Читать книгу The Vengeful Groom - SARA WOOD - Страница 9

IT WAS A DREAM. A nightmare. But Tina saw the tall resolute figure in the cool cream suit turn to give her a mockingly seductive smile, and she knew from the hot spilling of hormones into her bloodstream that this was cold reality.

She could ignore the come-on and be safe. Walk away, get on with her day. Her finger slicked over the perspiration on her upper lip as she dismissed that choice.

Adriana’s welfare came first. The last thing she wanted was for Giovanni to find out that she and her grandfather weren’t alone anymore. Tina’s heart thudded in alarm. If he was insensitive enough to hang around, he’d hear everything there was to know.

Adriana needed stability more than anything. Tina hoped she’d provided that. Love and attention, laughter and understanding had filled the small apartment, and she and her grandfather were devoted to Adriana. Without her, their lives would be less full, less rewarding. Tina let her eyes close, dreading the thought of losing her. They were family. Giovanni was an outsider, however closely he might be bound by blood to Adriana.

If he should assert his rights and demand access—or even custody—it would be unbearable. The days would be too empty. They’d gotten into the habit of washing one another’s hair, curling up on the sofa with their eyes glued to some weepie on TV and trying out new recipes together.

What would Giovanni make of the trivial things that gave Adriana such pride? That neatly sewn apron, the final pom-pom on the knitted hat, the poem learned by heart…. She knew what milestones they were. Gio didn’t. And Adriana would be hurt by his lack of praise and bewildered at being torn from her familiar, much-loved surroundings and the safe rituals.

Tina thought of her parents, devoting themselves to their teaching jobs in Puerto Rico, and how badly she missed her mother. Adriana had helped to fill that need for another female in the house who was close to her heart, someone to receive the huge amounts of love she needed to give to others.

But stupidly she’d forgotten Gio’s rights. When she’d committed herself so completely to caring for Adriana, it had never crossed her mind that he’d come back to Eternity.

Her worried eyes focused on his striding figure. He was an inveterate liar. Perhaps his threat that he was intending to live in the town had been spite and nothing else. For Adriana, for her own peace of mind, she must make every effort to make sure he left Eternity before he talked to anyone.

Her body jerked into motion and she began to run, stumbling at first because her legs seemed to have lost their strength, and then finally catching up with him in a burst of fury and panic.

“Giovanni!” she panted, jogging along beside him while his long strides covered the ground rapidly. “You’re bluffing, aren’t you?” she asked anxiously. “You mean to drive off—”

“No.” He glanced down at her briefly, a flash of triumph in his eyes. “I’m not.”

“But why come here, of all places in the world?” she asked, a sense of dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

“For one thing,” he said evenly, “I mean to persuade the folks around here to give me a different kind of character from the one you and your dear friend Beth landed me with.”

“Beth?” She felt relieved that Beth was safely out of harm’s way in Boston. But she was her ex-friend now. Giovanni’s two-timing and the trial had killed their lifelong friendship stone dead. “How do you intend arranging that?” she asked with a worried frown.

“I have a very carefully thought-out plan,” he said smoothly. “Time hangs heavily in jail. One has to do something to keep amused.”

She flushed. “Gio, this is unrealistic. You can’t come here to settle down! You’re behaving like…like a cartoon character!”

“Well, this is my fantasy and I’m making it happen,” Giovanni said in mild sarcasm.

“Don’t you have any concern for what I’d feel seeing you walking the streets? Or Grandpa?” she asked angrily.

“It’s worth a little pain to get what you want,” he said quietly.

Her shoulders drooped, her body slumping in distress, and she fell back a step or two. If he meant he wanted to give her pain, he was succeeding already. Grandpa would be hurt when he saw Gio, the man who’d killed his elder granddaughter and great-grandchild, driving around Eternity and showing no contrition, no sensitivity to their feelings. Then Adriana would be flung into the maelstrom…

Seeing Giovanni had forged on ahead again, Tina hurried to catch up. “If you stay,” she reasoned, “you’ll upset us—and Beth’s parents, everyone who saw you that night, everyone who knew and loved Sue,” she said passionately.

“Possibly.”

