It Started With A Proposition: Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed / Contract with Consequences / The Passion Price

She actually smiled as she peeled the garment down her body. A slow siren’s smile.

‘Don’t look so gobsmacked,’ she said, when she finally stood there in the nude. ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it?’

Gino’s hand gripped the stem of his glass with such force that it was a miracle it didn’t snap.

‘No,’ he ground out. ‘Not quite. Put the shoes back on.’

Now it was her turn to look gobsmacked.

‘That’s the way I pictured you when I was eating dinner tonight. That’s what I want. For starters,’ he added, all qualms gone over how he was going to treat her tonight. He’d tried to do the right thing, but she wanted none of it. This was what she wanted. To have her fill of him. And he was more than happy to oblige!

Jordan swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She should never have started stripping in front of him, never have taken him on.

It had only been a matter of time before her recklessness backfired on her.

Gino no longer looked shocked. His expression was cold and implacable.

‘Do it!’ he ordered.

Jordan’s feet found her shoes. The height of the heels changed the way she stood. The sharp angle of her feet made her straighten her shoulders and suck in her stomach, those actions thrusting her breasts forward and upwards.

Gino’s black eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down, his heavily hooded gaze as hard as it was exciting.

Had he known she would feel different standing there in the nude with her high heels on? More exposed? More…aroused?

Yes, of course he knew. He knew she was standing there, trembling inside with anticipation of what would come next. Knew that she thrilled to his commands and his demands.

‘That’s better,’ he said, a dark triumph in his eyes. ‘Now come over here…’

CHAPTER TWELVE

JORDAN walked slowly towards him, each step bringing a heightened awareness of her female body.

By the time she stood before him her lips had fallen apart and her heartbeat had quickened, her chest rising and falling, her belly stretched tight with tension.

‘Here,’ he said, and held his glass to her lips. ‘You look like you could do with a drink.’

He tipped up the glass and watched her drink it all down.

The champagne fizzed into her stomach, her head spinning—but not because of the alcohol.

Jordan could not recall ever being this excited. Or this mesmerised. This was different from ten years ago. Different from last Friday night.

Tonight, she accepted dazedly, was going to be an experience which would change her life for ever.

When he tossed the empty glass onto one of the sofas, then ran the back of his right hand across the hard tips of her breasts, a violent tremor rippled down her spine.

‘Do you know how sexy you look?’ he murmured, as he trailed his fingers down over her tautly held stomach. ‘But you’d look even sexier if you moved your legs apart a little.’

When she just blinked, he smiled a rather cold smile. ‘I thought we’d agreed on total surrender for tonight? Total surrender means doing as you’re told when you’re told. Of course if you’ve changed your mind about wanting your fill of me, that’s your choice. Get dressed and leave. I won’t stop you. But if you decide to stay, then we do things my way.’

The ruthlessness in his voice shocked her. But it turned her on at the same time.

‘You seem to have lost your tongue,’ he went on. ‘But, since you’re still here, I take it you agree with my conditions for tonight?’

Jordan swallowed, then licked her parched lips.

‘That too,’ he said, his coal-black eyes fixed on her mouth. ‘But later—after we’ve had a relaxing bath. You stay right where you are till I run the water.’

‘Gino—no,’ she choked out, her excitement already at fever pitch.

‘No, what?’ he shot back.

‘Don’t leave me like this. I can’t bear it.’

He glared at her with something akin to hatred. But then his eyes dissolved in a blaze of molten desire. With a tortured groan he caught her to him, his arms enfolding her into a rough embrace, his mouth brutal in its possession of hers.

She melted against him with a naked moan, glorying in the savagery of his kiss. If he’d been tender with her she might have started crying. This way she could lose herself in his wild passion, as well as her own.

The buttons on his shirt were pressing painfully into her chest. But she didn’t care. She welcomed the pain…and the madness.

Soon his tongue in her mouth wasn’t enough. She needed him inside her. Needed to be filled as only he had ever filled her.

Somehow she freed her mouth from his, her breathing like a marathon runner nearing the end of a race.

‘Do it to me,’ she cried.

