‘Help!’ she screamed again, and this time she began to drum both fists against the wall. ‘Please, somebody—help us!’

‘Jenny, don’t—’

But his words inflamed her even more—or maybe she was just in the mood to be inflamed. And seeing his insufferably enigmatic face as he calmly watched her losing it was like pouring paraffin on an already blazing fire. ‘I’ll do as I damn well please!’ she retorted furiously. ‘And you can’t stop me!’

He wanted to marvel, because this raging woman was utterly magnificent, but he could see from the rapid movement of her breathing that she was in danger of hyperventilating. ‘That’s enough! Now, stop it,’ he said flatly.

‘No!’ she yelled, and hot, angry tears began to spill from beneath her eyelids. ‘No, I won’t stop it!’

Swiftly he moved towards her, wrenching her away from the wall, and she whirled round, imprisoned in his arms, and began to beat against his chest instead.

‘Si,’ he urged her softly. ‘Hit me. Hit me if it makes you feel better, cara!’

‘Bastard!’ She slapped him. ‘You bloody, bloody cheating bastard!’

‘Si. That, too.’

‘That’s for that bitch you slept with!’

He took her furious punch without flinching.

‘And so is that!’

She made a little roar of rage as she drummed against his chest until her hands ached. And then suddenly her rage became frustration, and all the fight went out of her, to be replaced by a different kind of emotion. She shook her head, trying to deny it, her hands falling as she looked up and saw something change in his eyes, too.

The look of understanding, of empathy, and the fleeting look of sorrow had been replaced by something else. Something she knew all too well and had never thought to see again—even though she had longed for it in the sleepless nights which had followed his departure. And it was wrong. Wrong. Oh, so wrong. He had been to bed with another woman!

‘Was she better than me?’ she demanded.

‘Jenny, stop it.’

‘No, seriously—I want to know. Did you do it to her lots of times? Like you did to me when we first met?’

He winced as if she’d hit him, and then the need to destroy her foolish fantasy simply overwhelmed him. ‘You want to know the truth?’ he exploded. ‘I did it to her once—just once—and it was the biggest non-event of my life. Do you know why that was? Because all I could see was your face, Jenny. All I could feel was your body.’

‘Don’t,’ she croaked.

‘But it’s the truth,’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s flawed, and it’s not pretty—but it’s the way it was.’ His black eyes glittered at her bleakly. ‘There—doesn’t that make you feel better now?’

‘Are you kidding?’ she demanded. ‘It still makes me wretched to think of you with another woman, no matter how much you hated it!’

But that was not the whole truth, for the stark admission had made her tremble with an unwelcome new emotion and her heart began to ache with sadness and regret. How the hell had it all come to this? How could love be so quickly transformed into all these other hateful negative emotions?

His eyes blazed black fire as they roved over her trembling lips. ‘You want me,’ he declared unsteadily.

‘No.’ Could he see the terrible need in her? ‘No, I don’t!’

‘Yes. Yes, you do.’ He reached out for her and pulled her into his arms in a movement which felt as natural as breathing.

‘Stop it, Matteo,’ she whispered.

‘You want me to do this.’ He began to massage the little hollow at the base of her spine, the way he’d always done when he wanted her to relax, and as if she was acting on auto-pilot she shut her eyes.

‘Even if I do—we mustn’t. We mustn’t do this,’ she whispered, half to herself. But, oh, the touch of his body made her feel as though great warm waves had washed over her.

‘Why not?’ he whispered.

‘You know why.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You do. We’re separated.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Her eyes fluttered open. ‘That…that…woman.’

‘I just told you. It is over. Believe me, Jenny—it never even began.’

And Jennifer was so lost in the thrall of the soft black look in his eyes that his betrayal of the other woman thrilled her. Later she would be appalled at how easily she could be seduced. But not now.

Now her lips were parting with a greedy anticipation she could not seem to deny herself as he slowly lowered his head towards hers.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT FELT LIKE A LIFETIME since Matteo had last kissed her, and Jennifer’s arms reached up to clutch onto his broad shoulders as if she was afraid that her knees might give way. But only her lips did that—parting in a soft sigh as he began to kiss her.

Because to her horror—but not to her surprise—Matt’s touch was like lighting a touchpaper. Jennifer’s skin was on fire, and her heart was skittering away with excitement and almost a touch of desperation—like a drowning woman who had kicked up to the surface of the water for one last gulp of sweet air.

I just want one last kiss, she told herself. One last kiss from the man I loved enough to marry. The man I thought I would have children with and grow old with. One kiss—is that so very wrong?

But adults didn’t just ‘kiss’ and nothing more—particularly those who had been married and who were still in the throes of a powerful sexual attraction.

Jennifer tore her mouth away from his as he began to rove the flat of his hand over one swollen breast, circling it over and over again until the nipple felt so exquisitely hardened that she sobbed aloud with frustrated pleasure. ‘Matteo!’ she gasped.

‘Si.’ He ground the word out in between hot and shallow breaths, scarcely able to believe that this was happening. That he was doing this to her and that she was letting him—and, oh, it was good. Too good. Madre de Dio—it had been so long. And it was never as good with anyone as it was with Jenny. He teased her lips with his in a soft and provocative kiss.

With a disbelieving sob she moved her mouth fractionally from his, knowing that this was wrong—worse than wrong—it was a kind of madness!

‘Matteo, we…we…mustn’t. You know we mustn’t!’

God forgive him, but he used his hands as ruthlessly then as he had ever done in his life. He had never wanted a woman more than he wanted Jenny at that moment. Not even on that first night when he had taken her to his bed. Nor the time when he had been a teenage virgin and the older woman who had seduced him had made him wait. Because a woman likes a man to wait, she had purred. Well, there was to be no waiting now—he didn’t want it and, to judge by the frantic grinding of her hips, neither did Jenny.

For the first and only time in his life he wanted her so badly that he thought he was about to come in his trousers. But he reined his desire in with a rigid self-control not betrayed in his sensual movements. He drifted his fingers beneath the thin bodice of her dress and took her bare breast in his hand, cupping it experimentally and feeling her knees buckle as she relaxed against him.

‘Oh!’ she squealed.

All she knew was sensation. She felt the rush of pleasure overwhelm her—and somehow all thoughts of this being wrong just melted away. A hunger both sharp and irresistible bubbled inside her like darkest, sweetest honey, and carried her along in its heavy flow as he touched her nipple.

‘Matteo!’ she gasped again, only this time the word was spoken in wonder and not in half-hearted protest.

Desire was jack-knifing through him in a way that was barely tolerable. He felt the hot pumping of his blood, the frantic pounding of his heart. Could see the gleam of her eyes and the soft moistness of her lips. It was like entering another world—of love and intrigue and lust and betrayal. One where his powers were weakened. And she weakened him. Just as she always had done. Like no one else did.