Free Bride in a Gilded Cage by Abby Green Page B

him back. The same inevitable reaction was pooling in her body and between her legs, but this time she knew what it was and fought it with all her strength, even though she ached to just sink and give in. She couldn’t. Too much was at stake.
    She stiffened and shut her mouth in a tight line against Rafael’s sensual ministrations. He seduced and cajoled, and after torturous seconds Isobel found her resolve weakening under a welling of need. To her utter disgust and chagrin her body was betraying her again, softening, ripening, opening, instinctively wanting to allow this man access.
    Rafael’s mouth gentled, and when he took it away Isobel’s head fell back. She sucked in a breath when she felt his mouth press hotly where her pulse throbbed at the base of her neck.Big hands moulded her body, skimmed over curves, and her wedding dress felt constrictive. Without knowing how he’d managed it, Isobel felt something soft at the back of her legs, and suddenly the world was tipping. She fell back onto the bed in an ungainly sprawl. Shock and mortification washed through her in waves at seeing a still pristine Rafael standing looking down at her. She struggled inelegantly to sit up, hampered by the dress and her own sense of disorientation.
    He flicked a look to the open dressing room. ‘There is no negotiation on the wardrobe. You’ll wear those clothes if I have to dress you myself. I will not be made a laughing stock in public because you insist on wearing the kind of bargain basement dresses you got away with in Paris.’
    Isobel could feel that her veil had come off somewhere, and more waves of humiliation rose up as she rested back on her hands, still unable to stand up from the bed, seriously afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her up.
    She opened her mouth, but Rafael cut her off brutally. ‘I could have these rooms stripped bare in a few hours and insist that you move into mine today, but I will extend you the benefit of the doubt for now and assume that you are merely coming to terms with your new life.’
    He bent down and came close, snaked a hand around Isobel’s neck. The skin of his hand burned against her bare skin.
    ‘And, yes, Isobel, you will fall into my bed—whenever and however I want. We’ve just proved that you want me just as much as I want you. However, I think your lack of experience will make restraint for you harder to bear…’
    Isobel knocked his hand away, but more because he was ready to let her go than because of her strength—and that made her even angrier. To her intense relief he stood up and moved back a few feet. She sat up. ‘Don’t believe that youknow everything, Rafael. Just because I didn’t have a boyfriend in Paris it does not mean I didn’t have lovers.’
    Right now, the thought of him suspecting she was still a virgin made her clammy with horror. Would he think that she’d waited for him? Had she on some level waited for him?
    She went even clammier and did her own impression of raking her eyes up and down his body, tried to inject as much disdain into her voice as possible. ‘Perhaps I’ve not had the indiscriminate quantity of your experience, but quantity does not always equal quality.’
    Rafael stepped back and chuckled dangerously. For the first time in long minutes Isobel felt as if she could breathe again.
    ‘I’ll leave you to freshen up. And you might want to put on a little make-up to take down that flush in your cheeks. People will suspect that we’ve been getting a head start on our wedding night.’
    He calmly and insouciantly walked to the door and then turned back. ‘The photographer will be ready soon, so when you come down we’ll get the photos out of the way. I’ll be waiting downstairs.’
    He left and closed the door behind him. Isobel picked up a pillow from the bed and threw it at the door, where it bounced ineffectually back onto the carpet. Which was exactly how she felt— ineffectual.
    Knowing it was useless, but wanting to do