The Unwanted Wife (7 page)

“I doubt that,” he dismissed, dropping his hands into the trouser pockets of his tailor-made, expensive suit, half-reclining against her work table and crossing one long leg over the other in a pose of sartorial, casual elegance.

“Fine…” she tilted her head as she ran a contemptuous gaze over him. “How do I take my coffee?” He frowned at the question before shrugging carelessly.

“Black…” he stated with the utmost authority.

“No, you take
yours
black,
I
don’t drink coffee.”

“This is pointless,” he dismissed. “And juvenile…”

“Everything about me, or to do with me, is pointless to you,” she observed bitterly.

“That’s hardly…” he began but she interrupted him again, barely able to credit her own daring. She had never
once
stood up to him this way before but she was done being a doormat and just because she was trapped in this marriage at the moment did not mean she would to allow them to walk all over her anymore.

“Everything except my
womb
of course…” she laughed half-hysterically. “You have a lot of use for that! That’s all I am to you, a womb on legs!”

“You’re being
ridiculous
,” he scoffed.

“What about my birthday?” She asked suddenly, still ignoring him. “When’s my birthday?” His jaw clenched and he remained mute, keeping his eyes glued to hers.

“I see no need to prove myself in this way…”

“You can’t answer it, can you?” She challenged. “Yours is on the twenty-fifth of February. You have four older sisters, Gabriella, Sofia, Isabella and Rosalie, and a large extended family, you dislike spinach and are allergic to bees, you like…”

“
Enough
!” He sliced an impatient hand through the air in front of his face, cutting her off abruptly. “This is bordering on stalkerish and it proves nothing other than you possess a creepy excess of information about me, which I must admit, I am more than a little uncomfortable with.”

“Hardly stalkerish,” she shook her head. “I have been living with you for more than eighteen months and I
loved
you when I married you, I was interested in knowing you. These are the kinds of mundane facts married couples know about each other. Everything I know about you, I had to learn for myself, none of it was ever volunteered. You didn’t know about my hobby, or how I take my coffee, or birthday, is
not
because I’ve been secretive… I mean those things are hardly secrets, it’s because you were just not interested enough in getting to know me. That’s how it’s been for the last eighteen months and that’s how it still
is
, despite your sudden feigned interest in me.” He started to say something but she raised her hand to quieten him and was amazed when he actually shut his mouth.

“I
know
now that I wasn’t the bride you would have chosen for yourself,” she managed to say it despite the huge lump in her throat but she couldn’t meet his eyes as she acknowledged that painful fact. “You made
that
pretty clear on our wedding night and every day since then. But I think that at the very
least
, I deserved to be treated with some show of respect…” She bit her lower lip to stop its trembling and wrapped her arms around herself. He said nothing in response, just kept staring at her thoughtfully.

“I don’t really know what you want me to say,” he finally admitted and she smiled sadly.

“I know,” she acknowledged with a dip of the head. “That’s a major part of the problem.”

He unexpectedly shoved himself away from the table and took the couple of steps it required to bring him standing directly in front of her. He hovered threateningly above where she sat and Theresa tried her best not to cower beneath his brooding regard. He then surprised her even further by dropping to his haunches in front of her, placing his hands on the arms of her chair and trapping her in her seat.

“I may not know these things you asked of me, Theresa,” his sexy accent thickened as his voice dropped a few notches. “But I do know
you
…” She shook her head mutely; disconcerted by both his proximity and his direct stare. He was definitely not avoiding her eyes this time, his gaze just a frank and unflinching regard. She felt like a deer trapped in the headlights and she wanted to look away, she wanted to escape but she could barely breathe, much less avert her gaze.

He raised one hand and Theresa braced herself for his unwanted touch, desperate not to flinch. In the end, she still jumped slightly when his fingertips brushed across her lips.

“I know what makes you tremble with desire,” his voice had lowered even further, nothing more than a seductive rumble now and Lisa’s lips parted slightly. “I know where to touch, where to kiss, where to suck… I know how to make you moan, scream and cry out in ecstasy.

