The mouth moving on hers was firm. Determined. The stubble from his beard tickled her chin. Although she wasn’t breathing, she could smell coffee and the remnants of his cologne and something else, something undefinable. She could still feel the light mark of Elio’s hand on her breast and the sensation of his tongue on her neck.
She squeezed her eyes and pulled her lips in tighter. She didn’t want to feel anything, would not give him the satisfaction of any kind of response, good or bad. She would kill him with her indifference.
But there was the strangest warmth tingling in the pit of her stomach, and she was painfully aware her heart was racing. Painfully aware, too, that keeping her lips compressed was taking all her concentration.
His hands now buried in her hair, the firm lips skimmed over her cheek. His warm breath danced over the sensitive skin of her ear. “Is this how it’s going to be, my little wife?” He pulled his head back. She could feel his eyes boring into her. “Are you going to spend our wedding night acting like a mannequin?”
Fisting her hands, she opened her eyes. “You’re a stranger to me,” she said stonily.
“We both know that isn’t true, and now I’m your husband. You knew what you were signing up for.”
Through the pounding of her heart, she held his stare. “Then take it. Rip my clothes off and force yourself inside me. That’s how you get your kicks, isn’t it? Breaking women?”
She felt the slightest tightening of the fingers still buried in her hair, and for the first time, detected a flash of emotion in his silver eyes. Fear coiled up her spine, but she swallowed it and tightened her fisted hands.
Slowly, silkily … menacingly … he said, “I have never forced myself on a woman in my life.”
Refusing to allow herself to be intimidated, she smiled. “Really? But that was what you intended for my cousin. You planned to break her into being exactly what you wanted her to be.”
He gazed into her eyes for the longest time before bringing his mouth back to her ear. “Then it is as well that you stepped into her place, isn’t it, wife? You swooped in like a guardian angel to save the sweet little virgin from the hell I would have put her through.” He pulled back to look into her eyes again. “How much did it sting when you discovered the sweet, virgin cousin you were saving had fallen in love with a man who’s screwed his way around Europe?”
“Better she falls for a man-whore who returns her feelings than have her life ruined by a monster who wants only to break her.”
“So you stepped in as tribute to volunteer yourself to be broken? How…” His lips curved mockingly. “Selfless.”
Her mouth filling with the bile of her loathing, she didn’t respond.
Sliding his hands out of her hair, he palmed them slowly down her neck like a sculptor examining his work for imperfections. “You think you are strong enough to withstand me, wife?”His fingers followed the V of her shirt’s collar to the top button and undid it.
“You disgust me,” she said, fighting with everything she had to keep her voice even. “If you take me, it will be rape.”
His laughter at this was as mocking as everything else about him. “You agreed to this marriage, Siena.” His fingers trailed a line over her breasts. “I made my vows, and you made yours, and you will do more than give your body to me. You will take mine.”
The confusion on her face made him smile, but there was no longer amusement in his glittering eyes. He encircled one of her shamefully hardened nipples. “Yes, my beautiful little wife, to salve your fears that you have married a rapist, I’m going to leave the consummation of our marriage in your hands. You have exactly one day to seduce me, or I file for an annulment.” His smile dropped, the silkiness of his voice hardening to granite. “And I issue a declaration of war.”
Chapter Three
Siena climbedinto the marital bed. Her heart was still beating erratically. Her bones felt jellified.
She could hear the shower running in the marital bathroom and wished she had the power to will herself to sleep before Elio came out of it. She’d never known a stomach could knot itself so tightly.
She’d never felt so powerless, not even in that nightmare moment when she’d been pinned to the wall.
This was the rest of her life. She’d known it when she’d stepped up and agreed to it, but now she felt it. Really felt it.
Turning her back to the bathroom door, she rested her cheek on the pillow and swallowed back the panic rising in her.
She could leave. He wouldn’t try to stop her. But if she left, he would take it as a declaration of war. If she failed to consummate their marriage within twenty-four hours, he would take that, too, as a declaration of war. Her whole family, everything she held dear, would be in danger. The army Elio had built under their noses matched theirs for size and power. And that was just the army they knew of. There was no knowing how many of their own men had been recruited by him and were waiting for the signal to act.
She had to have sex with him. There was no getting around it.
It wasn’t even as simple as closing her eyes and just letting him take her. Not now. No, Elio was showing her who held the power in their marriage and in the most degrading way possible. He’d turned the tables on her. As punishment for her refusal to be seduced, he was blackmailing her into seducing him.
God, how could she dothat?
Men were pigs. Every single one of them. Even Rico had been a pig before he’d fallen for his angel. This pig was the worst of them all.
To have to seducehim…
