November Harlequin Presents 2(93)

His jaw tightened but when he spoke his voice was calm, almost bored. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. What’s the real issue here, Grace? Have you decided to cash in on my obvious hunger for you? I’ve already paid a fortune for you, but that went to clear your father’s debts. I take it you now want an additional financial incentive in return for sex?’

The crack of her palm against his cheek ricocheted around the room. There followed a moment of stunned silence, and then Grace cried out when he lifted his hands and ripped her dress from her shoulders, leaving her small, pale breasts exposed to his gaze. ‘Javier—no—I won’t do this.’ She tried to cover herself with her hands, but when he snatched her into his arms she beat her fists on his shoulders, her breath leaving her body when he dropped her onto the bed and immediately came down on top of her, trapping her beneath his hard and fiercely aroused body.

‘The time for games is over, querida,’ he told her as he pinned her wrists above her head. The heat in his gaze seemed to scorch her flesh, and she shuddered in an agony of rejection mixed with shocking desire when he lowered his head and drew one throbbing peak into his mouth. The stroke of his tongue back and forth across her nipple was exquisite torture, and Grace twisted her hips restlessly. She was overwhelmed by the new and wickedly delicious sensations he was arousing within her and she couldn’t prevent a sob of relief when he transferred his mouth to her other breast and proceeded to use his tongue with devastating effect.

She was breathing hard when he finally released her, and she stared up at him with glazed eyes when he rolled off her and stood by the side of the bed.

‘Today in the chapel you promised to be my wife, Grace,’ he told her harshly. ‘And now it’s time to honour that promise.’

‘What would you know of honour?’ she demanded thickly as her sanity returned. She watched, transfixed, as he swiftly removed his shirt and trousers. In the lamplight his skin gleamed like copper, and her eyes moved of their own accord over the mass of wiry black hair that covered his chest and arrowed lower beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts.

With slow deliberation he hooked his fingers into the black silk and tugged them over his hips to reveal the jutting proof of his arousal.

‘Oh God!’ In sheer panic, Grace jerked upright and backed away from him until she was straining against the headboard. ‘Javier, I can’t do this. Please don’t make me.’ Her eyes were like twin orbs in her pale face. She’d seen the naked male form before, of course—in magazines, and even in a rather risqué television advert. But this was the first time she had ever been confronted with real flesh and blood, and the awesome sight of Javier’s fully erect penis made her close her eyes weakly.

‘This is growing a little boring, querida,’ he drawled. ‘Why do you insist on acting like a terrified virgin?’

‘Because I am a terrified virgin,’ she whispered urgently.

‘Of course you are.’ His sardonic comment masked his simmering impatience, and Grace gasped when he gripped her ankles and dragged her down the bed. The mattress dipped as he stretched out next to her. ‘Madre de Dios!’ At least have the decency to look at me while you spin your lies,’ he growled savagely, and then tensed when she lifted her lashes and he saw the expression in her fearful gaze. For long, excruciating moments he said nothing, and then he exploded with the force of Krakatoa.

‘I swear, I’ve never…been to bed with a man before,’ Grace assured him hastily.

‘But you were engaged! To a man who had a reputation around London as a serial sex addict,’ he added furiously.

‘I knew nothing of Richard’s reputation when I met him,’ Grace told him stiffly, her cheeks scarlet with embarrassment. ‘I thought he was charming and a true gentleman when he didn’t try and hurry me into bed.’

‘But you eventually learned otherwise,’ Javier guessed, his keen gaze noting the misery in hers. ‘What happened?’

Grace swallowed. Javier was lying on one hip, leaning over her slightly, but he made no attempt to touch her as he waited for her reply. ‘We met soon after I’d moved to London, and I fell for him in a big way,’ she admitted huskily. ‘It was fairly soon after my mother had died. I was feeling low, and I suppose I was lonely and vulnerable. Richard made me laugh and it was a long time since I’d done that. I was over the moon when he asked me to marry him, and I believed that his insistence that he was happy to wait until our wedding before we had a sexual relationship proved that he really loved me.’