‘We’ve reached the hotel,’ Salvatore said raggedly. ‘We have to become respectable citizens again.’

She clutched him. ‘I’m not sure I can manage that.’

‘Neither am I, but we’ll have to pretend.’

He began to fasten her buttons. His hands were shaking.

‘I think I’m just about ready,’ she breathed.

‘Then come with me.’

Somehow they managed to walk sedately into the Illyria and across the lobby. In the elevator they stood side by side, not daring to touch each other until they were safely in her room. Then it was unsure which of them moved first, but they were in each other’s arms, kissing fiercely, desperately.

He began pulling away her clothes, tossing them onto the floor. The buttons on his shirt opened easily, revealing the chest beneath, thickly haired, rough to the touch, exciting.

There were no lights on in the room but outside the room lightning was beginning to flash. Boats passed, their lights gleaming through the windows, then gone again. Here in the bedroom her body flared into new life with every touch.

She leaned back until she could feel her own long hair touch her waist, while his kiss went lower, between her breasts, and she clasped her hands about his head, unable to suppress a groan of pleasure.

The warmth that suffused her went to every extremity, melting her will, making it one with his own until she had nothing left to hope for except that this should last for ever.

Which was exactly what he’d wanted.

The words were like a shriek in her head, warning that this was still and always a struggle for supremacy, and their fierce sexual attraction was simply another weapon for each to use against the other, at its most deadly when at its most glorious.

Her violent excitement began to die as a chill of doubt went through her. It was so long since a man had taken her to bed that now she faced the prospect like a virgin. She’d enjoyed the mounting passion, the teasing and enticement, but as she neared the moment of truth she knew she was afraid.

‘What is it?’ he asked, feeling her grow tense.

‘Nothing, it’s just-give me a moment. No-no!’ The cry was drawn from her as she felt his lips against her skin again. ‘Let me go.’

He released her so suddenly that she staggered and had to clutch him to avoid falling. Desperately she realised that her legs were now too weak to support her without his help.

‘You pick this moment to say let you go?’ he demanded harshly.

‘I can’t help it,’ she gasped. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t go on. This isn’t-what should be happening.’

‘I’d love to know what “should be happening” according to that cunning little brain of yours. Look at me!’

He gave her a little shake that forced her to meet his eyes with their look of grim condemnation.

‘What should be happening, Helena? Should I just trail forlornly away like a whipped puppy because you’ve decided against me? If you thought that you were deluding yourself. I’ve warned you before not to take me on. You were very foolish to ignore that warning.’

‘It’s not as you think-’ she cried.

‘Be glad you don’t know what I’m thinking right now. It would make you shiver. Who did you think you were dealing with?’

‘It’s just that I’m not quite ready-’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me. You knew what was going to happen when you walked through that door. You knew before that, in the gondola, back at the restaurant-unless I misunderstood what we were talking about.’

‘Let go of my arms,’ she said desperately. ‘Salvatore, I mean it. Let me go now.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

TO HER relief Salvatore released her. She backed away from him towards the tall window, but he followed her, speaking in a harsh, ragged voice.

‘You didn’t come up here with me expecting to hold hands.’ Suddenly his eyes narrowed and he drew a sharp, angry breath. ‘Dio mio, I was right about you all the time. You planned this whole thing, you scheming, spiteful little tease. Is this how you get your perverted pleasure?’

She was about to try to explain, to defend herself, but she was stopped by a flash of lightning that came through the window, illuminating the room for a second, then vanished. In that dazzling moment she saw the man standing close to her, the magnificence of his naked body.

Her mind was sharp with bitter irony. This was the moment that had haunted her thoughts and her fevered sensations, when she would see the truth about him, finally discovering if her fantasies had been correct. And they were. He was everything she’d hoped, his legs as long and muscular, his stomach as flat, his buttocks as taut.

She saw the arousal he was fighting to control, fierce, threatening, promising. His chest was rising and falling as though the effort to stay in command of his desires was torturing him, but there would be no yielding, for this man never yielded either to himself or another.

