A cold-hearted billionaire… And the innocent to tame him!
The moment he spotted Ella Riding, Roman knew she would be his. Unworldly Ella was his grandfather’s ward, living the life Roman had been denied. Ignoring his guilt at letting her fall for and marry him, he believed his revenge was faultless…
Ella may be naïve, but she’s no push-over. Discovering Roman’s lies, she can’t pretend their passion-filled marriage never happened. Instead, she’ll challenge him. Roman might see himself as a big bad wolf, but she knows he could be so much more…
‘You talk of seduction and power as if you didn’t already know that you had all the power all along?’ Ella threw at the man mere inches from her, crowding her in the most delicious of ways. She hated what her body wanted, the yearning that almost choked her. The need. Her only defence ineptly thrown barbs at a man who seemed more well versed in the cravings of her own body than herself.
‘Really? And what if I gave you all the power now? What would you take from me? How would you exact your revenge? Is it a signature you want or is there something else?’
Her mind stopped. Short-circuited. Instead, it threw up images of her deepest, darkest dreams from the last eight months. Fantasies of a wedding night that had never been, ones that she could barely admit to herself even though she’d woken up morning after morning hot and exhausted, aching with an unsatisfied need. A need that only one man could truly satisfy.
‘Is that why you’re really here? Do you know as much as I that we have unfinished business?’ he demanded, his words surprisingly soft, gentle almost, seductive.
‘Says the man who reportedly saved my innocence,’ she bit out angrily.
He leaned into her then, closing the small space between them, dipping his head to whisper in her ear. ‘Says the woman who would give it away to have her revenge.’
He pulled back, his eyes raking over her body as if looking for something, some kind of sign—something she feared that her body would betray. Had perhaps already betrayed.
What if I said that you could take your vengeance out on me? Right here, right now?’ Once again, her husband was pulling the rug from beneath her. Turning her words and intentions against her. Because suddenly she wanted that more than anything. She barely had the time to wonder if she had been fooling herself all along. If she had, in fact, come here with that one purpose.
‘What if I gave you one night—just this night—to take whatever it is you want? Because, Ella, I would lay myself prostrate on that funeral pyre and die a happy man.’
The raw admittance, guttural and dark with desire, completely undid her. A strange heady sense of vulnerability, the image of her husband willingly giving her whatever she desired for this one night, fired a heat deep within her until she ached, a sob of need rising within her chest threatening to escape.
‘And I am supposed to believe a word that comes out of your mouth?’ Her last line of defence, half begging and half pleading, for what outcome, she no longer knew.
‘Then don’t believe my words…Believe this.’
His lips claimed hers with an almost primal need. These were not the same gentle sweet-tasting lies pressed against her lips she remembered. This was raw, unadulterated desire. Seeking, demanding, expecting.
She gasped as her mouth opened to his, desperately seeking oxygen that only served to feed the fire within her. The fire of need and want and so much more. Yes, she admitted to herself, this was what she had wanted.
Ever since she had first seen him, Ella had sensed this about him, had desired and coveted it. All her imaginings of how she would feel, what it would be like, paled in comparison as his arms swept around her, his hands trailing fire across her body, over her breasts and clutching at her hips, drawing her into him, against him, against his arousal. Showing her his own need for her.
‘This is what you do to me, Ella. Does that please you?’
Vintage, 4*, Goodreads
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