live in Paris, or even New York—because she suspected he would be able to talk her out of every single one.
There was only one way to guarantee Dante Di Sione’s permanent exit from her life and it was the hardest thing to say. Hard to say it like she really meant it, but she knew she had to try.
So she made her features grow wooden and her voice quiet. Because, for some reason, quiet always worked best. It made people strain towards you to listen. It made them believe what you said.
‘I can’t marry you because I don’t love you, Dante.’
DANTE’S EYES WERE shards of blue so cold that Willow could feel her skin freezing beneath that icy gaze. ‘You don’t love me?’ he repeated slowly.
Willow nodded, hanging on to her composure only by a shred. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’
She began to babble, as if adding speed to her words would somehow add conviction. ‘It was just a part we were both playing for the sake of your grandfather,’ she said. ‘You know it was. It was the sex which made it start to seem real. Amazing and beautiful sex—although I’ve got nothing to compare it to, of course. But I’m guessing from your reaction that it was pretty special, and I guess that’s what made us get carried away.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Made me get carried away, you mean?’
Keep going, she told herself. Not much longer now. Make him think you’re a cold hard bitch, if that helps. ‘Yes,’ she said with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘I guess.’
A strange note had entered his voice and now his eyes had grown more thoughtful. ‘So it’s only ever really been about sex, is that what you’re saying, Willow? You decided early on that I was to be the man who took your virginity, and you were prepared to do pretty much anything to get that to happen, were you?’
All she had to do was agree with him and very soon it would be finished. Except that something in the way he was looking at her was making her throat grow dry. Because the softness had left his face and her breasts were beginning to prickle under that new, hard look in his eyes. Willow licked her lips. ‘That’s right.’
Dante stared at her, wondering how he could have got it so wrong. Had he been so bewitched by her proximity that he had started believing the fantasy which they’d both created? Had his reconciliation with his brother made him overly sentimental—making him want to grab at something which up until recently hadn’t even been on his agenda? Perhaps his grandfather’s illness had stirred up a primitive need inside him and he had made a bad judgement call. She didn’t want him, or his babies. She didn’t love him. She didn’t care.
A smile twisted his lips. Ironic, really. He could think of a hundred women who would fight to wear his ring for real. Just not Willow Hamilton. And just because she’d never had sex with anyone before him didn’t make her a saint, did it? He’d turned her on in a big way and it seemed he had liberated her enough to want to go out there and find her pleasure with other men. He felt a savage spear of something else which was new to him. Something he automatically despised because deep down he knew it would weaken him. Something he instinctively recognised as jealousy.
And suddenly he knew that in order to let her go, he had to have her one last time. To remind himself of how good she felt. To lick every inch of her soft, pale skin and touch every sinew of her slender body. To rid himself of this hateful need which was making his groin throb, even though he told himself he should be fighting it. But he couldn’t. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t. His sexual self-control was legendary and he had walked away from women when they’d been begging him to take them. Willow was not begging—not any more. His bitter smile returned. But pretty soon she would be.
‘Well, if it’s only ever been about sex, then maybe we ought to go out with a bang.’ He smiled as her head jerked back, her shock palpable. ‘If you’ll pardon the pun.’
Willow’s heart pounded as she looked into his eyes and saw the smoulder of intent there. She told herself that this was dangerous. Very dangerous. That she needed to get out of here before anything happened.
‘Dante,’ she whispered. But the words she’d been about to say had died on her lips because he was walking towards her with an expression on his face which was making her blood alternatively grow hot and cold. She could see the tension hardening his powerful body as he reached her. She could smell the raw scent of his arousal in the air. As he stroked a finger down over her arm, she began to shiver uncontrollably. This was wrong. It was wrong and dangerous and would lead to nowhere but pain and she knew she had to stop it. She had to. ‘Dante,’ she whispered again.
‘One for the road,’ he said in a cruel voice.
And then he kissed her in a way which shocked her almost as much as it turned her on. It was hard and it was masterful—an unashamed assertion of sexual power. It was all about technique and dominance—but there was no affection there.
So why did she kiss him back with a hunger which was escalating by the second? Why didn’t she just press her hands against that broad chest and push him away, instead of clinging on to him like some sort of limpet? He was strong enough and proud enough to accept her refusal. To just turn and walk away. They could end this strange relationship without stoking up any more emotional turmoil and then try to put the whole affair behind them.
But she couldn’t. She wanted him too much. She always had and she always would. She wanted—how had he put it?—one for the road.
Did he see the sudden softening of her body, or did her face betray her change of feelings? Was that why he reached down to her delicate silk nightdress and ripped it open so that it flapped about her in tatters? His eyes were fixed on hers and she wanted to turn her head away, but she was like a starving dog sitting outside a butcher’s shop as he swiftly bared his magnificent body and carelessly dropped his clothes to the floor.
Naked now, he was pressing her down against the mattress as he moved over her, his fingertips whispering expertly over her skin, making her writhe with hungry impatience. His big body was fiercely aroused, and even though his face looked dark and forbidding, Willow didn’t care. Because how could she care about anything when he was making her feel like this?
She shuddered as he palmed her breasts and then bent his head to lick them in turn, his breath warm against her skin as she arched against his tongue. She could feel the rough rasp of his unshaved jaw rubbing against her skin and knew that it would be reddened by the time he had finished. And when he drew his head back she almost gasped when she saw the intense look of hunger on his face, his cheekbones flushed and his blue eyes smoky.
‘Ride me,’ he said deliberately.
She wanted to say no. She wanted him to kiss her deeply and passionately, the way he usually did—but she recognised that she had forfeited that luxury by telling him she didn’t love him. All she had left was sex—and this was the very last time she would have even that. So make it raunchy, she told herself fiercely. Make him believe that this was what the whole thing had been about.
She slid out from underneath him to position herself on top, taking his moist and swollen tip and groping on the nearby bedside table for the condoms he always kept there. He had taught her to do this as he had taught her so much else, and she had worked on her condom application skills as diligently as a novice pianist practising her scales. So now she teased him with her fingertips
