Power: Marchese's Forgotten Bride / Ruthlessly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded. Michelle Reid

steps, she arrived in the vestibule so close to him that her breasts brushed against his jacket lapel. Appalled by the pinch her nipples gave in response to the abrasive brush, with only the silk of her dress to act as a buffer, she very nearly did what she’d been trying not to do and fell off her spindly heels in her jerky effort to put space between them.

      His other hand arrived low on her back to steady her. Instead of opening up a gap between them there was suddenly no gap at all. Unable as she was to stop it, a muffled breath left her throat and she looked up and was hit head-on by the glow of raw desire leaping out from his dark, dark eyes. His whole hard body pulsed with it. It was that instant, that hot, so stifling it held her breathless and horrified because the same dismaying heat was pooling low down inside herself, toying with intimate tissue that tugged and pulled.

      Her throat hurt. She tried to swallow. The sense of being drenched in fine sexual static made her lips part to whisper something she couldn’t even understand herself.

      He understood it, though, because he muttered roughly, ‘No wonder I’m struggling.’

      About to demand what he meant, Cassie wasn’t given the chance. Next second his dark head was lowering and she was receiving the full, burning impact of his passionate mouth on hers.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      HEAT poured into her bloodstream. He kissed her as if he’d been waiting to do it for years. He savoured it, explored the moist hollows of her mouth, guided her like some helpless puppet through the fiery pit of reacquaintance with the forgotten side of her own sensuality only this man had ever tapped.

      His hand was restless on the small of her back, long fingers burning her through the fine layer of silk, stroking and kneading as they drew her further into the hardening bowl of his hips. The heat coming from him was heavy with the scent of his subtle aroma, the mobile seduction of his lips and the skilled intrusion of his tongue sinking her so deeply into a heady place of pleasurable memories Cassie found herself responding as a rolling mist of desire closed her in.

      She felt small and weak and delicate as she leant against him, could feel his heart pounding against the clenched fist she’d pressed to his chest when this had first begun. And she could feel her own heart racing against the tightening crush of her breast. Her legs had gone hollow again, that tingling sensation a wash of desire this time, attacking every nerve–end from her toes to her hips. When he breathed something against her mouth and moved against her the flash of sexual agitation she experienced flung herself back from him on a shocked, shaken gasp.

      Eyes as black as ink bored into her for a second then flowed down over her heaving, slender, panting, trembling frame. His frown was back, the greying pallor, joined by a fierce, dark, pulsating frustration that scared Cassie even as her own shattered senses clamoured in direct response.

      As he reached out towards her, ‘No!’ she cried out because she thought he was going to drag her back to him.

      What he did was tighten the grim line of his mouth and gently hitch her dress up from its structured front. Her helpless whimper was of mortified agony when she realised why he’d done it. After that the silence between them sizzled. She’d never felt so helpless or so exposed or so cheap in her entire life. One kiss and she’d fallen to pieces. One kiss from a man she supposedly hated and she’d turned into—

      ‘Oh,’ she choked and shot into movement, spinning round and reaching out to grab hold of the heavy bar which held the exit door shut.

      She was panicking—Cassie knew she was panicking and he was saying nothing. She could feel him standing there behind her like some—some—grim, silent reaper, probably disgusted with himself for kissing her at all!

      Then his arms were coming round her; she felt the smooth, warm slide of his silk sleeves against her arms as with a gentle firmness he prised her fingers from the bar. Trapped like that, trembling and shivering at the same time, and acutely aware of every lean, hard inch of him, she watched through bright, burning eyes as he dealt with the heavy lock on the door.

      Almost falling outside into the cool night air in an effort to put space between them, Cassie found herself in an alleyway that must run alongside the restaurant. It was quiet and dark, the shadowy bulks she could see across from her looking too much like lurking bodies to her fevered mind, though she knew they had to be rubbish bins. Still, she spun away from them to face what she thought—hoped—was the main street. She had to get away—she knew she had to get away before she did something really humiliating and fell into a fit of wildly sobbing tears.

      Sandro. She’d just let Sandro kiss her stupid. How dared he—how could she have let him get away with it? She hated him, every single thing about him.

      The door closed with a thud behind her and she jumped like a startled rabbit then went onto the balls of her feet. A strong hand clamped around her wrist to stop her running. The grimly silent way that he kept her still while he stepped close enough to strap his other arm across her back broke her control with a shrill, ‘Let me go!’

      ‘No,’ he rasped. ‘Look at the ground,’ he instructed. ‘This alley is cobbled. In those shoes you will not make it two steps without falling over or twisting an ankle or worse. And anyway, you are going nowhere, Cassandra Janus, until we’ve had our talk.’

      Talk? He still wanted to talk?

      ‘I h-hate you,’ Cassie hissed out feverishly. ‘That’s talking.’

      Keeping her clamped to his side, he set them moving and said nothing. She barely reached his shoulder and he was almost carrying her in his grim effort to keep her flimsy weight off her even flimsier shoes.

      Electric storms came in different forms, she decided wildly as the electric storm Sandro was now generating sparked with a ferocious determination that held all the way to the lamp-lit main street and straight into the back of a waiting limousine conveniently parked at the kerb.

      Shuffling inelegantly across the plush leather seat because he was not bothering to go around and climb in on the other side of the car, she felt his athletic bulk arrive beside her, folding down onto the seat, while Cassie was anxiously tugging her ruched skirt back into place over her exposed thighs. She dared a glance at him then wished she hadn’t because he looked so stern, so grim and remote. It was only when he said something in curt Italian which set the car moving that her head twisted the other way and she realised they had a chauffeur to drive them. Even as she registered this unexpected mode of transport for a man who had used to drive himself everywhere in a racy soft-top, a black grated partition was sliding up in front of them and blocking the front compartment out.

      Or them in.

      ‘He—the driver—n-needs to know my address,’ she pushed out in an attempt to snatch some control back here.

      ‘If he were driving us there I would agree, but he’s not.’

      Stirred by his cool sarcasm, ‘I suppose you think it’s very macho to play the arrogant heavy!’ Cassie flung out. ‘But I can still see the fall-down drunk who embarrassed himself in front of his new workforce!’

      His face swung around to slice a look at her. ‘You never used to be this acid-tongued,’ he hit back. ‘Six years without me around to keep you in line has turned you into a harridan, cara!’

      ‘I thought you didn’t remember knowing me before,’ Cassie returned sharply.

      It shook him. She saw it happen. She watched his face drain of its wonderful colour and the pain come back to crease his brow. Shifting forward in the seat with an alarmed jerk, she went to bang on the partition because she thought he was going to pass out.

      ‘Be calm,’ he murmured, sensing rather than seeing what she was about to do because his eyes were shut. ‘I have it controlled this time…’

      This time what, though? Cassie wondered tensely as she remained perched on the edge of the seat, ready to call for help if she needed it, while Sandro continued to sit there with his dark head resting back against the leather seat and his long,