Her mouth crimped with anger at his callousness. “Haven’t you the decency to stay away? Didn’t you learn anything from what happened?” she asked sadly.

“Yes,” he replied. “Never to trust women.” His beautiful, rich chocolate eyes were almost black with contempt, the long lush lashes spiking at her accusingly. “If you want to know what else I learned in prison, we’ll need several hours and you’ll need a strong stomach.”

“Oh, Gio!” she whispered brokenly. She’d have done anything not to be driving him away. In her heart of hearts, if he’d been different—penitent, changed, less vengeful—she would have loved to see him with Adriana and would have gladly prepared the ground for them to accept one another. The wounds would have healed. But sadly, it seemed he was no fit guardian for her precious Adriana. “Gio, if only you’d come back to apologize…” she began wistfully. And hesitated. Perhaps there was hope. “You could. It would make everything quite different.”

“I have nothing to apologize for,” he said flatly. “You know, if you keep running along beside me, people will think you’re chasing me. Amazing how people can get the wrong impression from an isolated event they witness, isn’t it?”

Tina flushed at the implication, the quickly rising color making her feel even hotter than before. She eased her T-shirt from her sticky body under Giovanni’s watchful dark eyes, then quickly smoothed her damp palms on her shorts and looked ahead as they strode on. Worryingly, a handful of students were still hanging around the derelict lot, discussing the car.

“I did see you in the driver’s seat that night of the accident,” she insisted. “You did hit my sister’s car during a row with Beth, and all I want now is to watch you drive away before you hurt the people I love again!” she said miserably.

“Save your breath, Tina. You won’t dissuade me from my intentions.”

Suddenly he stopped, allowing his gaze to roam over her. And her soft-fringed eyes mistakenly lingered on him. Lisa had been right about the body language. He spoke fluent sensuality from every pore. Plenty of guys had spectacular muscles that left her cold, but Giovanni knew how to stand and move and project his masculinity and make a woman feel feminine and desirable and hungry. His sex appeal was earthy and direct and irresistible because he adored women and all that came with them.

Gorgeous, she thought hazily. He was absolutely gorgeous and totally evil. Incredibly she caught herself wishing she didn’t look so scruffy and—

“Were you really so beautiful before?” he mused as if genuinely unsure. Her eyes must have shown the leap of surprised pleasure that had taken her unawares, because his mouth curved into a beguiling smile. “Tempting. Tantalizing. Mysterious.”

“M-mysterious?” she stuttered, unable to help herself from asking.

“Then there’s the distortion of time.”

“Time?” She could have kicked herself for falling into his trap. The say-something-kooky trap, to get a woman interested. “Look—”

“It makes fools of us all,” he said softly. “Because I can’t recall that your eyes were such a deep blue. I could swear they’re almost as clear as the lagoon. You know the way it sparkles and invites you to plunge right in.” He gave her a disarming smile, but the words were enough to shake her.

Tina tried to muster some reply, a sharp crack perhaps, but his gaze had drifted to her mouth and she hesitated, wondering what lavish claims he’d make, all thought of coaxing him back to his car temporarily forgotten while she waited, quivering in anticipation.

“I remember that softness,” he said huskily, his eyes caressing. “Know what they always reminded me of?” She shook her head wordlessly. “That silky texture of a petal. Poppies in the meadows,” he mused with such a drowsy murmur that her mouth flowered into an even lusher pout of scarlet invitation. He smiled, breathing out hard so that his breath filtered tantalizingly over her lips till they parted. “I’m afraid that kissing you would tempt a man to linger too long for his safety.”

Aware she was on the brink of sinking in shameful delight beneath the blatant flattery, she forced herself to remember that he was the last person she should allow to compliment her, a man convicted of manslaughter. Ex-convict. Ex-lover. Ex! Ex! she told herself fiercely.

“I said it wasn’t healthy for you around here,” she agreed huskily.

His mouth twitched. “You misunderstand. I’m staying. I’ve gone through too much to be scared off by townspeople,” he said dismissively. He gave an enigmatic smile. “I have schemes to protect me from being tarred and feathered. Be patient. You’ll learn about them soon enough.”

