‘I just wanted to make that clear.’
He leaned forwards, closer to her, a wry expression on his face. ‘You did.’
Alessia had no idea why the knots in her belly had loosened so much. If she didn’t know better, she would say Gabriel had sounded jealous, but then she reminded herself that if he were, it would only be from a proprietorial sense and not from a place of emotion like her own bout of jealousy had come from that morning.
Grazing her bottom lip, she suddenly blurted out, ‘Do you really think I’m pretty?’
He stared at her as if she’d asked the most stupid question in the world. ‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
He pulled a cynical face. ‘I can’t be the first man to have told you that.’
‘Oh, I’ve been told I’m pretty by lots of people but I never know whether to believe them or not.’ She shrugged. ‘My family are biased, and people like to ingratiate themselves with me. Then there are all the trolls out there who like to tell me that I’m pig ugly, so who knows what I should believe.’
The cynicism vanished. ‘You have trolls?’
‘Everyone in the public eye has trolls.’ She tried not to sound too downbeat about it. If trolls were the worst thing she had to deal with in her privileged life then she had nothing to complain about. ‘Nowadays, it comes with the job.’
‘Who are these people?’
‘Mostly anonymous. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it matters,’ Gabriel disputed roughly. The thought of anyone sitting in front of their phone or computer and targeting Alessia for their poison... He clasped her hand and leaned closer to her, staring straight into the velvet depths. ‘Anyone who tells you that you’re ugly needs to seek help because you’re more than pretty. You’re beautiful.’
She stilled, the only movement the widening of her eyes and the parting of her lips as she took a sharp intake of breath. A crawl of colour suffused her cheeks. ‘Do you really mean that?’ she whispered.
He drew even closer so the tips of their noses almost touched. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he repeated. ‘So beautiful that sometimes I look at you and think you must have been created by an enchantment.’ And then he did what he’d been aching to do for so long, and tilted his head, brushed his lips to hers and breathed her in.
For the longest time he did nothing but allow his senses to fill with the delicate scent of Alessia’s skin. Then he kissed her, gentle sweeping movements that slowly deepened until their lips parted in unison and their tongues entwined in a private dance that sent sensation shooting through him like an electric current through his veins.
All these weeks, Alessia’s scent and taste had haunted him, memories so strong he’d come to believe he’d imagined just how intoxicating they were. His memories hadn’t lied. Hooking an arm around her waist and pulling her to him, he fed himself on kisses that were as headily addictive and as potent as the strongest aphrodisiac could be.
With a soft sigh, she sank fully into him, returning his hunger with a ravenousness that only fed his burning arousal even more. Tightly she wrapped her arms around his neck, hands and fingers clasping the back of his head, her perfect breasts pressed against his chest, as the passion that had caught them in its grips all those weeks ago cast its tendrils back around them.
From the first whisper of his breath against her lips, Alessia had been reduced to nothing but sensation. The dark taste of Gabriel and the burning thrills of his touch raged through her flesh and veins, feeding the craving for him that she’d carried in every cell of her body since the night they’d...
‘No!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALESSIA’SMOUTHSHOUTEDthe word and wrenched away from him before her brain caught up.
Her heart thumping madly, her skin and loins practically screaming their outrage at the severing of such dazzling pleasure, she disentangled herself from his arms and scrambled backwards out of reach.
Stunned eyes followed her movements, Gabriel’s breaths coming in short, ragged bursts. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked hoarsely.
Trying hard to control her own breathing, trying even harder to control the wails of disappointment from her body, Alessia shakily shook her head. ‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry, but I can’t. It’s too soon.’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘What are you talking about? How can you say it’s too soon when we’ve just got married?’
‘It just is!’ she cried, before her lips clamped together and she crossed her arms to hold her biceps, gripping them tightly as protection, not from him but from herself because like the rest of her furious body, her hands were howling to clasp themselves to his cheeks so her equally furious lips could attach themselves back to his mouth, and the whole of her could revel again in the heady delights of Gabriel. Her pelvis felt like it was on fire. Her blood burned.Everythingburned.
His face contorted and he cursed under his breath before his chest rose as he inhaled deeply, visibly composing himself. ‘You have to talk to me,’ he said. She could take little comfort that the smoothly controlled voice had a ragged tone to it. ‘Tell me what’s on your mind. I’m trying to make sense of what you mean about it being too soon when we already know how good we are together. The night we made our child is proof of that.’
‘And you walked out the next day without a word of goodbye or even a note,’ she retorted tremulously, because it was remembering that little fact that had snapped her out of the sensual haze she’d been caught in.
This time his curse was more audible, and he closed his eyes.