Captive in His Castle (7 page)

Just then he emerged from the
en suite
bathroom,
and the sight of his blood-soaked chest caused her to give a sharp cry.

‘Santa Madre!’
He stopped dead, clearly shocked to see her. ‘What are you doing, flitting around the house as noiselessly as a wraith?’

‘I heard a crash…’ Jess could not tear her eyes from what she now realised was a blood-stained towel wrapped around the hand that he was holding against his chest. ‘What have you done?’

He glanced down at his front and said wryly, ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. I cut my hand on some glass and it’s made a bloody mess—literally. I knocked a bottle of cologne into the sink and then compounded my clumsiness by trying to pick up the shards of glass. The damned cut won’t stop bleeding. Can you look in the bathroom cabinet for a bandage?’ He gave her an intent look when she hesitated. ‘Does the sight of blood bother you?’

No way was Jess going to admit that it was not the blood that bothered her but the sight of Drago’s naked, olive-skinned chest as he shrugged off his stained shirt. Her gaze was drawn to the hard ridges of his abdominal muscles, and followed the path of wiry black hair that arrowed down his torso and disappeared beneath the waistband of his trousers.

She swallowed, and replied in a faintly strained voice, ‘No. When I was a kid I regularly used to patch my dad up after he’d had some accident or other while he was drunk. Once he fell through a neighbour’s greenhouse and was cut to ribbons.’

Drago frowned. ‘How old were you when that happened?’

She shrugged. ‘Eight or so. Sit down while I dress the wound,’ she bade him, when she had followed him into the bathroom and found a medical box in the cupboard.

He sat on the edge of the bath and unwound the towel to reveal a deep cut across his palm. ‘I’ve kept pressure on it and elevated my hand. The bleeding seems to be easing.’

‘I don’t think it needs stitching,’ Jess said after she had inspected the wound. ‘You’re lucky.’

‘Sì.’
He could not disguise the weariness in his voice. ‘I don’t fancy another trip to the hospital tonight.’

She threw him a quick look. ‘Is that where you’ve been? I wondered why you weren’t at dinner.’

‘Why,
cara
, you almost sound as though you missed me,’ he drawled.

‘Of course I didn’t. Why would I miss my jailer?’ Aware that she was blushing, she concentrated on her task. ‘At least the cut will have been sterilised by the cologne,’ she murmured as she began to bandage his hand. ‘It smells like a sultan’s harem in here.’

‘Are you speaking from personal experience?’

Drago subjected her to a leisurely inspection that for some reason made her feel hot and shivery at the same time.

‘I’m sure you would be a sultan’s favourite concubine, with your creamy skin and fiery hair,’ he said softly.

Startled by the sudden change in his voice, from teasing to husky and achingly sensual, Jess caught her breath. Her eyes flew to his, and saw the undisguised hunger in his glittering stare. ‘Of course I’ve never been in a harem,’ she choked. ‘I would never be a man’s plaything. I believe in equality between men and women.’

Nothing on earth would make her confess her secret fantasy of being swept into the arms of a handsome, powerful man and being seduced on silken sheets. In the fantasy she fought against his dominance at first,
but she could not resist the skilful touch of his hands and mouth as he aroused her and tormented her until she begged for him to possess her.

Her dream lover had never had a face—until now. She darted a glance at Drago’s chiselled features and felt her stomach dip. He was all her fantasies rolled into one, she acknowledged ruefully. His hard-boned masculine beauty was made even sexier by the shadow of dark stubble on his jaw. She stared at his mouth, remembering how it had felt on hers when he had kissed her, and unconsciously she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, as if she could recapture the taste of him.

The atmosphere in the bathroom altered subtly and the sexual tension was almost palpable. Drago was conscious of the slow thud of his heart, and even more aware of the throbbing ache in his groin, the urgent drumbeat of desire flooding through his veins. It had started with the brush of Jess’s fingers on his skin as she’d wrapped the bandage around his hand. The contrast of her pale fingers against his darkly tanned flesh had made him imagine her naked in his arms, her smooth white limbs entwined with his hair-roughened thighs.