Leaving her openmouthed in dismay, he made straight for her apartment door at the side of the garage, and before she could find her brains he’d put his finger on the bell and was keeping it there.

Tina slipped quickly through the picket gate to his side. “What are you doing?” she asked warily.

“Waiting.”

She closed her eyes and offered up a brief thanks for deliverance. With her grandfather and Adriana on their way to Rockport—probably planning on exploring the delights of rock pools and the gift shops at Bearskin Neck, she thought fondly—she’d been saved an ugly scene.

“No one’s in,” she said.

“I’ll hang around.”

Alarmed, she ruthlessly calmed her nerves, wondering what he meant to do. Judging by the set of that smooth jaw, he had a purpose in mind and was going to see it through once his car was mended. But he was a mechanic! she thought, kicking herself for not remembering.

“If you can’t handle the trouble with your car and can’t wait for the part-timers,” she suggested brightly, “try the garage in Ipswich. There’s a pay phone nearby.”

He smiled faintly, his cynical mouth curling at the corners. “There’s nothing wrong with the car. I parked by the garage on purpose.”

“Oh!” Stunned, she remembered the neat patch of oil, the handy car trolley and his still-immaculate suit. A setup. “What…purpose?” she said, her voice wavering, her nerves crumbling.

“I arranged the car—and myself,” he said, ringing the bell impatiently again, “as a lure.”

Her eyes widened. It had worked. “To bring me out?” she asked.

“Heaven forbid,” he murmured, rolling eloquent eyes up to heaven. “I knew what your reaction would be when you saw me. I was hoping to lure out your grandfather.”

“He’s not about, and the garage is closed till the part-timers arrive,” she said stiffly, still not understanding why he needed her grandfather. Her black eyebrows arched and disappeared beneath her bangs. “Have you run out of gas?”

“No. Patience,” he answered dryly. “Where is Dan? He always started at seven.”

“Not nowadays. He’s nearly eighty,” Tina reminded him shortly.

“I see. I thought he was probably still having breakfast. That’s the reason I slid under the car to wait for him to come over and ask me what the trouble was.” He smiled, his eyes distant as though remembering happier times. “He and I could smell out classic cars at a hundred paces. I was sure he’d be out like a shot.”

“Seems an elaborate ploy,” she said with a frown. “Why risk ruining your rented suit for that?”

A blankness deadened his eyes and he stared at her somberly for a while. “The stakes were high,” he said eventually. “Worth a little subterfuge, a little waiting and some good honest dust.”

Tina went cold. “Like I said, he’s not in.” Her tone was curt, her voluptuous mouth set in decidedly stubborn lines.

He looked upward, scanning the windows and frowning when he came to the small barred one. Tina held her breath. “I don’t believe you. Let me in, Tina,” he ordered.

Incredulous that he’d even consider asking, she said coldly, “Not on your life.”

He leaned against the porch, elegant, cool and totally implacable. And his body language told her in no uncertain terms that he’d keep attempting to reach his declared goal and wouldn’t let up. His arms were folded across the big chest, his legs were slightly spread, and his jaw stuck out ominously. She leaned against the opposite side, but for support, not display.

Languidly his hand reached out, and Tina’s mesmerized eyes followed its progress to her throat. She swallowed, the flicker of his eyes telling her that he’d seen her fear. Then the tips of his fingers met her hot skin and she felt them slide over the slippery surface down to her collarbone.

“Nervous about something?” he murmured, lifting his fingers from her skin and holding out their sweat-dampened tips for her to explain.

“Hot. From running. You’ve got a long stride.”

“I’ve got a long checklist to get through.”

“Meaning?” she asked nervously.

The black velvet eyes glimmered. “I came to talk to your grandfather. Since he’s not around, it seems I must make do with you, instead,” he said in a lazy predatory drawl. “Alternatively, I could ask a few questions in town.”

“What questions?” she asked, brazening it out.

“Anything there is to know about you, for a start. Since you’re a school counselor, I imagine those students over there know a few things about you they’d be willing to divulge.”

“Don’t involve them!” she said quickly, hating to beg.

“Let me in and I won’t need to.”

