced, giving her the chance to roll away from him. With the grace and surprising strength gained from years of gymnastics training, she pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips.