Mistress To a Latin Lover: The Sicilian's Defiant Mistress / The Italian's Pregnant Mistress / The Italian's Mistress

CHAPTER TWO

“I’M NOT leaving,” Cass said, jerking her elbow from his hand. “I didn’t come here simply to torture you. There were things I needed to see. Things I needed to know.”

Maximos’s expression suddenly shifted, his dark eyes lighting, a new alertness sharpening his features. “What things?”

“I needed to understand why I couldn’t—” Her voice broke, and the words failed her. She took a breath, wrapped her courage around her and continued. “Have more of you. Understand why you never gave me more—” And suddenly Cass knew she’d said too much. She could tell from Maximos’s expression that she’d just unwittingly revealed her hand.

“You’re not his fiancée,” Maximos said grimly. “This is a sham, a charade—”

“No.” Her pulse leapt wildly. What had she done? What had she said? “It’s true. I am—”

“Then why do you care so much about us?” He practically hissed the last word.

“Maybe because I don’t want to make the same mistake twice!” She’d been through hell and back since he left her. She’d suffered more than she’d thought possible and the pain had taught her one truth: she could do anything she wanted to. “Maybe I want to understand what happened so I can damn well make sure it doesn’t occur again.”

His brow contorted, his expression dark, punishing. “I appreciate your thirst for knowledge, carissima, but this isn’t the time.”

“Maybe it’s not convenient now, but you’ll never willingly give me the time, Maximos, will you?”

A muscle pulled in his jaw. He was angry. Cass allowed her mouth to curve, one corner of her lips lifting in a small dry smile. “Maybe it is crazy to show up here with Emilio, but I wanted to see—no, I needed to see—what you wouldn’t share with me.”

“We had an agreement—”

“Sex,” she interrupted bitterly, wishing she could have been content with just sex. Why couldn’t sex—especially as it’d been good sex—be enough? It was for others. She’d heard that there were women who were happy with the contact, the release, and she’d thought she was one of those, thought she could do just sex if that was all Maximos could give…at first.

But with Maximos it hadn’t worked that way. From the very first time they made love she wanted more, felt more, needed more. Maximos made her crave everything…emotion, passion, connection. The kind of binding connection that kept two people together…

If she could go back, do it all again, what would she do?

And Cass tried to see herself as she’d been then, young, slim, fit, hungry for something interesting to happen.

When she met Maximos she’d wanted adventure, hoped for mystery, and passion. Especially passion. It had seemed like fun, the desire for Maximos, and she’d loved the way the desire built, rising, swelling, doubling. The desire had seemed so eager and open, extravagant with potential. She’d seen no dangers, no closed doors. Just endless, wonderful possibility, and the excitement pulled her in, swept her away. Desire, have me. Hope, here I am. Love, will you come?

She’d been reckless and bold, tossing her head, inviting Maximos closer. And he’d been willing. More than willing. He’d been as eager as her. Maybe even more.

How could it go wrong?

Now she knew. Men didn’t need what women needed. Men could bury their heart, even as they drove forward with their bodies. A man could empty himself into a woman and not look back. A woman held the man, cradled his body, contained his passion. She might want to forget, might want to walk away, but part of her remembered. Part of her always remembered. And the better the sex, the more exquisite the lovemaking, the more the woman wanted it to be love, and less about physical gratification.

“Just sex,” she repeated numbly, trying to hide the depth of her heartbreak. Sex with Maximos had been nothing short of perfection.

His jaw flexed. His dark eyes burned down at her. “You knew the agreement.”

“Things change,” she answered and he didn’t respond. She loved that about him. He would resort to silence whenever he didn’t like the direction the conversation was heading. How nice to be a man. How admirable to be able to resort to silence, the lofty heights, the superiority of a nonanswer. But this is how it had always been between them even if she’d never let herself see it…wouldn’t admit it…not until he’d walked from her life forever.

“People change,” she added tautly, knowing she was goading him, and glad to have the chance to say all the things she’d never said before.

His upper lip pulled. “Don’t they.”

“So who is the new lover?” Cass asked, tilting her head, smiling bitterly up at him, ignoring the anger in his eyes, the cold contemptuous expression on his face. His coldness couldn’t hurt her now. Cold was so much easier than fire.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I’ve never been absurd.” She handed her wineglass to a passing waiter and crossed her empty arms over her chest to hide the fact that her hands were shaking. “I’ve never asked you for anything. I just gave, and gave, and gave.”

“You got plenty, bella.”

“In bed.”

“It’s what you wanted.”

Rage swept through her, so hot, so dry, it blistered her from head to toe. “If I’d known it’d only be sex I would have been more selfish, demanded more satisfaction. I would have demanded an orgasm every time you touched me!”

She’d shocked him.

She saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes but then he shook it off and took a step toward her. “This isn’t the way to my heart.”

