Read Online Captive in His Castle by Chantelle Shaw - Free Book Online

to put her down. Drago simply tightened his hold on her and growled, ‘Keep still. You’ve already got me wet enough.
Dio
, you’re as slippery as an eel.’
    Charming. That was twice in the space of a few minutes that he’d likened her to a fish! Jess knew she should continue to struggle, but she felt so tired and cold, and being carried in Drago’s strong arms was dangerously seductive. Besides, where could she go now that her rucksack, containing her clothes, money and passport, was at the bottom of the canal? In a game of chess Drago would have her at checkmate, she acknowledged wearily.
    He strode into the house and carried her up two flights of stairs as if she weighed nothing. Shouldering a door, he walked into a room that Jess guessed wasthe master suite. The elegant sitting room was decorated in shades of cream and gold and furnished with burgundy velvet sofas, and exquisite patterned rugs on the floor. But Jess only had a glimpse of the room as Drago continued on through a set of double doors into the bedroom.
    Her eyes were immediately drawn to an enormous four-poster bed with gold damask drapes. The room, in particular the bed, was designed for seduction, she thought, as she took in the exotic décor of burgundy silk wallpaper. The satin bedspread was in the same rich shade.
    With a renewed sense of panic she tried again to struggle out of his arms. ‘Why have you brought me here? I’d like to go back to my room.’
    ‘Not a hope. I’m not going to hang around under your balcony waiting to catch you when you take another leap out of the window.’
    ‘I didn’t leap out. It was a carefully planned escape, which I wouldn’t have needed to attempt if you hadn’t locked me in,’ Jess snapped, stung by his scathing tone. ‘And I wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t startled me. What are you doing?’ she demanded when he carried her into the
en suite
bathroom and set her down in the shower cubicle. She gasped when he activated the shower and she was hit by a deluge of warm water. Her jeans and tee shirt were already wet from where she had fallen into the canal, but within seconds of standing beneath the spray her clothes were plastered to her body.
    ‘Do you need any help getting undressed?’
    ‘No!’
She glared at Drago, incensed by his mocking smile. Following his gaze, she glanced down and was horrified to see that her thin shirt had become almost transparent and the hard points of her nipples wereplainly visible through the sodden material. ‘Go to hell,’ she muttered, hating him—but hating her body more, for its traitorous response to his virile sex appeal.
    Unexpectedly, the stricken look in Jess’s eyes caused Drago a pang of remorse. Beneath her defiance she looked young and scared, and the realisation that she might be frightened of him made him uncomfortable.
Dio
, the idea of frightening a woman was abhorrent to him. He had behaved like a brute tonight, he acknowledged heavily. His concern for his cousin and the fact that he’d had barely any sleep in seventy-two hours had clouded his judgement. Although he suspected that Jess knew more about Angelo’s missing inheritance fund than she was letting on, nothing had been proved—and he could not forget how convincing she had sounded when she had protested her innocence.
    ‘Remain under the shower until you’ve warmed up,’ he said roughly. ‘I’ll find something for you to wear to sleep in.’
    Ten minutes later, when Jess cautiously peered around the shower screen, she was relieved to find she was alone. A pile of towels had been left for her, and a man’s white shirt that she guessed belonged to Drago. He had been right about the shower warming her up—she had a feeling he was right about most things, she thought ruefully. But at least she had stopped shivering and her hair no longer smelled of canal water.
    The shirt was so big on her that it reached halfway down her thighs. After blasting her hair with the dryer hanging