AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I admit I was wrong,” he growled. “Do you wish for me to perform some kind of ritual self-flagellation? If I could, I would change what I did then, but desperation to save your father had me acting swiftly and without the proper thought. I regret that you were caught up in that.”
“’Caught up in that?
??” she repeated with incredulity. “You were my husband. I was twenty years old and had lived a ridiculously sheltered life. I had barely any experience with boys, none with men, and there you were, this Greek Adonis I’d spent my teenage years fantasising about, and you practically shuddered whenever I touched you.” Her face drained of colour, her mortification so intense she barely noticed that his own features grew similarly pale as she spoke. “Our marriage didn’t just make me miserable. It destroyed my soul and shattered my confidence. You wonder why I was a virgin until that night in London? I dared not even hope another man might want to touch me. I thought myself to be somehow disgusting.”
He flinched, his expression showing a strength of emotion that surprised her. “But that man in the bar –,”
“Yes, drunkenly I foisted myself on a man in a bar, and do you know why?”
He shook his head tersely, just once.
“Because I wanted to make you see me as a woman,” she spat. “I didn’t want you to think I’d cheated so you would end our marriage. I was hoping it would inspire you to damned well begin it.”
His eyes swept shut, dark colour sweeping the ridges of his cheekbones. “If you had any idea how hard it was for me to resist you, cara…”
“Stop saying that. Don’t lie to me,” she snapped, spinning away from him. “I’m done being lied to by you.”
“I swear to you, from this day until the day I die, I will speak only the truth. Alessia, I wanted you. God, I wanted you with a passion that almost destroyed me.” He caught her wrist, pulling at it lightly so she spun around. “You are eleven years younger than me. The first time I saw you, you were a five-year-old girl. I was sixteen. I had already been with many women.” He paused, letting that detail settle in. “I watched you grow up, comforted you when your mother died. You were twenty when we married, and while that made you an adult technically, to me you were still a child – and I felt like some disgusting creep for wanting to rip your clothes off your body and make you mine. Do you have any idea what I wanted to do to you?”
Her eyes flew wide, her disbelief obvious in the strain of her features.
“For the year of our marriage I was celibate and tortured by needs for you. If you have spent even a single day of your life feeling undesirable because of my struggle to accept how much I wanted you then I unreservedly apologise. You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful, sensual woman I have ever known.”
A sob was strangled in her throat. She stared across his office, shaking her head a little.
“It’s too late, Max. You can’t undo the damage caused by our marriage.”
“I disagree.” He found the fabric of her shirt and lifted it, so his fingers trailed over her stomach, lifting towards the lace of her bra. “I believe I can demonstrate to you on a daily basis just how desirable you are.”
Her harsh intake of breath burst through the room. His fingers rolled over one of her nipples and she made a soft keening noise, wishing she were strong enough to push him away, but rational thought had deserted her completely.
“It’s too late,” she said again, but tilting her head back, so his mouth brushed the column of her throat, his tongue flicking the pulse point there and a noise that was barely human hummed between them.
“Didn’t London show you how much I have always wanted you?”
And then he claimed her lips with his, obviating the need for a response, and also removing her ability to provide one, his kiss rocking her to the core of her being, the baby between them binding them for all time whether she agreed to marry him or not.
Chapter Five
HE NEEDED TO STOP this. Making love to Alessia was easy – making her forget what they were arguing about by flooding her body with desire was satisfying and pleasurable but it didn’t achieve his goal. He couldn’t keep her chained to a bed and kiss her whenever she realised that perhaps she didn’t want to be married to him after all.
No, he needed to convince her that this could work. He had to show her that a marriage based on respect and desire could make them both happy – particularly when there was a child to consider.
He lifted his head, regret bursting through him as he looked down at her pleasure-ravaged face, eyes that were groggy from the intensity of her feelings, lips that were swollen from the strength of his kiss.
“Christo,” he shook his head, stepping back, regarding her fully. Her shirt had lifted, revealing her bare, gently-rounded belly and his gut kicked in response to that, pleasure at the life growing inside of her swelling his chest. “Do you doubt how much I want you?”
She stared at him, as if not comprehending.
“Do you really doubt we can make this marriage work?”
Her eyes were round, her cheeks flushed. “I – I need to think.”
The temptation to rail against that filled him, but instead, he nodded curtly. “Fine. Then we’ll think.”
“I need to think,” she corrected.
“You have doubts. Let me answer them.”