His eyes glowered down at her, then glittered in a way which sent a shiver running down her spine. ‘Here?’

‘Yes,’ she practically sobbed.

He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her off her feet, turning her round and carrying her over to the floor-length window. There, he stood her in the centre of it, her bottom and shoulders pressed up against the cool glass.

Jordan gasped when he lifted her arms upwards and outwards.

‘Take hold of the curtains,’ he ordered her. ‘And don’t let go.’

Her hands trembled as they clasped the edges of the velvet swags. What must she look like, standing there like some pagan sacrifice? Could she be seen from the windows of the building opposite? Were people watching them?

‘Move your legs further apart,’ Gino ordered, as he stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside.

Jordan closed her eyes, then did as she was told. Her hands clutched tighter at the velvet, so tight that it was a wonder she didn’t bring the curtains down around her.

The sudden feel of Gino’s breath on her face had her eyelids fluttering back open.

‘I want you to watch, my love,’ he murmured, leaning down to run his tongue-tip around her startled mouth. ‘And to witness. Everything.’

‘I…I am not your love,’ she cried, shuddering when one his hands slipped between her legs.

‘You are tonight.’

‘No,’ she denied, even as she trembled with desire.

‘This tells me differently,’ he murmured against her panting mouth. ‘This tells me that tonight you are mine.’

His eyes held hers as his hand continued with its most devastatingly intimate exploration. Jordan tried to fight the feelings his skilful touch evoked, tried not to melt at his watching her like that. But it was a futile effort. Her whole body stiffened as it rushed towards a climax.

Gino’s abandoning her barely a breath before her release brought a perverse cry of protest.

‘Patience,’ he growled, and went back to undressing in front of her.

Jordan’s shoulders sagged, her upper arms beginning to ache. But the sight of Gino naked had her spine straightening again.

‘You like what you see?’ he taunted as he came back to her.

Jordan could no longer speak. She just wanted him inside her. She didn’t care who might be watching them—didn’t care about anything but his flesh filling hers.

It did. Quite roughly. Surging up into her body with such force that she was momentarily lifted off the floor. His hands lifted to press against the glass on either side of her head, his mouth grazing her hair as he thrust into her, his chest rubbing against the tips of her breasts.

Jordan had never experienced a coupling so passionate or so primitive. Not even with Gino himself, all those years ago.

It spun her out of her head, out of her body. She was there, but not there. Gino had said he wanted her to watch and to witness everything. That was exactly what it felt as if she was doing: being both participant and observer.

Is that really me there, spread naked against the window, keeping myself a willing captive for this man?

I am doomed, she thought hysterically. Doomed!

‘Gino,’ she cried out as she came. ‘Oh, Gino…’

Gino heard her call out his name. Felt her flesh start spasming around his.

What little was left of his control shattered, his mind exploding along with his body, his thoughts spinning out into the stratosphere.

She had to still love him to let him do such things to her, he reasoned wildly in the heat of the moment. Had to. The girl he’d known all those years could not have changed that much.

And if she loved him, then she didn’t love Stedley. She was just marrying him because she was getting older and wanted children. Women always wanted children.

He could give her children, if that was what she so desperately wanted. They could work something out—some arrangement: they could be lovers, or live together. He hadn’t given any deathbed promise that he would not live with a girl who wasn’t Italian.

Some common sense had returned, however, by the time she let go of the curtains and began to sag downwards.

She didn’t necessarily have to love him to enjoy what he’d just done to her, he conceded, as he withdrew and scooped her up into his arms. She wasn’t the same girl she’d been ten years ago. She’d changed.

He’d changed, hadn’t he?

She’d told him how it was earlier: this was all about sex. A fatal-attraction kind of sex which had nothing to do with love, but with need: a dark, driving need which obsessed and possessed.

Gino gritted his teeth. He already felt obsessed and possessed.

Jordan had expressed the hope that one night with him would cure her of her need.

As Gino carried her into the bedroom he vowed to make sure that it did not.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JORDAN shivered when Gino lowered her onto the cool satin quilt, goosebumps breaking out all over her body.

