Love's Revenge: The Italian's Revenge / A Passionate Marriage / The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride. Michelle Reid

she had to close her eyes and grit her teeth harder while she waited for the ordeal to be over.

      But Vito didn’t stop there. Next his fingers were unclip-ping the catches on her bra and her breasts were suddenly free to swing unsupported. And in all of their long and intimate association she had never felt so wary and unsure of his intentions.

      Even the way he ran the back of one long finger down the rigid length of her spine was telling her one thing while his voice, as cool as a mountain spring, was telling her another when he suggested levelly, ‘Make it a long shower, Catherine, you are as tense as a bowstring.’

      Make it a long shower, she repeated to herself. Make it a long, cold shower, she helplessly extended.

      ‘But of course,’ he then added, and suddenly his voice was as silken as his wretched voice ever could be, ‘there are other, much more pleasurable ways to cure your tension.’

      And before she could react his mouth landed against the side of her neck and, like a vampire swooping on its chosen prey, he bit sensually into the pulsing nerve there that lay alongside her jugular. At the same time his hands slid inside her dress and took possession of her recently freed breasts.

      Sensation went streaking through her. After the day-long build-up of sexual tension, it was like being sprung free from the unbearable restraints that had been binding her, though she did at least try to put up some kind of protest.

      ‘Vito, no,’ she groaned. ‘I need a shower—’

      ‘I like you just the way you are,’ he huskily countermanded. ‘Smelling of you, and tasting of you.’

      He was already urging her dress to slither down her body, and in seconds she was standing there in just her panties. As those long, knowing fingers moulded her breasts so his thumbpads could begin drawing circles around their tips to encourage them to peak for him, his mouth continued to suck sensually on her neck.

      It was all so exquisite, the caress of his hands, the wetness of his mouth, the way he was pressing her back against him. When he stroked one hand down the flat wall of her stomach and beneath the fabric of her briefs she simply gave up trying to fight it. On a shaky little sigh that heralded her complete surrender her eyes drifted shut, and, tilting her head back against his shoulder, she allowed him to arouse her in a way only a deeply familiar lover would arouse a woman.

      But not enough—not enough. Her hands reached behind him to rip away the towel so she could press him against her, and her head turned against his shoulder, searching out his mouth so she could join her own with it. ‘Kiss me properly,’ she commanded, no shrinking violet when it came to her body’s pleasures.

      On an answering growl he swung her around, lifted her up his body until she was off her feet—then kissed her hard and hot and deeply. The wall not far away was a godsend as he pressed her back against it and let her feet find solid ground again. Catherine parted her thighs and pressed him even closer, then tightened herself around him.

      He was very aroused, and with the towel gone it left him free to use other, far more invigorating methods to keep her riding high on the crested wave of pleasure. Dragging her mouth free from his, she tilted her head back and simply let herself concentrate on the stroke of his body.

      ‘You’re wearing too much,’ he murmured sensually.

      ‘I’ll never wear panties again,’ she agreed with him.

      Vito laughed, but it was a hard, tense, very male laugh, and it set fires alight inside her that did nothing for her self-control as he caught her mouth again and began kissing her greedily.

      ‘I need the bed,’ she groaned, when things began to get too much for her and her legs threatened to completely give away.

      ‘I’m way ahead of you, cara,’ he murmured raspingly.

      Opening her eyes, Catherine found herself looking directly into two hot, hard golden points of passion that were doing nothing to hide the intensity of what he too was experiencing.

      And they were moving. Catherine hadn’t even noticed until that moment that he was actually carrying her. They arrived at the bed. With a complete lack of ceremony he dropped her to her feet, then bent to get rid of her last piece of clothing.

      As he buried his mouth into this newly exposed part of her body, she stretched out an arm behind her and began tossing away pillows, raking back bedcovers. It was all very urgent, very hectic, very fevered. No time for lazy foreplay, no hint of romance. She wanted him now, and it was patently obvious that he was the same.

      As she lowered herself onto the bed, then began sliding backwards so she could lie down flat, she remembered the door. ‘Lock us in first,’ she whispered.

      ‘To hell with the door,’ he refused, following her onto the bed as if they were joined at the hip. ‘I’m not stopping this if the whole house walks in to watch.’

      With that he entered her, sure and swift, and as she cried out in sheer surprise he laughed again, the same very male laugh, caught her face between his hands then made her look at him.

      ‘Hi.’ He grinned, as her lashes flickered upwards. ‘Remember me? I am your fantastic lover.’

      He wasn’t even moving. He was playing with her, toying with her. He had fired her up until she didn’t know her own name any more. Now he was trying to lighten the whole thing!

      With a flash from vengeful green eyes, she tightened the muscles around her abdomen. The motion made him suck in his breath. ‘Want to play, Vito?’ she taunted, and raked her fingernails along his lean flanks where some of this man’s most vulnerable erogenous zones were situated.

      The breath left his lungs on a driven hiss. Catherine put out her tongue and licked the sound right off his warm, moist, pulsing lips. He began cursing in Italian, and there was no hint of humour left in him when he began moving on her with a fierceness that sent her reeling away into a pool of hot sensation.

      When she shattered her arms flew out, wide, like a swimmer floating on its back. Vito slid his hand beneath her head to her nape, then lifted her towards him. It was a need he’d always had, to capture her desperate little gasps as she went into orgasm, and Catherine didn’t deny him them now as she breathed those helpless little sounds into his mouth and felt his body quicken as he too came nearer to his peak.

      After that she remembered nothing. Not his own intense climax, not the swirling aftermath, not even the way he slid away from her, then lay fighting for recovery.

      Outside it was still daylight. Inside the air-conditioning was keeping the room temperature at a constant liveable level. But Catherine was bathed in sweat from tingling toes to hairline. And beside her she could see the same film of sweat glistening on Vito’s skin.

      She watched him for a little while, enjoying the way he was just lying there, heavy-limbed and utterly spent. Yet, even spent, Vito was physically imposing. A man with the normal potency of ten.

      Potent …

      Catherine stiffened—then went perfectly still, the sweat slowly chilling her flesh as she lay there, held by a sudden thought so terrible that her mind literally froze rather than dare let her face it. Beside her, sensing the change in her, Vito turned his dark head, then began frowning as he watched her steadily draining pallor.

      But before he had a chance to say anything she sat up with a jerk, then began sliding frantically for the edge of the wide bed. Her long legs hit the ground at a run, her hair flying out behind her as she streaked like a sprinter for the bathroom.

      Whatever she was looking for wasn’t there, because she appeared again almost immediately. To say she was in shock was an understatement. White-faced, and shaking so badly that her teeth chattered, she looked at Vito, who was only just pulling himself into a sitting position.

      ‘My things,’ she shot out in a taut staccato. ‘Where are my things?’

      Still frowning in complete bewilderment as to what was going on, he shrugged. ‘They have not arrived yet,