She was silent. Her pulse throbbed heavily in her temples, and she put her fingers there for relief so she could think straight. It was the uncertainty she couldn’t stand. There were three possibilities: either he knew about Adriana, or he suspected something, or he knew nothing at all. But if she invited him in to talk sense into him, he’d see enough evidence to give the game away after a few minutes.

“You can’t come up,” she said firmly. “People will talk.”

“Plan C, then.” With a casual shrug, he strolled over to his car. Tina waited, holding her breath. A bluff. He’d get in the car and drive away…

He began talking to Lisa. She fumed as Lisa and Giovanni laughed together, his sun-shot blond head bent low over hers. Recognizing that look of admiration Lisa was giving him, Tina winced. If she didn’t move soon, he’d dispense with the preliminaries and ask a few direct incriminating questions.

Angrily she stomped across the lot to where Giovanni was holding court.

“Oh, yes, known her for years,” he was saying. The students stared at Tina in awe as she came closer, and he smiled at her in a sickeningly winsome way. “We’ve been talking over old times,” he said in a husky reminiscing tone of voice. “You know the kind of thing. The high school prom, the homecoming dance, old films, clambakes.”

Tina eyed him cynically. “Time you went home, Gio. Byee!”

“It was at a clambake,” he remarked idly to his rapt audience, ignoring her completely, “that Tina poured a half-gallon tub of melted chocolate ice cream—”

“Please!” she protested indignantly.

“—into the school bully’s gas tank,” he finished.

Four pairs of astonished eyes turned on Tina’s flushed face.

“You’ll give them ideas, Gio,” she muttered.

“I could,” he said worryingly. “Shall we continue our chat indoors, Teen? I’m ready if you are,” he added with an encouraging lift of his eyebrow.

She screwed her mouth up tightly at his misuse of her name. “I’m heading for the beach in a while.” Somehow she dug up a smile for the students’ benefit. “Aren’t you all off to the beach, too?” she suggested to them hopefully.

Giovanni grinned amiably at the fascinated group. “Or you guys could take a moment to sit in the car, try it for size. Feel free.”

There was a chorus of enthusiastic agreement, so he obligingly opened the Lamborghini’s passenger-side door. Watching the excited faces, hearing him answering the eager queries, she grudgingly admired the way he had won the interest of the students. He’d done something for them; now it would be their turn to do something for him. Like answering his questions, she thought with apprehension.

And their eyes met, his triumph plain to see. Tina felt trapped, wanting to run away but unable to. It seemed that whatever she did, he’d find out that she’d kept a secret from him all these years. One so important that by rights she should have told him.

“I won’t be long, darling,” he said warmly to Tina. At her gasp, he gave a theatrical groan and a sheepish grin, releasing appealing laughter lines around his dark eyes. “I’ve let the cat out of the bag!” he exclaimed. “I suppose they don’t even know we were once close friends—”

“Stop it, Gio!” Tina interrupted desperately.

“Aw, shucks! Mustn’t tease my best girl, must I?” He grinned, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her fondly into his hip. He looked down at her as if they were lovers reunited.

Tina wanted to hit him. Aw, shucks and best girl indeed! She caught the look in Giovanni’s eye and was furious to see that he was vastly amused by the way he’d put her on the defensive. Time she got Giovanni somewhere he couldn’t bring her name into disrepute! Already his hipbone was burning into hers with more heat than friends ought to generate between them.

“Not if you want to reach thirty, you mustn’t,” Tina agreed lightly, without a clue in the world as to how to get rid of him safely. But at least she could lose their audience while she did it. So she swallowed her pride and her fear, flashed him a big friendly smile and tucked her arm in his. “I might see you guys at the beach,” she said to the students. “If I’m carrying a tub of ice cream, it’s because I’m going to take my revenge on a bully—”

“I hope you’re not planning on pouring it into my gas tank,” he said with a low laugh, squeezing her waist with his big crushing hand and making her gasp.

“No,” she said sweetly. “Down your cream suit.”

He chucked her indulgently under the chin. “Saucy witch!” he said fondly. His lips parted and his eyes became drugged with a drowsy desire. “You know I’d make you lick it off.”