“That’s just sex,” she finally found her voice but hardly sounded convincing. He merely smiled, lifting his other hand until he had her face framed with his thumbs stroking across her cheekbones and his fingertips burrowing into the soft hair at her temples.

“It doesn’t solve anything,” she continued to protest, with the same lack of conviction as before.

“Maybe not,” he shrugged without concern. “But it
feels
fantastic…”

“But we don’t do it right,” she murmured, thinking about the fact that he’d never kissed her, not on the lips, not once… his fingers stilled and she realised, rather belatedly, that he may have misconstrued her comment, which was fine with her, if it meant that he would stop this blatant seduction of her senses.

“What do you mean?” She could tell how much it cost him to keep the affronted heat out of his voice.

“I always thought that one day I would make love with my husband,” she confessed on a whisper. “But we don’t do that, do we? We have sex… we…” she used a word that she had
never
in her life uttered before and Sandro flinched slightly in response to it, the soothing stroke of his fingertips stopped abruptly.

“Don’t use language like that,” he growled. “It doesn’t suit you!”

“Well, it’s what
you
once called it,” she defended herself hotly.

“I would
never
…”

“You
did
…” she interrupted what she knew would be a denial. “On our wedding night, after the first time…. I tried to… to…” she blushed as she remembered her naivety back then. She had reached over to snuggle with him and he had moved all the way to the edge of the bed in an effort to get away from her. “Well, anyway, you told me not to mistake what we did with any act of love. That it was much more basic than that. Just sex, you said, just… well… you know…”

His hands had dropped from her face to her shoulders and his eyes narrowed on her painfully humiliated face. His grip tightened on her shoulders and she squirmed slightly before it let up and he kneaded her shoulders slightly.

“Theresa, I was pretty hammered on our wedding night,” she nodded her eyes bright with tears as she remembered how long he had made her wait for him. Her innocent, eager anticipation had been dashed when the dignified, distant husband who had left her all alone in their hotel suite had returned three hours later, so drunk that he could barely hold himself upright. He had fallen onto the bed and immediately passed out, leaving Theresa shattered. Two hours later, his skilful hands on her body had brought her out of a restless doze and he had strummed at and played with her body like it was a finely-tuned musical instrument, making her a willing slave to his every command.

Such had been her response that it had barely registered that his lips hadn’t once touched hers. He had kissed just about every other part of her body and afterwards, while she strove to maintain the closeness between them, he had all-but destroyed her fragile spirit by denigrating the act. She could tell that Sandro was recalling the events of that night too and his eyes dropped to where her hands were still restlessly fidgeting with the pencil which had fallen into her lap. He dropped one huge hand over hers to stop the movement.

“I resented you very much,” he admitted. “Because I felt trapped…”

“Wrong tense, Sandro,” she whispered. “Your resentment is still very current.”

“Things change, Theresa.”

“Some things are inexcusable, Sandro,” she whispered painfully. “And unforgivable.”

“We’re not getting anywhere with this,” he growled in frustration and she dragged her hands out from under his.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you for the last three days,” she pointed out and he bit off a curse before getting up abruptly. Theresa jumped up too, to avoid being intimidated by his height. But she had miscalculated, he was still too close to her and when she got up, her breasts brushed up the length of his body from groin to torso. They both immediately went still as awareness simmered between them. Theresa made a soft sound and attempted to put some distance between them but Sandro’s arms came up to circle her loosely, his hands meeting in the small of her back and the tips of his fingers just brushing against the slight swell of her backside. Her own hands came up to firmly brace against his chest, she wanted to push him away but somehow her hands were idly stroking instead of exerting any force.

His large hands moved down to fully cup her backside and he lifted her slightly until she could feel his sudden arousal. He lazily pushed himself against her, dipping his head until his mouth was next to her ear.

“Despite everything,
cara
, you want me,” he whispered, his breath hot and moist against her ear. “And
God
knows I want you too…”

“Just sex,” she protested weakly.