“Good!” She leaned right into him, emotion rioting over her face. “I don’t want your heart. It’s small and black and hard. In fact, you might want to see a doctor because it might not even be a heart at all!”

Maximos inhaled hard, lips pinching, nostrils flaring, his beautiful features alive with anger. “I don’t have time to do this—”

“You don’t have to do anything. Just ignore me. It’s what you usually do, right?”

“Cassandra.”

“Yes, Max?” She’d intentionally shortened his name, turning it into slang and she knew how he hated the abbreviated version. He wasn’t a Max. He was Maximos. He was a ruler, a conqueror, a king.

His hand wrapped around her upper arm, fingers pinching. Her arm flooded with hot, painful sensation.

“This is my family,” he said, his deep rough voice falling lower. “This is a private party, a private family function, and I won’t have you upsetting my family the night before my sister’s wedding.”

“You’re close to your family then? I had no idea. But then, we never really got to know each other that well, did we?”

“We had two years together.”

“Really? That long?” She made a clucking sound of surprise. “Who would have thought?” she added, even as she laughed inwardly, bitterly. She knew exactly how long they’d been together, could remember the first night so clearly, as well as the next thousand and ninety five nights between then and now.

“So we did know each other.”

“Obviously not that well,” she contradicted, amazed at how steady her voice was. She’d always had a husky voice for a woman but it was even deeper, stronger than usual. Six months of crying had bruised her vocal cords, torn up her heart completely but at least she could look Maximos in the eye and not tear up. The tears were gone. He’d had something good and he hadn’t cared. He’d wanted sex. He could have had all of her.

But the sorrow was in the past. The heartbreak, the indecision behind her. She’d been on a toggle board for months, struggling to get her balance, struggling to get her footing when everything just kept changing, rolling, shifting beneath her and then she finally got the picture. She didn’t have to keep fighting for balance, didn’t have to keep standing there struggling to hang tight.

She could just get off.

She could just get the hell off and stand on level ground again.

No more madness, no more insanity. No more love. She was leaving it behind for a new start, a new life, a life where she wouldn’t lean on anyone else.

Or ask for help.

Or think she couldn’t do it for herself.

She forced a mocking smile now, even as she smashed the pain down inside of her. She wouldn’t be hurt by him anymore. She’d never again allow him that kind of power over her, never let him close.

“I knew who you were,” she continued, “and what you did, but I never met your friends, or your family. I was never included in your real world, and it was the real world I wanted, not just the bedroom.”

“And Emilio gives you the real world?”

“Oh, that and much much more.”

His jaw thickened and he made a hoarse sound of disgust. “When did you start seeing him?”

Her brow creased as she pretended to try to remember. “February? March?”

His expression grew blacker. “We were still seeing each other in February. I took you to Paris for Valentine’s Day.”

“Then March.”

“You didn’t waste any time,” he answered brutally, his fiercely beautiful features so hard they could have been carved from stone. He’d never seemed as Sicilian as he did now, his intimidating expression, his harsh beauty reminding her of the rocky Mediterranean island his family had called home for hundreds of years.

Waste any time? She silently repeated, thinking about what had really happened, recalling the stunning grief, and the discovery that she was pregnant. Maximos had left her abruptly in the middle of the night, left her, leaving her bed and walking out of her apartment, and three weeks later when her period didn’t come she’d taken a pregnancy test. And then another. And another.

It had been so shocking, all of it, and the long, difficult months dealing with the pregnancy, and then the discovery that the baby wasn’t healthy, had changed her. There had been no one to lean on, no one to go to for comfort or advice. She’d had to deal with it all on her own.

She blinked, shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “You weren’t coming back, and Emilio treated me well…” She let her voice drift off, letting Maximos fill in the missing pieces. “Anyway, I do hope you can be happy for us.”

“Happy.”

“We both do so want you to attend the wedding—”

Maximos was big, fast, and his arm reached out, his hand encircling her upper arm before she knew he’d moved.

His hand felt hard on her arm, his fingers tighter than they’d ever been, but she wasn’t afraid. She’d felt many emotions around Maximos, felt so much sometimes she didn’t know if there was anything left to her, but the one emotion she’d never felt was fear.

Love, lust, hurt, need, agony, grief, despair, hatred.

But fear? Never.

Maximos was huge, thickly muscled, a hundred times stronger than her but he wasn’t violent, didn’t need to resort to violence. Not when his touch had been so effective—enslaving. He’d owned her, controlled her just by knowing her body, knowing her response. One touch on her breast, one kiss on the side of her neck, one leg between her own and she was gone. Lost. His.

Now with his hand wrapped around her arm he was dragging her out of the room, dragging her like a madman down the narrow corridor to an even narrower, darker hall at the back.

