Contract Wedding, Expectant Bride

His lips were firm and hot against hers and, try as she might, she couldn’t ignore the teasing tug of his teeth against her full lower lip or the gentle swipe of the tip of his tongue as she fought, and failed, to deny him access. Her hands swept up to his chest, but instead of forming some leverage between them, her fingers curled in the cotton of his shirt as she sought to become even closer with him.

This was madness, she told herself. She didn’t engage with her clients on this level—had promised herself she never would. Was she really no different than what her mother had said—worth no more than she’d been the day her mother had bartered her daughter’s body for her lover’s money and interest?

The thought speared through her with unerring and excoriating accuracy. She was not that person! Ottavia wrenched her mouth from Rocco’s, her heart pounding in her chest and her breathing difficult.

“Please,” she begged, “let me go.”

In an instant she was free.

“Ottavia?”

“J-just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

“What is it? Are you all right? You were there with me, every step of the way until—”

“Until I wasn’t,” she finished for him, dragged every last speck of self-control back together. “I told you that sex was not part of the contract.”

“It was just a kiss,” he said softly.

Just a kiss? The man was crazy if he thought he, or what he did, was just anything.

“It was outside the parameters of what we agreed,” she insisted.

“How so? Is a kiss not companionable?”

“Don’t bandy semantics with me, Your Majesty,” she snapped back, irritated beyond belief—at herself even more so than at him.

Damn him, but she’d actually begun to enjoy their embrace. She’d almost forgotten her promise to herself. He was dangerous, far more dangerous than she’d ever imagined.

“Rocco, remember?”

“Fine, Rocco, then. Either way, it doesn’t matter what I call you. Now, since our business tonight is complete, I will thank you for dinner and take my leave.”

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere.”

Ottavia fought not to curl her hands into fists of annoyance. “Why not?”

“While we dined, your possessions were moved to my rooms here. For the duration of our contract, you will be staying with me.”

The coil tightened into a knot. “You moved my things? Before we’d even signed the contract? Before you even knew what was in it? That was insufferably presumptuous of you.”

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