But in all honesty it had started before that—when she had appeared in his room looking utterly delectable, wearing a nightgown from the Cassa di Cassari collection that was little more than a wisp of white silk and lace. She was an intriguing mixture of virginal innocence and sensual siren, with her crushed-berry lips and those startling green cat’s eyes.

As she leaned over him to tend to his hand he breathed in the delicate rose-scented fragrance of her skin, and the brush of her silky hair against his bare shoulder inflamed his senses. From the first moment he had seen her in London he had felt a primitive hunger
to possess her and claim her as his woman. He was no Neanderthal; he was a twenty-first century guy who believed in equality between the sexes as much as she did. But his desire for her was a pagan force he had no control over.

He had never wanted any woman the way he wanted Jess, Drago acknowledged. The gentle concern in her eyes as she tied the bandage on his hand called to something deep inside him. Since the death of his father he had been the carer and protector of his family, always strong and in control. Tonight that control was slipping away from him. He was not thinking about his suspicion that she was involved with his cousin’s missing inheritance fund, or that she had once been convicted of fraud. All he could think of was that her glorious red-gold hair felt like silk when he brushed it back from her face, and her rose-flushed cheek was velvet-soft beneath his fingertips.

Driven purely by instinct, he threaded his fingers through her hair and drew her head towards him. He was still sitting on the edge of the bath, and her petite stature meant that her face was level with his and her lips were tantalisingly close. She did not resist or pull away, but he could hear the catch of her breath and see the pulse at the base of her throat beating frantically. For a few seconds they remained poised while anticipation built to an intolerable level. Their eyes locked and held, until with a harsh groan Drago slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her with slow deliberation that quickly flared into a firestorm of passion.

Drago’s tongue probed expertly between Jess’s lips to coax them apart—although in truth he did not need to do much coaxing, she acknowledged ruefully. From the moment he had captured her mouth she had been
lost, and with no thought in her head to deny him she parted her lips and heard him give a low groan as he explored her inner sweetness.

He was the man of her fantasies. The only man she had ever allowed to breach her defences since Seb. The memory of that disastrous relationship made her stiffen and question what she was doing. Drago had openly stated that he mistrusted her. Why, then, was she allowing him to kiss her? And why was she responding to him?

Because she could not help herself, whispered a little voice inside her head. Because the very first time she had seen him she had felt that she belonged in some deep and fundamental way to him. Her sensible self knew it was ridiculous; she did not need to belong to anyone, and she knew how dangerous it was to want to be cared for. She had fallen for Seb because she had been lonely and desperate to be loved. But he had abused her trust and she had vowed never to risk her heart again.

Drago finally broke the kiss and Jess knew she should pull out of his arms and end the madness. She knew it, but she could not do it. He trailed his lips over her cheek, her throat, and she shivered with pleasure when he found the sensitive place behind her ear.

‘
Cara
, you are so beautiful,’ he said raggedly, and his deeply sensual voice made her shiver again with a fierce, sharp need that started low in her belly and radiated through her so that every nerve-ending on her body felt acutely sensitive.

He captured the pulse throbbing at the base of her throat and then brushed his mouth along her collarbone. Her heart stopped when he slid the strap of her nightgown over her shoulder. Her breasts ached with a sweet heaviness, and when he brushed his fingers
over the swollen peaks of her nipples, straining beneath the silk, she jerked as if an electrical current had shot through her.

He gave a husky laugh, but there was no amusement in eyes that were as black as jet and glittering with predatory intent. ‘I know. It’s the same for me too. The wanting. The hunger clawing in my gut.’

His jaw tightened and Jess sensed he was fighting an internal battle with himself, as if he resented his desire for her.

‘When you opened the door of your flat in London I took one look at you and knew I had to have you,’ he admitted in a driven tone.

‘Drago…’ Jess gave a keening cry when he tugged her nightgown lower and bared one of her breasts.

He stared at her, tension in every sculpted line of his face, his skin stretched tight over his sharp cheekbones. ‘No games,’ he said harshly. ‘If you don’t want this then go—now.’

He did not try to persuade her to stay with words and promises that they both knew would be false, and Jess was glad of that. She had been fooled by promises once before and her heart had been broken as a consequence. She was not a vulnerable seventeen-year-old any more, she reminded herself. She had grown up and discarded her silly dreams. Sexual desire was a perfectly natural feeling, and there was nothing wrong with wanting to give in to its demands. As long as she remembered to keep her head screwed on her heart would be in no danger.