‘I’ll go run us that bath now,’ he said, as he slipped off her shoes and then wrapped the quilt tightly around her.

‘Don’t go to sleep,’ he added, giving her a soft peck on her forehead before heading for the bathroom.

Jordan stared after him, her slightly fuzzy mind at a loss to understand his sudden change of attitude. Where had the ruthless lover of a few moments ago gone? Was his tenderness for real? Or just a ploy to seduce her into further compliance?

‘Won’t be too long,’ he said jauntily as he walked back through the bedroom, returning with the ice bucket and two champagne glasses. A second trip out to the sitting room had him collecting the two plates of delicacies.

‘Can’t have you passing out from thirst and hunger, can I?’ he remarked with a wicked smile as he headed back to the bathroom.

Any fuzziness in Jordan’s head immediately cleared. Not true tenderness. A seductive ploy.

How silly of her to start hoping for anything different.

‘All done!’ he announced, on his third return to the bedroom. ‘Just one more thing needed, my love. You.’

Jordan did her best not to swoon when he threw back the quilt, then scooped her up from the bed. But having her naked flesh held tight against Gino’s was not conducive to calm.

The bathroom looked both romantic and decadent at the same time, what with the candles, the champagne and the spa filled to the brim with fragrant-smelling bubbles.

‘You’d better put your hair up,’ he suggested. ‘Or it’ll get wet.’

Jordan reached up to wrap her hair on top of her head in a knot, her eyes never leaving his.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he murmured, and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She blinked, then gasped when he went to step into the spa bath, still carrying her.

‘Oh, do be careful.’

‘I won’t drop you,’ he told her confidently. ‘Don’t worry.’

The water under the bubbles was deliciously warm, and Jordan sighed with relief when Gino finally sat down, angling her round so that she was sitting on his thighs, her back leaning against his.

‘Comfy like that?’ he asked.

Jordan swallowed. ‘Are you?’

He laughed. ‘I have a feeling I won’t be soon. But I’ll worry about that later. This is just like the old days, isn’t it? We had plenty of baths together then.’

‘I…I don’t want to talk about the old days, Gino.’

‘Fine. Here…have a sip of champagne,’ he said, picking up one of the full glasses and holding it to her lips.

Jordan was about to blindly open her lips when a wave of rebellion struck. ‘I’d rather have my own glass, thank you.’

‘Okay. Take this one.’

He gave it to her, but didn’t get the other glass for himself. Instead, he picked up the sea sponge which was lying on the bath’s edge and rubbed it across her stomach.

When he moved it up to her breasts she gasped, spilling some champagne as she jerked away from Gino’s chest.

‘Relax,’ he said, and used the sponge to press her back into her leaning position. ‘You’ll like it. I promise. Just lie back, sip your champagne, and keep your arms out of my way.’

It seemed silly to tell him to stop. Because of course she did like it—especially when the sponge grazed over her rock-hard nipples. Her pleasure was a double-edged sword, however, as her sexual tension increased with each passing moment. Soon every muscle she owned was twisted into a tight knot. She tried sipping more of the champagne, but nothing relaxed her for long.

‘Tell me about that case you won,’ Gino said.

Jordan turned her head and flicked startled eyes up at him.

‘You…you can’t be serious,’ she choked out.

‘Why not?’ he returned.

‘Because I can’t think, let alone talk when you’re doing that.’

‘Yes, you can. Try it,’ he said, moving the sponge down over her stomach again, then lower…

‘Oh!’ she cried as her hips bucked upwards.

‘God, woman,’ Gino growled.

When she felt his flesh suddenly slide up into her Jordan froze, gripping the champagne glass for dear life.

‘Just relax now,’ he advised again, as he eased her back down into a sitting position. ‘Lie back and don’t move. I want to hear about that case you won first.’

‘How can I? I…I can’t think.’

‘You can, and you will.’

Jordan could not believe she was doing this. She was desperate to move, but he kept her still with his hands splayed across her stomach.

‘What compensation did you get her in the end?’ he asked, after she’d related the whole story to him.

‘Three million.’

‘A tidy sum.’

