Page 14 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

He moved closer, his body magnetic and strong. She licked her lower lip. ‘Do you really want to open that Pandora’s box,cara?’ He drawled the term of endearment with a hint of cynicism, so she shivered, despite the attraction sparking in the atmosphere.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You were not honest with me either.’

About being a virgin? Why should she have mentioned that? ‘It would have come up,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘After our wedding.’

‘By then, it would have been too late. But you didn’t care. You didn’t care that every part of our marriage deal was based on a lie.’

‘I—’ She couldn’t unravel what he was saying. Was her virginity really such a big deal? Big enough for him to say everything else was a lie, too? ‘I never lied to you,’ she denied.

‘Selective truth telling,’ he corrected with obvious disgust. ‘It is just as bad.’

She frowned. Really? ‘I would have thought someone with your experience would have been able to tell...’

‘Yes, I could,’ he agreed after a dangerous, silky beat. ‘Which is why I decided not to marry you, in the end. Why I decided to walk away from you and your family. It was the right decision.’

She flinched, the harshness of his decree cutting her to the bone.

‘Fine, good to know,’ Mia responded when she could trust herself to speak. ‘If you’re done, I would like to get on with my day.’

‘We’re not finished,’ he responded, so close the words seemed to reverberate inside her.

‘We aresofinished,’ she corrected, lifting a hand to push him away, but he pressed his own over the top, holding it there, his eyes widening as he moved his head closer. ‘We’re finished,’ she repeated, more feebly. ‘We were finished the day you left me in that church.’ To her frustration, her voice wobbled and she felt the awful sting of tears in the back of her throat, threatening to moisten her eyes. ‘I hate you.’

‘Not last night,’ he reminded her, moving his other hand to her thigh, then lower, to the hem of her dress.

‘Yes, I hated you, even last night.’

‘So it was revenge. To sleep with me and then run away?’

Heat coloured her cheeks, but whatever she was about to say scattered from her mind as his fingers slid up her inner thigh, towards her sex.

‘Did it feel good, Mia? Did you have enough revenge?’ He moved his mouth to hers, brushed it lightly then pulled away, so he could look into her eyes. ‘Or do you need to punish me some more?’

Say no. Leave. Get out of his car. This man is quicksand and you’re falling, falling into a danger you have no skill to navigate.

‘I hate you,’ was all she said, and she really, really did, but oh, how she wanted him.

His eyes narrowed. ‘But do you blame me, Mia? Do you really blame me for not going through with our wedding?’

Her heart dropped to her toes. Hurt lashed her. She knew she couldn’t hold a candle to the women he usually dated, she knew she wasn’t a show-stopping beauty, or slim like her mother, or confident and worldly, but she had qualities that people might consider more than made up for those shortcomings. She didn’t need him to hit her over the head with his lucky escape from marriage to a wallflower like Mia.

‘Then why proposition me?’ she asked quietly, her desire and anger evaporating in a wave of shock, because his words had been so hurtful.

‘Why do you think?’ he asked, and then his hand moved higher, all the way to the fabric of her underpants, which he slid aside, his fingers brushing her most sensitive cluster of nerves until she bucked against the back seat of the car, and then he was kissing her, swallowing the groans she offered up to the heavens, losing herself in this moment even when she knew she should tell him to go to hell. It was somehow much more tempting for Mia to be carried to heaven, anyway.

She didn’t know what game he was playing—but surely it was a game. She was a toy to him, and he was deriving some kind of pleasure from the push and pull of this, whereas Mia felt as though she were blindly navigating an awful storm.

‘Come home with me...again,’ he said against the side of her mouth.

Mia had enough wits about her to shake her head, somewhat unconvincingly. ‘No way. Never.’

‘Careful, Mia. There’s nothing I like more than a challenge.’

His words barely penetrated the thick fog of her brain, and any hope she had of thinking rationally evaporated when he lifted her easily and settled her on his lap, kissing her as he fumbled to push up her skirt and unbutton his trousers so his arousal was shielded only by the flimsy cotton of his boxers. He pushed himself against her sex, and desire exploded through her. Mia rocked on her haunches, wanting, desperate to feel him, as he kissed her and felt her breasts in his palms, delighting in the different sensations that were changing her body chemistry completely.

‘Do you still hate me?’ he asked with a mocking smile.

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