‘W
E BARELY KNOW
each other.’ An instinct for self-protection made Jess cling to the last shreds of her sanity and offer a valid reason why she should walk away from Drago. ‘And what you think you know about me isn’t the truth,’ she added, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

‘Maybe it isn’t.’ As he uttered the words, Drago accepted that he did not know what to think about her.

He had evidence that she had been convicted of fraud, but it had happened a long time ago, when she had been a teenager. A mistake in her past did not mean she was inherently untrustworthy, his mind argued.
Madonna
, was he making excuses for her because he needed to justify his desire for her? He still did not understand what her true involvement with his cousin was, but she had fiercely denied knowing anything about Angelo’s missing inheritance fund.

He did not know what to believe, and right now—shocking though it was to admit it—he did not care about his cousin, or the money, or anything that had happened in Jess’s past. All he cared about was that she was half-naked and so exquisitely lovely that simply looking at her made him harder than he had ever been in his life. His hand actually shook as he reached
out and slid the other strap of her nightgown down her arm, until her small, firm breasts with their dusky pink nipples were revealed to his hungry gaze.

‘It’s true we don’t know many details about each other, but from the moment we met we were both aware of the chemistry that exists between us. No other woman has ever made me feel this out of control,’ Drago admitted roughly. ‘Say something, damn it,’ he growled, feeling his blood pound through his veins when she simply stared at him with her stunning green eyes. Witch’s eyes, trapping him in her spell.

He didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the feel of her silken skin as he clasped her shoulders and pulled her to him. Nothing mattered but the honeyed taste of her as he lowered his head and captured her mouth in a potent kiss that demanded a response she gave so willingly that he could not restrain a husky groan when he felt her lips part obediently, allowing him to thrust his tongue between them.

Jess’s heart thudded hard against her ribs when Drago suddenly stood up from the edge of the bath and scooped her into his arms as if she was a rag doll. She felt as boneless as one, she thought ruefully. One kiss was all it had taken to turn the sharp-tongued firebrand Jess Harper she prided herself on being into a trembling mass of nervous excitement. Drago was going to make love to her, and she was not going to stop him.

He carried her through to his bedroom. As her gaze fell on the four-poster bed, with its opulent gold silk drapes and sheets, the dull ache in the pit of her stomach became an insistent throb and she was conscious of molten warmth between her thighs. He placed her on the bed and stared down at her with a brooding intensity
in his black eyes that was just as arousing as if he had touched her.

‘I want to make love to you slowly—indulge in leisurely foreplay and prolong the pleasure until one of us begs for release,’ he bit out. ‘But I am so turned on that there isn’t a chance in hell of that happening,
mia bella.’

His taut voice revealed that he was hanging onto his self-control with supreme effort. Amazed that she could have such an effect on him, Jess touched the nerve jumping in his cheek. Her heart leapt when he turned his head so that his mouth grazed her fingers.

‘I want you too,’ she whispered.

It was what Drago wanted to hear, and his body reacted predictably. But the faint hesitancy he heard in her voice made him hold back from ripping off her nightgown and pushing her legs apart so that he could take her hard and fast, as the blood pounding in his veins urged him to do. She was not behaving as he had expected her to. His previous sexual encounters had always been with experienced women, who knew how to please him and were not shy about stating what pleased them. But Jess was clearly waiting for him to take the lead.

She looked incredibly sexy, stretched out on the bed with her fiery hair spread over the pillows, her small, pale breasts with their tightly puckered pink nipples practically begging for the ministrations of his tongue. And yet at the same time he sensed an innocence about her that made him think that she had not had many lovers.

Why the idea should make him want to grin he did not know, but as he smiled at her and watched her lips curve in a tentative response he felt a curious tug on
his insides, and he forced himself to relax and slow the pace a little.

‘Show me how much you want me,’ he murmured as he bent his head and slanted his mouth over hers. Her immediate response stoked his desire, and he groaned and deepened the kiss until he felt tremors run through her body and realised that he was shaking too.