‘Sharni still wasn’t a happy woman. Because it wasn’t about money, really. It was about justice. Money doesn’t make people happy.’

‘But it can help.’

‘I suppose so.’ She so wished he would stop talking.

‘You wouldn’t marry a poor man.’

Jordan sighed. ‘I would have married you ten years ago, when I thought you were poor.’

‘That was when you were young and naïve. When you were a romantic.’

‘You think I’m not a romantic any more?’

‘How can you be when you’re going to marry Stedley? You don’t love him, and I know it.’

Jordan didn’t like the way this conversation was going. She could cope if they just stuck to sex.

‘Could we have a change of subject, please?’ she asked tautly. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about Chad. Whether I love him or not is immaterial. Chad loves me, and he wants to marry me—which is more than I can say for you. All you want is to have sex with me. And kinky sex at that.’

‘You call this kinky?’

‘Yes. And so was that episode against the window. You’ve always been kinky, Gino. Making me go without panties and…and doing it to me anywhere and everywhere.’

‘You loved it all.’

Oh, why had she brought those things up? Just thinking about them turned her on even more.

Impossible to stay still. Impossible to be patient any longer.

‘You’re moving,’ he chided, taking a firm grip of her hips and forcing her to be still.

‘I want to move. I’m going to move. There! See? I’m moving. And you can’t stop me.’

Stop her? He didn’t want to stop her. Not any longer. He’d wanted to make her wait, to torment her. But he was the one in agony.

His blood pounded in his temples as his body rushed past that point of no return. But she still trembled violently, with undeniable pleasure, crying out in ecstasy.

Damn her, he thought wildly as his own flesh followed. Damn her to hell!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

JORDAN came back to consciousness in the four-poster bed, her last recollection being Gino carrying her back there, wrapped in a huge bathtowel. Nothing more. She must have fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

The room wasn’t dark, Gino having left the bedside lamps on, but he wasn’t in the bed. She was alone under the satin sheets. The lights were still on in the sitting room, and she thought she heard a noise coming from there.

‘Gino?’ she called out as she levered herself up onto one elbow. ‘Gino, where are you?’

He materialised in the connecting doorway, a red towel slung low round his hips, the five o’clock shadow on his face giving him a slightly menacing air.

Feeling suddenly vulnerable, Jordan clutched the sheet up over her bare breasts, her actions making his eyes narrow.

‘How…how long have I been asleep?’ she asked.

‘Not long.’

He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, then reached up to undo the knot on top of her head. Her hair tumbled down over her shoulders. Gino brushed it back with his hands.

‘I’ve been waiting patiently for you to wake up,’ he murmured, then bent forward to kiss her on her lips. Lightly at first, and then more hungrily.

As usual, his kisses sent her heartbeat racing and any qualms flying. When he pushed her back onto the pillows and threw the sheet right back off the bottom of the bed she made no attempt to stop him.

But when he reached for the bottle of lotion near the lamp her whole body stiffened.

‘What’s that for?’ she demanded to know.

‘Nothing to be alarmed about,’ he returned smoothly. ‘It says here on the label that this is a love lotion, designed to enhance every sexual activity. It claims aphrodisiacal qualities, an exotic scent and a delicious taste. And, no, before you ask. I didn’t buy it. It was here when I arrived, compliments of the management.’

Jordan swallowed when he started unscrewing the lid.

‘Don’t look so worried.’

‘I…I’m not sure I want you to use that stuff on me, Gino.’

He frowned at her. ‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’ But Jordan did know. She was afraid that she might enjoy it too much. That it would make her even more mindless than usual. That she might let him do things she would later regret.

The sudden fear and vulnerability in her eyes touched Gino’s conscience. At the same time he refused to back off entirely. This was what she’d come here for, wasn’t it?

‘Why don’t you use it on me, then?’

His suggestion sent her eyes rounding. But not with fear this time. With surprise.

He recalled that he’d always been the boss in the bedroom.

Clearly the idea intrigued her. In actuality, the idea intrigued him, too. He’d never been the passive partner in lovemaking before. Not ever. Who knew? Maybe he’d enjoy it.