There was an intake of breath all round. Giovanni’s trick of wrapping each word in curling sensuality had made that sound like a highly erotic act. Red in the face with embarrassment, Tina felt his fingers sliding down her hip, and she could see from the expression on the students’ faces that she needed to play the remark down or she’d lose all credibility as an upholder of the moral tone.

“Idiot,” she said fondly. “Don’t take any notice of this guy,” she said in an offhand way to the students, trying to hold his roaming hand still. The rhythm was penetrating her bones and creating far-reaching vibrations in places she’d rather not remember. “He’s a real joker. Won the debating prize most years. You know the kind. All talk, no do. Come on,” she said, grimly shooting the amused Giovanni a hands-off look. “Tell your aunty Teen what you’ve been up to since you left and how your lovely wife is and your—is it eight?—children. Loves kids,” she confided, her voice a little wobbly now from the strain. “Bye, everyone. Have a nice day.”

With knowing smirks that made her want to scream, the teenagers wandered away and Tina drew in a deep breath. First blow to her. And then her brief sense of deliverance vanished rather rapidly when she found herself being firmly propelled toward her apartment door.

“I knew you’d see sense,” murmured Giovanni.

“Now it’s your turn,” began Tina. But suddenly she found his arms around her. “Gio!” she warned huskily.

“Mmm?” he said with a slow smile.

She felt his long fingers sliding down her back and tensed, ready to raise her knee and… Tina blinked rapidly. Both his hands were pushed into the side pockets of her shorts, and for a few delicious seconds her hipbones were being treated to a seductive massage. She stiffened, motionless as a statue. Giovanni’s long fingers had crept into the warm socket beyond her pelvic bones and the caress was driving heat into her loins. Lovely liquid heat that made her back arch involuntarily and her head lift till her face was uptilted and available.

He murmured something and then laughed softly. She heard a clink and saw that he was waving her key in front of her nose.

“No!” she wailed, furious with herself for not realizing what he was doing. Always he tricked her. Always she fell for it! Angrily she shot her hand up for the key. He lifted it higher, waggling it about in smug triumph. Tall he might be, but she could jump, couldn’t she? And wipe that smile off! Her knees flexed and she sprang into the air just as he stepped closer. And to anyone watching, it must have seemed she’d leapt into his waiting embrace with unseemly eagerness.

Giovanni reacted with typical enthusiasm. “Tina!” he said silkily, wrapping his arms around her with the speed of lightning.

Helplessly she kicked her dangling legs in midair only too uncomfortably aware that her body was being pressed into his and her mouth had ended up inches away from his jaw. “Opportunist!” she gasped, the breath being crushed from her. To her horror, she saw a movement at the Alden place and her eyes widened in dismay. “Put me down!” she yelped.

He glanced behind him and also saw that Lisa had returned and was straightening up from collecting something she’d left behind by the car. With a cruelly mocking grin, he turned back, at the same time casually kicking out at a gas can stowed in the porch.

“I think you’d better stop wiggling,” he said huskily. “I’m enjoying it too much. Do you know where your pelvis is?”

The distraught Tina went instantly limp. Of course she knew! Wasn’t she wishing she didn’t? “Put me down!” she whispered, her mouth a lick away from his. “Lisa must have heard the rattle of the can….”

“Oh, do you think so?” he asked innocently. “I imagine she’s glancing over now, don’t you? I’m afraid,” he added gravely, “that it’ll look as if we’re locked in a friendly clinch.”

“Manipulator! Down!” she whispered fiercely against his laughing mouth.

“If you insist. Mmm. Gorgeous.” His mouth drifted lower to her throat. A hand, thrust between them, crept to the top of her thighs.

“I…mmm! I meant down as in put me down!” she mumbled breathily, feeling the quick rush of flowing need spreading from where his hand had briefly rested and radiating through her whole body.

“Okay.”

One arm alone held her slight weight. She heard the sound of the key being inserted into the lock, but before she could protest, she was being carried inside and the door had slammed. Almost immediately Giovanni let her go and she tumbled to the floor in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. So did he.

