Love Play by Rosemary Rogers (35 page)

She tried to tug her wrist free of his inexorable grip. 'Stop dragging
me along! Can't you understand that I want to ... I've got to have a bath and
change? I'm just soaking.'

'Yes -I must confess that I found that almost impossible not to notice,
especially since you don't believe in undergarments! I am sure that the smiling
Angelo noticed too. Your presence certainly seemed to distract his mind, from
time to time, from his determination to provoke a serious quarrel between
us."

They had arrived at his door, not hers, and now she tried to pull back
again. 'You told me you didn't want me in your rooms! I think you're the one
who's developed sunstroke!'

With the door open he turned to look at her in a way that made Sara want
to run from him. 'Do you imagine that your Bluebeard's curious little wife said
the same thing to him just before he took her in there himself?' He gave a
grating laugh when he saw the expression on her face. 'Dio! I begin to believe
that you have a vivid enough imagination to fantasise anything! Do, by all
means, add to the picture that's obviously in your mind the famous "Sister
Anne" who spent her time watching through the window for rescue!' With a
strength that was leashed and casual he had already taken her into his ugly
office of a room, and kicked the door closed behind them. Bluebeard — who
didn't want his family secrets known by an outsider! And oh, for Delight's
comfortingly pragmatic presence right now!

It was almost as if he had read her mind - almost. He released her, and
casually locked the door, lifting a derisive eyebrow. 'And who do you hope will
rescue you? Angelo, perhaps, who offers you rides on his motor cycle? You two
certainly seemed to get on famously together! Quite as if you had known each
other. Is that possible?'

Of course he couldn't know! And she was sure she hadn't given herself
away. He was guessing. He was . . . jealous. No, stupid! That just wasn't
possible. Not Marco! And yet, a heady feeling bubbled suddenly through her
veins like a jolt of adrenaline, enabling her to lift her shoulder in an
impatient shrug as she deliberately turned away to play with the paper knife on
his desk.

'Oh, good heavens! And how on earth and where on earth could I have met
that cute brother of yours? He does look a lot like you, you know!' She turned
back to him, studying his harsh, storm-dark face that seemed to hold thunder
back with the clamp of his jaws. And this time she wouldn't flinch. 'My saying
that oughtn't make you mad for heaven's sake! After all you are brothers . . .
half brothers,' she amended quickly and faced the smooth growl of his voice.

'Now — I wonder how you could know that? I do not recall that your
latest admirer called me anything but brother, He almost spat the word out, and
waited grimly for her
 
reply.

'Oh, for . . .! It was an obvious guess, wasn't it? I mean I'm not
exactly stupid, even if I hadn't already learned from you how damn feudal it
still is here. So your father had a girl-fr iend in the village - it must be a
common story, I'm sure. Does that answer you?'

Sara met his eyes without wavering, although the beating of
 
her heart had started to sound like a
drumbeat inside her. He was jealous! Sheer instinct told her that, even if her
mind wanted to shy away from the possibility.

'I've already learned that lies come easily to you! And that you have a
quick and agile mind when it suits you to use it. Will I ever know when you're
lying and when you're not?' His voice had slowed and deepened and his eyes
seemed to darken and fill with shadow, making them opaque, shutting her off
from whatever he might be thinking. And the table was at her back, holding her
trapped before him while his eyes began a slow and deliberate journey over her
face and down to her wetly outlined breasts with their pointed nipples that
moved too quickly with her agitated breathing.

Please don't! Sara wanted to beg, with all the desperate feeling of a
trapped animal rising in her and almost stopping her breath. But her throat,
like her motionless body, seemed paralysed. He stood so close to her that she
could feel the heat emanating from his body and yet, since he'd dropped her
wrist, he hadn't touched her. Didn't need to, she knew with a sinking feeling
of despair.

His eyes touched her. Everywhere that his hands had touched her before,
making her remember too well and start to shake helplessly within herself.

'Diletta - Diletta! Tentatrice . . . maliarda . . .!'