‘Here—take it,’ he said, shoving the bottle into her hands before whisking the towel from his hips.

A downward glance had his eyebrows lifting. He hadn’t realised till that moment that he was well on the way to being aroused again.

‘I am yours to do with as you will,’ he said, and he lay down beside her, his arms bending upwards so that his hands rested behind his head.

Oh, yes, he thought as he felt his flesh swell even further. He was going to enjoy this. Very much so.

Jordan sat up and stared down at Gino’s aroused body, not quite sure where she was supposed to start.

In the past she’d reacted only at his command, and never for her own pleasure. The thought of having his entire body at her disposal, however, was sparking an alien feeling of power which was more exciting than she could ever have imagined.

‘You won’t stop me?’ she said, her voice sounding oddly husky.

‘I will keep my hands exactly where they are,’ he promised.

‘You don’t look like you need any aphrodisiac lotion,’ she told him. ‘But you did say that it tasted good, didn’t you?’

Jordan’s heart started thudding madly in her chest as she knelt up beside him, then tipped the bottle gently sidewards, letting the creamy lotion drip onto him.

He gasped.

‘Cold?’ she asked cheekily.

‘Something like that.’

‘I think that’s enough,’ she said.

‘I agree,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘Now, now—you’re not to complain, but to enjoy,’ she chided as she put the bottle down on the bedside table. ‘This was your idea, remember?’

‘Maybe I made a mistake.’

‘Not by the look of you.’

He groaned when she bent and licked him with her tongue-tip.

They were right, Jordan thought, somewhat dazedly. It did taste good—somewhere between olives and apples.

Definitely an aphrodisiac as well: it made her want to make love to him with her mouth. All the way.

A wave of heat flushed her skin as she bent her head to him again. First she swirled her tongue around, several times, then she began to slowly take him into her mouth, holding him firmly at the same time with her lotion-slicked hand.

He groaned, and twisted his hips from side to side. But he didn’t try to stop her.

Jordan set up a relentless rhythm with her mouth, shocking herself by how much she enjoyed hearing the tortured sounds he began making.

It wasn’t till he called out her name that she gave him some respite.

‘Is there something wrong, lover?’ she asked, as she sat up and pushed her hair back from her flushed face.

‘You’re treading a fine line there,’ he warned her, his breathing ragged. ‘I suggest you move on.’

Jordan’s eyebrows lifted, his last words bringing a sudden stab of resentment.

That’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since you left me, Gino. Move on. Yet here I am, in bed with you again. And it’s all such an appalling waste of time.

Jordan’s thoughts infuriated her—mostly because she knew she was incapable of walking away right now. She was way too excited.

But perhaps he was right: she wanted him inside her again.

At the same time, she liked the tension she saw in his face. It pleased her to know she could make him suffer, even if it was only physically. She vowed to take her time with him, to make him wait.

‘Have to go to the bathroom, lover,’ she said. ‘Won’t be too long. Just lie back and relax.’

Relax!

Gino grimaced when she climbed off the bed and padded her way across the gold carpet.

How could he possibly relax?

He tried some deep, even breathing, his eyes clinging to the bathroom door, willing it to open, desperate for her to come back. But when the door finally opened, and she re-entered the bedroom, she didn’t rejoin him on the bed. Instead, she slipped into her high heels and went back into the bathroom.

A minute later she was back, a glass of champagne in her hand, her walk slow and sexy as she undulated towards the bed. As his gaze raked over her Gino’s desire to touch was so acute that his hands instinctively began to move.

‘Hands behind your head,’ she snapped.

Her imperious attitude stunned him, as did the way it turned him on. But even as the blood roared around his veins he longed for that moment when he could take control again—when he could once again show her who was the master here.

‘I’m beginning to see that there is more pleasure in taking than receiving,’ she purred, a truly wicked smile pulling at her lips.

Any secret hope on Gino’s part that she might have come here tonight for reasons other than sex evaporated in the face of that smile.

He swore quietly when she climbed up onto the bed and straddled him, her high heels still on, the glass of champagne still in her hands. As he stared up at her his level of arousal shot past pleasure, entering the world of near pain.