Modern Romance April 2015 Books 1-8. Annie West

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       CHAPTER SIX

      ‘MARIA IS WHIPPING out her entire repertoire for this one meal,’ Cesare commented in amusement as the lazy meal wound through course after necessarily dainty course of appetising dishes.

      Already unable to credit that she had agreed to try being married for real, Lizzie was too stressed to eat much of anything. A bite here and there was the best she could do and she proffered fervent apologies to the plump little cook when she came out to the terrace bearing her pièce de résistance, a fabulous layered chocolate cake.

      They were about to embark on their marriage as if they were a normal married couple. And this was their wedding night. All of a sudden something Lizzie hadn’t even had to consider in the run-up to the wedding was looming like a concealed tripwire in front of her. If she admitted that she was still a virgin he was sure to think she was a freak. After all, he knew she had been engaged. It would be better to keep quiet, she decided, and hope he didn’t notice that there was anything different about her.

      ‘You’ve barely touched alcohol today,’ Cesare commented, wondering why she had fallen so quiet. Not that she was ever a chatterbox, he acknowledged wryly. In fact there was always a stillness about her, a sense of tranquillity at the heart of her that was disconcertingly attractive.

      ‘In the light of our...er...plans,’ Lizzie muttered awkwardly, ‘I thought it was better to abstain.’

      ‘You’re referring to the alcohol and pregnancy safety debate?’

      Kill me now, Lizzie thought melodramatically. ‘Yes. The argument about what might be a safe level goes back and forth, so it seems wiser just to avoid it altogether.’

      ‘Is that why you made the most of your hen night?’ Cesare asked, strong jawline tensing as he remembered her on the dance floor, full of vital energy and playfulness as she cast off her usual restraint.

      ‘No. That wasn’t planned. I missed Chrissie,’ she admitted, colouring, ‘and it had just been a very long time since I had been out like that and I overindulged.’

      ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ Cesare urged, stunning dark golden eyes shimmering in the candlelight against his bronzed skin.

      He was so...hot, he was literally on fire, Lizzie reflected dizzily. And she was married to him, about to share a bed with him...and she was fretting, shrinking, sighing over the fact? What was wrong with her? That chemistry he had mentioned was in overdrive, lighting her up from the inside out with a prickling, tingling energy that her body could no longer contain. In an abrupt movement, she rose from the table and walked to the edge of the terrace to study the lights of the fortified village on the other side of the valley.

      Her heart was as locked up tight as that village, hidden behind high defensive walls, she reminded herself bracingly. Having sex with Cesare didn’t mean she was about to get silly ideas about him and start pining when he was no longer available. She had watched her mother careen blindly from one man to the next, hooked on love, her drug of choice. Lizzie had loved once and learned her lesson. If she couldn’t even make it work with Andrew, there was little chance of it working with anyone else. She would have a baby to love though, she told herself in consolation.

      ‘You’re very tense, cara.’ Cesare sighed, stilling behind her and gently resting his hands on her taut shoulders. Her delicate frame was dwarfed by his. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do...’

      That he could read her nervous tension that accurately mortified Lizzie. In truth the problem was that she wanted him too much and feared the strength of that yearning. He turned her slowly round into the circle of his arms and she looked up at him and her knees went weak and her heart leapt in helpless response.

      ‘I know that,’ she asserted valiantly, wondering why he found the sudden change in their relationship so much easier. Were men just built that way? Was he more adaptable than she was? Or more relaxed at the concept of a marriage in which the only glue keeping them together would be sex and the hope of parenthood? Just sex, nothing worth fussing over, he had said after he got out of a bed where he had literally rocked her world. It was true that the only pleasure had been hers but his cold-blooded, practical take on what had happened between them had still knocked her for six. Yet she still couldn’t drag her gaze from his beautifully shaped, passionate mouth.

      Cesare studied her with veiled eyes, black lashes rimming the glint of smouldering gold. Desire was lancing through him with lightning-force potency, sending tiny ripples of tension through his big, powerful frame. He couldn’t take his eyes off her lush mouth and the pouting crowns of her small breasts, which stirred softly below the fine silk of her top every time she shifted position.

      It was years since Cesare had been so aware of a woman and he loathed the edgy bite of frustrated hunger that made him tense. He wanted to have sex with her and persuade his libido and his brain that, after all, she was just like any other woman he had bedded. He hadn’t been with anyone since the day he had first met her and that bothered him. He hadn’t wanted Celine when he’d had the opportunity and no other woman had since attracted his attention. Of course the problem was doubtless that his affair with Celine had run its natural course and left him bored. Lizzie was new and different, which had obvious appeal. There was even something strangely, weirdly sexy about the idea of getting her pregnant. He wasn’t sure what it was but he knew that just the thought of it made him hard and ready. Given even the smallest encouragement, he would’ve ditched Maria’s wedding banquet of a meal and headed straight for the bedroom.

      Shaking off that foolish thought, Cesare gazed down at his bride with the sudden piquant recognition that she was his wife. His legal wife, his to have and СКАЧАТЬ