LITMIR.BIZ

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the other door.’

      Feeling as if she’d been tossed from a storm into a maelstrom, she stared at the solid wooden door which lead out to the main hallway as if it were some brooding dark monster. ‘You locked it,’ she breathed shakily.

      He was already striding over there. To her utter consternation he turned the key to unlock the door.

      ‘What did you do that for?’ she cried out in protest.

      Ignoring her, he reached up to flick the light switch next. It was like being bombarded with hot shards of glass. She screwed her eyes shut on a shrill little whimper of agony then dragged them open again almost immediately because she needed to know what he was going to do next. He was already halfway back across the room and bending down to pick something up off the floor. She’d never seen such a change in anyone. His energy levels had shot from virtually somnolent to the other extreme.

      The black dinner suit barely rippled as he straightened up again, the butterfly collar to his white dress shirt still looked as crisp as it probably had when he’d first put it on. His skin wore a warm olive sheen and his satiny black hair had the merest hint of a wave that she hadn’t noticed before. His head was bent slightly, eyes hooded, those thick lashes hovering a breath away from his chiselled cheekbones. He was breathtakingly attractive and his mouth wore the bloom of their recent kiss.

      Fire pooled between her thighs again and she wrenched her eyes away from him. Everything about him was suddenly so physical, so—sexual!

      Oh, dear, she groaned inwardly. What’s happening to me?

      Lifting up the glass, she took a large gulp at the brandy. Why not get drunk? she decided wildly. It had to be a better option to feeling like this.

      He arrived in front of her, making her jump nervously when he bent to use one hand to take the glass from her so he could take his turn with the drink, while the other hand pulled her to her feet. She felt like a puppet—this man’s puppet! He kept pulling and pushing her, picking her up, putting her down and kissing her.

      Oh, dear, she thought again as her insides went haywire. ‘No,’ she husked in muffled protest.

      ‘No what?’ he asked, discarding the glass.

      But she’d already forgotten what when he proceeded to hook long fingers beneath the lip of her bodice as if he had every right to touch her like this!

      ‘What are you doing?’ she choked out in protest as she felt the smooth backs of his nails stroke her flesh.

      His answer was a demonstration. Coolly and very proficiently he gave a tug that resettled the dark fabric across the thrust of her breasts. Glancing down, she gave a gasp of horror when she realised how close she must have been to revealing too much flesh.

      Like Sonya.

      Like Sonya… Her eyes closed on the next dizzying wave to hit her as reality came crashing back.

      He moved his attention elsewhere then, throwing her into a deeper state of confusion when he proceeded to tidy her tumbled hair. She hadn’t even realised the knot had come undone.

      ‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘We haven’t got much time for this so you are going to have to make some quick decisions as to what happens next,’ he said quietly, deciding to organise her wrecked life for her now, she noted dully.

      ‘Lock the door again.’ That was a decision.

      She watched as his mouth compressed. ‘The way I see it, you have several choices. You can turn a blind eye to what you saw and continue with tonight as if nothing has happened…’ She winced at the word blind. ‘Or you can brave it out and go out there of your own volition to announce that you’re calling off the engagement and why you are.’

      Either way she looked the fool. ‘Great choices,’ she muttered.

      ‘I haven’t finished yet,’ he chided. ‘If you really feel you can’t bear to face him then we can leave through the French windows right now, before he gets here, climb into my car and just disappear.’

      She glared at his chest and grimly added coward to fool and shrew.

      He was using her hair comb to tame the thick silken swathe into some semblance of tidiness, surprising her with the efficiency he used to secure her hair in yet another neat twist. And her scalp was beginning to tingle—with pleasure. She couldn’t bear it. It was all just too much.

      ‘Please stop it, Carlo,’ she breathed out anxiously.

      ‘You do know my name, then,’ he said lightly and she lifted her eyelids to show him dark pools of agony.

      ‘Please lock the door again,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m not ready to cope with him!’

      His fingers dropped to cup her shoulders, his eyes suddenly sober and dark. ‘It is midnight, Francesca,’ he informed her very gently.

      Midnight. The witching hour. The time her engagement to Angelo was to be formally announced. Her gaze flicked the room as if a hundred glossy people were already standing here watching and waiting to bear witness as Angelo claimed his mighty prize.

      She shuddered in dismay as the full weight of his betrayal returned like a flood. The hands on her shoulders moved in reflex response. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said brusquely. ‘He doesn’t deserve your tears.’

      She knew that, but it didn’t stop what was beginning to break up inside. ‘What am I going to do?’ she whispered tragically.

      His hands moved again, coming to frame her face so he could tilt it up to receive his next warm kiss. When she responded with a small sob he caught the sound with the lick of his tongue. Each stifled sob after it was gently robbed from her; in between he placed words, low, dark, seductive words that made her want to cling.

      ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I will deal with it. Trust me to get you through this.’

      ‘But why should you want to?’ she asked, realising it was a question she should have asked a whole lot sooner than this. ‘Why should it interest you at all?’

      His answering smile was the cynical one. ‘Come on, Francesca, the answer to that one must be perfectly clear,’ he mocked as he moved one of his long thumbs to send it on a sweep of her now pulsing not quivering mouth. ‘I want you for myself,’ he told her grimly. ‘Therefore I will do what it takes to get you.’

      Then he was lowering his mouth again to show how much he wanted her with yet another full-blooded mind-blowing kiss.

      Everything he did now was laced with intimacy. Every touch, every look, every small gesture was staking claim. And the worst of it was that she let him. She felt so vulnerable and weak and drawn to his passion that she had a terrible suspicion he could spread her out on the desk across the room and have his way with her and she wouldn’t try to stop him.

      It was a dreadful admission. It shocked and appalled her but didn’t make her pull away from him. Where was her pride, her dignity?

      Not where her mouth was anyway. It clung and encouraged, like her fingers where they lifted and clung to his nape, smoothing, stroking, and her hips as they arched into the masculine bowl of his. And the whole hot, sensuous embrace was so slow and deep and intoxicatingly rousing, she moved with it, soaked in it, and didn’t even hear the door flying open until a stunned voice rasped, ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’

      CHAPTER FIVE

      SHOCK wired her up to a live cable. She felt its electric fingers frisson her skin. On a choked gasp she tried to break free but Carlo was in no hurry to let that happen. He took his time easing the kiss, lingering long enough for Angelo to be in no doubt as to what he was witnessing here.

      ‘As you can see, a great deal is going on,’ he then murmured with smooth, slick—diabolical composure. And he said it without moving his eyes from Francesca’s hot, kissed-hazed, dismayed face. He even dared to compound on his statement by shaping yet another warm,

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