“Well, this is nice,” he murmured, halfheartedly untangling his legs from hers. “Like Bambi and Thumper, when they bumped on the ice.” She gave him a look of loathing, and his hand clamped around her chin. Her mutinous eyes glowered at him, he gave her a crooked grin, then touched his lips to hers.

“They were friends,” she muttered through the kiss, unwillingly adoring the taste of him as her inner lip moved against his mouth.

“I love your sulky pout. Mmm. Your tongue’s so sour tipped when you talk to me and yet you’re really tasty,” he mused. “Must be all those doughnuts. Sugar sweet. I’m crazy about sweet things. Chocolate ice cream on naked flesh, honey-tipped breasts, your luscious poppy red lips. Come here.”

“Gio!” she protested, deeply shocked. His mouth swooped on hers again and she felt his laugh shape the kiss and his breath feeding into her with a rush of deliciously tingling warmth. Weakly she fought the instant pleasure, appalled that she found it wonderful to be drowning in his arms once more and that it was a joy to be mingling the taste of her lips with his, inhaling the clean-showered scent of his body and experiencing the feeling of satin stroking satin as his mouth explored hers.

Sun warm, his mouth, she thought dazedly, pushing at his shoulders because she knew she must. Kisses deep and driving and dangerous. Thoroughly wanton. A hand crawled up her back, and she arched away when all her instincts told her to wriggle into the sweep of his palm and let him explore every curve of her warm body.

With a sudden effort she broke free, her mouth strangely reluctant to do anything more than hold its crushed-kiss pout. Feeling sick with herself, she took a huge breath and said, “Get out!”

“Sure. When I’m satisfied,” he replied in a sexy growl.

Her eyes widened in alarm. She was alone. With a guy who couldn’t control himself. God, her sex drive had driven her mad! “Giovanni!” she whispered shakily. “You…you wouldn’t…” Fear cut off her vocal cords. He was gently stroking the shimmering skin that stretched over her collarbone, a look of dangerous lust in his eyes as he gazed at her.

“I will do whatever I have to,” he said softly.

His body shifted a little closer. She felt the warmth of him a breath or two away and her lips parted in a whimper. The blond head lowered, offering her the full impact of its glorious sun-bleached curls, tousled charmingly by the fall, cascading in touchable damp tendrils on his smoothly tanned forehead. Two dark eyes melted into hers.

A spear of something unrecognizable caught her unawares and made her quiver from head to foot. Her head spun. Flu, she thought. A stomach bug. Just when she needed all her strength.

And then she was swallowing back a cry of alarm because his powerful arms and body were forming an imprisoning cage around her, and she knew that if she attempted to come upright, she couldn’t avoid being pressed intimately against him again. The thought made her feel sick. That strong male body. The hard muscular thighs…

A sudden flash of sexual reaction ripped through her, from loins to stomach, to breasts, throat and mouth, her lips flowering into an unwilling lushness. It wasn’t sickness, she thought, appalled. It was a totally unwelcome carnal excitement that had overtaken her and refused to go away.

My sister is dead, she said to herself. Her child is dead. Gio killed them. The destructive desire receded a little. To her eternal shame, it ebbed away more slowly than it had come.

He smiled mockingly as if he knew everything that was going on inside her and growled with sexy appreciation in his golden throat. “So it still happens,” he marveled. “You become aroused by a look, a gesture, by the passing of warm breath over your ultrasensitive skin.” He gazed at her through the dark fringe of lashes, his expression infinitely seductive. “I do so love the combination of madonna and whore in your makeup.”

“That’s insulting!” she cried with hot-faced indignation. “Being near you makes me sick with disgust!”

“Sure?”

His knowing eyes played on her trembling body in a slow and devastatingly sexy prelude to possession, and to her utter dismay she felt each part tense painfully in turn and leave a tingle on the skin that seeped deeper into each receptive pore. Although he was caressing her only with his eyes, it was as though he was lightly drawing his fingers across her body in a sensual movement that snaked thrillingly down her throat and across her naked shoulders. She was sick with something—hunger, emptiness, a lost dream.

Pain flashed through her, the pain of misery and violent need. The shock of her response thickened her tongue, and it was a great effort to say what she had to. “I’m sure,” she rasped, even those two words wavering.

