‘I’m sick of being manipulated by you,’ she said fiercely. ‘You always want everything to be your way. You snatched Nico and forced me to leave my job and life in London and come to Sicily. But you won’t force me to marry you.’
She shook her tumbling mane of blonde hair over her shoulders and sat back a little so that her breasts thrust provocatively forward. Sergio inhaled sharply and the sensation of his arousal stirring beneath her made her feel triumphant that she had power over him. ‘You fall far short of what I want from a husband,’ she told him. ‘But as a lover you are first class.’
Sergio’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that so? Are you saying you want to have sex with me but nothing else?’
‘How does it feel, Sergio?’ she taunted. ‘Does it make you feel good to know that the only part of you I’m interested in is your body? That’s how you made me feel during our affair.’ Her voice shook betrayingly. ‘I was good enough for sex but not for you to share your feelings with.’
To her surprise, he did not refute her accusation but sighed deeply. ‘I’m sorry I made you feel like that and I’m sorry I hurt you.’
He could not change the past, Sergio thought heavily. He had not met Kristen’s emotional needs and he could understand why she was afraid that he would fail Nico in the same way that he had failed her. Somehow he had to show her that he could change. He would not find it easy to open up when he had kept his emotions locked away for most of his life, but everything was at stake here and he was willing to try.
He looked into her bright blue eyes and felt an inexplicable ache in his chest. She was so beautiful. His gaze dropped to her small, firm breasts with their puckered nipples and a white-hot shaft of desire ripped through him but, instead of taking control and flipping her onto her back, he relaxed against the pillows and spread his arms wide like an indolent sultan waiting to be pleasured by his favourite concubine.
‘If sex is what you want, then take me, Krissie. I’m all yours.’
Sergio’s soft words stabbed Kristen through the heart. He had never been hers, not in the way she longed for. His heart and soul belonged solely to himself, and perhaps, she thought with a pang, to his dead wife. Passion was all he had ever given her. So why not accept what he offered and take her pleasure with his virile body, if that was all she could have of him?
The hard glitter in his eyes betrayed his hunger, but amazingly he seemed prepared to allow her to take the lead. A heady sense of power swept through her and a desire to tease and torment him as he had done so often to her. She held his gaze as she unfastened his shirt buttons and pushed the material aside to expose his darkly tanned chest, and leaned forward so that the tips of her breasts brushed across his wiry chest hairs.
The sensation made her nipples tingle and harden. The contrast between her milky-pale breasts and his bronzed skin was incredibly erotic. Colour flared on his cheekbones and his breath hissed between his teeth as her hair fell forward and brushed lightly over his naked torso.
‘Witch,’ he said raggedly as she moved lower so that her soft hair and her pebble-hard nipples stroked a path over his abdomen. With nimble fingers she deftly undid the zip of his trousers and when her hands slid beneath his boxers and closed around his throbbing arousal Sergio gave a low groan. He knew he was close to the edge and almost gave in to the temptation to roll over and drag her beneath him so that he could find the relief he craved, but he managed to hold back. It was true that when they had made love previously it had always been on his terms, and he had never given himself completely. But if he was ever going to win Kristen’s trust he must prove that he did not want to dominate her.
The flick of her tongue over the sensitive tip of his manhood made him clench his muscles to stop himself from falling apart. His body shook as he fought the waves of pleasure that rolled over him when she took his swollen shaft into the moist cavern of her mouth.