Triumph mixed with pure lust and he fastened his hands on her hips, sliding them down to her thighs so he could spread her legs wider. He stood between them, the silken folds of her dress whispering around him as he kissed her like a starving man feasting at a banquet.
He felt her shy response, her tongue touching his before darting away again, and he was utterly enflamed. He slid the straps of her dress from her shoulders, freeing her breasts from their silken prison.
She wore no bra, and desire ripped through him at the sight of her, her head thrown back, her breath coming in gasps as she surrendered herself to his touch, her face flushed and rosy, her lips parted, her body so wonderfully open to him. This was how he’d wanted to see her. He bent his head, kissing his way down her throat, his hand cupping her bared breast—
And then the door opened and a waitress gasped an apology before closing it again quickly, but the moment, Sandro knew, had broken. Shattered into shock and awkwardness and regret.
Liana wrenched herself from his grasp, holding her dress up to her bare front, her lips swollen, her eyes huge and dazed as she stared at him.
He stared back in both challenge and desire, because as much as she might want to deny what had just happened between them, her response had said otherwise. Her response had told him she really was alive and warm and real beneath all that ice, and he was glad.
‘Don’t—’ she finally managed, the single word choked, and Sandro arched an eyebrow.
‘It’s a little late for that. But obviously, I’ve stopped.’
‘You shouldn’t have—’
‘Stopped?’
‘Started—’
‘And why not? We are to be married, aren’t we?’
She just shook her head, fumbling as she attempted to slide her arms back into the dress, but she couldn’t manage it without ripping the fragile fabric. Sandro came to stand behind her, unzipping the back with one quick tug.
‘Don’t touch me—’
‘I’m helping you dress,’ he answered shortly. ‘You can’t get your arms through the straps otherwise.’
Wordlessly she slid her arms through the straps, and he felt her tremble as he zipped her back up, barely resisting the urge to press his lips to the bared nape of her neck and feel her respond to him again.
Her hair had come undone a bit, a few tousled curls lying against her neck. The back of her dress, he saw, was crumpled and stained from where she’d sat on the table. Just remembering made hot, hard desire surge through him again. She might, for the sake of pride or modesty, play the ice maiden now, but he knew better. He wanted to make her melt again, even as he watched her return to her cold composure, assembling it like armour.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered and stepped quickly away from him.
‘You’re welcome.’ He surveyed her, noticing the faint pink to her cheeks, the swollen rosiness of her mouth. She would not look at him. ‘I’m afraid our meal is quite ruined.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
He couldn’t resist quipping, ‘Not for food, perhaps.’
‘Don’t.’ She dragged her gaze to his, and he was surprised—and slightly discomfited—to see not simple embarrassment in her stormy gaze, but a tortured recrimination that ate at the satisfaction he’d felt at her physical response. He’d seduced her quite ruthlessly, he knew. His kisses and caresses had been a calculated attack against her senses. Her coldness.
But she had responded. That had been real. Even if she regretted it now.
He folded his arms. ‘Our marriage might be one of convenience, Liana, but that doesn’t mean we can’t—or shouldn’t—desire one another. Frankly I find it a relief.’ She shook her head wordlessly, and a different kind of frustration spiked through him. ‘What do you see our marriage looking like, then? I need an heir—’
‘I know that.’ She lifted her hands to her hair, fussing with some of the diamond-tipped pins. A few, he saw, had fallen to the floor and silently he bent to scoop them up and then handed them to her. She still wouldn’t look at him, just shoved pins into the tangled mass of silvery hair that he now realised was really quite a remarkable colour. Quite beautiful.
‘Are you a virgin?’ he asked abruptly, and her startled gaze finally met his. She looked almost affronted.
‘Of course I am.’
‘Of course? You’re twenty-eight years old. I’d hardly expect, at that age, for you to save yourself for marriage.’
Colour deepened in her cheeks. ‘Well, I did. I’m sorry if that is yet another disappointment for you.’ She didn’t sound sorry at all, and he almost smiled.
‘Hardly a disappointment.’ Her response to him hadn’t been disappointing at all. ‘But I can understand why you might feel awkward or afraid about what happened between—’
‘I’m not afraid.’ Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed. She dropped her hands from her hair and busied herself with straightening her rather ruined dress.
‘What, then?’ Sandro asked quietly.
Her hands shook briefly before she stilled them, mindlessly smoothing the crumpled silk of her dress. ‘I simply wasn’t... This isn’t...’ She took a breath. ‘I wasn’t expecting this.’
‘It should be a happy surprise, then,’ Sandro answered. ‘At least we desire each other.’ She shook her head, the movement violent. ‘I still fail to see the problem.’
She drew a breath into her lungs, pressed her hands against her still crumpled dress. ‘This marriage was—is—meant to be convenient.’
‘Not that convenient,’ Sandro answered sharply. ‘We were always going to consummate it.’
‘I know that!’ She took another breath; her cheeks were now bright pink. ‘I simply don’t... I don’t want to feel...’ She broke off, misery swamping her eyes, her whole body. Sandro had the sudden urge to comfort her, to offer her a hug of affection rather than the calculated caress of moments before.
What on earth was causing her such torment?
* * *
Liana felt as if Sandro had taken a hammer to her heart, to her very self, with that kiss. She’d very nearly shattered into a million pieces, and it was only by sheer strength of will that she’d kept herself together.
She’d never been touched like that before, never felt such an overwhelming, aching need for even more. More touches, more kisses, more of Sandro. It had called to a craving inside her she hadn’t even known she had. Didn’t want.
Because if she opened herself up to wanting anything from Sandro—even that—she’d open herself up to pain. To disappointment. To feeling, and she’d cut herself off from all of it for too long to want it now. To risk the fragile security she’d built around her heart, her self.
The point of this marriage, she thought helplessly, was that it wouldn’t demand such things of her. It would be safe.
Yet nothing felt safe now. And how could she explain any of it to Sandro without sounding as if she was a freak? A frigid freak?
I’m sorry, Sandro, but I have no desire to enjoy sex with you.
She sounded ridiculous even to herself.
‘What is it you don’t want to feel, Liana?’ he asked and she just stared at him.
This. Him. All of it. What could she tell him? He was clearly waiting for an answer. ‘I...I don’t want to desire you,’ she said, and