“I don’t think you’re sure at all. Your big blue eyes are a real giveaway,” he said with a contemptuous drawl. His voice became husky. “They’re glazed and they’re alarmed and they’re begging.”

“No!” she denied, making them as narrow as she could.

He smiled mockingly. “And your beautiful mouth is asking to be kissed so prettily,” he said, touching her hot swollen lower lip. His finger traced a delicate trail to the corner, and it was all she could do to keep her mouth closed and not groan in hunger. “Then there’s your breathing,” he murmured.

“My…what?” she said jerkily, and blinked. She’d squeaked, actually squeaked! Her obvious horror at her own self-betrayal made him smile triumphantly.

“Very shallow, rapid, rather rasping,” he observed with a solicitous smile. “Health problem or me?”

Bodies were treacherous, she thought irritably. They had long memories. She suffered a cruel split-second reminder of their exciting union—wild, passionate, utterly satisfying and perfectly wonderful to her innocent mind and body. Pushing away the memory of his golden body above hers in all its naked glory, she squirmed beneath his knowing stare and tried to concentrate.

“Anger!” she explained in a furious croak.

His eyebrow lifted cynically. “Uh-huh.”

“It is,” she muttered, incensed that he was able to invest such depth of meaning in one little “uh-huh.”

“I’d advise you not to get angry too often, then,” he said. “The results do the most alarming things to your lovely breasts and only a saint would keep his hands off them. In case you hadn’t noticed,” he added unnecessarily, “I’m not a saint.”

She folded her arms with difficulty. There seemed to be a lot of her in the way suddenly. “Keep your eyes and your mind off my body!” she mumbled. “And get in your dream machine and drive off into the blue yonder!” she added in despair.

“I would if I could, believe me,” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “But I have too many memories of your eager responses. Like when I was dating Beth and had dropped her off with her aunt. You and I were stuck in my car while the blizzard raged around us….”

Tina bristled. “I was cold. You said you’d warm me up. You were the one coming on to me,” she said tightly.

A faint smile tilted the corners of his expressive mouth, and Tina found herself staring at it, hopelessly remembering his first gentle respectful kiss. “I think you were with me every step of the way,” he said quietly.

“I was scared,” she countered, ruthlessly obliterating the dreamlike quality of the kiss and her naively delighted demands for more. He’d obliged, of course. Till she was dizzy and intoxicated with love. “I needed comfort. I was afraid we’d be stranded,” she explained.

“No, you weren’t. You hoped we might be,” he reminded her brutally.

She lifted a stubborn chin. “Only because I wanted to miss study period.”

Giovanni laughed, his even teeth dazzling white in his dark handsome face. Tina felt her heart lurch infuriatingly as it used to in the days when she’d been shamelessly and helplessly in love with her best friend’s lover. Being kissed by him in the car had been her secret dream come true. Other than Brent Powell, who’d been Giovanni’s rival in every walk of life, Gio was the most desirable guy in school.

Brent was everything a mother would want for her daughter. Giovanni had an edge of danger, a rawness that made him exciting. Mothers didn’t want him for their daughters; they wanted him for themselves.

“You’re deluding yourself,” he said in amusement. “You were nuts about me.”

“I was nuts, all right,” she muttered. “You were a fake charmer. You fooled us all.”

“But not anymore?” His eyes grew soft with warm melting desire and his fingers lightly brushed her bare arm. “God!” he breathed huskily. “You look sinfully wanton and inviting sprawled out like that!”

Fear killed the initial flame of pleasure that lit her up inside. She edged backward, feeling the hard line of the stairs against her spine. Giovanni didn’t move, but she could see his muscles were tensed, ready, his eyes working over her body as though she were in a shop window or a cheap peep show.

Against her rib cage, her heart beat frantically, and try as she might, she couldn’t stop the fear from welling up inside. “Don’t touch me!” she whispered.

He caught her in his strong grip, and she froze as he boldly slid one hand under her T-shirt to cup her breast. “But I have to,” he said softly. “There are things my body and soul cry out for. Things I need, or I can’t be content. Don’t you see?” And his mouth descended ruthlessly on hers.

