The Italian's Pregnant Prisoner Read online

  He grabbed hold of her legs and parted them, kneeling before her, that most masculine part of him standing out from his body, thick and proud, and for the very first time—intimidating.

  Every other time she had been with him there had been no expectation that he would be inside her the way he was about to be.

  She had always enjoyed the shape of him. The way he had felt in her hand.

  And somewhat foolishly she had imagined there would be no virginal nerves tonight. Because wasn’t she familiar with his body? Hadn’t they been naked together many times before? She’d had him in her mouth, had brought him pleasure with her hand. It had given her a false sense of experience.

  One she certainly did not feel now.

  He reached down, cupping her cheek, his fingers curving around the back of her head as he lifted her from the mattress, claiming her mouth with his own. He brought her up against his body, wrapping her legs around his waist, bringing his hardness right up against the place where she ached for him the most.

  He wrapped his other arm around her waist, his hold like iron. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, and she could feel his heart raging. And somehow, that calmed her nerves. The realization that he felt all of this too. He might look hard, unaffected and utterly composed, but his body told another story entirely.

  There was no more talking. There were no more commands. There was just raw, unleashed desire, poured out onto her body like an anointing.

  He slid his hand down to her lower back, then lower still, grabbing hold of her rear and squeezing her tight as he lifted her against him, the head of his shaft finding the entrance to her body.

  She couldn’t breathe. She began to protest. To say something about how she wasn’t ready. How she didn’t think she could take all of him, at least not without taking it slowly. But before she could, he tilted his hips forward, then pushed hard into her body, filling her in one breathtaking thrust.

  It hurt. Her eyes watered, and she bit her lip hard and waited for the stinging sensation to subside. It didn’t take long. Because she was so slick, and because there was something delicious about the way that he filled her, even if it was unfamiliar and painful.

  A great many things in life were painful, and they weren’t anywhere near this beautiful. She would take this pain gladly. Because finally she was joined to Rafe. The way that she had always dreamed of.

  He was frozen. His face like granite, his unseeing eyes like ice. But he said nothing. Then, finally he closed his eyes, letting his head fall back. Slowly, without withdrawing from her, he laid her down onto the mattress, rolling his hips forward and going deeper—impossibly so—as he lowered his head and kissed her lips gently.

  But the only gentleness came in that moment. And in the space of a breath, it was gone.

  He reached down, gripping her hips and holding her steady as he thrust hard against her. She closed her eyes, and she saw stars. She was glad. She didn’t want this to be a slow, easy coupling. Because they had never been slow or easy. The last five years seemed to shrink, and they disappeared altogether as his body met hers, fast, furious and deep.

  She gripped his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his back, while his blunt fingertips were certainly making bruises in her pale skin. It was what she wanted. To be marked by this. Changed in a way that was visible.

  So that tomorrow when she went back to the apartment she had just signed the papers for, the place that would be hers, and she looked in the mirror she would be able to see the changes in her body with just a glance.

  She wanted to be sore between her thighs. Wanted to see the impression of his hands, where he had held on to her. She wanted to be wrecked by this. Ruined. So that she could rise from those ashes, instead of simply appearing quietly, meekly, from hiding.

  He whispered things in her ear, dark and rough, in his native Italian. Words she didn’t know. Words she had never heard. Which certainly ensured that they were dirty.

  That sent a thrill through her body. Twisted that coil of arousal that was starting low in her stomach again, heightening it all. She moved her hands from his shoulders, sliding them up his neck, gripping his face firmly, and holding it steady, bringing his head down so that his forehead was pressed hard against hers.

  She kept her eyes open, forced herself to bear witness to this. Because he couldn’t.

  Even so, those dark eyes bore through her. And she could almost swear that though he couldn’t see the features on her face, he might be able to see into her soul.

  The rhythm between them was frantic, desperate. And she clung to him as she lost herself in it. In him.

  She pressed her lips to his, and then began to say things. Things she didn’t understand any more than the Italian he had just spoken to her. Desperate demands, promises. Supplication. She spoke words to him she had never said out loud in her life, begging for more. Begging for him.

  It wasn’t just the way it felt physically. Being connected to him... It was more than that. It didn’t satisfy a need; it simply unveiled how deep her need was. To be connected to someone else. To be needed. To need in return.

  Pleasure stretched inside her like a wire, drawing tight from her lungs, down to her toes. She had the sense that it was holding her together. That when it snapped, she would fly apart, never to be put back together again.

  Just like before, she fought against it. Fought against the end. But she could feel her hold on her control slipping. Could feel her mind starting to get hazy, her thoughts going fuzzy. It was hard to remember why she wanted to hold off her pleasure in the first place. Difficult to grasp on to where she was, and why she was afraid for the end to come.

  But she never forgot who she was with.

  It was Rafe. It could only ever have been Rafe.

  And then he growled, his teeth digging into the cords on her neck as he began to slam into her, no consideration, no gentleness remaining at all. And she rejoiced. Letting go. Just as he had done.

