The Italian Billionaire's Pregnant Bride. Lynne Graham

heart were bouncing like a rubber ball inside her chest.

      A tiny pulse was going crazy at her collar-bone. Sergio put his mouth to the delicate blue-veined skin and she gasped and arrowed up to him. Her body was thrumming like an engine that was raring to go and she didn’t know how to handle the stress of it. He found the bare skin below her T-shirt and closed his hand to a tiny, sweet pouting mound. For an instant she went stiff because she had forgotten that she had no bra on and there was no warning before he found the part of her body that she was least confident about. He pushed the turquoise fabric out of his path and exposed her small breasts to his appreciative scrutiny.

      ‘Ravishing,’ Sergio pronounced with satisfaction, catching a pouting nipple the colour of a tea rose between thumb and finger and chafing the delicate bud until a smothered sound of response was wrenched from her. He used his tongue to moisten the distended crest and it was only the beginning of a slow process of sensual torment. Her hips jerked and shifted with increasing frequency, her thighs pressing together on the ache of emptiness that was stirring between them. Her breath rasped in her throat as he toyed with the sensitised nubs until they were stiff and taut and wildly responsive to his every caress.

      Reaction was piling onto reaction too fast for her to bear. She was on the heights of a frantic anticipation that utterly controlled her. He coiled back from her to peel off her jeans. For an instant awareness returned to her when she rocked back up into sitting position to blink in vague surprise at the sight of her bare legs. Tiny tremors of frantic desire were quivering through her. She met hot golden eyes and burned inside and out, sensible thought sizzling into nothingness.

      ‘Sergio,’ she whispered wonderingly.

      That fast he recaptured her attention. He meshed long brown fingers into the vibrant fall of her hair and kissed her with devouring passion. She resented the distraction when something caught in her hair and pulled it hard enough to make her mutter in complaint.

      ‘Be still. Your hair’s caught,’ he groaned, unclasping his designer watch to disentangle her from the bracelet and removing the timepiece to toss it aside.

      Kathy struggled with the buttons on his shirt until he leant back and wrenched it off for her. ‘You need practice,’ he told her thickly. ‘I’ll give you all you can handle, delizia mia.’

      The hair-roughened contours of his warm muscular torso felt amazing beneath her palms. She wanted to explore further, but he pushed her back against the arm of the sofa to take her mouth with ravenous need. At the same instant that he discovered the moist, swollen heart of her, conscious choices evaporated for her. She had never been touched there before and never dreamt that she could be quite so sensitive. But he had the erotic skill to show her. Exquisite sensation engulfed her in mindless pleasure and she shivered and writhed and whimpered.

      Sergio had never been so aroused by a woman. There was no thought now of who she was or what she might be. Her passionate out-of-control response exploded his customary cool like dynamite. Once his powerful sensuality was unleashed, he was all decisive action. He came over her in one slick movement. She trembled, suddenly aware of the feel of his hot, probing intrusion in that most tender place. Her eyes widened and she tensed in disquiet at virtually the same moment as he entered her with an earthy groan of satisfaction. She was unprepared for the sharp stab of pure piercing pain that provoked a cry of dismay from her lips before she could bite it back.

      Ebony brows pleating, Sergio stared down at her with frowning golden eyes of enquiry. ‘Per meraviglia…I am the first?’

      ‘Don’t stop.’ Kathy shut her eyes tight. It was like being in the grip of a whirlwind, for even as the pangs of pain receded her body still signalled a powerful craving for the urgency of his.

      He sank his hands below her hips to ease his passage with a slow sexual skill that was breathtakingly erotic. Her heart hammered as he taught her his sensual masculine rhythm with a boldness that delighted her senses. The excitement flooded back even stronger than before. Ripples of pleasure began to build, gripping her tighter and tighter in a torment of need she could not withstand. She reached for the ultimate and shattered in a climax that consumed her at hurricane force and plunged her into a free fall of delight.

      The delight was short-lived.

      Sergio held her close. ‘It’s a long time since any woman made me feel so good, bellezza mia,’ he murmured raggedly.

      Kathy was still shell-shocked by the entire experience and revelling in a sense of physical connection that was seductively new to her. ‘I’ve never felt like this…ever,’ she added helplessly.

      ‘I have one vital question.’ Sergio stared down at her with disturbingly cool and assessing dark eyes. ‘Why did you give me your virginity?’

      Kathy was dismayed by that direct question, particularly as he was suggesting that she had made some kind of a decision while she was all too uneasily aware that she had been considerably less mature in the nature of her giving.

      Taut with suspicion of her motives, Sergio shook his handsome dark head. ‘It was a very gratifying experience and not one I ever expected to have,’ he confided flatly. ‘But I know and I accept that any special pleasure always comes at a cost and I would really prefer to know right now up front what you want in return.’

      Her smooth brow furrowed. ‘Why should it cost you anything?’

      ‘I’m a very rich man. I can’t recall when I last enjoyed a freebie,’ Sergio countered with sibilant derision.

      When Kathy finally grasped his meaning she was appalled. She snaked her slim body free of his weight in an irate gesture of repudiation. How could she have shared her body with a guy who seemed to think that she would want to reap a financial reward from the activity? She could not have felt more ashamed had she been forced to walk down a street naked with the word whore written on a placard and hung round her neck.

      Forced back from her by her sudden unanticipated retreat, Sergio had discovered another even more immediate source for concern. He cursed under his breath in Italian. ‘Are you using birth control? In any form?’

      Kathy was feeling dizzy and sick and distraught. She could not credit what she had done. She could not credit how stupid she had been. But while she was still in his presence she would not allow herself to think about those realities. All her energy was now concentrated on beating a very fast retreat from the scene of her worst ever mistake. She reached for her clothing. ‘No—but you used contraception.’

      Lean dark features uniformly grim, Sergio was getting dressed. ‘The condom tore.’

      Kathy flinched and turned paler than ever but she said nothing in response. Indeed she refused even to look at him. This is what it’s like when you get intimate with someone you don’t know—awkward, humiliating, shaming, she reflected painfully. She fought her way into her panties with trembling hands, hauled on her T-shirt and wrenched on her jeans with so much force that she scratched the skin on her thighs.

      ‘Obviously that doesn’t bother you too much,’ Sergio growled, outraged that she was simply ignoring him.

      ‘What bothers me most at this moment is that I had sex with a truly horrible guy. I know I’m going to live with this mistake for a long, long time,’ Kathy shared in a low-pitched tone of fierce regret. ‘Getting pregnant by you would add a whole new dimension to this nightmare and I can’t believe that even I could be that unlucky.’

      ‘I doubt if that will be your reaction if it happens. Having my child could be a very lucrative lifestyle choice,’ Sergio drawled with icy bite.

      ‘Why do you think everyone’s out to rip you off?’ Kathy demanded in the rage that was steadily banishing any desire she might have had to take refuge in a small dark corner. ‘Or is it just me you reserve the offensive accusations for? You really shouldn’t mess around with the cleaning staff, Mr Torrente. Your nerves aren’t cut out for it!’

      ‘You need to calm down so that we can discuss this like adults.’ Sergio breathed, glittering dark eyes locking to her with determined force, his expectations once again