He heard the faint catch of her breath when he stroked her breasts, and the soft moan she gave as he flicked his thumb-pads across her nipples made him want to drag her beneath him and seek the release he craved. She was so sweetly responsive, and yet he sensed she was surprised by his caresses, as if the sensations she felt when he kissed her and touched her body were new to her.

From then on Drago forgot his own needs and concentrated on arousing Jess. He breathed in the delicate fragrance of her skin as he kissed her throat, the creamy slopes of her breasts, and finally closed his lips around one taut, dusky peak and then its twin. Her nightgown was bunched up around her waist, and he pushed it over her hips and placed his hand over the slight mound of her womanhood, hidden from his gaze beneath the fragile barrier of white lace knickers. She gave an involuntary movement and tried to clamp her legs together, but released her breath on a shivery sigh when he gently eased her thighs apart and slid his fingers beneath her panties. With delicate precision he dipped a finger into her moist opening and felt her buck her hips as he probed deeper into her honeyed sweetness.

Jess trembled as Drago continued his intimate exploration. She had never experienced such intense pleasure as he was eliciting, with his wickedly inventive fingers and with his mouth as he bent his head to her breasts and lashed her swollen nipples with his tongue. Sex
with Seb had been very different, she thought ruefully. The few times she had slept with him he had seemed far more intent on his own pleasure than hers, but she had been so besotted with him that she’d felt grateful for any small sign of affection from him.

She was jolted from her thoughts of the past when Drago stood up from the bed and stripped off the rest of his clothes. Black silk boxers followed his trousers to the floor, and the sight of his naked, hugely aroused body stole her breath.

Feeling a little nervous now, she circled her lips with the tip of her tongue in an unknowingly provocative gesture and blurted out, ‘Oh, heavens.’

Drago gave a ragged laugh. ‘
Cara
, if you continue to look at me like you are doing I think I’ll explode.’ His voice thickened. ‘It has to be now,
mia bella
. I can’t wait any longer.’

As he knelt above her, his dark eyes glittering with the intensity of his desire, Jess’s heart rate quickened and the slight fear she’d felt that he was too big and powerful for her to cope with faded. She had never been so aroused, so
desperate
to ease the aching need that throbbed in every pore of her body.

His skin felt warm beneath her palms as she slid her hands over his chest and felt the faint abrasion of his chest hair. She loved the feeling of closeness to another human being. It was something she had rarely experienced. She did not remember her father ever hugging her as a child, and at the children’s home the staff had been kind but never affectionate.

All Drago was offering was sex, she reminded herself. And that was all she wanted too—the satiation of this feverish yearning that blotted out all other thoughts and left her mindless with desire. Her heart thudded
when he pulled her knickers down her legs and pushed her thighs apart. The deliberation of his actions increased her excitement and she whimpered when he touched her intimately again, the sensations he aroused as he found the most sensitive part of her making her arch her hips in urgent invitation.

The solid ridge of his erection jabbed her belly, but when she curled her fingers around his swollen manhood he made a harsh sound.

‘Not this time,
cara
,’ he growled as he pressed forward and entered her with a deep thrust that drove the breath from her lungs. Feeling her sudden tension, he stilled and stared into her eyes, a look of puzzlement in his. ‘Did I hurt you?’ His voice was rough with concern. ‘I did not expect you to be so tight.’

She flushed. ‘It’s been a while,’ she admitted, suddenly fearful that he would be disappointed by her.

‘If it is uncomfortable for you we’ll stop.’

‘No!’ Feeling him begin to withdraw, she clutched hold of him and wrapped her legs around his hips. ‘I don’t want to stop.’

Drago closed his eyes, struggling for control as his body reacted to the mind-blowing delight of feeling her vaginal muscles grip him in a velvet embrace. As Jess slowly relaxed he could not resist sinking deeper into her, and his buttocks clenched as he fought against the hot tide of pleasure that was threatening to overwhelm him.

‘I’m not going to stop,’ he assured her as he withdrew a little and she made a husky protest. If he was honest he did not think he
could
stop when his body was so tight and hot and hard, he acknowledged ruefully. ‘See?’ He thrust into her again—once, twice—each stroke harder
and faster than the last as he set a rhythm that drove them both higher.

