To Wear His Ring Again by Chantelle Shaw Page B

last she would shed over Constantin, and a clean break was the only sensible thing to do.
    Suddenly it was all too much: the romantic music, the way Constantin was holding her close to his body so that she could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath his ribcage and—she caught her breath as he pressed his hand into the small of her back—the hard ridge of his arousal jabbing into her thigh.
    Her brain was sending out an urgent warning that she must step away from him, but desire was unfurling in the pit of her stomach and she was trapped by the sensual heat in his eyes as he bent his head towards her.
    â€˜This happened, Isabella,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘We are both prisoners of the incredible passion that exists between us—that has always existed since the moment we first set eyes on each other. When we met last week it was all we could do not to tear each other’s clothes off. You weren’t the only one to imagine making love on the gym mat,’ he drawled in an amused voice as she opened her mouth to deny the erotic images that had crowded her mind when she had watched him working out.
    â€˜I don’t want...’ she began desperately, but the rest of her words were crushed beneath his mouth.
    â€˜Yes,
bella
, you do. And so do I,’ Constantin told her firmly, and proceeded to demonstrate his mastery with a kiss that plumbed the depths of her soul as he took without mercy and demanded a response that Isobel was unable to deny him.

CHAPTER FOUR
    I T HAD BEEN so long since Constantin had held her in his arms and kissed her with mind-blowing passion. The years of heartache fell away and Isobel trembled as he increased the pressure of his lips on hers, evoking a hunger inside her that had lain dormant until he had reawakened her desire with one look from his glittering blue eyes. A tiny part of her mind warned that she must resist the wanton warmth flooding through her body, but as Constantin pulled her even closer so that she could feel the hardness of his arousal press against her pelvis she gave up the fight with herself and succumbed to his sensual demands.
    The voices of the party guests, the clink of glasses, faded, and there was only the music and the man who retained the key to her heart. She was barely aware of her feet touching the floor as Constantin swept her around the dance floor. His mouth did not leave hers, but the tenor of his kiss altered and became so sweetly beguiling that tears filled her eyes. She felt as if she had come home after a long journey, and as he deepened the kiss to something that was flagrantly sensual the ache of loneliness in her heart eased.
    â€˜Get a room!’ Laughter followed the raucous comment, and Isobel was catapulted back to reality. She snatched her mouth from Constantin’s and looked around wildly, horrified to find that they were the only couple on the dance floor, and they were being observed by an avid audience. The flash of a camera bulb brought home to her just what a fool she had been.
    â€˜The press are going to love this,’ she muttered. She shot Constantin a sharp glance and felt infuriated by his amused expression. ‘Pictures of us will be in the newspapers tomorrow. It won’t take journalists long to discover that we are married, and they’ll be curious to know why we’ve lived apart for the last two years.’
    He shrugged. ‘Why is that a problem? We’ll simply explain that our relationship went through a difficult patch, but now we are back together.’
    â€˜But we’re not!’ Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You set me up, didn’t you? You deliberately made a...a public spectacle of us because for some reason you’ve suddenly decided that we should be reconciled.’ She touched her mouth with shaking fingers and cringed when she felt its swollen contours. Why on earth had she allowed Constantin to kiss her, to
ravish
her, in such a public