The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит
he answered flatly. ‘We might as well get it over with.’
She didn’t answer, and he finished unbuttoning the dress in silence. She held her hands up to her front to keep it in place, and Sandro could see the top curve of her bottom, encased enticingly in sheer tights, as she stepped back into the bathroom. She closed the door, and with a grim smile he listened to her lock it once more.
* * *
Liana lay in the bath until the water grew cold and the insistent throb of her body’s response to Sandro started to subside—except it didn’t.
She’d never been touched so intimately as when he’d unbuttoned her dress. She realised this probably made her seem pathetic to a man like him, a man who was so sensual and passionate, who had probably had a dozen—a hundred—lovers. As for her? She’d had so little physical affection in her life that even a casual brush of a hand had everything in her jolting with shocked awareness.
And now the feeling of his fingers on her back, the whisper of skin on skin, so intimate, so tender, an assault so much softer and gentler than that life-altering kiss they’d had six weeks ago and yet still so unbearably powerful, had made that awakened need inside her blaze hotter, harder, its demand one she was afraid she could not ignore.
The water was chilly now, and reluctantly she rose from the tub, and swathed herself in the robe that covered her just as Sandro had promised but which she knew he could peel away in seconds.
She took time brushing and blow-drying her hair, stared at her pale face and wide eyes, and then pinched her cheeks for colour. No more reasons to stay in here, to stall.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the bathroom door.
Sandro was facing the window, one arm braced against its frame, wearing only a pair of black silk pyjama bottoms, and the breath rushed from Liana’s lungs as she gazed at him, the firelight flickering over his powerful shoulders and trim hips, his hair as dark as ink and his skin like bronze. He looked darkly powerful and almost frightening in his latent sensuality, his blatant masculinity. Just his presence seemed to steal all the breath from her body, all the thoughts from her head.
She straightened her spine, took a deep breath. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Are you?’ His voice was a low, sardonic drawl as he turned around, swept her from head to toe in one swiftly assessing gaze. ‘You look terrified.’
‘Well, I can’t say I’m looking forward to this,’ Liana answered, keeping her voice tart even though her words were, at least in part, no more than lies. ‘But I’ll do my duty.’
‘I thought you’d say something like that.’
‘Then perhaps you’re getting to know me, after all.’
‘Unfortunately, I think I am.’
She flinched, unable to keep herself from it, and Sandro shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’
‘But you meant it.’
‘I only meant...’ He let out a long, low breath. ‘I just wish things could be different.’
That she was different, he meant. Well, sometimes she wished she were different too. She wished being close to someone—being vulnerable, intimate, exposed—wasn’t scary. Terrifying.
Was that what Sandro wanted? That kind of...closeness? The thought caused a blaze of yearning to set her senses afire. Because part of her wanted that too, but she had no idea how to go about it. How to overcome her fear.
‘Well, then,’ she finally said, every muscle tensed and expectant. A smile twitched at his lips even though she still sensed that restless, rangy energy from him.
‘Do you actually think I’m going to pounce on you right this second? Deflower you like some debauched lord and his maiden?’
‘I hope you’ll have a bit more finesse than that.’
‘Thank you for that vote of confidence.’ He strolled towards her with graceful, loose-limbed purpose that had Liana tensing all the more.
He stood in front of her, his gaze sweeping over her so that already she felt ridiculously exposed, even though she wore the bathrobe that covered her completely.
‘You’re as tense as a bow.’ Sandro touched the back of her neck, his fingers massaging the muscles knotted there. ‘Why don’t you relax, just a little?’
Her fingers clenched convulsively on the sash of her robe. Relaxation felt like an impossibility. ‘And how am I supposed to do that when I know—’ She stopped abruptly, not wanting to admit so much, or really anything at all.
Sandro’s dark eyebrows drew together in a frown as he searched her face. ‘When you know what?’
‘That you don’t like me,’ she forced out, her voice small and suffocated, her face averted from his. ‘That you don’t even respect me or hold me in any regard at all.’
Sandro didn’t answer, just let his gaze rove over her, searching for something he didn’t seem to find because he finally sighed, shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘And you feel the same way about me.’
‘I—’ She stopped, licked her lips. She should tell him that she’d only told him she didn’t respect him to hurt him and hide herself, because she’d hated how vulnerable she’d felt. And yet somehow the words wouldn’t come.
‘I think it’s best,’ Sandro said quietly, ‘if we put our personal feelings aside. The last time we were alone together, I kissed you.’ He spoke calmly, rationally, and yet just that simple statement of fact caused Liana’s heart to thud even harder and a treacherous, hectic flush to spread over her whole body. ‘You responded,’ he continued, and she closed her eyes, the memory of his kiss washing over her in a hot tide. ‘And I responded to you. Regardless of how different we are, and how little regard we have for each other’s personal priorities or convictions, we are physically attracted to one another, Liana.’
He rested his hands lightly on her shoulders, and she felt the warmth of his palms even through the thick terry cloth of her robe. ‘It might seem repellent to you, to be attracted to someone you don’t respect, but this is the only point of sympathy it appears we have between us.’
And with his hands still on her shoulders he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. That first taste of him was like a cool drink of water in the middle of a burning desert. And her life had been a desert, a barren wasteland of loneliness and yearning for something she hadn’t realised she’d missed until he’d first touched her.
Her mouth opened instinctively under his, her hands coming up to clutch the warm, bare skin of his shoulders, needing the contact and the comfort, the closeness. Needing him.
His lips hovered over hers for a moment, almost as if he was surprised by the suddenness of her response, the silent yes she couldn’t keep her body from saying. Then he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into the softness of her mouth, claiming and exploring her with a staggering intimacy that felt strangely, unbearably sweet.
It felt important, to be touched like this. To feel warm hands on her body, gentle, caressing, accepting her in a way she’d never felt accepted before. Not since she’d lost Chiara, since she’d let her go.
She’d never understood how much she needed this in the years since then, the touch of a human being, the reminder that she was real and alive, flesh and blood and bone, emotion and want and need. She was so much more than what she’d ever let herself be, and she felt it all now in an overwhelming, endless rush as Sandro kissed her.
And then he stopped, pulling back just a little to smile down at her with what seemed terribly like smugness. ‘Well, then,’ he said softly, and she heard satisfaction and perhaps even triumph in his voice, and with humiliation scorching through her she pulled away.
Of course he didn’t accept her. Didn’t like her, didn’t respect her. Didn’t even know her. And