The Unwanted Wife
By: Natasha Anders“If you can’t sleep, I have the perfect solution for your insomnia,” he murmured suggestively, leaving her in no doubt as to his “solution.”
“You’re not helping matters,” she gritted through clenched teeth and he laughed quietly.
“Well, if neither of us can sleep…”
“We haven’t been in bed long enough to fall asleep…just hush!” she hissed.
“You know you’re being ridiculous, right?” he murmured in his most patronizingly logical voice, which he knew would drive her absolutely crazy.
“I don’t care how ridiculous you think I’m being.” She flipped over to face him and could barely make out his profile in the dark. He was lying on his back, with one arm tucked beneath his head. When he felt her turn over, he turned his head to look at her. She could see only the whites of his eyes in the dark. “This is what I want, Sandro.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” he maintained, reaching out to touch her face with one gentle hand. “The sex has always been good between us, Theresa. That’s one thing that’s never been in doubt. It’s the one damned thing that’s working in this marriage.”
“It wasn’t working for me,” she muttered defiantly. That bruised his masculine ego; she sensed it in the way he tensed.
“You weren’t faking those responses,” he negated stiffly.
“No, I wasn’t. You’re really very good,” she agreed, realizing too late that she didn’t sound very convincing at all. “It just isn’t enough for me anymore.”
“I’m not enough for you anymore?” he asked flatly, and she knew she had to tread carefully here, he was in an unpredictable mood, and she feared even more excoriating comments from him. It was in her nature to pacify rather than provoke, so she made one last attempt to explain herself.
“That’s not quite what I meant…”
“Oh?”
“Sandro, you’re being deliberately obtuse.” Okay that wasn’t quite the right thing to say either. She could practically feel him bristling next to her.
“It’ll probably be best if you didn’t say anything else, Theresa.”
“Look, you’re intentionally misunderstanding me here…” she began.
“Not another word,” he warned.
“But…” Suddenly she was flat on her back with him straddling her hips. She gasped and writhed as she tried to dislodge him.
“I warned you,” he growled.
“Get off me,” she hissed angrily, pushing futilely at his hot, naked chest.
“No.” He settled himself more firmly against her, moving his hips until her thighs reluctantly parted and he was lodged between them. Her T-shirt had ridden up to her waist, leaving only her tiny bikini panties as a barrier between them. She was achingly aware of his bare flesh rubbing against the tender skin of her inner thighs and felt herself responding. She helplessly moved with him, wanting more contact. He groaned and buried his face in her neck, his lips nuzzling her neck, moving up over her jaw line, then her chin, skirting past her mouth before brushing over her cheek and capturing one sensitive earlobe between his teeth. It was the blatant avoidance of her mouth that quite effectively doused the flame that had started a slow burn in her gut.
“This is not what I want,” she said firmly, using all her strength to try and push him away, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Yes it is,” he whispered into her ear.
“If you do this, it’ll be against my will,” she asserted desperately. “And you know what that’s called!” He froze abruptly before moving off her and back to his side of the bed.
“You would accuse me of something so despicable?” He sounded mortally offended, but Theresa wasn’t about to allow herself to be swayed.
“If the shoe fits…”
“What does that mean?” he growled. “Some damned ambiguous idiom that doesn’t apply to this situation at all! There was no force involved in what just happened.”
“You pinned me down and refused to get off me when I asked you to. That’s a pretty clear example of force.” He didn’t respond and lay there seething in outraged silence. She had once again succeeded in bruising his masculine pride, and Theresa was human and petty enough to give herself a mental high five. They didn’t speak at all after that, and Theresa eventually fell into a restless sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
The air at breakfast the following morning was still thick with tension. The unobtrusive staff had set out the usual Sunday morning breakfast buffet on the sunny patio next to the pool before disappearing into the woodwork. Sandro didn’t like distractions on Sunday mornings, so he preferred not to see the staff, and usually, even though he insisted Theresa have all meals with him for appearances’ sake, he ignored her in favor of his Sunday Times. That morning, despite his usual barrier of the newspaper up between him and the rest of the world—meaning her—she could all but feel his fury. After an unbearably tense half hour, he balled the paper up between his fists and tossed it aside before glaring at her across the glass table.