Here was the fulfilment of the dreams she’d barely admitted to herself, and it had happened now, at the worst possible moment. For above all she saw the terrifying look on Salvatore’s face; a look of sheer, murderous hatred.

It was like finding herself in an alien world. What she was seeing in him now was no mere annoyance at last-minute frustration; rather it was as though he’d been taken over by another man, one driven by deep, violent feelings beyond her experience.

Common sense warned her to end this quickly, calm him down, get rid of him as soon as possible, but she had the sensation of standing in the middle of a furnace. Far from being frightening, it was exhilarating, rousing her temper to match his, carrying her to unpredictable heights. Common sense couldn’t compete.

‘I planned nothing,’ she snapped. ‘But you’re so eager to think the worst of me that you twist everything.’

‘What do I need to twist? You’ve sent me one message throughout the evening and a different one now, and I guess I know why. This is how you operate, isn’t it? Teasing a man, hoping to drive him into a frenzy?’

Temper drove her to say defiantly, ‘What do you mean, hoping? I’ve never had any difficulty.’

She made the words deliberately incendiary. It was madness to provoke him, but she was too angry to think straight.

‘Is that how you get your fun?’ he sneered. ‘How many men have you driven to the edge before you give yourself to them?’

There was a perverse pleasure in knowing that she’d confirmed his opinion of her. The madness that possessed her now drove her to needle him further.

‘I never give myself,’ she said deliberately, knowing he would understand the hidden meaning. ‘That part of me is my own exclusive property, and you won’t come close to it.’

‘You’re wrong,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll offer it to me, I promise you.’

‘No, you mean you’ll take it,’ she accused him.

‘I never do that. Any fool can take. The pleasure is when you offer-even against your own will. You’ll end by giving me everything I want, and begging me to take more.’

‘Try me.’

‘Is that a challenge? Because I’m going to accept it.’

Moving fast, he slipped his arm around her waist and tightened it so that she was held prisoner, her skin against his, the feel of his arousal between her legs, reminding her that this could only end one way.

She pressed her hands against his chest, trying to push him away, but the attempt was feeble. Her will was divided, and he must have known that, for he didn’t yield an inch.

‘Too late,’ he whispered. ‘You shouldn’t have dared me to try you if you didn’t mean it. Challenge given and accepted.’

Only a few moments ago fear had undermined her desire, but anger had mysteriously brought it flooding back, and now it was stronger than herself. Her breathing came heavily, so that her breasts with their peaked nipples rose and fell against him, telling him everything she would have gladly denied.

‘Why are you angry with me, Helena?’ he murmured. ‘We’re playing your game, your way, your rules.’

‘My rules,’ she managed to say. ‘Then I can change them whenever I like. You’ll never keep up with me.’

‘Try me.’ He echoed her own words back to her.

He was moving as he spoke, drawing closer to the bed. She braced herself, expecting him to toss her onto her back and hold her down. Instead he lay full length and pulled her on top of him in a way that took her by surprise, giving the illusion of freedom, but only the freedom to writhe against him.

‘What do the rules say now?’ he asked.

She answered him, not in words but by fastening her mouth over his. Now all thoughts of the role she was playing fell away and she was driven by blind instinct. He was a man with a demonic power to seduce a woman, and that power was enticing her along unfamiliar paths to a new destination. It might not be wise to follow the lure but she was beyond rational thought, obeying the demands of her body.

For so long she had fought those demands, pretended they no longer existed, fooled herself that they were conquered for ever. Now that delusion was crumbling in flames. She wanted this man and no other, wanted what he could do to her and for her, and she wouldn’t settle for less.

She moved a hand over him, reaching down until she could feel him, fierce and rock-hard between her fingers. There was might and power there, and the need to have him inside her was intolerable.

He touched her breast, pushing her slightly away so that he could see her face as though there was something he needed to know, then increasing the pressure until she was on her back.

As his knee came between hers, separating her legs, she had a last look at his face, and what she saw there surprised her. The hard look was gone, replaced by something that might almost have been confusion: no triumph, just a searching gaze as though he too was in an unknown land.