  She turned her face, curving it into his shoulder as she rode out the impossible release that flooded through her. There had never been anything like this. Like losing control with him.

  They had traded pleasure in her room. Her hand, then his. His mouth, then hers. But they had never gone over together like this. She had never felt him pulsing inside her as he spilled himself.

  It was everything. It was perfect.

  It was finished. At least, that was the idea.

  This was supposed to be the ultimate fulfillment. The satisfaction that she had been waiting for for the past five years. And yet, as soon as the storm passed, she wanted more. She wanted him.

  He moved away from her, rolling onto his back, breathing hard. “Would you care to explain that?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you would need the facts of life explained to you at this point, Rafe,” she commented, feeling the need to put up some kind of shield between them. Because she felt so vulnerable. So exposed. Naked. When before it had all felt easy.

  “That,” he bit out, “is not what I meant. And you know it.”

  “We have amazing chemistry,” she responded. “But we’ve always known that. We risked our health and safety to explore it, if you recall.”

  “I take it you are unmarried.”

  She frowned. And then she remembered that he had mentioned her husband back at the ball. It had all grown hazy in the interim. By the revelation that they’d been lied to by her father and stepmother. And then it had been lost in the pleasure.

  It was incredibly distracting pleasure.

  “I’m not. You assumed that I was. I never said either way. And frankly, with everything else going on I didn’t really...think of it.”

  “And you were a virgin.”

  “The last five years haven’t exactly been an ascent to success for me.”

  He chuckled, the sound hard and dark. “In contrast, they have been a walk in the park for me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was thoughtless of me
. I escaped.”

  She looked over at him, and he was frowning. “You escaped?”

  “My father kidnapped me and attempted to sell me into marriage, Rafe. When I refused to go willingly even after I was told that you had left me. I suppose they thought without you there I would have no reason to resist. Shockingly, I took exception to being married off to a crime lord. Fancy that.”

  Rafe pushed himself into a sitting position, his muscles rippling. “Your father tried to sell you into marriage?”

  “You look surprised, Rafe. We are talking about a man that we hid our romance from so that he would not kill us both.”

  “And yet, in the end they clearly knew. And opted not to kill either of us.”

  She nodded. “I never quite figured that out.”

  “In my case I know that it was due in part to the fact that eventually I became too high profile.” There was something strange and opaque in those words. But right now, her brain was scrambled, and she couldn’t quite parse it.

  “And you left.”

  “When I was told you had opted to marry another man I did not see why I should stay,” he said, clipped.

  “But I didn’t. I was carted off. And I escaped. I have spent the past five years hiding. So, the opposite tactic to you. You became more visible. While I faded into invisibility. An easy thing to do, all things considered. You know, since I had spent all of my previous years hidden away at the villa.”

  His expression was utterly black. Terrifying. “If your father were not dead, I would kill him myself. And that is one of the very few sins I have never committed.”

  “He wouldn’t have been worth it. It wouldn’t have been worth destroying yourself for.” She blinked, her eyes filling with tears. “It doesn’t matter. We’re free of him now.”

  “Yes. And we still have the rest of the night.”

  Her heart squeezed tight, need filling her. “Yes.” She leaned in, kissing him on the mouth. “We do.”

  And after this, she would find herself. After this, she would find her freedom.

  Finally. This was the end.

  The end they both needed. So they could finally have a beginning that they chose for themselves.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “DID YOU GET the report I asked for?”

  It had been weeks since Charlotte had walked out of his penthouse and out of his life, yet again. It had been part of their agreement this time. Still, Rafe felt unsettled. He told himself it was because he was concerned for her safety. After all, she had been living in cottages in the woods and small villages for the past five years. She had not been trying to navigate London.

  Why he should care, he didn’t know. Except, he felt differently about her now, knowing that she had not abandoned him. Though, guilt was a new companion. He had taken her stepmother at her word.

  Yet pursuing her would have been difficult. It had taken him months to heal from his injuries. And then, there were those that had never fully healed. By then, he had been certain that she was settled into her new life.

  And he could think of nothing sadder than playing the part of injured, rejected boyfriend crawling after the woman who had willingly left him.

  But he should have known. He should have.

  “Yes, Mr. Costa. I got the files that you asked for, though it seems to me that a great deal of this is a violation of privacy laws.”

  Rafe sighed heavily as he shifted the phone from one ear to the other. “Undoubtedly. But that is not my concern. And anyway, that is why I paid for a third party to acquire the information and not you, Alyssa.”

  “Well, it is all here. Shall I put together an email for you?”

  “If you please.”

  Rafe ended the call with his assistant and turned toward the office window, which he had been told offered an expansive view of London. The Thames. The London Eye. Big Ben and the Abbey. A view such as this spoke of status. Of security. It was only the mortals that had to stand below and view bits and pieces of these icons rather than taking in the full reality of the city.

  He couldn’t see it; that was true. But it was there. He took a perverse amount of pride in that. In the fact he owned this view and had never even seen it.