Tina couldn’t even struggle. Weeping inside in frustrated anger, she gritted her teeth to steel herself against the slow, torturing rhythm of the finger and thumb that delicately rubbed the already throbbing peak of her breast, whisking it shockingly to harder and tighter tension and thus arousing every inch of her love-starved body with a perfectly timed, accurately judged pressure. Enough to drive her wild. Enough to make her lean in to him for more. Enough of a kiss to divert her attention, enough to remind her….

“Mmm…” she moaned.

He became still, his hands wandering to her waist while she strained against him hungrily for more. A terrible anger filled her. He was going to cheat her body of its needs. Slowly his mouth lifted from hers and his dark unfathomable eyes fixed her with a tenacious stare. “Is that a capitulation?” he murmured huskily.

“I’ll…” She fought for breath, for some composure and for time.

“Give in, Tina!” he commanded softly. “You know how it is between us. There’s never been anyone as good, has there?”

It was the slightly hesitant query that alerted her. Lifting her lashes briefly to identify the cause, she saw with a firing spurt of satisfaction that he wasn’t quite as indifferent as he pretended. His breathing was ragged, his chest rose and fell with jerky irregularity, and he looked more than a little glazed. He did desire her. He wanted confirmation that he was the greatest lover on God’s earth—and that meant she had a potential weapon.

Giovanni Kowalski cared only for bodily pleasures, and his desire was nothing more than an animal urge. He was man. She was woman. Prison had changed him and made his nature even more carnal than before.

Yet it meant that she had something she could bargain with. Since he wanted her, maybe she could stop him from going upstairs, from seeing the evidence that pointed to Adriana’s presence. She scowled. Except she’d have to only pretend she’d fallen for his seduction. Whatever she did, she was wedged between a rock and a hard place.

Her instinct was to protect the vulnerable Adriana and shield her from all knowledge of Giovanni’s visit. And to keep Giovanni at arm’s length. And to abandon all sense and slither into his waiting arms! Was she confused?

“You’re rushing me,” she said huskily, stalling for time, contemplating a suggestion of a drive in the Lamborghini. Did that make her a temptress? Would she deserve scorn for leading him on? And if he agreed, what she’d do then she couldn’t imagine. Struggle in the back seat, probably. “I need a bit of time….”

“Forget the convention of waiting,” he added roughly. “We’ve been down that road before. You want me and I want you. Here’s the proof.”

Lazily he lifted her limp, despairingly unresisting hands above her head. She knew she must protest, but her brain wouldn’t accept the slow message. Seconds passed and it was too late. He’d lowered his body to hers, the whole warm glorious length of him balanced with just the right amount of force bearing down on her. She groaned and lost her protest in the pleasure of his searching kiss.

“I think this is the moment to go upstairs and explore,” he murmured seductively in her ear.

“No!” she croaked. That was the last thing she wanted! “Not upstairs…here! No, I mean…” She turned a confused and pinkened face to his. “Gio, we can’t! Not here.”

“Make up your mind,” he drawled lazily. “Afraid someone will come back and surprise us frolicking on the doormat?”

She felt the heat of his loins rising, the hardness of his body unnervingly virile and excitingly urgent. “Yes!” she cried in an outrush of breath.

“So your grandfather’s coming back.”

“No. Yes! No! Not for two weeks!” she gasped, as Giovanni sighed and curved his big hands around her breasts. “I mean…please…” Her body arched beneath him.

“I will, once we establish where,” he murmured, his fingers taking an intense delight in her silken warmth.

“The…the beach,” she said breathlessly, trying to twist away. “I’ll get…the picnic. We’ll…go for a s-swim and…”

Tina felt her eyes closing and her body relaxing, giving in to hedonistic pleasure. Giovanni was kissing her naked breasts with total concentration, his lashes thick on his golden cheekbones, and he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and what he was doing was producing the most beautiful sensation in the world. And she was out of her mind.

“Gio,” she gasped. “Don’t…” Her body seemed to be flowing all over the floor and her brain couldn’t sort out the right messages. All she kept getting was desperate signals from the most intimate parts of her body that they wanted Giovanni’s touch, for him to kiss and caress her till dark, and then some more.