Miranda Lee - It Started With A Proposition - Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed / Contract with Consequences / The Passion Price

Jordan could only imagine what Gino had in mind for that room later on. She shuddered anew as she washed her hands at the sink, grateful that the dim light wouldn’t let her see the excitement in her eyes reflected in the mirror.

She combed her slightly breeze-blown hair, but didn’t bother to refresh her lipstick. What was the point? It wouldn’t be there for long.

Gathering herself, she exited the bathroom and returned to the sitting area, where Gino was standing at the window with his back to her. He turned at the sound of her entry. He was holding a near full glass of champagne, and he was frowning.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he began.

‘Yes?’

‘I was wrong to blackmail you into this. It’s not what I intended to do when I went to that dinner tonight. It’s not what I want.’

Jordan had never been so astounded in all her life.

‘What is it that you want, then?’

‘I still want you, Jordan. That hasn’t changed. But I want you to come to me willingly. I don’t want to force you, or even to seduce you. I want what we once had together. You—eager to surrender yourself to me. I don’t want you to hate me in the morning. And I don’t want to hate myself.’

Jordan just stared at Gino, his amazing and highly unexpected turnaround bringing a fierce frustration which found its voice in anger.

‘I don’t think you know what you want, Gino,’ she said sharply. ‘Look, if it makes you feel any better, then I have come here willingly. It’s not because you blackmailed me. You have some kind of hold over me. I admit it. You turn up out of the blue, crook your finger, and silly Jordan comes running. But don’t delude yourself into thinking we can recapture what we once had. For one thing, I don’t love you any more. How could I possibly love a man who has me investigated behind my back? But, yes, I still lust after you. You were right in what you said at that table tonight. You know what I like. You know all my dark little secrets.

‘So here I am,’ she added, reaching up behind her back and pulling the zipper down. ‘Doing what I vowed I’d never do. But not because of your threat to tell Chad. I’m hoping that once I’ve had my fill of you tonight I’ll be able to walk away in the morning and make a decent life for myself with a man who cares about me and wants to marry me.’

Gino watched, appalled but cripplingly aroused, as she peeled her dress off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, leaving her standing there in her underwear.

Not prim and proper underwear, but sexy underwear. A black satin teddy, with suspenders attached to shiny flesh-coloured stockings.

Her glittering blue eyes held his boldly whilst she kicked off her shoes and then unflicked each suspender. With a haughty toss of her lovely blonde hair she moved over to the coffee table and put one foot up, rolling the stocking down to her toes before snapping it off.

Gino’s gut crunched down hard at the thought that she might have performed like this for Stedley. Though if she had, then what was she doing here?

No, it’s only with me that she’s like this. She’s virtually said as much.

The other stocking followed, then the pearls, which she tossed aside as carelessly as the nylons. When she hooked her fingers under the thin satin straps of the teddy Gino’s stopped breathing altogether. His blood, however, was still roaring round his veins, engorging his flesh to titanic proportions.

She actually smiled as she peeled the garment down her body. A slow siren’s smile.

‘Don’t look so gobsmacked,’ she said, when she finally stood there in the nude. ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it?’

Gino’s hand gripped the stem of his glass with such force that it was a miracle it didn’t snap.

‘No,’ he ground out. ‘Not quite. Put the shoes back on.’

Now it was her turn to look gobsmacked.

‘That’s the way I pictured you when I was eating dinner tonight. That’s what I want. For starters,’ he added, all qualms gone over how he was going to treat her tonight. He’d tried to do the right thing, but she wanted none of it. This was what she wanted. To have her fill of him. And he was more than happy to oblige!

Jordan swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She should never have started stripping in front of him, never have taken him on.

It had only been a matter of time before her recklessness backfired on her.

Gino no longer looked shocked. His expression was cold and implacable.

‘Do it!’ he ordered.

Jordan’s feet found her shoes. The height of the heels changed the way she stood. The sharp angle of her feet made her straighten her shoulders and suck in her stomach, those actions thrusting her breasts forward and upwards.

Gino’s black eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down, his heavily hooded gaze as hard as it was exciting.

Had he known she would feel different standing there in the nude with her high heels on? More exposed? More…aroused?

Yes, of course he knew. He knew she was standing there, trembling inside with anticipation of what would come next. Knew that she thrilled to his commands and his demands.

‘That’s better,’ he said, a dark triumph in his eyes. ‘Now come over here…’

JORDAN walked slowly towards him, each step bringing a heightened awareness of her female body.

By the time she stood before him her lips had fallen apart and her heartbeat had quickened, her chest rising and falling, her belly stretched tight with tension.

‘Here,’ he said, and held his glass to her lips. ‘You look like you could do with a drink.’

He tipped up the glass and watched her drink it all down.

The champagne fizzed into her stomach, her head spinning—but not because of the alcohol.

Jordan could not recall ever being this excited. Or this mesmerised. This was different from ten years ago. Different from last Friday night.

Tonight, she accepted dazedly, was going to be an experience which would change her life for ever.

When he tossed the empty glass onto one of the sofas, then ran the back of his right hand across the hard tips of her breasts, a violent tremor rippled down her spine.

‘Do you know how sexy you look?’ he murmured, as he trailed his fingers down over her tautly held stomach. ‘But you’d look even sexier if you moved your legs apart a little.’

When she just blinked, he smiled a rather cold smile. ‘I thought we’d agreed on total surrender for tonight? Total surrender means doing as you’re told when you’re told. Of course if you’ve changed your mind about wanting your fill of me, that’s your choice. Get dressed and leave. I won’t stop you. But if you decide to stay, then we do things my way.’

The ruthlessness in his voice shocked her. But it turned her on at the same time.

‘You seem to have lost your tongue,’ he went on. ‘But, since you’re still here, I take it you agree with my conditions for tonight?’

Jordan swallowed, then licked her parched lips.

‘That too,’ he said, his coal-black eyes fixed on her mouth. ‘But later—after we’ve had a relaxing bath. You stay right where you are till I run the water.’

‘Gino—no,’ she choked out, her excitement already at fever pitch.

‘No, what?’ he shot back.

‘Don’t leave me like this. I can’t bear it.’

He glared at her with something akin to hatred. But then his eyes dissolved in a blaze of molten desire. With a tortured groan he caught her to him, his arms enfolding her into a rough embrace, his mouth brutal in its possession of hers.

She melted against him with a naked moan, glorying in the savagery of his kiss. If he’d been tender with her she might have started crying. This way she could lose herself in his wild passion, as well as her own.