They turned a corner, and then another and they were alone, very alone, in a very dim corridor.

Maximos pressed her against the wall, pressed his body into hers, his knee parting her legs so wide she felt splayed, exposed. “He’s the wrong man for you, Cass. The absolute wrong man.”

“No,” she flung back even as his body covered hers. “You were the wrong man. But this time I have it right.”

Maximos leaned hard against her, his chest roughly crushing her breasts, his shoulders pinning her to the wall. “He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t even know the meaning of the word.”

“And you do?”

“A hell of a lot better, yes!”

She laughed out loud, and her laughter was like pouring gas oline on a fire. His eyes blazed, his body seething with rage. He was too angry. She’d never seen him like this. Never seen him anything close to this but she wasn’t afraid, just defiant. “He warned me about you. Emilio said you’d say horrible things.”

“He’s playing you, Cass. Playing you just to get back at me.”

“Or maybe I’m playing him, because I love being alone with him…naked with him.”

Maximos’s control shattered. His hand snaked into her hair, grabbing thick strands close to her scalp. “How is he in bed?”

“Fantastic. The most selfless, devoted lover you could ask for.”

“I hear a challenge in there.”

His hand wrapped tighter, twisting the long strands between his fingers. This was war. Out-and-out war. “You hear right.”

“There’s no way you could have with him what you had with me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. As you love reminding me, what we had was just sex, and I can get great sex from many different men.”

“Wrong. What we had was different.”

“Not that different.”

“Emilio couldn’t possibly give you what you really need.”

“Odd, because I’ve become his slave in the bedroom.”

She was dousing the fire with more and more gasoline, and Maximos’s anger scorched her, stunning in its strength and fury. He leaned into her, not with the shoulder bone but the muscle, and suddenly his hand covered her breast. “This was mine,” he said.

“Not anymore,” she retorted.

His hand slid down to cover her belly. “And this, this was mine.”

“It’s his now.”

“He doesn’t know how to touch you.”

“You’d be surprised,” she answered, tensing as he leisurely stroked her hip, then boldly put his hand between her legs, touching her intimately, possessively, his palm covering the apex of her thighs.

Maximos leaned closer still, his mouth near her ear. His deep voice rumbled suggestively through her. “And this was mine, most definitely all mine. Mine to do with as I pleased. However I pleased.”

The heat of his hand against the warm core of her sent shock waves through her. Her legs trembled. “No.”

But he didn’t remove his hand. He pressed his palm up, rocking the pad of his palm against her softness, against the growing dampness, rocking against the sensitive, small ridge where every nerve ending seemed to ache. “Say what you want, but I know you, Cass, I know he could never pleasure you, the way I know how to pleasure you.”

“Wrong. He pleases me more,” she said breathlessly, aware of his body covering hers, pinning her against the wall. He was big and hard and his stubble-roughened jaw scraped her brow. “He pleases me better.”

“You want me to make you suffer, don’t you?”

She was torn between fascination and fear. This wasn’t the Maximos who’d been her perfect, and very discreet, lover. He was like another man altogether, a man she’d suspected existed but hadn’t seen until now. “You can try.”

“Have you ever been unfaithful to him?”

The heat was growing inside her, consuming, destructive. Explosive. She felt wound tightly, too tightly. “No.”

“You’re getting close now.”

“Then let me go.”

“So you can run back into his bed?”

The idea of Emilio ever really touching her disgusted her. “Maximos.” Her voice broke, and she didn’t know what she wanted from him—love? Forgiveness? Mercy?

But he was in no mood for mercy and his name spoken with such desperation seemed to only push him beyond the point of reason.

He reached for the hem of her narrow skirt, grabbed at the fabric, bunching the black silk into folds to find her bare thigh beneath.

Her mouth parted in a silent gasp, desire flooding her, need and memory. And when his hand slid between her thighs to pluck aside the scrap of her thong panty, his palm pressed warm and hard against her body. Cass grabbed at him, grabbing for help, for relief, for something to explain the dark mad passion she’d fallen into.

The problem was, and always had been, that his touch made her feel. Not just physically, but emotionally. His touch made her want him, need him, love him. And as he rubbed his palm slowly across her, his fingers trailing, teasing, she shuddered. This shouldn’t be happening, this wasn’t supposed to be happening, yet he was right. He knew her, knew how to arouse her, control her with just a touch.

Her shudder riveted him, his gaze locked on her face, fixed on her parted lips, watching the tip of her tongue press against the edge of her teeth.

She felt helpless. And he knew it.

And he acted on it. Still watching her with that fierce possessive ownership he’d always displayed toward her, he caressed her along the seam of her, along the tender lips and then between she panted, overwhelmed by sensation.

He was teasing her, tracing her, toying with her and her legs buckled. She arched against his hand, against the maddening touch which reminded her of everything and yet gave too little.