She knew he had called her a temptress and an enchantress. He had called
her Delight. But even that didn't matter any longer as she came against him and
felt her body fit closely against his. She did what Sara had never done in all
her life before and reached up fiercely to pull his dark head down to cover her
mouth with his, kissing her again in a savage and almost angry way.

There was no shame and no pride and nothing else that mattered at this
moment beyond this. He put his hands on her at last and their bodies strained
together, reaching blindly for each other through the impediment of the clothes
they wore. Until, with a string of explosively muttered oaths, he put his hands
under her hips and lifted her on to the table, ignoring her unconvincing murmur
of protest. 'I want you, Dilette mia, mi desiderio! And I want you now! Don't
fight me . . .' He put one hand in the deep vee of her red silk shirt and
ripped it viciously downwards to bare her breasts, his mouth travelling over
them with slow deliberation until he stopped and lingered on her pointed,
urgently sensitive nipples, hearing her moan softly at first and then cry out
loud when his teeth nibbled lightly on first one and then the other. And then;
still standing between her legs, his hands that had been fumbling with angry
impatience with her belt and her recalcitrant zipper gave a last furious tug
that yanked her too-tight jeans out of the way.

She couldn't remember much more of what happened after that, except that
it had been something as wild and as violent as a summer thunderstorm, drowning
out every-thing, except that feeling inside herself that grew and grew and
expanded and waited for the jagged silver sword of the lightning strike to cut
her in two and pierce her and free her . . . and then leave her shuddering with
the aftermath of echoing reverberations like thunder fading and muttering into
the distance, like the deep harshness of his voice when he called her 'Diletta,
Diletta . . .!' Half-curse and half-caress.

Sara felt as if she had been on a journey very far away somewhere;
perhaps to the other side of reality, which was something she'd really prefer
not to face anyhow. Especially not now, with awareness jolting her back to cold
rationality far too fast. With the spending, it had seemed, of every tiniest
vestige of feeling in her body, then at last she became almost dazedly aware of
being able to think again.

And thinking, almost immediately, that she would much rather not.

The woman who had fiercely, wantonly invited what had just taken place
could not have been her, surely. Not Sara the pragmatic, who could always keep
things in perspective. Who had already decided to cut her losses and leave
behind her what had
 
turned out to be
an
 
impossible, almost ridiculous
situation. All she had to do . . .

All she had to do was to turn her face . . . and doing so, encounter
with her lips the harshly rasping texture of his beard-stubbled skin that
reminded her of his voice as well. 'Mmmrnm . ..!' she sighed, with her lips
nuzzling against a corner of his hard, unsmiling mouth. Her arms tightened
about his neck. Now that she had let go she felt deliciously languorous and
yielding. No longer tense, no longer quite as angry as she had been earlier.

'What a passionately amoral little slut you are!' His harsh voice had
the texture of granite and was meant to rip and tear at her air of contented
self-containment. 'Even when you are at the heights of abandonment you make me
wonder who and what you are fantasising about with your eyes closed so tightly.
Do you ever get enough, I wonder? And how can any one man be enough for a woman
like you?'

He had taken her, as she had understood belatedly, without even
troubling to take off his clothes; but at least afterwards he had lifted her
roughly up against himself and carried her into the shuttered darkness of his
room, depositing her in bed without much consideration or gentleness while he
turned away to undress at last before he joined her. He had rolled his body
half over hers and pulled her roughly closer with his arms, letting his hands
slide up her back with a possessive, almost savagely savouring slowness,
touching and feeling and kneading the softly silken texture of her skin until
they reached and were trapped in the heavy thickness of her hair, lingering
there almost unwillingly.

'Well?' his voice goaded her. 'Where's your usual sharp retort, Diletta
mia? Or are you too overwhelmed by being in Bluebeard's bed?'

Sara winced slightly at the light tug he gave her hair and felt
annoyance pierce her mood of pleasant lassitude. She let her body stiffen
before she said with cold pleasantry, 'How could I help being overwhelmed?
Especially when you've been trying so hard . . . But must I really answer all
those questions you've been positively throwing at me? I mean I Will honestly,
if the answers are supposed to turn you on or something like that — but
otherwise . . . why waste time in talk, as my Mama always used to say?'