  It spoke of excess in a way that appeased him. Spoke of his power. As did his ability to keep tabs on Charlotte. Now that she was not in hiding, she was doing a very poor job of not leaving a paper trail.

  He had obtained her address easily enough, and he had asked for his contact to keep him apprised of any other information about her that might be relevant. Anything that went into an online system that he could find a back door into.

  Rafe loved technology. He had built his fortune on it. But more than that, he adored how it had such fatally flawed weak points. When everything was in hard copy it was much easier to keep secure. But the moment something was put out on a network...it had the potential to be exposed. To be obtained by those who were never supposed to see it.

  His mobile phone buzzed, and he gritted his teeth in annoyance when the ringtone kicked in—the specific tone he had set for his friend, Prince Felipe. His Royal Highness and general pain in Rafe’s ass.

  He sighed, and then answered. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Rafe asked, not meaning it at all.

  “Hang on for just a second,” Felipe said.

  “You called me,” Rafe said, his patience feeling stretched. But then, it had been feeling severely compromised from the moment Charlotte had walked out of his penthouse.

  “I did. But I’m also calling Adam.”

  Prince Adam Katsaros had been his other friend at the private school he had been sent to by Michael Adair. It had been his happiest time. A time when he had been on his own, but had also possessed the resources that he needed to survive.

  Of course, it had come with a price. The price of his indentured servitude. At the time, it had seemed reasonable.

  “Hello?” Adam came on the line.

  “Excellent,” Felipe said. “I wanted to ask Rafe if he would fill us in on who the woman was that he was spotted leaving a party with some weeks ago.”

  Rafe gritted his teeth. “That’s what you want to know? Why are you calling me now? Why didn’t you call me weeks ago?”

  “Because I want something from you now,” Felipe said. “And I’m not one to waste a phone call.”

  “That isn’t true,” Adam said. “You are one to waste several phone calls. And a great many words.”

  “Your opinion is fascinating,” Felipe said. “My wife finds me delightful.”

  “Then it’s a good thing she married you instead of one of us,” Rafe said drily. “Now, get to the point.”

  “Briar is spearheading an art exhibition in a couple of months. And I wanted to make sure that it was appropriately populated with my very influential friends. It is a showcase of my country’s work. And also of her first original works. Now. All of you must come or the next time you do come to visit me I will throw you in the dungeon.”

  “I see no problem with it. Though, I find my enjoyment of art is somewhat truncated these days,” Rafe said.

  “Yes, but your enjoyment of beautiful women is suddenly not. A notable change from the past few years, is it not?” Felipe pressed.

  “All signs point to it,” Adam supplied.

  “Perhaps you should both be concerned more with your marriages than with my sex life?”

  “We worry about you,” Felipe said, “because we are true friends.”

  Rafe mumbled something about friends being overrated. Then a tone went off on his computer, and he made his way back to his desk. He muted the microphone on his call, then gave his computer voice instructions to read his email to him.

  The file was lengthy. His Charlotte had been busy.

  He continued to half listen to Adam and Felipe talk logistics in terms of the exhibit in Felipe’s country.

  But his attention fell away from that as he continued to listen to the contents of his file regarding Charlotte. She had go
ne to the bank. She had secured a large sum of money. He had access to everything. Her balance, the account it had been transferred from. It surprised him to know that her father had left some money in a trust for her.

  He wondered if the old man had forgotten about it. If it had actually been a way for him to hide some of his money. Money he had intended to move before he died. If he knew one thing about Charlotte’s father, it was that he had certainly fancied himself immortal in many respects. He most definitely wouldn’t have thought his death would come so soon.

  There were mundane things in there too. Receipts for online shopping. Uninteresting. She had bought a table lamp. And oven mitts.

  Then there was the last bit of information. She had made a doctor’s appointment. At a private women’s health clinic.

  It was entirely possible that it was for a regular checkup. Entirely possible.

  But it had been weeks since they were together. And the first time they had not used a condom. He hadn’t been thinking straight, and neither had she. She had also been a virgin—something he hadn’t counted on. But that led him to assume that she had not been on any kind of birth control.

  A women’s health clinic. The implications of that pounded their way through him like a battering ram. Felipe was still talking, but Rafe was past the point of listening.

  The appointment was this afternoon. And the address was on the paperwork. He had just over an hour to get across the city, and he would be damned if he was going to miss it.

  “I have to go. I will be at your party—don’t worry.” He hung up the phone, and he quickly buzzed for his secretary. “Get my helicopter ready.”

  * * *

  Charlotte walked into the clinic with clammy hands. Her heart was pounding hard, and she could scarcely breathe. She had taken about ten home pregnancy tests, so it wasn’t as if she expected to get any other news here at the appointment. But of course, this would be real confirmation.

  It was hugely expensive to book an early scan at a place like this, but she didn’t have a GP, and there was a long waiting list to get in at the hospital, so she’d just done a quick online search and decided to throw some of her father’s money at a private women’s clinic.