Humiliation engulfed me. I didn’t want him to caress me like a lover. Except my body was calling me a liar, the hot boulder wedged between my thighs reminding me how good it had felt to have him buried inside me.
He pressed his lips to my sweaty hair and let out a rough laugh—the cynical edge sharpened by the dark craving in his eyes.
‘You are a wild cat, Mia.’ He shook his hand and sucked on the raw skin where I’d bit him. ‘I may need a tetanus shot.’ He chuckled as if my attempts to free myself were amusing.Damn him.‘You should have told me of the baby.’ His features hardened into that brooding mask. ‘But you are mine now, and I will protect you both. How easy or hard you make that for yourself is up to you.’
The words sounded like a promise as much as a threat. The tears I’d been trying so hard not to shed leaked out. He brushed his thumb across my cheek, the tender gesture as unsettling as it was disconcerting.
I swung my head away from him, the only act of defiance left to me, my breathing ragged with emotion. Slipping a small penknife out of his pocket, he flipped it open with one hand and reached behind me to cut the tie digging into my wrists. Dragging my hands into my lap, he rubbed the reddened skin.
I probably ought to have used the opportunity to pull off the gag, but I didn’t. Because I had nothing to say to him. WhatcouldI say that would get through to him? He’d obviously spent his whole life doing whatever the hell he wanted. But then he tugged the gag down himself.
‘You should not have struggled,’ he said, his gaze fixed on the raw skin as he soothed it with his thumbs. Was that regret I could hear in his voice?
‘Well, maybe you shouldn’t have kidnapped me,’ I said, unable to keep the anger out of my voice.
I didn’t care if he was the most powerful mafioso in Italy. He was way out of line.
‘I am not kidnapping you. I am protecting you,’ he announced, the righteous, dictatorial tone back.
Yeah, definitely not regret then.
‘I don’t want or need your protection,’ I announced. ‘Especially when it involves me being tied up and gagged…’ I replied, more determined now than ever to stand up to him.
I’d been clueless once, and starry-eyed about this man, so pathetically grateful for his attention I’d let myself be used. But I wasn’t clueless anymore.
I probably ought to be scared of him. He didn’t respect boundaries of any kind. Somehow, though, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, not physically. What he clearly didn’t get, though, was that taking all my choices away from me was another way of hurting me, which was far worse in many ways. I’d been here before with my mother, and it sucked.
His dark brows lowered. The flinty look he sent me was filled with frustration rather than anger—as if I was an annoying thorn in his side which he did not understand.
‘If you had done as you were told, the ties and the gag would not have been necessary,’ he said, missing the point completely.
I scoffed. ‘Stop gaslighting me.’
He frowned. ‘Gaslighting? What does this mean?’
‘It means what you just did…’ I glared at him. ‘Suggesting it was my fault those ties cut into my wrists when you had no right to put them on me in the first place.’
He didn’t look convinced. ‘You did not do as I demanded,’ he said, still gaslighting me. ‘So I had every right.’
‘Uh-huh, and who made you the boss of me, exactly?’
His eyes widened a fraction, signalling his surprise at my defiance. But then he rested his hand on my abdomen again, caressing the spot where our baby grew—the sense of entitlement beyond shocking. I gasped as an arrow of heat plunged into my sex. His voice had lowered to a husky growl when he spoke. ‘I am the boss of many people, Mia. Butyoumost of all, now that you carry my child.’
‘Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean you own me…’ I said, my voice shaky as I shoved his hand away.
‘Your body does not agree,’ he said, clasping my head. His lips hovered over mine—the intent to kiss me if I gave him any encouragement.
I flattened my palms against his chest, which felt like a slab of marble, determined to push him away. The last thing I needed right now was to reignite the passion which had got me into this situation in the first place.
But instead of forcing the connection, instead of grinding his mouth against mine, he licked the seam, coaxing me to accept his dominance. And succumb to the desire already burning through my bloodstream. His thumb caressed my neck where my pulse thundered, even as he held me still.
‘Open for me, Mia,’ he murmured against my quivering lips.
I could smell him, that intoxicating scent of soap and man. The melting sensation throbbed and pulsed between my thighs, reawakening all those erotic dreams which had plagued me for the past five months. The fire inside me ignited like a firecracker, making my breasts swell and my panties dampen. I writhed against his hold, but my mouth opened on a sob of surrender, my body needing this, as my determination to resist my reaction to his demands shattered. He thrust his tongue deep, possessing my mouth in greedy, searing, seductive strokes, angling my head to take more. The kiss became carnal, basic, elemental, our physical connection even stronger now than it had been before.
Fighting the yearning at the taste of him again after so long was impossible, my body primed by my pregnancy to do whatever he demanded. Our tongues danced, tangled, my fingers curling into his shirt to drag him closer, my bottom shifting on his lap, desperate to feel the thick ridge I was sitting on inside me again.
He dragged his mouth away first, leaving me panting with need. But as he stroked my hair back from my face, his gaze dark with knowledge and no small degree of satisfaction at my instant and incendiary response to him, I jerked my head away from his touch. And released my death grip on his shirt.
