The Italian's Baby Bargain. Kate Walker

The women he had mutually beneficial arrangements with knew the score; there were no emotional scenes. By contrast, the red-headed Samantha Maguire was a walking three-act drama!

      His ironic drawl ignited a flare of anger in Sam. What does he want me to do…? Beg…?

      Alessandro watched her white teeth sink into the trembling curve of her full lower lip. He swallowed. Dio mio, it was more than flesh could bear! He had been thinking about that mouth all day, and what he would like to do with it.

      Hands clenched at his sides, his thoughts abruptly reversed to the moment earlier that day, when he had witnessed Trevelan kissing her. His primitive desire to choke the life out of the younger man had, he reasoned, been a perfectly legitimate response when the honour of his sister was concerned.

      The only problem with that was that Alessandro hadn’t been thinking of Katerina—at least not at that moment. He had seen the other man kissing Sam and his first thought had been, That should be me. His thoughts were running along the same lines at that moment.

      Lifting her chin to a belligerent angle, Sam choked bitterly. ‘I thought you were supposed to have a brilliant brain? Do I have to spell it out?’ She heaved an exasperated sigh.

      He angled a dark brow as his smoky gaze moved across her face, lingering longest on her pink parted lips, before he produced one of his inimitable shrugs and said, ‘Maybe…’

      ‘Maybe you’d like me to put it in writing?’ Then there would be permanent proof that she was such a push-over where he was concerned that she was totally shameless. That she was ready to beg and he hadn’t even touched her. If he did touch me… Gulping, she tore her gaze from his long brown fingers. But it was too late. Every nerve-ending in her body was already screaming for attention.

      ‘Then why did you tell me to go?’

      For a bright man, she thought, he could be dense at times.

      ‘Because you put me on the spot,’ she told him accusingly. ‘Because you made me the one to make the decision when all I wanted you to do was…’

      ‘What did you want me to do?’

      She shrugged and her eyes slid from his. ‘Kiss me, I suppose.’

      ‘If you wanted to be kissed, telling me you weren’t interested probably wasn’t the best clue.’

      ‘Well, I didn’t actually know how much I wanted you until you walked away.’

      The dark colour scoring his chiselled cheekbones deepened as he inhaled sharply. ‘And do you still want me?’

      She swallowed and lifted her eyes. The smouldering heat in his made her dizzy, and totally, utterly reckless. ‘Only slightly more than I want to breathe,’ she confessed huskily.

      Alessandro took her face between his hands, allowing his thumbs to move across the smooth contours of her cheeks. ‘I think we can arrange for you to do both.’

      Breathing hard, Sam turned her head and kissed the open palm of his hand. ‘You do know that you’ve got everything a perfect lover should have…?’

      Alessandro stopped what he was doing and studied her flushed face with a fascinated expression. ‘Are you going to tell me what those qualities are?’

      ‘You’re beautiful—not that you being ugly would be a deal-breaker, exactly,’ she conceded. ‘Because you’ve got bucket loads of sex appeal. And you’re not going to insult my intelligence by pretending to be in love with me or anything…’

      ‘You don’t want love?’

      She was suggesting the sort of mutually beneficial relationship that he favoured—so why did he not feel pleasure, even relief…? Actually, he couldn’t quite pin down the cause for his perverse gut response, and now was not the moment for deep soul-searching. Alessandro, in the grip of a blind, relentless hunger unlike anything he had felt since adolescence, had more urgent matters to consider—like the very real possibility he might go insane if he didn’t bury himself deep inside her in the near future!

      ‘I thought I did, but you’ve made me look hard at myself.’

      He looked startled by the confidence and framed a cautious question. ‘I have…?’

      ‘You know what I do on Saturday nights?’ He shook his head, but Sam’s head was too filled with images of her unsatisfactory life to notice the strangeness of his expression. ‘What I want,’ she told him, ‘is to be more like you. I have needs,’ she told him, ‘and I want to have sex without feeling guilty.’

      ‘With anyone in particular?’

      She stuck out her chin and thought, If he laughs, I’ll die. ‘You, for starters.’

      He didn’t laugh, or even contest the ‘for starters’. Instead he grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her towards him. Then, teasing her lips with his mouth and tongue, he took her face between his hands. His mouth came down hard on hers and Sam melted bonelessly in his arms.

      Chapter Nine

      AS HE sat on the edge of the bed, slipping off his shoes, Sam reached out and touched his dark hair. The thick, lustrous texture fascinated her. Raising herself up onto her knees, she pulled his head round towards her and pressed her lips to his in a long, lingering kiss.

      ‘You taste incredible,’ she sighed against his mouth, and ran her finger down the stubble that darkened his strong jaw. ‘Rough…’

      ‘I need to shave twice a day.’

      The smoky glow in her eyes deepened as she caught her tongue between her teeth and sucked in a long sultry sigh. ‘Not on my account. I like it.’

      ‘Madre di Dio!’ groaned Alessandro, breathing hard as the dark lashes lifted from her flushed cheeks to reveal her passion-glazed eyes. ‘Hold that thought,’ he instructed imperatively.

      Sam smiled and plastered her shaking body to his back. The heat and hardness of him through the robe was shocking, and more exciting than she could have imagined was possible. She felt his lean body tense and he inhaled sharply.

      ‘You are impatient.’

      Who wouldn’t be? She’d been waiting twenty-four years for this moment. She just hadn’t realised it until now.

      Sam let out a tiny startled shriek as his hands closed around her wrists, and a breathless moment later she found herself sitting, or rather lying, across his lap. His head bent towards her and she closed her eyes and moaned low in her throat as she opened her mouth to the skilful incursions of his tongue.

      ‘God!’ she groaned, suffocating with desire as he kissed his way down the curve of her neck. ‘I must have been mad to say no to this.’

      Alessandro stopped what he was doing long enough to look at her with hot, hungry eyes and insert huskily, ‘I didn’t go very far.’

      ‘And you came back,’ she whispered, sliding her hands under the thin cashmere sweater he was wearing. A jerky little sigh was snatched from her throat as she made contact with the smooth, warm, hard flesh of his belly. ‘You’re so…’ She sighed as, eyes half closed, breath coming in short shallow gasps interspersed by little moans, she let her hands glide palms flat over his satiny skin.

      Sam felt the contraction of his stomach muscles as he sucked in a sharp breath, his hands tightening over her bottom as he gave a deep moan of pleasure.

      ‘I’m awfully glad you came back.’ His skin felt like oiled silk, and it was deliciously warm.

      There was a long dragging silence before he confided, ‘So am I.’ Taking both her wrists in his, he drew them from his body and brought them to his mouth.

      ‘I want…’

      He stilled her protest by the simple expedient of kissing her, a deep, drugging kiss that left her weak and wanting