Of course, there was always the chance that he might not kill her . . .
and a moment, when his hands freed themselves from the distraction of her hair
and touched her neck almost consideringly, when her thinking almost stopped
along with her breathing.

Almost contemptuously he brushed with one of his thumbs a pulsing yein
in her arched throat. 'Why waste time in talk indeed! What do you offer as an
alternative - or hope to gain? You make me ask myself questions to which I
should already have the answers. Like the reason why you are sometimes like
miele, like honey and as warm and sweet and smooth to the tongue - and at other
times like vinegar, and twice as acid!' Now his fingers encircled her throat,
but very lightly, almost not touching her skin. She lay very still, but
strangely unafraid, looking up into his shadowed, shuttered face without a
word.

She felt as if she was absorbing, by some weird kind of osmosis, the
anger and the bitterness and the frustration that he was attacking her with.
Absorbing . . . and diminishing in that way.

'Well?' His voice had roughened and harshened, and it seemed to be with
an effort that he moved his hand to her shoulders. 'Don't you have anything
more to say as you lie there watching me with those hard, green-jade eyes of
yours that never give anything away? You had better answer me this time,or per
Dio . . .!'

'What do you want me to say?'

'The truth, for a change. Why do you tell so many lies?'

'Because you expect me to lie, of course! If I told you the truth you
wouldn't believe me anyway. So ..." Surprised that
 
her voice sounded so even and almost
detached, Sara let her words trail off into the shrug she gave, fighting the
heaviness of his hands over her shoulders and upper arms.

'So . . . since we are indulging in this very honest, very intimate
conversation — for a change — why don't you try being truthful for once? I can
guarantee that you wouldn't shock me.' Deceptively, he let his lips brush
lightly over hers for an instant before he slid in casually, 'For instance, I
seemed to sense quite a rapport developing between you and Angelo.'

'Angelo?' She repeated it rather vaguely and was rewarded by a snarl.

'Yes. The one with the motor cycle he kept hidden. What make did he say
it was?'

'Honda, I think. Oh, yes - he was very cute, and quite kind, I thought.
He kept staring at the bruise on my face until I felt quite embarrassed. Didn't
you? Do you think Angelo hits his women too? If he does, I certainly don't want
to go bike riding with him! And maybe Carlo wouldn't approve either, what do
you think?'

'You ...' The bruisingly whispered obscenity he almost didn't bite off
seemed to vibrate between them before he said harshly: 'Carlo! If you're wise
you will not mention Carlo again - for we've both known for a long time that
Carlo is not for you, nor you for Carlo, who hasn't yet gained the experience
to handle a sharp, worldly-wise young bitch like you! And as for Angelo... why
waste your time on speculation? You aren't going for any rides on his new
Honda, and in fact you're not likely to see him again, unless it's in your
dreams, or your sensuous fantasies!'

'What do you mean, I'm not... I think you're the one living in a fantasy
world of centuries past, surrounded by women who were slaves — either bought or
taken by force. I'll see Angelo if I please -1 didn't hear you objecting at the
time, did I? Maybe, in spite of your gun and your rude bluster, you're really
scared of him and what he symbolises! For, in a way Angelo is your alter ego,
isn't he? Only, he was begotten through love and feeling and not a sense of
duty, like — ' Just in time she stopped the angry flow of her words that had
been meant to flay and cut and . . . hurt.

'Why do you stop?' He said it very quietly, although something was
vibratingly threatening in the timbre of his voice that made her catch her
breath. 'Don't drop the subject that seems to intrigue you so. Angelo the love
child, whom you find so "cute"; and who knew who you are — knew, to
the extent that he was bold enough to ask you for a ride on the back of his
motor cycle ... where to, I wonder?'

'I think...' She tried to keep her voice from shaking with all kinds of
emotions that she hadn't had time to sort out yet. 'I think we've let this get
all out of perspective, you know! Angelo wasn't really interested in me, he's
one of Mona's fans. Didn't you notice he called her "the
incomparable" in a positively caressing voice? I'm used to it - I can spot
Mama-Mona's devoted admirers a mile off!'