Page 28 of Bound By The Italian’s 'I Do'

He leaned his face close to hers. ‘I never make promises I can’t keep.’

Issy chalked her cue, watching as Gianni folded his huge frame to make the break. There was nothing gentle in his stroke. He hit the white ball with an accurate determination that rolled it forcefully along the table and smashed it into the red triangle of balls.

She smiled to herself. He’d played the shot like that for her benefit. Separating the red balls from their triangular cluster made it easier to pot them, not something a serious player—and she could tell from the way he played his shot that he was a serious player—would do if they didn’t think their opponent would be easy pickings.

Deciding on and playing her shot quickly, she chided herself when the red ball she’d shot at missed the pocket.

Gianni didn’t miss. He potted a red, then followed it by potting the pink, then potted another red. He missed the green by millimetres, switching the game back to Issy.

This time, she took her time, angled the cue carefully and made her shot. The white glanced the red, sending it into a pocket. She followed this with four successful shots, red, green, red, brown, but then, seeing there was no way she could pocket another red from where the white ball was placed, she hit the white softly, so it only brushed against the red, then gently rolled to slip behind the pink. She’d snookered him.

The look he gave her made her feel ten foot tall. Total confounded admiration.

‘I thought you didn’t play?’ he accused, leaning over the table to reach the white.

‘I don’t remember saying that,’ she refuted innocently.

His chin now lined against the cue, he raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You implied it.’

Smirking, she shrugged. ‘I haven’t played for ten years.’

He took his shot. He managed to hit the red but didn’t pot it. ‘How old are you?’

‘You should know that seeing as you’re my husband,’ she teased. ‘I’m twenty-three. My dad had a snooker table. I always wanted to play but I couldn’t reach the table so he bought me a child-size one for my seventh birthday and taught me. I upgraded to the full-size one when I was ten.’

‘How were you able to see over the top of it?’ he teased back.

‘I used a stool. Being so small meant the distances looked longer to me but I think that improved my game.’

‘Have you actually grown at all since then?’

‘Very funny.’ The red she was aiming for went straight into the pocket.

‘Give me a chance,’ he mock-pleaded. ‘Go on, make it harder to see over the table. Take your shoes off.’

‘They’re sandals, you philistine.’

‘A philistine?’ His expression suddenly changed to serious and he lost the English accent he’d clearly worked so hard to make faultless. ‘I do not think it means what you think it means.’

‘Inconceivable.’

Their eyes met, identical amazed gazes at the recognition that they were with a fellowPrincess Bridebuff formed, and then they both started laughing. Issy laughed so hard she completely missed her next ball.

Grinning widely, Gianni took his shot and pocketed it, but missed his next one.

‘Maybe Ishouldtake my sandals off if it gives you more of a chance,’ she taunted.

His eyes drifted down her body. ‘I don’t know...’ His voice dropped to a murmur as his gaze drifted back up to capture her eyes. ‘Those sandals are very sexy.’

And just like that, the heat of awareness Issy had been vaguely dampening by sheer willpower flamed back to life, sending her heart into a pulsing mess at the strength of longing rampaging through her. If Gianni hadn’t been standing on the other side of the snooker table her legs might just have propelled themselves to him.

She picked up her glass and took a long drink of her mojito, fully aware the skin on her face blazed with the same intensity as what was happening beneath it, fully aware too that Gianni knew exactly the effect those five little words had had on her.

But he didn’t say anything, simply stood there waiting for her to take her turn, his cue in hand, that sensuous, knowing,sexylook...damn him...playing on his face.

Damn him!

Damn him too that, in order to stretch across the table and reach the white ball, she had to hitch the skirt of her tight dress up, something she’d done numerous times during their game already but which she’d done automatically, barely even thinking about it. This time, she was painfully aware of the suggestiveness that could be interpreted with the gathering of the silk, painfully aware too of how sensitive her thighs had become as the material rode up them.

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