The Unwanted Wife (Unwanted #1)(51)
“Sssh…sweetheart…I read that pregnant women sometimes, well, most times, get really…” His voice trailed off as he struggled to find the right word, his mind obviously not on what he was saying as sweat started to bead his brow and his eyes took on a glazed, faraway look.
“Horny?” she supplied, and she sensed the utter shock in his absolute stillness. She had never used the word before, even though he had on numerous occasions.
“Yes…” he said, after clearing his throat awkwardly.
“Because I am,” she reiterated, enjoying his discomfiture immensely as she continued to move sensuously against him. His hips were starting to strain upward slightly with each lazy movement she made, and she relished the absolute power she had over him.
“You said that there would be no sex,” he reminded her desperately, his breathing becoming more labored. “And I don’t think we can have sex while you’re on bed rest.”
“But maybe we can fool around a bit?” She smiled down into her husband’s shocked face, feeling like the cat that had stolen the cream. He lifted one of his arms and covered his eyes, biting back a cry of pleasured anguish as she exerted more pressure right where it counted. He lifted his arm from his face, and his fevered eyes bored into hers. His face was taut with the control he was exerting over himself, the harsh planes standing out in sharp relief beneath his tanned skin. He reached up and tangled his large hands in her tousled red hair, tugging her toward him until their lips were a breath apart, but Theresa smiled serenely down into his strained face and pushed her hands onto his heaving chest to force some distance between them. He reluctantly let her go, relinquishing the opportunity to use his larger size and superior strength against her, obviously content, for now, to let her control events.
“Theresa, please,” he begged. “Give me your mouth. I need to taste you…per favore.”
“No lips.” She shook her head. “This isn’t…” She hesitated, and his eyes flared and his body went still beneath her, taut with tension.
“Isn’t what?” he demanded. “Isn’t what, Theresa?”
“Personal…” she completed in a whisper, and was shocked and dismayed when she saw a flash of hurt in his usually unreadable eyes.
“This feels pretty damned personal to me, cara,” he hissed.
“I just…need you,” she half sobbed, and he shook his head, grabbing her narrow hips between his large hands.
“Not me.” He shook his head, keeping her hips steady as he ground himself against her. She shuddered in involuntary pleasure. “This!”
“Yes,” she cried out, pushing herself against him. “Please…”
“I won’t let you use me like that, Theresa.” His voice was so brittle it cracked.
“Why not?” she keened, tears of frustration, anger, and heartbreak sliding down her cheeks. “You used me in exactly the same way, and you kept it impersonal too. No kissing, no cuddling, no intimacy, no talking, no warmth…nothing! You stripped the act of everything but the bare essentials, and right now, that’s all I want from you.”
“What is this? Some kind of payback? You want me to see what it feels like to be used? Well, you’re doing a pretty damned good job of it, Theresa. Consider it a lesson well learned.” He used his superior strength and lifted her off him as if she weighed nothing, and she curled up into a humiliated ball, tears slipping down her cheeks as her entire body clenched with sexual and emotional frustration.
“I wasn’t trying to prove anything,” she protested thickly. “I just didn’t want to get emotionally involved again! I didn’t want to start thinking that there was anything other than physical attraction between us. I can’t afford to make that mistake again.”
“Mi dispiace, cara,” he said regretfully as he got up and shoved his hands into his pockets to stare down at her. “I can’t give you what you want. Not the way you want it.”
“You did it before,” she pointed out, sitting up and swiping at her hot, wet cheeks. “We can just go back to that.”
“There’s no going back to that,” he negated harshly. “Never again.”
“I know I’m not your type.” She strove to sound casual about that painful fact and ignored the slight sound of dismay that seemed to rumble out from deep within his broad chest. “Compared to all those supermodels and actresses, I know I’ve always been Miss Dull and Dowdy, but you overlooked that once. I thought maybe…”
“Are you fishing for compliments?” he asked, his face creased into an incredulous glare. “Because I know that you cannot be serious with this load of tripe!” She looked into his outraged face, and he barked out a disbelieving laugh at the confusion in her eyes.
“Well, how do explain the fact that you can barely stand to look at me?” She found her voice a few moments later, and he winced at the painful embarrassment and anguish that she couldn’t disguise. “I know how much you hated touching me. I may have been a virgin when we married, Alessandro, but I knew enough to understand that a man who has to drink himself into a stupor before touching a woman, a man who can barely exchange a civil word with her and has to scrub her scent and touch from his skin as soon as he’s capable of getting up after sex…a man like that has to be repulsed by the woman in his bed.” Another harsh sound was torn from his chest, and he lifted both hands to scrub over his face and eyes and up into his hair, leaving it in messy peaks. Finally he stood there, staring down at her with his fingers linked across the nape of his neck, seemingly unable to respond to her pained words.