Chapter 9 #2
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked harshly when she made no response.
“I’m a man who rarely spends more than one night with a woman.
She has to be spectacular in bed to be invited to spend a second night.
I care nothing for personality or what lies in a woman’s heart.
All I care about is the end game of satisfying my lust, and bedding you would be no different.
You’d be nothing but one of a never-ending conveyor belt of women.
The only thing, literally the only thing, separating you from the others would be the hostage thing, and even then, it would only be as an aid for remembering your name.
Your face will have faded from my memories before you’ve shared a glass of wine with your family to celebrate your release.
That’s the man you’re asking to take your virginity, Miss Marino; an unashamed lothario who won’t even remember your face. Do you understand that?”
It wasn’t just her heart now wobbling. It felt like her whole being had turned to jelly, and when she added more lemonade to the fresh measure of bourbon he’d poured into her glass, it was with a hand trembling so hard that fizzy liquid sloshed over the rim.
“I understand that you’re trying to get me to renege on our deal,” she whispered tremulously.
“If you’ve got any sense in that beautiful head of yours, you would take the out I’m offering you. Don’t waste your virginity on a man like me.”
“That you are trying to get me to change my mind only proves you’re a better man than you think yourself to be.”
His face darkened, anger flashing in eyes that had turned to granite. “No, Miss Marino, I am much worse.”
She eyeballed him. “Worse than Elio Ranieri who wants only to break me?”
His handsome face contorted into a snarl. Firing a curse, he took a hefty drink of his bourbon.
She leaned forward. Looking even more intensely at him, she bluntly said, “What if I never feel like this again?”
“You shouldn’t feel anything for me,” he bit out.
“I have no control over my attraction for you.”
“You have control over acting on it.”
“Exactly.” The pads of her fingers pressing hard onto the thick cloth, she stretched her neck even closer to him.
“I have control. Not my family. Me. I could spend the rest of my life searching for a man who makes me feel like you do, but never find him. Worse, I might let myself be bullied into marrying that man – what kind of life can I look forward to with a brute like that?” To her horror, tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them fall or deter her.
“This might be my last chance to take my life into my own hands and make a choice for myself. Maybe I will come to regret it, but at least I will look back and know I’m regretting a choice that I made and not one that was forced on me. ”
His knuckles were white around his glass. “You will never be the same again.”
A smile broke through the tension knotted so tightly inside her. “But that’s the whole point. Don’t you see? I’ve lived my entire life like a bird with its wings clipped. This might be my only chance to fly. If I fall, then I fall.”
He held her stare for another long, long moment before closing his eyes and expelling a long breath.
Time seemed to hang suspended before he finally gave a short, jerky nod of acquiescence.
Meeting her stare again, his voice was strained as he said, “One night. That was the deal.”
It felt like the beats of her heart were smashing through her ribs, and for the breath of a moment she thought she might be sick.
Gino sat on his bed with his head in his hands. Francesca was in the shower.
He’d never prayed so hard. Never before prayed for a woman to change her mind about having sex with him.
He felt nauseous. He’d never wanted to have sex with someone less. Intellectually, that was. Yes, he wanted her physically, but so what? She was a beautiful woman with a killer body, and he was a hot-blooded male. Of course he wanted to screw her.
But he couldn’t screw her.
She wanted him to take her virginity. How the hell was he supposed to do that without hurting her?
She was the most annoying person he’d met in his life, but he didn’t want to inflict pain on her.
When he’d snatched her from the street, it had been with every intention of returning her fully whole to her family.
How the hell was he supposed to go through with this? Even forgetting that she was his hostage and the promise he’d made, Gino was used to sexually active, highly confident lovers, not vestal virgins. How the hell could he do this without hurting her in some way?
Why the fuck had he allowed himself be suckered into accepting her bet?
He’d given his word not to touch her in any way, and he dug his fingers tighter into his skull, knowing it was an argument that cut no ice with Francesca.
Her body was hers to do as she pleased with, not for him or anyone else to make trades over, whatever form that trade took.
He almost admired her for her stance; would fully admire her for it if she hadn’t chosen him as the man to metaphorically stick two fingers up at her family with and take her virginity.
Not just chosen him but neatly trapped him into it.
Why wouldn’t she see reason? He’d even spelt out the kind of man he was!
The handle of the bathroom door turned.
His stomach dropped.
When she appeared in the doorway with her dark chestnut hair piled in a dry knot on top of her head and only a towel around her body, the whole of his insides plummeted…all except his heart. It pulsed and swelled all the way into his throat.
God, this woman was so damned beautiful.
Hauling himself to his feet, he muttered, “I’ll take my shower now.”
Her gaze on the floor, she nodded.
He skirted around her. When he reached the door, he turned back to her. “Go to your own bed, Chicca, and put your pyjamas on. For both our sakes.”
She didn’t answer.
At the click of the bathroom door, all the air trapped in Francesca’s body escaped in a whoosh.
The nausea ravaging her insides had gotten worse. Much worse. She no longer felt like jelly, more like overcooked noodles.
She hadn’t even kissed a man before, and what she was about to embark on was terrifying.
But not terrifying enough to back out. She’d been curious about sex since her adolescent hormones had kicked into life, but the cotton wool her parents had wrapped her in had been packed too tightly for her to ever explore the sensual side of her nature.
She didn’t even know if she had a sensual side!
Gino had a sensual side. She’d sensed it from the very start. Maybe that was one of the reasons she was so attracted to him. The man was a walking, talking, muscly stick of testosterone, and her underused hormones had screamed in delight for it, jumping to attention and waving flags for him.
While she couldn’t comprehend how anyone could have sex with so many people that they couldn’t remember all their names, she liked that he hadn’t tried to dress it up as a sex addiction.
Gino had been deliberately unapologetic about his sexual appetites in his quest to put her off him, but she’d already known it.
Not the full extent of it, but she’d sensed it.
Who better to teach her about sex than him? All his protestations had only made her more certain. There was no Mr Right waiting on the horizon for her, only marriage to a brute she was going to have to fight tooth and nail to get out of.
She dropped the towel on the floor, shook her hair free from the knot she’d made of it to keep it dry while she showered, and, her heart racing into a canter, got into Gino’s bed.
His duvet felt heavenly on her naked skin.
When he came out of the bathroom, his eyes locked straight onto her. His lips formed a tight line.
His chest and shoulders rose as he took a long breath in.
And then he dropped the towel onto her discarded one and stepped to the bed.