“Don’t lie to me.” Anger rising, he lifted her off him and twisted her onto her back, pinning her wrists at the sides of her face and trapping her beneath him so he could look more closely at her. “You’re a virgin. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
Something new flashed on her face, but before he could discern what it was, her neck lifted and her forehead slammed into his.
“What thefuck?” he roared, rearing back as an unexpected blinding pain gripped him. The second he loosened his hold on her wrists, she’d wriggled out from under him and rolled onto her stomach.
Scrambling away, she made it to the edge of the bed before he realised what she was doing and lunged for her, but he wasn’t quick enough. In her desperation to get away from him, she fell off the bed with a loud crash. She was on her feet before he’d even had time to register the fall, then racing across the room to the door.
Elio’s reflexes kicked in, and he jumped off the bed and chased after her. He caught up with her on the far side of the landing, hooking his arms around her and lifting her into the air when she was only feet away from the stairs.
“No!” she screamed, kicking out wildly and grabbing at his forearms, scratching her nails through his skin.
Ignoring the damage she was doing to him and the wild curses she was screaming at him, he lowered her back to the ground but gave her no chance to escape. Sliding an arm under her knees, her scooped her up and held her tight to his chest, pinning her limbs, which were frantically wriggling as she bucked for freedom, and stalked back to the bedroom.
Still holding her tight to him, he was about to sit her on the sofa when he felt another searing pain, this time in his shoulder.
She’d bitten him.
Abandoning the sofa, he dumped her unceremoniously on the bed. He gave her no opportunity to fight or flee, pinning her thighs with his knees and her wrists with his hands. Making sure to keep his face out of headbutting distance, he glared down at her. He could feel the warmth of his blood pooling on his shoulder.
“If you don’t get control of yourself, I will tie you up until I can trust you to behave yourself.”
“Tie me up then,” she spat, bucking with her torso. “It’s how monsters like you get your kicks, isn’t it?”
“I mean it, Siena. Calm the hell down. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Bullshit. It’s the whole reason why you married me.”
“I have never harmed a woman in my life, and I’m not going to start with you.”
“You want me dead.”
“If I was to kill you, it would be painless. Your life would be gone before you knew it was happening.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” she snarled.
“I mean it. I would never do anything to hurt you. If I’d known you were a virgin, I’d…”
“You’d have made sure to break me properly, that’s what you’d have done, just as you intended to break my cousin.”
A semblance of understanding dawned. Inhaling deeply, he gazed into the soft blue eyes still spitting fire and fury at him. “I said that because I knew you would never let it happen. I chose Francesca because I knew you would never let an innocent like her marry a bastard like me, and I said what I said to reinforce it and back you into a corner.”
His plan had worked like a dream, but now he needed to wrap his head around the fact of Siena being an innocent, too… Okay, so innocent in conjunction with Siena was a huge stretch, but until only ten minutes ago, she’d been a virgin.
Her virginity wasn’t something that had occurred to him, not even as a fleeting, idle thought. Not Siena Esposito, Italy’s sexiest woman and one of its most powerful. A woman only weeks away from turning twenty-six.
When she’d been caressing his body with her mouth, he’d been so caught up in the sensations she was eliciting in him that he’d paid scant attention tohowshe was caressing him. Even when she’d taken him into her mouth, he’d been so busy revelling in his triumph and how damned incredible it was all feeling, that he’d taken her clumsy hesitancy as belligerence.
“I’m sorry for hurting you,” he said quietly. “If I’d known you were a virgin, I would have approached things very differently.”
She’d stopped bucking against him. Her eyes were intent on his as if trying to read his thoughts. And then her face contorted. “That is such bullshit,” she said bitterly. “You manipulated things so I felt I had no choice but to marry you, you call me your possession…” Her features twisted again, contempt now shining in her eyes. “Am I supposed to be comforted that you didn’tintentionally hurt my physical body when the whole point of me being here in your bed is to hurt me? I am your vengeance, Elio. You might not have wanted to break me in a literal fashion, but your intention was always to demean and degrade me; to break my soul.”
A stab of anger slashed his guts, a fury that was for the both of them; her for being who she was and him for allowing even a whisper of guilt seep into him for her. There was additional anger for allowing a whisper of tenderness to accompany that worthless guilt. “That would only be true if I thought you had a soul to break.”
“You should know all about a lack of soul.” Disdain dripped from her voice. “Now will you please get off me – you’re hurting me.”
“Will you behave yourself?” As he asked the question, he noticed for the first time the lump forming on her forehead from where she’d headbutted him.
“If you mean will I refrain from fighting you, then yes. You’re not worth the energy.”
