CHAPTER SIX
LUCA KNEW HE should stop the kiss before it got out of control. Knew he shouldn’t draw her closer to his body where his blood was swelling him fit to burst. Knew he was forty times a fool to be tempted to change the rules on their paper marriage. But right then, all he could do was explore her soft mouth and let his senses run wild with the sweet, tempting taste of her lips. She opened to him on a breathless sigh and the base of his spine tingled when her tongue met his—shy and yet playful, innocent and yet daring. Need drove him to kiss her more deeply, to hold her more closely, to forget about the restrictions he’d placed on their relationship. Call him reckless, call him foolish, but right now he would die without the sweet temptation of her mouth responding to his.
Artie pressed herself against him, her arms winding around his neck, her young, slim body fitting against him as if fashioned specially for him. He ached to explore the soft perfection of her breasts, to glide his hands over her skin, to breathe in the scent of her, to taste her in the most intimate way possible.
His hands settled on her hips, holding her to the aching throb in his pelvis, his conscience at war with his body. He finally managed to find the willpower to drag his mouth off hers, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to let her go.
‘You know this can’t happen.’ His voice was so rough it sounded like he’d swallowed ground glass.
She looked up at him with eyes bright and shining with arousal. ‘Why can’t it? We’re both consenting adults.’
Luca placed his hands around her wrists and pulled her arms from around his neck, but he still didn’t release her. His fingers circled her wrists in a loose hold, his desire for her chomping at the bit like a bolting thoroughbred stallion. ‘You know why.’
Her mouth tightened, her cheeks pooling with twin circles of pink. ‘Because I’m a virgin? Is that it?’
Luca released her wrists and stepped away, dragging a hand through his hair in an effort to get his pulse rate to go back to somewhere near normal. ‘It’s not just about that.’
‘Are you saying you don’t find me attractive? Not desirable?’ Self-doubt quavered in her tone.
Luca let out a gusty sigh. ‘I find you extremely attractive and desirable but that’s not why I married you. It’s not part of the deal. It will make things too complicated when we end it.’
‘How do you know that? People have flings all the time without falling in love with each other. Why not us?’
Luca put some distance between their bodies, but even a metre or so away he could still feel the magnetic pull of hers. ‘You’re young, Artie. Not just in chronological years but in experience. You said it yourself—you haven’t been outside the castello for ten years. Those were ten valuable growing-up years.’
Her expression soured and hurt coloured her tone. ‘You think I’m immature. A child in an adult’s body? Is that what you’re saying?’
Luca pressed his lips together, fighting to keep his self-control in check. Her adult body was temptation personified but he had to keep his hands off her. It wouldn’t be fair to take things to another level, not now he knew how limited her experience. He was the first man to kiss her, to touch her, to expose her to male desire. She was like a teenager experiencing her first crush. A physical crush that had to stop before it got started. ‘I’m saying I’m not the right man for you.’
‘Consider my offer withdrawn.’ She folded her arms around her body and sent him a sideways glance. ‘Sorry if I offended you by being so brazen. Believe me, I surprised myself. I don’t know what came over me.’
Luca fought back a wry smile. ‘We should keep kissing to the absolute minimum.’
Artie gave an indifferent shrug but her eyes displayed her disappointment. ‘Fine by me.’
The silence throbbed with a dangerous energy. An energy Luca could feel in every cell of his body. Humming, thrumming sensual energy, awakened, stirred, unsatisfied.
It would be so easy to take back everything he had said and gather her in his arms, to assuage the longing that burned in his body with hot, flicking tongues of flame, to teach her the wonder of sexual compatibility—for he was sure they would be compatible.
He had not felt such electrifying chemistry from kissing someone before. He had not felt such a rush of lust from holding someone close to his body. He had not felt so dangerously tempted to throw caution to the wind and sink his body into the soft silk of another’s.
Artie released her arms from around her middle and absently toyed with her wedding ring. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed.’ Her cheeks reddened and she hastily added, ‘Alone, I mean. I wasn’t suggesting you join—’
‘Goodnight, cara.’
* * *
Artie bolted up the stairs as if she were being chased by a ghost. Eek. How could she have been so gauche as to practically beg Luca to make love to her? She couldn’t understand why she had been so wanton in her behaviour. Was there something wrong with her? Had her lack of socialising with people her own age affected her development? Her body had woken from a long sleep the moment he kissed her at the wedding. His mouth had sent shivers of longing to every pore of her skin, made her aware of her female needs and desires, made her hungry for a deeper, more powerful connection. A physical connection that would ease the tight, dragging ache in her core.
She closed her bedroom door behind her, letting out a