“Maybe,” he nibbled her earlobe gently, before moving down to nuzzle the sensitive spot just below her ear, something he knew made her crazy. It didn’t fail this time, as she gasped and wound her arms around his neck to push herself closer to his hard body. His tongue gently circled the highly-sensitive erogenous zone and Theresa moaned wanting more. His wicked, hot mouth moved down to her throat, licking, sucking and nibbling the exposed skin along the way. Theresa buried her face in his short, soft hair and muffled a moan of pure sizzling lust.

His hands were busily yanking her blouse out of the waistband of her skirt and they both groaned when his hands finally made contact with the naked skin of her back. He muttered something in Italian, before he swept his hands up to the clasp of her bra, unhooked it expertly and brought his hands around and under the lacy little B-cups. She cried out and arched violently against him when his thumbs found her sensitive nipples and he half-laughed, half-groaned at her wild reaction to his touch.

“I
want
you,” he whispered, his breath feathering against the skin of her neck, where he was nibbling gently. “How I want you!” She sobbed wishing she was more adept at resisting him but desperately wanting him too, despite her bitterness, her anger and her frustration. She nodded slowly, tears seeping from between her closed eyes and trickling down her cheeks.

“Please…” she didn’t know if she was begging him to stop or to continue but Sandro took it as an assent. One of his hands dropped from her breasts and tugged at her skirt until it was bunched up around her hips, her brief, lacy panties were swiftly dealt with and his hot, urgent fingers found her melting core with unerring accuracy, stroking, plunging and preparing her. Her hands dropped to his belt buckle and she fumble with the opening of his trousers until she held him captive in her hands. She did her own stroking and caressing, loving the familiar satiny feel of him, loving the heat, the hardness, the substantial size…

He made an animalistic sound, swinging her around and backing her up until she was leaning against the workstation he had so casually been half-sitting on before. He lifted her up until her backside was firmly planted on the desk and moved between her spread thighs. Tilting her pelvis slightly, until he had the angle just right, he finally, with a groan of pure satisfaction, sank into her soft, welcoming heat. Theresa’s breath hitched as she was, once again, caught by surprise by his length, girth and incredible hardness.

She lifted her slender legs and clasped them around his hips as, after the first gently thorough thrust, he simply rested against her. With his hands braced on the desk on either side of her hips, he lifted his head to look down into her eyes. Theresa was undone by that, as he had
never
simply just looked at her before, not in bed nor out of it. His dark eyes continued to search hers and she wondered what it was he was looking for. She licked her lips nervously and his gaze dropped to her mouth and something completely unrecognizable suddenly flared in his eyes and his pupils dilated until his eyes were virtually black.

Theresa’s breath was starting to come in little gasps as she tried to control her own need to
move
against him. Her hips gave the slightest twitch and she felt herself spasm around him. He hissed at the movement, his face clenching as he finally withdrew slightly, only to plunge back into her as if he couldn’t bear to leave. That was all it took for Theresa’s head to fall back limply and her mouth to open on a soundless scream of ecstasy. The record speed of her orgasm seemed to take Sandro by surprise, as well as, trigger his own. With a shocked sound and another half-thrust, he buried himself as deep as he could go, arching backwards in the process and coming violently. It seemed to last forever but eventually his entire body went limp and he half-collapsed against her, burying his face in her damp neck.

So stunned was Theresa by the unprecedented swiftness of the act, it couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes, that she nearly missed the words. In fact, she may have missed them entirely if she hadn’t felt his tell-tale breath on the sensitive skin of her neck. But he said them. The words were muffled but she knew
exactly
what he was saying. His mantra, his prayer…

“Give me a son, Theresa…” and just like that, it was over for her. Her legs fell away from his waist and she pushed at his chest until her levered himself up to look down at her curiously. He made a soft sound of protest when he saw the tears on her cheeks and attempted to fold his arms around her. Yet
another
unprecedented move but she shoved him again until he stepped away from her.