‘Oh…’ Jess gasped as he slid his hands beneath her bottom and tilted her so that the tip of his steel-hard arousal hit an especially sensitive spot deep within her. Waves of pleasure ripped through her as he plunged between her trembling thighs with an urgency that told her his control was close to breaking. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, and she gripped the silk sheet beneath her, her fingers clawing at it as her excitement built to an intolerable level.

Nothing had prepared her for the ecstasy of her first ever orgasm. It overwhelmed her. Shock waves of incredible sensation pounded her and she shuddered with convulsive pleasure. Almost simultaneously she felt a tremor run through Drago’s big body and he gave a harsh groan. The sound of it was somehow more shocking than anything that had gone before. The fact that this powerful man had come apart in her arms filled Jess with fierce tenderness, so that she curled her arms around his neck and stroked his hair as he laid his head on her breasts.

In the lull after the storm only the sound of their breathing gradually slowing broke the intense quiet, and in those moments when they were still joined it seemed to Jess that they were the only two people in a private, magical world.

Early next morning—so early that the light filtering through the crack in the curtains was a pale, iridescent glimmer—Jess lay still, pretending to be asleep, although in fact she was studying Drago from beneath her lashes.

He was lying on his back, staring up at the drapes of
the four-poster bed. His hard-as-granite profile was not encouraging and her heart sank. Of course she had not expected to wake in his arms, or for him to kiss her tenderly as the new day dawned. She was stupid—falling into his bed last night had proved that—but she harboured no illusions that the passion they’d shared had been anything more than mind-blowing sex.

So why were tears blurring her vision? Why was she wishing with all her heart that he would pull her close and stroke her hair? She had been starved of affection all her life, so why did his indifference hurt so much?

Perhaps he sensed that she was awake, because he turned his head on the pillows. She blinked hard to dispel her tears. Pride was her faithful ally. No way was she going to act like a whipped puppy.

‘Before you say anything, I’d like to agree. Last night was a mistake that should not have happened,’ she said quickly. ‘And it would definitely be best to forget about it.’

He frowned. ‘How can you agree with me when I haven’t made a comment? Can you read my mind?’

‘I don’t need to. You look…’ Her heart lurched as she stared at his face. He looked gorgeous and incredibly sexy, with his silky hair falling onto his brow and dark stubble shading his jaw. She could not prevent the slight catch in her voice as she muttered, ‘You look angry.’

Drago gave her a quizzical look. ‘Well, it’s true that I am angry—with myself. And I admit I
did
make a mistake last night. But I don’t regret what happened between us and I definitely won’t forget making love to you any time soon.’

The sultry gleam in his eyes sent a quiver of response through Jess. ‘Then what mistake did you make?’ she asked uncertainly.

‘I forgot to use a condom.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I have no excuse other than that you have such an effect on me that I temporarily lost my sanity. I wanted you so badly I simply didn’t think about protection. It was crass and irresponsible of me, and I apologise. I also want to assure you that I am healthy. I don’t make a habit of having unprotected sex,’ he said roughly.

Drago’s self-respect had taken a hard knock when he had realised how stupid he had been. He had broken one of his golden rules.
Dio
, after what had happened with Vittoria he had always been so careful to avoid an unplanned pregnancy. He hoped that Jess took care of herself and used some method of contraception, but the knowledge that he had failed to act responsibly was a matter of bitter regret.

His frown deepened when he noticed how pale she looked this morning. In contrast to her white cheeks her lips were reddened and slightly swollen, and the faint bruises on her shoulders were shameful evidence that in his impatience to make love to her the previous night his touch had been too rough.

Guilt roughened his voice. ‘I trust you will inform me if there are any consequences?’

‘There won’t be any,’ Jess said in a quick, sharp voice.

She was painfully aware that her reply was based on wishful thinking rather than certainty. Her heart hammered against her ribs as the enormity of what she had done sank in, and she jerked upright, belatedly realising that she was naked. It was a bit late to feel self-conscious after she had spent a night of wild passion with Drago, she thought ruefully. But she could feel his gaze lingering on her breasts and she hastily pulled the sheet around her, wincing as the silk grazed nipples
that felt ultra-sensitive from where he had kissed and sucked them.