Page 17 of His Royal Bride Replacement

‘Of course you do,’ Alessio agreed. ‘I’m sorry that my words offended you but it was not meant that way. I only meant that this marriage could become a normal marriage if we both wanted it to.’

‘Well, I didn’t sign up for that! Anormalmarriage!’ she gasped accusingly. ‘I was a substitute bride, nothing more. You talked more about the wedding saving the Sedovian economy from a slump than about what being married to you would entail, so if I misunderstood what was intended, it is entirely your fault for not taking the time to spell out your agenda!’

‘I don’t have an agenda, Rosy,’ Alessio breathed curtly, wide sensual mouth compressed, a suspicion of angry pallor beginning to circle his jawline. ‘I concede that we should’ve had this discussion before we married. I will even agree that the fact that we didn’t is my fault because I was too busy trying to make us seem like an acceptable couple for the benefit of the public. But this is not a game for me or for you, Rosy. This is a marriage like any other.’

Rosy threw her hands up in the air in an almost violent gesture. ‘ButIdidn’t know that! You weren’t honest with me. I didn’t even know you found me attractive. I certainly never dreamt that you might believe I would share a bed with you.’

‘I’ve been attracted to you from the first moment I saw you and, unless you’re a liar, you will admit that that attraction is mutual.’

Rosy almost ground her teeth together in rage at that direct attack. ‘Somewhatmutual,’ she qualified stiffly.

‘Want to test it out? Resist a kiss and I’ll back off,’ Alessio traded.

One kiss? Was this a prince who thought he was about to magically awaken Sleeping Beauty? An angry laugh was wrenched from Rosy as she pinned her lips firmly together. ‘Oh,please, test me in the mood I’m in now,’ she encouraged.

‘You look like a very cross, pouting toddler when you do that.’ Alessio sighed heavily.

Rosy relaxed her face in shock at that retaliation, determined to feel absolutely nothing as he backed her up against the wall. But the heat of him at least drove out the chill still clinging to her damp skin below her light garments.

Alessio stalked closer, suddenly immeasurably tall and broad in the confined space. Rosy snatched in a sudden breath and closed her eyes the better to block him from her awareness. It occurred to her that shewantedhim to kiss her, that in the act of denying that truth, she was, in fact, playing a game. Her eyes flew open again. ‘Alessio,’ she began as his hands came down on her shoulders and flexed.

‘Rosy…’ he said gruffly, tilting her head to one side to expose her slender neck and burying his mouth there, sending a flash fire of unexpected reactions rippling through her. She squirmed closer to his lean, powerful body, needing, craving more physical contact. Her whole body thrummed with sensitivity, her breasts swelling, her nipples pricking up against the cotton of her top.

Alessio swung her round so that she no longer had her back to the wall and lowered his head to find her parted lips and claim them. Her heart hammered madly inside her. Her hands lifted to lace into his hair. As he traced her mouth with his, plucking at her full lower lip and then exploring, she felt as though the liquid fire of impatience was pulsing through her veins. Heated warmth and dampness were pooling at her feminine core and she strained against him, instinctively seeking greater contact. Just a kiss, just a kiss, she reasoned with herself, even though just a kiss didn’t explain the insane hunger building inside her.

Alessio slid down the wall, carrying her with him and pulling her across his lap. ‘Easier,’ he muttered as she looked up at him with disconcerted eyes. ‘You’re way too small.’

‘Sizeist comment,’ she scoffed shakily. ‘Maybe you’re too tall.’

‘Nothing we can’t work around,’ Alessio countered with assurance, long fingers smoothing down her bare thigh and making her shiver before his hand travelled back again and his fingertips flirted with the frayed hem of her shorts. ‘And what are you worrying about? You have a beautiful face, fantastic hair, fabulous legs and an even more spectacular bottom. Haven’t I been admiring them for months every time I saw you on your bike heading into work?’

Rosy looked up at him in astonishment. ‘You…have?’

‘Yes, I have been…quietly appreciating you from my car whenever I saw you on the road.’

It was odd, she thought later, how much that admission pleased her. That Alessio had noticed her before Graziana ran away and that it wasn’t only her accident on the bridge that day that had attracted his attention to her.

‘What are we doing?’ she mumbled as he kissed her again.

‘Well, we’re not fighting any longer,’ Alessio pointed out with dancing eyes and a wickedly sexy grin, long brown fingers stroking her taut ribcage. ‘I think that’s a win, don’t you?’

His sensual mouth caressed hers open again and he ravished the tender interior, sending a new tension into her splayed limbs and a wild anticipation. His hand eased below her top and rose to cup her breast and a moment later the hot damp heat of his lips closed round the straining peak, alternating between the prominent buds, dallying and teasing until the coil of heat in her belly was at boiling point. And she wanted more, her body twisting and rising over his, she wanted more from him than her next breath. She needed the satisfaction that he had taught her responsive body to crave to an unbearable degree.

With a clumsy hand she reached down to unbutton her shorts and he kissed her again and wrenched them out of his path while he was doing it. And then, at last, he was touching her where she most needed to be touched. He pressed his thumb against her throbbing clit, stroked a finger through her damp folds, toyed with her damp entrance where she was ultra-sensitive. Her heartbeat pounded and her spine arched at the sweet pleasure. And the strengthening band of tension in her pelvis tightened another agonising notch until he delved inside her, easing the terrible hollow ache assailing her, and then brushed her swollen bud. It was as if he had set a chain of fireworks off inside her body. She ignited beneath that blissful surge of release, sensation pounding through her in wave after delightful wave. As she cried out and arched, he caught her mouth under his again to smother the sounds she made.

And when Rosy finally surfaced from that climax, he was already tugging her clothing back into place, tugging her gently to her feet while she struggled, all fingers and thumbs, to do up the button on her waistband. Even as she did so, she was hugely aware that their intimacy had been strictly one-sided and embarrassment claimed her because she hadn’t touched him, hadn’t even tried to do so. There was some excuse for the fact that she wouldn’t really have known what she was doing, but she was painfully aware of his visible arousal.

* * *

‘I’m going for another swim,’ Alessio breathed thickly, not trusting himself to linger when he was so aroused and not really knowing what to say to her at such a moment because he knew that she had to make a decision as well as to what happened next. ‘And then we’ll head back to the cabin. Bearing in mind what you said earlier, you need to decide what you want in this marriage before we go any further,piccola volpe.’

He dropped a careless kiss on the top of her bent and swimming head and strode out of the cave. Rosy blinked rapidly, still all shaken up by what had happened between them. How they had travelled from fighting to kissing escaped her just at that moment. But she perfectly understood what he had said. If she wasn’t prepared to stay in their marriage for longer than she had originally expected to stay, intimacy was a bad idea. If she was prepared to stay, for how long would she stay? What was her timeline, not to mentionhis?

And what would such a relationship do to her? How could what started out as fakeeverbecome real? Alessio, she thought almost vengefully, had made his point. She wanted him. She hoped he didn’t know it but she found him irresistible and that wasn’t a good thing either, was it? What if she fell in love with him? What if she had a child with him? Would she always feel as if he had only married her as Graziana’s conveniently available replacement? As the substitute, there to play a good walk-on part?

CHAPTER SIX

Rosy walked backthrough the woods, lost in the turmoil of her whirling thoughts. As the cabin came into view, she saw the workmen scattered across the roof.

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